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Onuki, a 31-year-old salesman, is headed to the train station to catch the 12:24 a.m. train, the last one of the night, back to his home in Yokohama. The train will quickly fill up with other professional working men.
At about 1:30 a.m., after having made a pit stop at a convenience store to grab a sandwich, Onuki arrives home. When he opens the bedroom door, he accidentally wakes his wife, Yoshiko, who just recently fell asleep after working an 11-hour day. She chides him for making too much noise and he apologizes.
Then, with his food still digesting and his alarm set for 7 a.m., he creeps into bed, ready to do it all again tomorrow.
Over the past two decades, stories like the Onukis' have become commonplace in Japan. Young couples are fighting to make relationships work amid a traditional work culture that expects men to be breadwinners and women to be homemakers. It's a losing battle. Many newlyweds are forced to watch their free time disappear, surrendering everything from the occasional date night to starting a family.
The daily constraints have made for a worrisome trend. Japan has entered a vicious cycle of low fertility and low spending that has led to trillions in lost GDP and a population decline of 1 million people, all within just the past five years. If left unabated, experts forecast severe economic downturn and a breakdown in the fabric of social life.
"Adult diapers have outsold baby diapers in Japan for the last six years."
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:54AM
New and exciting social
woesprogress! Virgin [japantimes.co.jp] otaku [livechart.me] fujoshi [rocketnews24.com]/BL [thedailybeast.com] freeter/NEETs [jpninfo.com] and hikikomori [cnn.com]. And don't forget government-approved [animenewsnetwork.com] moe ("purest form of love") [japantimes.co.jp] lolicon [bbc.com] herbivore [npr.org] hentais [blogspot.com].These trends are coming to rU.S., Brittania, everywhere! Free vasectomies for all [independent.co.uk]! Instant dollar store sex change [wikipedia.org]! Robots taking all jobs [nytimes.com]! The end goal is a virtual reality [youtube.com] fueled welfare pleasure state [theatlantic.com]! Humanity 2.0 [wikipedia.org]!!!
(Score: 0, Troll) by idiot_king on Tuesday May 23 2017, @03:53AM (65 children)
...I hate to say it, but the days of isolationism for Japan are over. They MUST accept outside help (i.e., migrants) if they want to continue their lifestyles and keep their culture or they will have a complete collapse. There's just no two ways around it. Citizenship is nigh impossible to get in Japan, even permanent residence, and if they value their own livelihood they're going to have open their doors for foreigners. There's nothing they can do. Unless they have a deathwish, of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:04AM
Perhaps they're attempting it on a national scale.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by boltronics on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:06AM (18 children)
Seems to me that an economy which is only sustainable with continued population growth is doomed to fail eventually anyway (not enough land, too much pollution, etc). The solution should ideally not be to force an increase in population and delay the inevitable, but rather to create a new system that is sustainable without such a requirement.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 1) by idiot_king on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:12AM (10 children)
Well, while you're trying to formulate that great new system, Japan will have withered.
The simplest and most effective way is migrants. Same reason why sanctuary cities in the US are so prosperous: there's always someone there to take up the lower-end jobs so society can still run in high gear.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:49AM (9 children)
Is that why they're so prosperous? California has a trillion dollars in growing debt despite being the most attractive state in the country to live in, plenty of millionaires, billionaires, corporations, and Hollywood.
No, the problem is that the financial white collar parasites can't profit unless the economy is constantly growing. And since they're the ones in politicians' ears, immigration policy gets made for them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:06AM
Insightful for that bullshit? Really?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NewNic on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:11AM (4 children)
Parent is no doubt another butt-hurt Red state resident who is upset that California, despite its liberal policies is more wealthy that his/her dirt-poor rural backwater, which is mooching off the blue states.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:59PM (3 children)
It is *because* of liberal policies that we are successful. We rejected the conservative economics of poverty, starvation, and neglect and proved that liberal economics works where they are sincerely implemented in good faith and without a Republican party strong enough to sabotage us.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:32PM (2 children)
Let's see what Fresno looks like in ten years. The "liberal" economics of poverty, starvation, and neglect aren't any prettier than the conservative version.
(Score: 2) by julian on Wednesday May 24 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
Better than it looks now, which is better than 10 years ago.
Conservative economics do not produced improvements for working people and the middle class. And they certainly would not help Fresno or the central valley. Conservative economics are an incredibly reliable engine for the manufacturing of human misery, poverty, and early death.
Our state will not allow conservatives to claw us back to feudalism, which is their dream.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:06AM
You sure like to pull facts out of your ass, don't you?
I picked it because it's a growing city (has been that way ever since its creation around 1880) and because it is one of the poorer regions of California. So a sudden reversal in its population, which is hard to disguise, would be a strong indication that the city has changed in a bad way and hence, its population has similarly experienced bad times.
I think we'll see the start of population decline in Fresno by 2027 which is about five years into the $15 per hour state-wide minimum wage law that California passed in the recent past (and for which roughly 50% of Fresno's workers make less currently). It should be educational.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:29AM
I agree. Not modding +1 insightful because it's obvious: The growing tilt in wealth-distribution in afaik all developed countries is evidence.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:10PM (1 child)
California's debt is going down you liar. [usgovernmentspending.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:37PM
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:16AM
Don't worry, Frankie and Benjy [wikia.com] are on the case [slashdot.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:44AM
At some point in the future, the birth rate and genetic defect rate will become equal. Humans will become extinct.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:10AM (2 children)
Not necessarily. Excessive population growth is an age old problem that life has had to deal with since it began billions of years ago. Some of the solutions are very ugly. Periodic wars to kill off excess population is one way. Famine is another. Endless cycles of growth and collapse can be sustainable, as long as the peaks and collapses are not too destructive or thorough.
