[Tanada]

Before people shoot off in too many weird directions I thought everyone knew to what I am referring.

[SeaGypsy]

Japan is possibly the most racist country on earth. Children with only one Japanese parent can't become citizens, nor can migrants. The entire language is useless outside of Japan. Many of their issues seem related to inbreeding, including low fertility & extreme suicide & depression statistics. Their reduction is a very good thing given their rapacious environmental record.

[SilentRunning]

Kudos to the Japanese for sensibly reducing their numbers - something the entire human race should do. After a couple of centuries of gradual population decline, the human race could adopt a stable population model where number of births matches the number of deaths.

[C8]

Japan is suffering from horrible leadership- has been for 20 years.

The world is a human jungle- the weak always get attacked by the powerful. Japan hasn't woken up to the danger it is in. There is no sense of emergency that w/o sufficient people it will be conquered and its people harmed.

Gradually the alarm bells will start going off and real leaders will emerge

[SeaGypsy]

Conquered by who? North Korea? The whole country is pretty much batshit crazy. People travel to Japan to see Mt Fuji & freaky weirdo east-west cultural bizzarrity. Of course there are Japs who realize the demographic problems, articles about the issue are translated & published here in Australia a couple of times a year. Most recently one went viral about Japanese girls lack of interest in sex.

[Shaved Monkey]

I think there are lots of good things about Japan.
Its very very safe,they live a long time through healthy diet,they have a great tradition of ancient crafts and technology,they have a respect for the elderly and they do great anime and food.
Its on my to travel to list for the cultural and the bizarre.

[SeaGypsy]

All true. It would be nice if they stopped killing cetaceans- the only thing really peeves me about Japan.

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', '
')Mechanization would dehumanize the golden years into a kind of living hell without human contact in any meaningful sense.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'A')ll true. It would be nice if they stopped killing cetaceans- the only thing really peeves me about Japan.

[SeaGypsy]

Yep, almost forgot about that. A friend from PNG tells me they do horrific things to forests there.

[C8]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'C')onquered by who? North Korea? The whole country is pretty much batshit crazy. People travel to Japan to see Mt Fuji & freaky weirdo east-west cultural bizzarrity. Of course there are Japs who realize the demographic problems, articles about the issue are translated & published here in Australia a couple of times a year. Most recently one went viral about Japanese girls lack of interest in sex.

[SeaGypsy]

Peak machete won't come for a very long time., peak sticks & stones? Locals always have advantage against equally armed invaders. None of the countries you mention have shown any intent to invade Japan. China is still pissed about Nanking, rightly so, but haven't been threatening invasion over it. The other two would freeze their proverbials off & don't have that kind of history. NK is the only rhetorical threat & that's all it is- no chance.

[EdwinSm]

This thread seems to highlight a problem we face looking at moving towards a lower carbon use world. I think we can all agree that population levels will have to fall if a new energy source is not developed. But as soon as we see that happening in one country the economic growth environment we have all grown up in seems to take over and so we say what a horrible thing it is to live through.... Dilemma / problem!

For years I have keep records of country and world population changes, and have felt this dilemma as many of the places with decreasing populations are not places I would like to live in. Places like Bulgaria (-0.6% 2015 data), Serbia (-0.5%), Hungary (-0.4%), Latvia (-0.4%), Romania (-0.4%), Ukraine (-0.4%).... OK Germany with -0.3% seems to be a popular exception.

I suppose the trick is to get population reduction while maintaining a high standard of living, and so far Japan seems to be doing that (even with years of economic stagnation), although I do see the problem of supporting an aging population.

One big question is "what is a sustainable level of population?" As a rough guide I tend to use figures from after WWII for a world with a restricted supply of oil [of course levels for no-oil will be a lot lower]. In Japan's case their population in 1950 was just under 84 million, so the population will need to drop by over 40 million to get back to that level. And for the USA the reduction would have to be over 165 million. The horror of this for me is almost unimaginable. So against that sort of horror I find the drop in Japanese population a tiny but positive news item.

[SeaGypsy]

In order to feed themselves from within Japan needs to massively reduce population. Not as much as the MENA, but drastically.

[onlooker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think we can all agree that population levels will have to fall if a new energy source is not developed.

[SeaGypsy]

There's no evidence you have to worry about that OL. The scale of FF's, our dependence on them, the lack of movement towards anything realistically capable of replacing them, all add up to massive forced downsizing at some point. Cold fusion is just a fancy employment generator.

[dohboi]

"My Aunt (in her 70s-80s) filled in on weekends"

Good point. The elderly-but-still-not-infirm can do a lot to help take care of those further down the line.

Though the task can be taxing and dangerous, especially where Alzheimer's is involved.

[claman]

Legalise euthanasia. Let the tired ones choose their own way of going away.
And then maybe our society wouldn't be so extremly afraid of dying.
Let dying be be a right and not just a curse forced upon us by religious fear mongers.

[claman]

Are elderly people selfish sticking to their resources while younger families struggle to manege ?

[onlooker]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('claman', 'L')egalise euthanasia. Let the tired ones choose their own way of going away.
And then maybe our society wouldn't be so extremly afraid of dying.
Let dying be be a right and not just a curse forced upon us by religious fear mongers.