from the explain-the-sound-of-one-hand dept.
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 His monthly rent and utilities had been withdrawn automatically from his bank account.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.
Related Stories
Japan suffers biggest natural population decline ever in 2018
Japan suffered its biggest natural population decline ever this year, government statistics show.
The fast-graying nation also posted a record-low birthrate, as the estimated number of babies born in 2018 dipped to 921,000 -- the lowest since records began in 1899 -- according to a report published Friday by the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The number of newborns is estimated to have shrunk by 25,000 from 2017, and the figure remains under the 1 million mark for the third year running.
Deaths in 2018 also hit a postwar record high of 1.369 million, with a natural population decline of 448,000 -- the highest ever.
Beijing eyes two-child policy U-turn, but 'lonely generation' has moved on
For nearly 40 years, the Chinese government harshly restricted childbearing through the one-child rule in order to control population growth. That may soon change. Beijing appears to be on the cusp of abolishing all of its family planning rules — and is even encouraging young couples to have more children as a matter of patriotic urgency.
But attitudes toward parenthood have changed. Even though there is a two-child policy in place now, many Chinese still don't want to have more than one child — or any at all. "I think having one child is enough," said Chen Yiwen, a 25-year-old accountant and newlywed. "I won't be tempted to have more — even if the family planning policy is abolished." [...] "Besides, we already have two little babies — a poodle and a corgi," she said.
Related (JP): Japan Has Aged Out of its Economic Miracle
Toyota's $392 Robot Baby for Japanese People Without Companions
Gatebox: Your New Holographic AI Assistant "Waifu"
Japan's Fertility Crisis is Creating Economic and Social Woes Never Seen Before
Japan Has 1.48 Jobs for Every Applicant
Why a Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death
Related (CN): China's 'Missing Girls' Theory Likely Far Overblown, Study Shows
China "Three-Child Policy" Hinted by Stamp Design?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:07PM (4 children)
Which means available property and economic opportunity for the next generation when the oldies are dead and automation has replaced all the jobs unskilled migrants would currently fill.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @03:36AM (3 children)
Empty tiny apartments for the elderly are hardly "assets of opportunity" when noone wants to live in them.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Monday December 04 2017, @04:41PM
The tiny apartments are fine for living in if you can get universal basic income and spend all your waking hours either immersed in video games or wanking. Ideally 100% of the population could adapt to this way of life. Ordering pizza delivery. Never leaving their apartments.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday December 04 2017, @05:08PM (1 child)
We have plenty of cheap property in the UK, they just aren't in the right areas for where the work is. What Japan will end up with is dying villages and towns, with old people still living there, but no young people to do any actual work.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @05:28PM
In Florida the dying villages are a source of jobs. Nursing, construction and repair, lawn maintenance, restaurants, even hotels are driven by the retirement communities. Bonus: the near-dead immigrate to Florida on a regular basis, sustaining the source of income.
Not the most enjoyable bunch of people to work for, but a steady feedstock for industry nonetheless.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:12PM (35 children)
How dare they not want to become a dirty, crime ridden Muslim slum, filled with rapists, terrorists and welfare-lifers? That's what all noble good countries want.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:31PM (18 children)
Wanting to keep a homogeneous population would be considered very racist were Japan a nation of white people.
Why do the Japanese get a pass?
For that matter, why do the Chinese get a pass? or the South Koreans? or Mexico, which constitutionally forbids changing the population demographics?
Germany allowed the Saudis to fund the building of mosques for all the refugees, but would the Saudis allow Germans to fund the building of protestant Churches in Saudi Arabia?
The more I think about it, the more it looks like the only non-racist, non-bigoted people are whites! Hell, it was white people who came late to the global slave trade, and who have done the most to end the global slave trade; it is white people who came up with the ideas of "multiculturalism" and "tolerance"; as far as I can tell, only white people have implemented social programs to advance other groups (consider that in Malaysia, the social programs benefit the majority Muslim Malays the most!)
Goddamn. None of it makes sense. Maybe white people should once again start taking a little pride in themselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:35PM
Explained here [youtube.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by legont on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:33PM (3 children)
It was suggested by Machiavelli in his infamous book "Prince". In short, if said Prince wants to hold concurred nations long term he has only two choices: 1. Exterminate them. 2. Provide for them a better living than to his own people. Stalin had done both. The US has done the former and is doing the later now.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @03:20AM (1 child)
conquered... or concurred?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 04 2017, @04:45PM
Concord?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 04 2017, @04:44PM
Prince, or Prints?
Hold, or Holed?
Two, or Too?
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:50PM (5 children)
Because the Japanese do not give a f*ck what you think. Because this is universally understood, the (((usual))) suspects don't bother, knowing they would gain absolutely nothing from their efforts, efforts better used in the West to extort more resources to be used to keep the West subjugated.
That really is it. When White Men stop giving a f*ck what Jews think about them and decide "IT IS OK TO BE WHITE" everything will instantly change. Then when, once awake and looking at the world with eyes alight with awareness of a threat, we will also realize feminism was nothing but a shit test our fathers failed and correct that problem. Those two things fixed we will return to peace and prosperity for another turn of the r/K wheel.