Whether humans must or can live that way is the question. Barbarian hordes without the technology to discover and convert all available resources can do that, can all just pick up and move somewhere else and fight with the current occupants if any, when they run out of room or food. They can't inflict any lasting damage on the environment no matter what they do. Modern nations with nuclear weapons absolutely cannot live that way. What I suspect is that overpopulate and collapse is a weak strategy that leaves a species more vulnerable to extinction, and so life has evolved various restraints.
But that seems like only part of the story of what's going on in Japan. This workaholism, what is the point of it? They in a terrible hurry, racing to get ahead of the rest of the world? America is fairly badly infected too.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:34AM
There's no point, and it's almost certainly more destructive than productive. The Japanese even have a word, Karōshi [wikipedia.org], meaning (quite literally) "working to death".
The problem is really cultural. If you go home before your coworkers do, you must not be as dedicated to your company as they are. If you don't go out drinking with your coworkers after work, you must not like them very much. This attitude is so ingrained that even if you tell your workers to go home and relax they probably won't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:14PM
Two reasons: 1) it improves various aspects of the worker's life, particularly financial, social status, and company/industry position, and 2) it improves society since the worker typically produces more and generates more benefit for society.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Tuesday May 23 2017, @08:16AM
An economy should be sustainable without population growth, and I think this is the case: Economically, the unemployed are a surplus the economy could do without. (I'm not arguing morally here, and I'm in no way inferring a lower value of unemployed. Quite the opposite, I think we need to distribute work more equally and embrace the opportunity for more free time, to create new art, new entertainment and enjoy life. The problem is that high unemployment-rates tilt the power in the employers favour, enabling them to exploit the employees even further, that way driving down the number of required employees and the salaries required to enable the employees and unemployed to consume.)
But what happens in Japan is not "no growth", but a hefty decline. The proportion of "elderly to care for" vs. "young people able to work" is a growing due to reduced birth-rates, and growing further due to medical progress. Employing foreigners in order to mitigate this problem seems like a valid option to me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @08:46AM
Well said. Low fertility and low spending are obviously good things.
The real problem is there was too much fertility before, especially right after WWII and in the 1960s. Population booms are usual after war and the boom in 60s was driven by too much spending... https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_pyramid_of_Japan_2015.png [wikimedia.org]
Also Japan has post WWII had a crazy level on consumption, it was the worlds largest economy from 1968-2011 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/feb/14/china-second-largest-economy [theguardian.com]
We indeed need to come up with a better system.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:35AM (23 children)
I hope you are a troll. Please be a troll. In case not...
Migration is demographic replacement. The resulting "Japan" would not be Japan. It wouldn't speak Japanese. It wouldn't be the Shinto/Buddhist/Atheist mix; it would be Salifist/Wahhabi. It wouldn't be a place where tiny little kids can ride the subway alone in complete safety. It wouldn't be clean.
So you are exactly backwards. They wouldn't "continue their lifestyles and keep their culture" at all. They would have "complete collapse". If they "open their doors for foreigners", then we could say that "they have a deathwish".
Japan knows the deal with refugees. Japan has a couple dozen refugees. Two have already gang-raped, so Japan stopped admitting refugees and passed a law to monitor all Muslims. There are perhaps 1000 Muslims in the whole country. Due to these small numbers, there hasn't been a terrorist attack in a couple decades.
Japan has a unique and wonderful culture that would go extinct if migrants of any type were accepted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:54AM (1 child)
Why bother with immigration? A country populated by chronically sleep deprived salarymen and a nerfed Self Defense Force should be easy to invade.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:57AM
You have not witnessed the power of ninja NEETs with katanas, because they don't want to be witnessed and are kept out of the public view.
Japan's true self defense forces are on every block, ready to destroy the invaders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by idiot_king on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:57AM (19 children)
There's a lot blatantly wrong with your post, so I don't blame you for posting as an AC. I'll try to go point by point with you.
The USA has had giant numbers of migration in the past and its demographics have not shifted in any negative way. Apparently you missed the whole Trump-being-elected thing recently? Still lots of Rethuglicans hiding in the 'burbs and boonies.
Post-Roman Western Europe was a constant ebb and flow of migrations; countries are, at best, fleeting entities. And beyond that, demographically stagnant places tend to note fare so well. Notice how rural areas are undeveloped and educationally and socially backward? Migration is needed to keep people and ideas fresh so as not to atrophy. History should be indicative of that.
See: USA. Still English speaking. Still racist and Christian as ever.
Who said anything about Muslims, and who said anything about Wahhabism? My Bigotmeter is giving high readings here. You're making huge assumptions. You'd be okay with them bringing in millions of Westboro Baptists, I'm assuming?
Why are kids riding the subway alone in the first place? And cleanliness can be paid for by the state. Assuming migrants == dirt/childsnatchers is plain xenophobia. You don't know people you've never met before.
I'd suggest getting more sunlight and human interaction to quell those reservations of yours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:03AM (11 children)
I notice you skipped the point of the crime among the immigrants they allowed in. Care to address that point? :-)
(Score: 2) by idiot_king on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:17AM (8 children)
You're right, it's late, I apparently forgot to quote the rest of the atrocity that was typed. Let me continue.
