Comment by shoobiedoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by shoobiedoo | Hacker News Reader

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> If Japan is to be saved

As I said in another comment, the population of Japan is projected to be 64 million in 2100. A hundred years ago, the population was 64 million, and that was at the peak of their colonial expansion.

Yes I get it that the demographics pyramid would not be the same as it was in 1930, but this whole narrative that "Japan is dying" is at the very least spread to pull on heartstrings in order to fuel this lines must go UP ALL THE TIME hypercapitalist nonsense.

Why can't a people wax and wane according to the needs of their culture and not the needs of bigwig bank accounts? Does Japan need a convenience store on every block? If every single convenience store disappeared tomorrow, you'd suddenly have a massive workforce able to go to school or care for the elderly, so here I am just yelling at clouds while the average Japanese person is more in line with your way of thinking that being able to buy a sandwich instead of making your own is the "Japan" they want to save.

The problem is that if Japan ends up with a population of 64 million in 2100, that is nothing like the situation 100 years ago. Almost all of those 64 million people will be retired and not creating any economic output, but requiring a lot of care. It's questionable whether the small working age population could even provide that care, much less all of the other things that a functioning society needs.

Now it's certainly possible that AI will eliminate the need for anyone to work. That is a different question though than conventional demographic prediction.

>As I said in another comment, the population of Japan is projected to be 64 million in 2100. A hundred years ago, the population was 64 million, and that was at the peak of their colonial expansion.

Japan has a population of 300m. a collapse of 60% of the population in 60 year is indeed a crisis.

> fuel this lines must go UP ALL THE TIME hypercapitalist nonsense.

It's less the population and more the numbers. There were probably a good 30-40m working class Japanese in that 1930's metric, and the retired population was probably in the singular millions.

That model inverted. Based on the stats up chain, we have ~20-30m 21-25 year olds, and 100+ retired Japanese citizens. This isn't a scale to be balanced so much as a building crumpling in on itself. because unfortunately, old people will crush the youth in such a collapse.

>Why can't a people wax and wane according to the needs of their culture and not the needs of bigwig bank accounts?

Because the elite need peasants to server them, if you want a frank answer. Guess who most of the richest people in the economy belong to?

Another reason why this is more of a "I'll take the youth with me" collapse. The rich are greedy.

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