And because the Japanese do not give a f*ck, they will survive these times as Japanese. We don't yet know exactly how they will survive and how mighty they will be when this is all over, but whatever is still on the Japanese lands will be Japanese. They care about that, and that is perfectly OK. It is OK to be Japanese.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:47PM (4 children)
I think we'll launch right into an international genetics race akin to the old arms races.
White people, along with everyone else, will be left behind by the augmented class.
-----
Flamebait? What's the point of a discussion forum other than flamewars, you worthless website of whiners???
Suck a flaming cock, SoylentNews, you work of whiners.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:20PM (3 children)
> What's the point of a discussion forum other than flamewars ...
At the risk of feeding the troll (bad idea, I know). How about this:
Reasoned debate at an intellectual level and avoidance of emotional triggers.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:30PM
Spock made everyone all hot and bothered.
For wrongheadedness, there's no salve more effective than ridicule.
Logic dictates that you suck a cock, SoylentNews, you illogical rubbish.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @01:10PM
Spock made everyone all hot and bothered.
For wrongheadedness, there's no salve more effective than ridicule.
Logic dictates that you suck a cock, SoylentNews, you illogical rubbish.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @04:33PM
Spock made everyone all hot and bothered.
For wrongheadedness, there's no salve more effective than ridicule.
Logic dictates that you suck a cock, SoylentNews, you illogical rubbish.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Monday December 04 2017, @12:01AM (4 children)
I disagree with the Japanese immigration policy, but they have their own country and can deal with whatever problems they create for themselves one way or the other. We have a different reality we have to deal with. For one thing, the homogeneous ethno-state the Japanese sort of have which alt-reich cretins salivate over is impossible to recreate in the USA. Even if you stopped all immigration tomorrow, non-white people are already here and they're US citizens. They're not going anywhere. Since many are first and second generation immigrants and lower in socioeconomic status they have a higher fertility rate which drops off to the base rate after a couple generations.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with being white. There is usually something very wrong with Internet edge-lords who feel the need to proclaim this like they're being subversive and profound. You are not oppressed, put-upon, or even inconvenienced for being white. To claim the contrary is to adopt the same nauseating victim-hood complex that dozens of right-wing YouTubers have made a cottage industry shrieking about when they see it in liberals and minorities. Yet it seems even more pathetic when it's coming from the self-proclaimed "master race" (behold them! [reddit.com]).
Moreover, having pride in your *race*, whatever it is, is fucking stupid. You should be proud of your accomplishments--I guess that explains why so many far-right ethno-nationalists fall back on being proud of their skin color. They've got nothing else going for them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday December 04 2017, @04:59AM
You're already at +5 so I can't mod you up further, but THANK YOU for being the one single fucking voice of reason in this entire festering septic tank of a thread. This place is going straight to shit...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @01:23PM
Nobody said anything about making the USA an ethnostate; nobody said anything about whites being "oppressed" (though, whites are forced to pay for the artificial advancement of other peoples); nobody said anything about whites being the "master race"; nobody said anything about being proud of skin color.
There's straw coming out of your ears.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @04:35PM
Nobody said anything about making the USA an ethnostate; nobody said anything about whites being "oppressed" (though, whites are forced to pay for the artificial advancement of other peoples); nobody said anything about whites being the "master race"; nobody said anything about being proud of skin color.
There's straw coming out of your ears.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @07:22PM
Then help Muslims emigrate to Malaysia (Just look at their flag! They must be the ACS project for Muslims!), Mexicans back to Mexico (under US 'management'.) And then let the chinese finish buying out the US and watch as our leadership learns mandarin and abandons us for some wealthy Chinese-majority retirement island now that they have gotten theirs :)
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @10:58AM
No, this is called xenophobic. Japanese are very xenophobic.
And yes, many Japanese are also very racist. They just get a pass on it because they tend to be polite about it.
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Monday December 04 2017, @04:31PM
who is giving them a pass?
I've lived there. And have been confronted with some racism. It was the "good" kind though (have not been beat up or anything).
But to conclude from that whites are much better is silly. Stupidity does not seem to have anything to do with skin color.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:33PM (13 children)
Now this is one area where the Spics and Spic-like cultures excel. They actually look after their own elders and let them stay in the housing to be stimulated by family and die in relative comfort.
The downside is when you're in America and living alongside families like that, because they are noisy and don't bother to discipline their too-many numbers of children, who are not only noisy but criminals tagging and jacking the entire neighborhood.
(Score: -1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:15PM (10 children)
Partial truth but hispanics are a lot quicker to whoop a kid's ass than white folks nowadays. When's the last time you saw some bitch from Berkeley beatin that ass in Wal-Mart?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:57PM
TMB, keeping it real.....
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 04 2017, @02:04AM (4 children)
Suck it, mods. Truth precludes Troll. Take your butthurt asses back to your safe spaces.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @04:45PM (3 children)
Moron alert, just trying yo get dome zingers in about the much loathed Berkeley mixed into Walmart. You have to drive a few cities away to find a Walmart in that area!