Again: USA. Millions of undocumented citizens let in since 1965. No collapse. Just a racist orange goblin as President and stupid Mideast wars by Bush Jr.
And this is why they jumped too soon. How many rapes happen in Japan by Japanese men? I bet they aren't comfortable with those statistics, either! Men will rape, this is a horribly sad fact of life. But, for some reason, I'm willing to bet if they were Muslim women, you'd be totally fine with it. Just a guess?
And I'm willing to bet that terrorist attacks by Japanese men are orders of magnitude higher than those 1000 Muslims. Remember that sarin attack some years ago in the Tokyo subway? Wasn't a Muslim, was it? Nope. It was home-grown, Japanese terrorists.
*Sigh* Once again, USA. Still racist. Still sexist. Still meddling in global affairs unrelated to anything about them. Same as 100 years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:13AM (7 children)
Yep, that's the one, a couple decades ago. That was Japan's terrorist attack.
I think that proves my point, hmmm? Terrorism basically doesn't happen in Japan. It's not something you just have to accept, despite what London's mayor says to the contrary.
European countries face Islamic terror on a regular basis. Sweden, France, and Germany have all had the "truck of peace" experience. Bombings are common too. This is not a future that would be good for Japan.
Oh, and rape... well I'm glad you asked! It is rare in Japan. The rate is 1.0 per 100,000 in Japan. We can compare this to 9.4 in Germany, 17.0 in Scotland, 27.3 in the USA, 63.5 in Sweden, and 132.4 in South Africa.
The US hasn't collapsed, but we sure are having problems with our immigrants. Yes, this is partly why we chose Trump. There are towns in the USA that don't speak English. This makes me a stranger in my own country. It hurts our economy; taken to the extremes (as in Paupa New Guinea especially, and also much of Africa) it largely prevents a nation from functioning. We are facing terrorist attacks: the Boston Marathon bombing and the Orlando nightclub shooting would both have been prevented if we had stopped immigration.
That "undocumented citizens" think is a load of nonsense too. Hardly anybody born in the USA is not registered at birth. If you refer to border jumpers, they are not undocumented at all. Identity theft takes care of that. There might be somebody running around claiming to be you. Perhaps you will get arrested for a crime he commits, or get a bad credit history due to his misbehavior, or get inappropriate medical treatment because his medical records are your medical records. Every year, illegal aliens cost our society more than the cost of a wall. We could build a new wall every year and still save money.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:34AM (5 children)
Might have something to do with them not sticking their military dicks into middle eastern politics like certain other countries I could mention. The USA and Europe are targeted by middle eastern terrorists because those are the people who've been killing and bombing in the middle east for the couple of decades / couple hundred years. Oh, that and the fact that they know that they can easily escalate the violence if they target hysterical, ignorant racists like you.
Ah yes, Japan, a beacon of completely normal and sane and not-at-all dysfunctional sexual behaviour. Where they have women-only subway cars to stop men from frotting themselves on strangers, and vending machines selling worn schoolgirls underwear.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:06PM (3 children)
Your response is a non sequitur. If your position is that Japan's rape rates are high, then prove it using scientific evidence. And no speculation like 'But there are all these unreported rapes!' unless you have hard evidence to back it up.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday May 23 2017, @08:21PM (2 children)
Sure, here you go. [japantimes.co.jp] It was only a google search away.
But since we're insisting on "evidence to back it up", how about you provide some some proof for your lazy assertion that Japan's low rape stats have anything to do with their immigration rates?
Interestingly, the wikipedia page where you got your statistics (which, by the way, you should be more careful with - your Scotland figure and Japan figures were from different years) show that the muslim country of Pakistan has rates well below the US, Scotland and the other countries you mentioned. A country with very similar per-capita rates to Japan is Canada, which (as I'm sure you know) has one of the Western world's most open immigration policies. [theguardian.com]
Want to try again?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:46PM (1 child)
Pakistan is the sort of place where it would be insane to report a rape. You might find yourself killed by your family if you reported it. You might find yourself in trouble with the law, for sex outside marriage, if you reported it.
Japan isn't like that. Japan is just better.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:54PM
Better to a degree, yeah. But apparently it's still not the sort of place where rapes routinely go all the way from reporting to prosecution to conviction to punishment, so I'd say it's not all the way better.
Well done for completely ignoring the rest of my post, btw.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday May 23 2017, @08:05PM
I wish people would stop underestimate japan's creepiness [wikipedia.org]
(if anyone want to read about the state of affairs [techinasia.com] (js req))
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:33PM
After a few minutes of research I can tell you that the swedish rape rate is massively overinflated. First off, their law deals with sex crimes differently and lumps them all in together. Second, because of such lumping, that number includes crimes and other offences that arent what we Americans do not consider rape. Paying for sex, aka prostitution? Thats a sex crime that gets lumped into their statistic. Plus, each incident is recorded. So one woman reporting twenty different incidents against her drunken husband is 20 reports in that statistic. And lastly, what they don't tell you is that many of the refugee/migrant sex crimes are against their own people.
And let's just ignore that sex crime in sweden has been on a downtrend since 2010 BEFORE the migrants/refugees began arriving. And they have been taking in such people for decades.
