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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday December 03 2017, @06:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the explain-the-sound-of-one-hand dept.

Sabishii, na?

With no families or visitors to speak of, many older tenants spent weeks or months cocooned in their small apartments, offering little hint of their existence to the world outside their doors. And each year, some of them died without anyone knowing, only to be discovered after their neighbors caught the smell.

The first time it happened, or at least the first time it drew national attention, the corpse of a 69-year-old man living near Mrs. Ito had been lying on the floor for three years, without anyone noticing his absence. His monthly rent and utilities had been withdrawn automatically from his bank account. Finally, after his savings were depleted in 2000, the authorities came to the apartment and found his skeleton near the kitchen, its flesh picked clean by maggots and beetles, just a few feet away from his next-door neighbors.

The huge government apartment complex where Mrs. Ito has lived for nearly 60 years — one of the biggest in Japan, a monument to the nation's postwar baby boom and aspirations for a modern, American way of life — suddenly became known for something else entirely: the "lonely deaths" of the world's most rapidly aging society.

To many residents in Mrs. Ito's complex, the deaths were the natural and frightening conclusion of Japan's journey since the 1960s. A single-minded focus on economic growth, followed by painful economic stagnation over the past generation, had frayed families and communities, leaving them trapped in a demographic crucible of increasing age and declining births. The extreme isolation of elderly Japanese is so common that an entire industry has emerged around it, specializing in cleaning out apartments where decomposing remains are found.

Compounding matters, Japan has a declining birthrate and bans immigration.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 04 2017, @11:11AM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 04 2017, @11:11AM (#604981) Journal

    I'll not argue that - but if more than 1/4 of the world's population continues to INCREASE while another 1/4 seems to be remaining stable, and another 1/4 is decreasing - what will be the end result? As I stated above - increased immigration is a recipe to smother and eradicate the existing population. The Japanese could easily, and quickly, disappear if immigration restrictions are lifted. Ditto for Europe, and the Anglo portions of North America.

    On the one hand, we have the white supremacy loony toons, and on the other, we have all those social justice warriors. One wants to see the white man rule the world, and the other wants white man to disappear. I want to preserve the populations that we have today, with none of them being displaced. That goes equally for the Japanese, the Kurds, the Yazidi - it's all related. I want to preserve ALL of the existing peoples of the world. I'm happy to see brown people of any flavor building their homes up - but they can't have mine, or any other group's homes.

    Screw the immigrants. Give them condoms and/or vasectomies, and send their asses back where they came from. Ask the American Indian tribes.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:25PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:25PM (#605041)

    Nah, the Japanese wouldn't have problems with immigrants because they don't do social programs. If you can't pull your own weight, they WILL let you starve, and won't get upset about it.

  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Monday December 04 2017, @11:58PM

    by Nuke (3162) on Monday December 04 2017, @11:58PM (#605411)

    Screw the immigrants. Give them condoms and/or vasectomies

    Historical fact : - The Chinese imported black male slaves some centuries ago but castrated them on arrival.