Also, I've seen some little spoiled shits who could use better discipline, but I've seen worse from the more violent rural parents. I recently saw a bunch of kids smashing bottles on an empty lot with their parents talking at the cars just feet away. Turns out the hill is fine, but don't smash them in the street! At least there was some semblance if discipline but that bar was set reeeally low.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 04 2017, @07:35PM (2 children)
You're so far gone that you're cheerleading for bottles' rights now? How long before we can expect you to champion the denied rights of clay pigeons?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @07:44PM (1 child)
I see now, all of the arguments you have seem to be from shitty reading comprehension. Ugh, just imagine all the time wasted due to your defective brain!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 04 2017, @08:37PM
Was that really the best you can do for an ad hom? Come on, AC, this ain't some minor league troll academy like Twitter. Take your time and come up with something worth the disk space it uses up next time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday December 04 2017, @05:01AM (3 children)
So, uh, quick question for ya...if "beatin' that ass in Walmart" is such good discipline, *why do they keep having to do it?* A little food for thought there, if you can be bothered to stop sucking your own dick for a bit...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 04 2017, @11:00AM (2 children)
Erm... Because they keep making new kids? A few quality ass whoopins for being a little shit in the toy aisle and you stop being a little shit in the toy asile.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:18PM
+1 truth. I threw a fit in WalMart 1 time. I got my ass whipped in WalMart 1 time. Never acted out in front of my mom again, because I learned mommy gets scary if I embarrass her in public.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday December 05 2017, @04:23AM
I don't think, somehow, that your sample size is large enough here. How do you know a single ass-whooping per child is effective? Do you even KNOW any children, or any parents? Especially from ages 2-4, they're contrarian little devils.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:22PM (1 child)
Wow. Another stupid comment. Consistent. As in consistently stupid. I'm guessing welfare brat from a junkie mother.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:12PM
Junkie, no. Food stamps, yes. I don't know how welfare works because my parents were married but I'm sure they would have got that as well if it applied to the time and situation.
But that gives me some standing to talk trash and my dad was smart enough to get his tubes tied after the second kid -- those aren't mistakes I'm gonna make. Really jogs the noggin when you go to the designated clinic for your mandatory pre-employment drug test and you see a bunch of Robertas in there and each with 8 screaming kids and they are totally oblivious about why its extremely rude that they aren't making an effort to do anything about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:10PM (1 child)
There was an article either here or on the green site regarding one of the japanese serial killers or christian cults that had a long discussion on Muslims in Japan. They are now up to I believe 12 mosques, compared to 1 20 years ago and have been losing japanese women to emigration to muslim countries after marrying into Islamic families.
Furthermore Japan doesn't ban immigration. They require a guarantor and a rather comprehensive understanding of japanese culture if you wish to become a naturalized citizen. They are in fact on-paper more liberal than the US in that naturalized citizens can hold *ANY* government office, unlike the US with restrictions on the presidency.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:45PM
Because whether or not you allow, on-paper, a non-native to be your head of state is the only measure of on-paper liberalness? You already mentioned a way they were less on-paper liberal ("require a guarantor and a rather comprehensive understanding of japanese culture"). It's a nit, but a nit that needed to be picked.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Nuke on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:19PM (2 children)
Bollocks to the pro-immigration dig at the end. Immigration would have nothing to do with whether a corpse is found or not, nor lonely deaths. Declining birth rate might possibly be to do with it, as family members might keep in touch, but even that is not guaranteed these days. Families no longer live close together like when in olden days people popped round the corner to keep check, and when my father-in-law was spending his last two years dying in a care home not a single one of his 12 grandchildren ever visited him, despite being within easy driving distance. It is a modern cultural thing thing.
People dying with no-one noticing until the smell is quite common in the UK, and we are awash with immigrants - why would they care about some old white geezer down the road?
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:26PM (1 child)
It may have some bearing on whether a human or robot finds the corpse [satwcomic.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:55AM
A nicely-constructed site.
1. Name the images intelligently
2. Separate the content from the chintz via subdirectories
3. Don't use scripts where they aren't warranted
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(who blocks all images by default)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by iru on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:20PM (1 child)
Japan does not ban immigration. High skilled work force is always in demand. Japan does however bans the dangerous kind of immigration that can lead to violence against its culture and citizens.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by moondrake on Monday December 04 2017, @04:45PM
Did you ever compare the % foreigners as tenured staff at US, or even EU universities compared to japan? They do not "ban" immigration. They do just not give you the job. They have plenty of international students and postdocs, but after that time: you go back.
This is changing, but very slowly. And probably too slowly to help them.
In business, there is one reason why you can get a job at a Japanese company: do talk/write with foreign clients. Forget about ever moving upwards in the company.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:20PM (25 children)
Someone believes that a ghetto two or three miles away from this huge retirement complex is going to help discover bodies faster?