I hate religion and think people who believe in it are FUCKING STUPID. And I think Islam is one of the worst of the bunch (also includes government and law, what could possibly go wrong?). But you can't make shit up and expect people to believe it. Some of us actually research outrageous claims. It's why I think trumpies are particularly retarded. They just ate up every little bit of "news" and statistics and voted.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:48PM (1 child)
I notice you skipped the point of the crime among the immigrants they allowed in.
He was doing you a favor because, once again, you are completely wrong.
Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than natives. [cato.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:18PM
You're lumping legal non-refugee immigrants, refugees, and illegal aliens all together. They come from different parts of the world and have different crime rates.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:05AM
of Japan.
As if America's Assholish Opening of Japan wasn't bad enough back in the 1850s-1860s, Muslims are colonizing Japan without the normal cultural integration and additionally convincing Japanese women to emigrate to Muslim majority countries.
Combined with everything else going on in Japan they are preparing to enter the exact sort of cultural catastrophe that their far less 'democratic' brethen, the Chinese are making good on avoiding happening in their country. Not to say they aren't irrevocably damaging their culture from within, but the Japanese are allowing cultural contaminates from without to literally replace theirs at the rate they are going.
The only way for Japan to return to prominence is for them to reduce immigration, focus on domestic energy and food production, and regain tech R&D jobs, focusing on automation as much as possible (some of which is already being done, but really needs to be 'moonshot' programmed at the national scale to have a chance at succeeding.)
Hopefully they will not follow the US or EU into a new generation of decline for their cultural uniqueness.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:47AM (1 child)
Kids need to develop responsibility and independence. You don't think kids should ride alone? Why not? Is your culture not as safe as Japan's culture? Are people in your country just not as smart as the Japanese?
There is a TV show in Japan called “Hajimete no otsukai” (“First errand”) which showcases this. Some episodes are on youtube with English subtitles. It's great. Usually the kids are about 4 years old, almost always 2 to 6. People with cameras hidden in various objects line the route.
Haru was 23 months old when she was sent down the block to buy tofu alone. A 4-year-old rode a bullet train to deliver work clothes to his father’s restaurant.
Here is Haru: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkae7e_toshijima_webcam [dailymotion.com]
Some more:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5k5XTZy0rA [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7L6xkpnYc4 [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMZp8KsZ5k [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hh2NwMZozVE [youtube.com]
Some of those, especially Haru, are a bit out of the norm, but only a bit. It is normal for Japanese kids to run errands. It is normal for them to take public transportation to school right from the start -- they are taught to do this in preschool and certainly manage by first grade.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:40AM
It's good to hear that Japanese kids get exposed to the real world. But it isn't enough. 7-8 years ago I was working with a Japanese college student, he wanted to send me an international postal money order for something available in USA. I emailed him my postal address and then he emailed back to confirm because the letter had been returned to him.
After a couple of cycles of this I asked him to send me a scan/photo of his envelope. Turned out that he swapped the addressee and the return address, so he was mailing to himself. No one in his family or grade schooling had shown him how to address an envelope.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:24AM
I'm not sure the native Americans would agree with that assessment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:43PM
Says the guy posting drivel on a pseudo-anonymous Internet handle.
So, you admit GP's point then, there is a so called "demographic replacement" going on.
Apparently, you missed all the bitching and moaning about how he lost the popular vote. And "Rethuglicans"? How classy.
Fake history much? While migration has always been a factor, it has never been the kind of mass migration we see in modern times.
Bullshit. Underdevelopment is the direct and obvious consequence of poor education and social development. If you don't have smart well-trained people to improve your economy, you don't get economic growth.
White racists don't elect black presidents.
The person you are responding to. There is nothing wrong with raising additional points in a conversation.
Why I'm absolutely shocked! A social justice fundamentalist finding bigots to judge is like a religious fundamentalist finding sinners for much the same purpose. But I repeat myself.
Are you fucking kidding me? You just criticized GP for making assumptions and then you go ahead and make a sweeping assumption about him in the very next sentence.
Why not? This might come as a surprise to you, but kids grow up. Are we not allowed to worry about our teenage/adult children?
But not Chinese migrants for some strange reason. Funny how all these "xenophobes" never have any objections to East Asians who happen to be less prone to criminality than the native population, yet go all up in arms about Middle Easterners who top the crime charts. I'm sure there is no connection there.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:47PM
I think in this comment the solution to the problem is hiding. Kids are riding the subways alone because their parents are busy working. It's the overwork culture that is the root cause of the problem. Open the offices at 9, close them at 5 and kick everyone out. People will have time for friends, family, hobbies and all sorts of economically beneficial activity. I bet just as much useful work gets done as well.
(Score: 2) by jasassin on Thursday May 25 2017, @02:29AM
Have you been in a Wal-Mart recently? I have noticed lots of white people silently shopping, and lots of non-white people on their cell phones speaking languages I have no idea what they are speaking and they tend to speak at the top of their voice. Maybe it's just my Wal-Mart. I'm just sayin...
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:57AM
So is birth.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:29AM (13 children)
Unless those foreigners are showing up carrying bags of yen, I don't see how they are going to help overcome the stated problem of low economic demand. Japan isn't the only country to see the symptoms. Look at ghost cities in China. Or in the USA where "growth" is being propped up with asset bubbles, debt, debt, and more debt.
The fantasy of infinite economic growth may soon come to an end. The prices of energy and raw materials will go up because the natural environment has already been substantially exploited, and externalities (ie. pollution) will reach tolerable limits. The peons will be asked to work harder to improve the numbers, but there won't be enough jobs, enough disposable income, or enough leisure time to sustain demand. "But, innovation!" you say. Yeah, we have innovation. We have social media apps that are worth zillion$ of dollar$. With more of that kind of innovation, just imagine how robust the economy will be when everybody spends all of their time sitting on their ass with their eyes glued to a screen. Or when they are spending all their money on pills that make them forget how much money they are spending on pills.
Hopefully we make it until 2050 so we can get fusion plants.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:35AM
Hopefully we make it until 2150 so we can get Launch Arcologies.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:52AM (10 children)
My first reaction was that Japan should re-distribute their workload, instead of having some people working 12h/day and others being unemployed. But actually their unemployment-rate is at 2.8 percent [tradingeconomics.com], so maybe they could actually improve their economy by having additional workers.
(Score: 5, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday May 23 2017, @10:42AM (8 children)
Actually, they could improve their economy by simply ENFORCING a sane working week of 40 hours or (preferably) significantly less.
If you were putting in 14 hour days, 6 days a week for years on end with practically no time / energy left over for fun, family, or even proper meals or sex, do you think you would be working at 100% of your potential output? 75%? 50%? This poisonous work culture is not only harming the employees, but also their employers and the economy as a whole.
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Tuesday May 23 2017, @11:00AM
There are some options for optimisation there, I agree. But get that through the bean-counters... In western societies with higher unemployment rates, the same would be true. Still, companies are pressing their employees to do overtime, because to a bean-counter output = people x time
(Not talking about my employer here. I have flexible hours, which in my case actually means I can get the time back in case I have to work overtime, and I can usually also leave earlier for whatever family reasons and make up for it later. But I had jobs before where overtime was more or less mandatory if you wanted to have a chance on the variable part of the compensation package.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:34PM (5 children)
A lot of Japanese companies do have something like this as a policy, and the ridiculous work hours in Japan are widely recognized as a problem.
The issue is, it is very hard to enforce work limits if none of your workers actually follow the policy limiting their work hours. How do you suggest this be enforced? Police come in and drag people back to their homes?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:48PM (4 children)
Have workers clock in and out of the building. Remote workers should be tied into the system, so that anyone who logs in remotely and works from home is racking up time on their timesheet. Optionally, include a function that logs remote users out when they've reached Z hours of work.
Employee time logs must be kept, and can be audited by the government, who can fine the employer (fines are both punitive, and to compensate employees (with interest)) if employers are found to be ignoring the law.
Alternatively / additionally, pass a law mandating that any work above X hours per week (Where X is less than Y, the maximum allowed work hours per week) must be paid overtime at time and a half / doubletime. Existing contracts that waive overtime must be renegotiated, and employers may not decrease salaries during those renegotiations. Suddenly employers are a lot less willing to let their employees work overtime, and employees are a lot more willing to inform the authorities about any employer who doesn't keep accurate timekeeping logs.
Yeah, there will be ways around it (OK, finish that 40 page report at home and bring it in tomorrow / call all these customers from home tonight using your own phone) but if it's enough to keep most employers honest, that will change the culture so that his kind of thing is no longer regarded as acceptable. From there on it gets much easier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:29PM (3 children)
Fining the companies will not help because the overwork problem in Japan is not really caused by employers. The workers literally do not want to leave -- there is too much social stigma associated with it. It is very likely that employees will simply falsify their time logs, without too much change to the status quo.
Even if you smoehow force people to leave the building at 5PM sharp, your workers will simply move as a group to the nearest bar and continue working there.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:59AM (2 children)
OK, then they also need a massive advertising campaign: "Want to give your best to your company? Go home and screw your wife!" (followed by small print evidence of how that is good for your productivity.)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @01:02PM (1 child)
And what problem actually is being solved here? We need to keep in mind that we have democratic societies here and people are choosing to work these hours.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:38PM
The advertising is to dispel the myth / break the expectation that more hours == better employee.
"Want to impress your boss? Go home and play with your kids! (statistics show that employees who spend X hours with their families are more productive yadda yadda yadda)"
There's a big difference between choosing to do something because it's what you want and choosing to do it because all your peers and your boss expect it of you and absolutely everyone else is doing it and you think you'll be cast out and derided as a loser if you don't. Face it, people can do stupid things when they get competitive and start trying to one-up each other. It's a vicious spiral of escalation that can't be broken from within, it almost always needs some external factor to break it all up.
40 years ago men were choosing to work on building sites without protective clothing. A self-reinforcing macho culture prevented individuals from making the right choices, because only sissies need to wear hardhats / steel toe caps. Men were dying stupid deaths for nothing more than bravado. Employers weren't really bothered about correcting it because (a) they too were steeped in the same culture and (b) protective gear costs money. It took legislation and advertising together to get to the point now where just about any tradesman on any building site in the first world would immediately and severely reprimand the tough guy who thinks his skull is tougher than that half-ton RSJ swinging from a crane. Needless to say, deaths / injuries on building sites are now much much lower. Are you really telling me we should have just left things as they were, because something something freedum something?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:55PM
My view is that there shouldn't be any restrictions on work weeks at all. But if you're going to advocate restrictions, you should at least show there is a problem to fix first.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @03:48PM
Sorry bud, but what you describe is exactly Communism.