Mmmmm - maybe I'm not thinking straight. Sure, bodies will be discovered by people breaking into apartments. The question is, will the burglars call the authorities? Or, will they just pilfer the apartment, and leave the stiff where they found it?
Unless - nahhhh. Immigrants aren't going to be welcomed into the retirement complex. They'll be segregated just like every wave of immigration has been segregated in the US. Immigrants will most assuredly live in a ghetto, and it will take 100 years for them to break out of that ghetto. 100 years conservative estimate - this is Japan, not some western nation like Canada or the US.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:25PM (8 children)
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”
― Hunter S. Thompson
Go ahead - someone try to argue that, let's see you disprove it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:30PM
The Vulcan mind meld?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:56PM (1 child)
I dunno about you, but I wasn't born alone. My mom was there when I crawled out of her, my dad was hovering nearby too... but yea the respect bit makes sense.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday December 05 2017, @08:46PM
Offtopic but this made me remember cutting my twins umbilical cords. That texture that you feel though the scissors is horrifying, with third child coming up I think I will let the doctors take care of this step.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday December 04 2017, @12:03AM
While I agree with the technicalities of the post, I disagree that all humans die alone. Every human wants to die alongside their peers, and some do even if it isn't alongside their peers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @03:43AM
Long Live Hunter Thompson, too desperate to make his deadlines to be afraid of what might happen if he actually submitted the work.
Genius, from the unexamined, unedited, unfiltered output of a drug fueled mind.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:51PM
Perhaps Mr. H. Thompson went through life without finding that one true love, the one that touches your spirit.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday December 04 2017, @02:52PM (1 child)
Doing a Hannibal Lector and taking pride in how you cook the brains and hearts of your victims? :)
(tounge firmly planted in cheek)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 04 2017, @03:19PM
Well, I would HOPE that if you waste a human being to cook their brains, you do a good job of it. Anything less would be disrespectful!! ;^)
(Score: 5, Flamebait) by takyon on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:35PM (14 children)
Allowing increased immigration is an obvious remedy for a declining population. Might not be your favorite remedy, and you might not agree that declining population is a problem, but it makes sense for it to be mentioned.
"Bans immigration" is an exaggeration, but they don't allow that many people in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Sulla on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:02PM (5 children)
My biggest problem with immigration is the decades of "your population is too high, stop having kids" followed by "wow you f'd up bad and caused population to fall by not having kids, now you must accept immigrants" .
Makes it feel like it was intentional. I don't have a real issue with people moving in because its always happened, my problem is when people get mad that I don't want to integrate to them instead of them integrating to us. This is only a real issue when it comes to muslim migrants who want to adhere to sharia, sharia and common law can not work in the same system. If people want to come here that is fine, but follow this set of laws. Culture changes and melding are acceptable, changing common law is not.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:22PM (4 children)
my problem is when people get mad that I don't want to integrate to them instead of them integrating to us.
Do you have any actual examples of people getting *mad* at *you* about this? I mean, I get it that some immigrants don't integrate very well (that's nothing new nor particular to Hispanics or Muslims, it's usually the 2nd generation that integrates better), and I get it that there's some extremists out there on the left with some pretty radical ideas about some things, but are there actually people you've met who got mad at you personally because you expected immigrants to learn about the new host culture?
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday December 04 2017, @01:49AM (3 children)
Yes, but I live in a very liberal town.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday December 04 2017, @04:56AM (2 children)
Yes, you've had people tell you this? Like how? How do you even get into such a conversation?
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Monday December 04 2017, @02:23PM
I've seen it happen. Usually someone says something like "fucking immigrants should learn English", someone else gets mad "you're racist!". At this point, I pull out the popcorn.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Monday December 04 2017, @04:31PM
Back in 2007/2008 Oregon had a referendum about whether the state should be required to teach immigrant students in their native tongue for their entire time in our educational system or if they should be required to learn English. The high school I had just graduated from (back then) had two classes for everything because they needed a Spanish class because many were refusing to learn English. Voters of the state ended up deciding that immigrant kids (regardless of origin) could only expect to be taught in their native language for three years, after which they would be expected to learn English and attend classes taught in English.
I was naturally on the side of not teaching kids their whole k-12 in a language other than English unless they choose to go to an immersion school because we have several immersion schools in my area in various languages (Mandarin, Spanish, Japanese, French). Around that time there was a whole lot of "only backwater racist hicks would ever think its okay to force someone to learn a new language". I had at one point gone into the whole "well they moved here" thing but that makes me a racist for not knowing Iroquois, and I got called a lot of things. I don't mind learning Iroquois, but what we did back then was an invasion, are the Spanish invading now? Because if they aren't invading they need to know English. I don't care what they choose to speak, but they need to at least *know* it.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:02PM (5 children)
Increased immigration is NOT a cure for a decreasing population. It is, instead, a prescription for that declining population to be smothered, and displaced.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @10:46AM (4 children)
You say that as if a decreasing population is a problem.