In addition, it will fail. Right now you have bullshit like "The average American works 40 hours a week." This is exactly true, because average is a sum total divided by number. In actuality lot of people are working 20-34 hours, and significant amount work 60-80. Reason is of course exploitation. Low skill workers are abundant, so two are hired to do one job, thus there is no need to provide them with government-mandated benefits. Specialized workers are expensive, so they are squeezed for every ounce of productivity because shit laws exist to rob them of overtime.
The low-skill workers cannot do the specialized work though, so you cant even force the company to shuffle shit around, it will not work. You just get classic fuckery of Communist Utopia, where quality goes straight to shit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:46PM
While I don't believe there is a need for infinite economic growth even in today's growth oriented societies, we should keep in mind that there is still considerable room for growth in today's world. Not everyone is living a developed world life style. We still have death from aging. We don't live off of Earth yet. There is plenty of room for improvement in ourselves and our environments.
Sure, infinite growth is impossible, but there's no need to prematurely stop growing. That leads to stagnation before we've achieved some very important goals for ourselves.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:20AM (2 children)
Or massive automation. There's always another way. It depends what they value more.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Tuesday May 23 2017, @12:55PM (1 child)
Does massive automation help with their demand problem? I'm honestly curious if the Japanese have a way out of this predicament that doesn't include an infusion of people.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:08PM
What demand problem? From the summary quote:
GDP isn't that important and low spending is what you'd expect in the wake of substantial recessions with weak recoveries, and extremely high debt throughout Japanese society. As to fertility, not seeing the problem there either. Japan's doing its part to help with global overpopulation. Even if Japan itself really has some sort of insufficient demand problem, it can always export to areas of the world that don't have this demand problem.
My view is that Japan's current problems stem from falling into a Keynesian spending trap following the 1990-1991 recession. They paid too many people for far too long to do inefficient work. Now, in order to have a strong future, they'll have to restructure their society aggressively, whether or not immigrants are involved. That's the real economic crisis they face.
(Score: 0, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:20PM (2 children)
You seem extremely racist. What exactly is inferior about Japanese people? Is it the slanty eyes? Yellow skin? The way they can't speak English? There must be some reason you want to see their race and culture commit suicide.
Why do you think immigrants replacing their race and their culture is somehow better or superior? What is ever so much better about the immigrants that makes them oh so incredibly superior to the Japanese people? Are they supermen, perhaps even better kryptonite proof? What exactly makes their race and culture better and morally superior to the Japanese culture and race you want to see destroyed?
I mean its gotta be one or the other, you wish death to the Japanese culture and race because they're inferior in general, or its just an unfortunate outcome of a culture and race you feel is superior to them and its just harsh mother nature to wipe them out?
Its a weird "might makes right" argument. So Operation Barbarossa involved undocumented German-ancestry immigrants migrating into Russia because the Russia government and economy were too weak to stop them, therefore what they did was good and just and should not be opposed. Or for that matter when the Euros invaded the Americas and mostly wiped out the native Americans that was good because the economy was bigger after the genocide and races and cultures don't matter all that matters is the bottom line is bigger.
I mean I thought I was pretty hard core right wing but you sir are Hitler reincarnated, I am impressed indeed.
You have to be realistic about things. In the 1980s the Japanese were kicking ass economically with 115 million people. They peaked in population and economic agony around 130 million people (arguably 15 million too many). They seem to be headed back to 115 million people by eh 2050 or so. Regardless of your racist hatred of the Japanese race and culture, why is 115 million japs in 1980 a fantastic economic powerhouse and success but we're told that 115 million japs in 2050 is some kind of disaster? Like WTF, I was told that the number 115 million represents doom and disaster and the end of the world. But then I took a class and read a book and found out that the number 115 million once represented success and tranquility and glory.
Something to think about, in 1940 this race which OP hates to vehemently that op wants to genocide it, almost took over the Pacific with only 70 million people. Now some racist who's apparently never read a book or taken a class says the country will implode because the population dropped from 130 million to 125 million. Yet the same race of people with only 70 million almost took over a hemisphere and survived getting nuked not once, but twice. But op thinks they're doomed at 125 million. Dude, they ate two nukes at half that population ... and thrived. No matter how much you hate their race and want to genocide them, I think they're gonna be OK.
Which is good, I actually kinda like their culture and people. I forgive them for inventing anime and tentacle pr0n.
Someone's blowing some smoke, thats for sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @02:39PM
Because as we all know 80 year olds work just as hard as 20 year olds.
And old people in no way suck resources out of the system
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:44PM
(Score: -5, Mentally Retarded)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26 2017, @04:21PM
Nomative determinism, unless your'e doing this for irony.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by sjames on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:02AM (18 children)
Keep in mind that when a few people here tell us all about how we need to accept working more hours for less pay, this is the future they're leading us to.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:53AM (1 child)
Yeah. Cheers to lazy and soft people like me.
There's always someone out there willing to work harder and longer, and suffer more. But we shouldn't be aiming for a world where there has to be more and more such people.
We should be aiming for a world where there can be more lazy and soft people like me (you're not forced to be lazy but you can be if you want). Let non-sentient robots[1] do the hard work.
If you think that would be so terrible go look at Greece of the old days and imagine the slaves doing most of the work weren't slaves but robots instead.
Better than aiming for a future where the 1% enjoy it and the 99% suffer.
[1] Stop trying to build sentient robots (esp if you're not sure whether what you're doing would create sentience or not). The idea is to reduce suffering not increase it.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday May 23 2017, @03:05PM
> Stop trying to build sentient robots
It's a bugbear of mine. AI is not about sentient robots, and no AI is sentient or will be in foreseeable future. AI is about making computers that can perform optimisations based on heuristic data.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:33AM (15 children)
Keep in mind that the work load in Japan is grossly exaggerated. For example, of the OECD countries [oecd.org], they actually have less hours worked per year than the OECD average (1719 hours per year worked versus the OECD average of 1766). Mexico, Costa Rica, Korea (South), and Greece all have over 2000 hours per year per worker.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 23 2017, @09:36PM (14 children)
The stats actually show that they have been steadily reducing hours worked. Essentially the fertility problem they are having now is debt from the past figures. Of course, people already in the U.S. are reproducing at below the replacement rate now. It doesn't show as much since we are more open to immigrants.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:11AM (13 children)
And now you wrote:
So in other words, this is not the future you were referring to. Steadily reducing hours worked is not working more hours for less pay.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:39AM (12 children)
Japan has been reducing hours. But it is the heavy hours in their past that are coming back to haunt them today. That's not actually that hard to understand, is it? So those who suggest we should work more for less are simply setting us up for a similar decline and fall.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:26PM (11 children)
What heavy hours? Sure, back in the 1950s, they probably worked more per worker, but they had a much higher fertility back then as well. Low fertility is a universal developed world trait. It has at best little to do with the level of work of the past.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday May 24 2017, @04:07PM (10 children)
You do know it takes a baby about 20 years to enter the workforce, right? That introduces a delayed effect. There';s also cultural shifts that happen under overworked conditions as well as a lethargy that sets in over time. Don't forget to factor in the many more people entering the workforce as gender equality has improved means there's a lot less time available to maintain the household.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:52PM (9 children)
Doesn't explain reduced fertility in today's lower work week world.
In other words, women have a huge variety of life options other than just raising a family. This is the universal factor of the developed world.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 25 2017, @02:24AM (8 children)
More like in our modern economy, women must enter the workforce to make ends meet. That would be fine if each parent working 20 hrs a week was a feasible option, but it isn't for most.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:27AM (7 children)
That's why almost half go to college first? I think you need a new narrative.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 25 2017, @04:00AM (6 children)
And end up in debt up to their eyeballs. Lately, the kind of job that makes paying that off in a reasonable timeframe aren't all that forthcoming.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:03AM (5 children)
Japanese college doesn't appear to cost that much (but then, US college doesn't either once you get away from the money sinks). I don't dispute that some Japanese get into a lot of debt, whether school-related or otherwise, nor have I disputed that some Japanese work a lot of hours. This is true for the developed world as a whole and was still true a century or more ago, when these parts of the world were much higher fertility than they are now.
People have always needed to work to survive. People have always incurred substantial debts. Despite this, they have tended to be high enough fertility to increase the native population. It is time to look for what's different for us than what's the same.
You are describing rather old phenomena and attempting to explain current changes with that. Instead, it makes more sense to look for novel phenomena as an explanation for novel changes rather than assuming that some ancient phenomena behaves differently than it used to. One of these novel phenomena has been the entry of women into the workplace, academia, etc and a great increase in the life options available to women beyond rearing children.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 25 2017, @05:29AM (4 children)
I have actually given an answer. For most of that history, one member of the couple (generally the woman) did not have formal employment at all. She took care of the home and the children (also, maintaining ties with neighbors). These days in the U.S., the number of hours adults in the household spend in outside employment has doubled compared to that. Perhaps not so much in Japan.
I also wonder if the real hours worked figure for Japan includes the MANDATORY outings for salarymen with the office. It's not work, but you'll never advance beyond entry level if you don't attend.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 25 2017, @12:43PM (3 children)
Exactly. You (and others) keep spinning this as a narrative about how overwork is bad. But really it is who is working that affects Japanese fertility.
They exaggerated the number of hours most Japanese work. What else has been exaggerated? Salarymen aren't the full Japanese labor force. It's like characterizing the US labor force by only considering the employees in the major corporations at traditional 9-5 jobs.
And I still don't care nor see a need to regulate this. Salaryman is a life style choice.
Finally, let's consider your sentence that dragged me into this particular thread:
So we see that your original observation is irrelevant. Japan's ongoing low fertility is due merely to women working, not some acceptance of "work more for less". However, let us consider that the world has changed due to globalization. It is irrational to insist that one can ignore enormous labor competition from the developing world even though we have half a century of evidence otherwise (with vast amount of industry and other commerce shifted from the developed world over during that period).
The suggestion is quite valid. If you don't have some edge over developing world labor (such as better skills or closeness to market), then employers don't have a reason to employ you over them. "Work more for less" is not just a suggestion, it's also the reality for people who can't or refuse to adapt - whether or not we spin social safety nets in a feeble attempt to help.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 25 2017, @03:37PM (2 children)
It's funny you were so anxious to jump on any argument you missed the all important "Perhaps not so much in Japan.". The 2 income family is more a U.S. thing. So no, Japan's problem isn't merely women working. In the U.S. It (sort of) is, I say sort of since it isn't that women work, it's that both adults work full time. We wouldn't have the problem if we had simply role reversed or if we had gone to both working 20 hour weeks.