I say a decreasing population is a cure for a lot of things wrong in this world. There is nothing about a decreasing population that causes problems. There are though several issues wrong with our economy/government that can only function with ever increasing growth.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 04 2017, @11:11AM (2 children)
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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:25PM
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
Historical fact : - The Chinese imported black male slaves some centuries ago but castrated them on arrival.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @07:08PM
"You say that as if a decreasing population is a problem."
It's mainly a problem for next quarters profit report.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @07:24PM (1 child)
Takyon here is a mouthpiece for our soon-to-be Chinese overlords for anyone that doesn't know.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 04 2017, @08:23PM
☭
ayyyyyy
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by EETech1 on Monday December 04 2017, @01:32AM
I'm just here for my weekly visit to the old folks home with my (cadaver sniffing) dog for a little walk around to cheer everyone up:)
(Score: 5, Informative) by Gaaark on Sunday December 03 2017, @10:22PM (16 children)
When my wife's grandmother was on her own, they set up a system where they called her every day and visited her a lot. That way they knew if something happened to her.
Twice, they'd found she'd fallen and couldn't get up (cue the lol).
They knew when she'd eaten or hadn't and knew when she was sick.
We will do the same with our parents as soon as it looks like it is necessary.
Come on people...wtf?!?!? They raise you and you then say fuck you? (Although, I did have decent parents, YMMV).
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:26PM (3 children)
Come on people...wtf?!?!? They raise you and you then say fuck you? (Although, I did have decent parents, YMMV).
Different people have different circumstances. Some people have a poor relationship with their parents, perhaps because they were abused, or their parents try to use them. Other people just don't live anywhere near their parents; work can take you far away, and in that case the parents should be thinking about moving closer to some of their kids, not the other way around (the kids are the ones who need to worry about where the jobs are; the parents are retired and don't have this problem). Many times, the parents just refuse to move, and that's on them, not the kids.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @03:28AM
Another factor to consider (one we are facing). Grandma and Grandpa may well have already paid their house off, and the kids live in a much more expensive area. In order to move nearer our kids, we'd have to sell our house (which is paid off) and buy a new house that would cost at least 250K more for equivalent housing.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 04 2017, @03:56AM (1 child)
I get the poor relationship thing and that you may just cut contact.
But if not, a phone call even once a week? Once a month? Just to say "hey, you still alive?"
Even if you live on the other side of the world....email anyone?
Anyone who has kids and isn't Joseph Mengeles should get at least a yearly butt fuck!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:27PM
Yearly? What? What did I just read?!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Sulla on Monday December 04 2017, @02:00AM (2 children)
I am currently in the process of having my grandmother sent to a retirement home. My wife and I have been caretaking for four years as she went from being an able person to having her brain destroyed by alzheimers. She has become mean and threatens violent acts on occasion, calls my wife a terrible mother over minor infractions and has told other family members that I should divorce her.
It is awful sending someone to a home, and it is not an easy thing to cut someone out of your life, but you get to a point where you can't handle it anymore. There are those people who don't even try and just write-off family and I think that is wrong, but people have their reasons. Before I went through this I never would have been able to understand a person doing this to a family member.
I live in an assisted suicide state, I will make sure I am dead before I cause a drain on the family unit.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @12:13PM (1 child)
What worries me is that if I do get dementia, that person (with my appearance and my name) may not think that suicide is necessary, and the dementia will evolve to the point of causing serious pain to my family even if right now I can rationally decide that dementia is a good reason for suicide.
But this is not a solvable problem... People in my family died from cancer and heart disease, I don't know a lot about dementia, but I assume the passage from "person" to "mindless something that gets angry" is very subtle, and there is no easy way to decide when it is irreversible.
For instance Terry Pratchett had Alzheimer's, and he died in his bed, apparently still quite aware of who and where he was.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Sulla on Monday December 04 2017, @04:40PM
My grandmother had a slow decline and then two months ago fell off a cliff. Doesn't recognize people around her, getting violent/making threats of violence, can't figure out how to look outside to tell if its day or night, can't comprehend the date when the reads the paper.
This whole thing has made me really consider various ways to self-verify for the purposes of suicide. Very frightful.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @03:25AM (1 child)
A lot of folks do this with someone to whom they aren't even related.
The elderly person puts an object in the front window in the morning so that a neighbor can see it.
Remove it by 3PM so that it's clear that you're still ambulatory.
Use the other edge of the window for the next day.
The problem demonstrated in the example in TFS is that that person was a hermit and had no social contacts.
A casual once-a-week meeting of residents (coffee klatch; choir practice|performance; storytelling|bitching session; whatever) would be a good thing for the inhabitants of that complex to organize so that folks can get to meet each other.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 04 2017, @03:58AM
Absotutely posilickly.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @03:46AM
My grandparents' generation went overboard and cared for their parents in the home, retiring early to take on the job full time and then discovering that a 2:1 caregiver ratio still wasn't enough - they still had to call in outside help for the final years. After that experience, they vowed never to do such things to their children - well, 3/4 - my dad's mom took up 10 years of my brother's life caring for her.
My parents (boomers) seem to be on track to financially provide for themselves above medicare - my wife's parents (pre-boomers) not so much.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @05:29AM (1 child)
I wonder how the distribution (failed parents and failed children) of blame fits in these situations. What kind of kids would neglect their decent parents this way? What kind of decent parents would end up this way?
My parents were failures and they will die without some bullshit happy ending reunion from me. If they die with no one around to care, then it will be a result of the life that they lived.
My experience biases me, but I'd suspect that there are more failed parents than kids too selfish to care about decent parents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @03:51PM
I hear you, AC. Me too.
It's odd that I still miss my parents around the holidays. I just have to remember that my daddy believes that Yahweh is angry with the USA because black people aren't all slaves by birth, and he believes that it's the Jews' fault that he was a dipshit who didn't understand how investment works. Tricked me into getting a job 50 miles away and being dependent on him for transportation there so that he could evict me one morning for being gay out of the blue with no fucking way to keep that job. Spent a little while homeless.
Then they had the audacity to accept my brother's child into the family even though the child was born out of wedlock.
They may or may not die alone, but they can die however they want without me.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday December 04 2017, @02:19PM (2 children)
Not everyone has kids, and even if they do it's often just 1. With people living longer and generation span increasing you can get a situation where you have a 10 year old child, a pair of 40 year old working parents, 4 grandparents around 70ish, and a couple great-grandparents still around in their 90s.
That leaves the 2 working parents looking after the child and half a dozen retirees as well as both working full time.
On top of that, in today's world it's quite common for kids to be hundreds or thousands of miles away from at least one set of parents, which really hampers the "go and visit" part of your plan.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:37PM
It's rather unlikely that all the old people require taking care of. My only grandparent with any issues could still take care of herself for the most part, because dementia caused her to forget what year it was and think I was my dad, it didn't physically disable her.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 04 2017, @06:41PM
I'm just saying a phone call even....
....the person doesn't answer the phone for a couple days, you could call the local cops/landlord/someone to check on them, so if they have fallen, they don't die from starvation or...
My wife's grandmother fell with her arms pinned beneath her chest (she'd tried to stop her fall). She would have died like that, pinned between the couch and the coffee table if there had been no one calling her to check on her.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @07:29PM
This is Japanese who *DON'T HAVE FAMILY*.
Many japanese families fell into decline after WW2. Some only had female children and either no siblings or siblings who in turn didn't have children, ending their bloodline. Some had children that didn't have children and preceded them in death (I know of at least one who was working stateside for his elderly mother's firm. Died of alcoholism.) Some never had children, either because they were working, the right person didn't come along, or they were impotent.
As a result japan has a dearth of young family members to take care of many of these older individuals. Combine that with their friends dying off a few at a time, or having to relocate away from them in order to afford rent and you have a bunch of isolated lonely older people who fall through the cracks.
The same thing happens in america and many other places, but thanks to Japan's relatively large population compared to its size, and the sheer quantity of old people since they didn't have the same post-war boom as the US and elsewhere, and you end up with the tfa discussed situation.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RedBear on Sunday December 03 2017, @10:32PM (14 children)
Okey dokey, well I think I'm done here. This entire submission page is filled with nothing but xenophobic nativists modding each other Insightful, as if every immigrant to every country is a brown Islamic extremist looking to destroy the native culture. I fully expect to be Trolled and Flamebaited to invisibility just for pointing this out, because that's what this site has apparently become. Whatever. I don't think anyone is left who even cares.
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Maybe I'll pop back in in a couple years, after Trump is gone, if the site still exists. Not looking good though.
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¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:40PM (5 children)
Immigration may not be the best answer to economic growth in a slow economy facing the immediate realities of increased automation. Have you considered this? If Africa had necessary low birth rates would you support westerners emigrating in such numbers that the entire native culture would be replaced within a couple of generations? Why the native-phobia?
This is a separate issue and the historical record shows that Islam has continually persecuted and destroyed native cultures for over a millennia. The heightened security and concrete blocks across European cities are not in place to prevent terrorist attacks from Atheists, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains or Zoroastrians. Just a decade ago, liberals were the first to admit there was a serious problem with Islam. More recently, they cover their eyes after every murderous display of intolerance and enact a tired pathetic display of intellectual and moral cowardice by shrieking incoherently about islamophobia and the threat of the far-right.
Of course, why engage in rational discourse on the economic and cultural dilemma of our time when you can drop a bogus "Cheeto-Hitler" bomb and run off claiming faux-superiority? We liberals can do better than conflating open discussion and comments here with the odious outpourings of a controlled opposition imbecile like Richard Spencer. Liberty requires us all to speak out. [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @12:17PM (3 children)
Bulgaria and Greece were part of the Otoman Empire for quite some time. Both of them are still mainly christian countries, with non-muslim cultures (although they probably have some left-over muslim minorities, just like Bulgaria's neighbouring Romania does).
Is this the historical record that you're talking about?
(Score: 1) by ewk on Monday December 04 2017, @03:03PM
They weren't exactly part of it by choice....