But the office going out for drinks is not an exaggeration. It may not be counted as actual hours worked, but it is a work function and you must attend. It very much counts as time away from family duties.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 25 2017, @07:57PM (1 child)
I don't buy that is important. Japan was supposed to be an example of the problems of overwork. Now, perhaps it's not? What else is supposed to be an example, but perhaps isn't?
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday May 25 2017, @08:24PM
Go read again. The particular contributor of two income families doesn't happen to be as big in Japan. They overwork in other ways not necessarily captured in the figures.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by julian on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:02AM (7 children)
Japan is going through a long period of pain, but their population will stabilize, and then so will their economy. It might stabilize at a level of life quality lower than what the average Japanese enjoys today, but it cannot drop forever. An economy assuming perpetual growth based on constant increases in population size and spending is absurd. Only cancers grow without limit. The question is how much pain is acceptable, and for how long? What level of economic regression is Japan willing to endure to remain "Japanese" and is that even worthwhile? You cannot maximize uniqueness, growth, and stability, all at once. They will choose what means more to them. I'm betting they'll sacrifice growth.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:01PM (6 children)
Why?
I suspect every collapsed civilization in the history of our species had people saying stuff like that on the way down.
"Well sure, the barbarians are only 5 miles from Rome, but our bad luck can't continue forever" Or Aztecs, Maya, Byzantine empire, British Empire, heck pretty much the regex "* Empire".
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:24PM (5 children)
Just to clarify I agree with your statement as an opinion, but throwing out a statement like "cultures never decline to zero" as a fact is pretty comical. Obviously the history books are full of them. And someday Japan will have a date on its tombstone just like every other culture that was ever alive. I agree its not gonna be anytime soon but an appeal to immortality as a proof of immortality is ...
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday May 23 2017, @03:51PM (4 children)
You misunderstand. I meant only that Japan isn't going to become a completely depopulated archipelago devoid of any human civilization. There are some possible scenarios where it could happen, but none are plausible.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:13PM (3 children)
Well then who's this "Japan" that needs immigration?
Japan as the magic dirt will do just fine with a "completely depopulated archipelago devoid of any human civilization"
Japan as a culture will be destroyed by invasion which is supposedly "required" because they're not miserable enough already, we need to really grind them under the heel to make them know their culture is being wiped off the planet.
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:24PM (2 children)
Culture is constantly "destroyed", which is the pessimist's way of describing change. Japan today is almost unrecognizable from Japan 100 years ago. And 100 years ago was unrecognizable from 100 years before that. So too the USA. A lot of the changes are for the better, some are bad, most are just different. People who feel a strong, romantic, connection to the past's culture often do so as a cover for racism (see Southern US nostalgia for the Confederacy)--some don't even bother to hide it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:37PM (1 child)
Pretty slippery slope to justifying genocide.
Well, the Hutu were just continuing their cultural change of the Tutsi on the Tutsi land. The economy is doing better now, which is the only thing that matters.
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday May 23 2017, @04:56PM
There's no logical connection from what I said to justifying genocide. That would be one of the "bad" changes I mentioned. No one is threatening to genocide the Japanese.
And no; peaceful, voluntary, demographic change through natural reproduction is not genocide. To believe otherwise is to believe in the racist, hoax-myth, category error often called "white genocide".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:06AM (2 children)
I was a salaryman until years of long commutes and sleep deprivation and the senselessness of it all finally took their toll, and I suffered a nervous breakdown at work. Now I'm a hikikomori, and I haven't spoken to anyone for two years. I get so much sleep now I can finally think straight, and while wide awake I'm doing the very best trolling of my life. Eat my well rested ass, wage slaves!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:05AM (1 child)
Yup, Japanese. Or US millenial / teen, guess the puritan morals are finally dropping away.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Tuesday May 23 2017, @01:38PM
The modern puritan IS the progressive SJW. Just a slightly warped religious cult. Worship of ones own holiness leads to societal collapse and self destruction inevitably. The English and Dutch were correct to excise them from their culture. We're stuck with them, probably. Truly a cultural cancer.
Its interesting to view political polls, "Generation Zyklon" is pretty far right wing on average, although the left wing sub-population has achieved cultural escape velocity and is accelerating leftward faster than any point in history while the bulk of the generation is moving rightward. Next couple decades going to be interesting to watch play out.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:07AM
REDRUM
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:49AM (4 children)
OMG A worldwide shortage of Japanese school girls. Something MUST be done...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:39AM (2 children)
DNA collection, cloning, and synthesis.
Collect the DNA of massive amounts of Japanese men and women. Make sure to get culturally selected attractive groups like idols.
Lossless compression of genomes can reduce the size down to as little as 4 megabytes each. That means a measly 1 terabyte drive can store a quarter million genomes. Easy to copy and spread. Even if you wanted to store the entire Japanese population, that's just over 500 terabytes. The Japanese population is not growing, so storing the whole thing will get cheaper every year.
Once you have the data, it is only a matter of time until you are able to use it to make synthetic humans grown in artificial wombs. You could even mix and match traits instead of cloning a specific genome.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @05:01PM (1 child)
I'll take one Ai Shinozaki clone, please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 23 2017, @07:11PM
Good call. This image [listal.com] got me hooked but I forgot her name until your comment.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 23 2017, @06:08PM
Don't worry, many pervs won't notice the difference if you dress the highly abundant orphanage girls from China in similar school uniforms.
The main threat might be if the Mangaka also age to the point of not being able to properly draw head-sized boobs and black bars.