Besides, the Otoman Empire can be regarded as an 'Islam Light' for all practical purposes. The 'rough edges' mostly polished of by contact with exactly those mainly christian countries they kept om invading.
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday December 04 2017, @05:10PM (1 child)
I suspect he's talking about the Moors and their occupation of Sicily and the Iberian Peninsular for 600 years, before being driven away by Christians
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Monday December 04 2017, @10:00PM
I suspect you're talking about the Moops, not the Moors.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0uYJjDHeDU [youtube.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 4, Insightful) by isostatic on Monday December 04 2017, @02:07PM
concrete blocks across European cities are not in place to prevent terrorist attacks from Atheists, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains or Zoroastrians
The ring of steel wasn't put in to prevent terrorist attacks from Muslims. Waste bins weren't removed from the streets to prevent terrorist attacks from Muslims. London doesn't have 100 times as many CCTV cameras as New York to prevent terrorist attacks from Muslims.
The American funded IRA was there way before the latest attacks from the British, Irish and Italian ones more recently. The common theme amongst recent attacks is people brought up in the UK (or at most other western european countries). The common theme in the 70s, 80s and 90s was attacks by people brought up in the UK (or at most other western european countries).
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @11:57PM
I wail and gnash my teeth at your obviously tragic disappointment. Truly heart-rending.
OTOH, don't let the swinging door hit you in the ass on the way out.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @06:29AM
Isn't it a bit late to still have Trump Derangement Syndrome? Anyway, don't let the door...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 04 2017, @12:56PM (3 children)
I thought you already had gone because I haven't seen your posts in a long time. It's too bad because I've always enjoyed your input.
A healthy discourse requires many perspectives. Retreating to an echo chamber might feel like the safest thing to do, but it weakens your mental immune system. Your ability to think critically grows slack. For that reason I'd encourage everyone to remain and speak up. We all make each other stronger.
I find reflexive xenophobia or any reflexive political talking points dull, too, but they're so tedious and repetitious that you can tune it out like traffic noise from the nearby expressway. For me the best antidote is to refuse to let interlocutors get away with shallow dittohead expressions. Probe and challenge. With very few exceptions most of the people on SN who post that nonsense can do better, but default to laziness if everyone else lets them get away with it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by RedBear on Tuesday December 05 2017, @07:12AM (2 children)
Damnit I hate it when someone says something nice to me on the Internet. Unfortunately it's overbalanced by at least two very literal "don't let the door hit you" responses.
Unfortunately it's this place that feels like it's becoming the echo chamber. There's not really anywhere I'd be retreating to. I just don't have the energy to keep watching what are essentially verbatim Nazi ideological arguments, just with "Jews" replaced by "Muslims" or merely "immigrants", get constantly modded Insightful and stay that way. That didn't used to happen. The solution to the future is not to demonize a third or half of humanity.
Some of us have the ability to do that, and some of us aren't built to live in the big city. I'm always surprised anyone would even give a crap about me being here when I have a history of commenting probably less than once a week on average. I respect your ability to keep at it. Don't let me stop you.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Tuesday December 05 2017, @02:47PM
The number of places to have a non-echoChamber, open discussion on the Internet is vanishing.
That said, many of the posters here seem to think that their US/EU opinions on the world of Asia/Russia are relevant. Anti-immigration policies ("Japan has no policy on immigration" - Japanese PM) in Japan usually refer to *Westerners* and *Chinese*. They don't have an influx of Muslim immigrants because 1) they are an island and can more-or-less protect their borders, 2) they are relatively distant from the Muslim world, 3) their (illegal) immigrants are from Asiatic descent, and 4) the Japanese people are openly hostile to the gaijin. I've been there. There was an *actual* protest on my Western organization during my visit.
That said, there aren't many options. In the old days, children were an asset rather than a liability. They worked the farm. They worked the store. They cared for you in your old age. They contributed meaningfully to the household. People had many of them.
In modern times, they are a liability. They need to be fed. They need more-or-less continuous care until age 18. They need education. They generally give nothing back; it is generally assumed that parents should have saved for retirement. It should come as no surprise that people have less of them. The 2nd-3rd world still have lots of kids, as they are assets. As nations develop, children turn from assets to liabilities by 1000 small changes (retirement savings replacing family care, children being unwelcome in the workforce and going to daycare, child labor laws forbidding 12-year-old workers). Similarly, an educated, rather than strong/industrious, population becomes the backbone of the economy. On the whole, "less people that work nicer jobs and producing more economic value" is probably a good thing.
That said, you cannot ignore the costs of these changes, and the Japanese/US systems highlight the difficulties in transition. In anti-immigrant Japan, this looks like "old people dying alone" when adults didn't have children or the few children they did have don't take an active role in elder care (because they moved off to the city to pursue grueling work schedules?). In more-or-less pro-immigrant America (whatever the modern climate tells you, the USA is ~11-12% LEGAL immigrants by population), this means that our elder care is mostly provided by foreign caregivers (https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynrosenblatt/2017/03/07/aging-parents-immigrants-and-the-caregiving-cliff), and that our economy is more-or-less growing, while the GDP per capita of Japan is falling fairly rapidly (4% last year!) while the population retires/dies. Individually, Japanese citizens are better off. As a nation, Japan's relevance is fading.
At the end of the day, it is hard to say what policy is "right", but both of these nations made their decisions independently. Part of the new world of freedom was supposed to be a "live and let live" policy - Japan *chose* to be anti-immigration early on, and, as a byproduct, does not have a domestic workforce for elder care. Both Japan and America will both suffer the consequences of their decisions.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 05 2017, @03:19PM
Some don't handle rejection well.
Ideological confreres do mod each other up; it's the way of the world. It has happened since the days of the BBS'es, and will always happen. It's a secondary or tertiary effect of the massive PR campaign run by the Powers that Be to divide and conquer us. When we let that chase us from the public discourse, they win.
I agree demonizing others is not the solution to the future. I mean that more broadly than you perhaps mean it at this moment. Let us not demonize those who espouse the fear of the Other, either. We might not understand them, and we will never "beat" them. But we can engage with them, state our beliefs clearly and unabashedly, and perhaps find something positive from the interaction. I had a great many bones to pick with Obama, but the speech he gave on racism in America, the "god and guns" speech, did a great job shedding light on something that is nearly universally a black-box for progressives.
As for your energy flagging as you watch verbatim Nazi arguments, I'd argue it's much better to find the energy, now, to counter them than to have to literally fight them later because we ceded the discursive field. If you study up on the twilight of the Weimar Republic, that's how the actual Nazis came to power then--key people ceded the discursive field to them and let them get their hands on the real levers of power. The issue we know, but it was far from a sure thing the National Socialists would triumph because they were a minority party; there is no physical reason they would have triumphed, if others had not ceded the discursive field.
Now, SoylentNews is far from the make or break of this republic, but the principle is the same. All of us everywhere must hone our critical thinking and rhetorical skills lest it all must come to blows.
There's quantity, and quality. I always appreciated your thoughts (clearly, since I know your handle and am engaging with you here). In fact, I have hoped to see you post more, because level-headed progressives are a rare thing now. Most progressives have surrendered to full-blown hysteria and despair. Somebody with your poise and self-possession, who can cut the crap on both sides with a choice phrase, can bring so much to the conversation at a critical time.
For me, voices like yours are a guard rail. I'm not hysterical or desperate because I voted for Trump. I didn't vote for him because I hate immigrants or want a wall built between us and Mexico or because I approve of the Know-Nothing vein he's tapped into, but because I wanted to throw a molotov cocktail at the Establishment. I did want, as Michael Moore put it, "flip the bird at the Establishment." I did want the next President to cancel the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is the most heinous trade agreement I've ever witnessed in my lifetime (and that lifetime includes NAFTA, so that's saying something); I knew that Hillary would never cancel it no matter what she said, and thought that Trump might. He did, and that right there has still been worth the price of entry for me.
He has also been a disruptor in the way I have hoped he would be. I would most like to see him disrupt Wall Street and the power-elites connected to them, and will judge him a failure if he does not. But he has disrupted entire other quadrants of American life that have needed shaking up for a very long time. In one year he has knocked the mass media on its ass, which we progressives have been angry with since they helped sell the invasion of Iraq. In one year he has knocked Hollywood on its ass, which has been sexually abusing men and women for decades with impunity. In one year he has created conditions that have exposed the corrupt inner workings of the Democratic National Committee, which we progressives knew in our bones was compromised, but for which we lacked the proof that Donna Brazile, former chairman of the DNC, has now provided us.
I don't think Trump planned any of that, but his mere presence in the Whitehouse, as the creature he is, has created the conditions where all that can happen. I hope it keeps happening, in fact. If anything, I'm impatient for it to sweep everything out in DC and Wall Street, too. And from what I read among Trump's true supporters, they are holding him accountable for that, too. If DC and Wall Street resist, if Trump fails, then everything will become much more interesting and disrupted than many people now feel about Trump's Whitehouse.
Anyway, I hope you reassess your value in the discourse. I'd like to see you remain. If not, be well and keep the flame alive wherever you go.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Crash on Monday December 04 2017, @10:13PM (1 child)
Moderation at SN is an odd beast. We get quite a few mod-points every day, can mod and post not only in the same discussion-topic but the same discussion-thread.
At least a few people who are clearly trolls get modded up to 3-5 frequently. Moderating down doesn't even appear to work, it just causes the whole page to look like a fade-mask was applied to it.
When you see that over and over again, there doesn't seem to be much point at all. A shitload of noise.
The days of anonymous usenet are well past us. The web and it's denizens in general are suffering not only from information overload, but misinformed or blatantly misleading information - and if one isn't willing to put at least an online-pseudonym behind what is said, why the hell should anyone pay attention to it.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Tuesday December 05 2017, @01:55PM
I guess multi-accounting does not help either. But you should not lose faith in yourself just because some (few) people on the Internet wrote something a hundred times.