Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-japan-lost-generation/
352 comments
Your fix for technology enabled social distance was more technology.
I love it.
Perhaps social media has done that to some people. But I still see my neighbors out in their garden, and even outside with musical instruments. My musical friends come over and play outside with me. I garden alone because socializing over everything is insane to me.
I disagree there’s a real problem.
Re: people living at home still.
That trend was there before social media and COVID. Along with women having kids later, and adults finding career success later.
The economic math always points to the gerontocracy locking up capital, and of course their generational peers in government refuse to use their legislative powers to do anything but hand sacks of capital to their buddies, who then point us toward shovels.
This isn’t magic. We know where the problem is. Believing we need to import another fad for people to consume is ridiculous.
I love it.
Perhaps social media has done that to some people. But I still see my neighbors out in their garden, and even outside with musical instruments. My musical friends come over and play outside with me. I garden alone because socializing over everything is insane to me.
I disagree there’s a real problem.
Re: people living at home still.
That trend was there before social media and COVID. Along with women having kids later, and adults finding career success later.
The economic math always points to the gerontocracy locking up capital, and of course their generational peers in government refuse to use their legislative powers to do anything but hand sacks of capital to their buddies, who then point us toward shovels.
This isn’t magic. We know where the problem is. Believing we need to import another fad for people to consume is ridiculous.
I agree with you, but I'm not sure we're aware of this problem as a society.
People still think that people making 6 figures are the elite and cheer every time a progressive income tax targeting someone marginally richer than them is introduced by their government. They are not the enemy, they're not the people lobbying the government so their business can make extra millions or avoid paying taxes with loopholes.
The political discourse always ends up on some hot issue backed by group identity (whether it's minorities, poor people or some other kind of victim). I don't think the government will ever be able to tackle this conflict of interest and actually impact the ultra rich which maintain politicians.
I just hope we won't get to a violent revolution and physically killing of the rich middle class (kulaks 2.0)
People still think that people making 6 figures are the elite and cheer every time a progressive income tax targeting someone marginally richer than them is introduced by their government. They are not the enemy, they're not the people lobbying the government so their business can make extra millions or avoid paying taxes with loopholes.
The political discourse always ends up on some hot issue backed by group identity (whether it's minorities, poor people or some other kind of victim). I don't think the government will ever be able to tackle this conflict of interest and actually impact the ultra rich which maintain politicians.
I just hope we won't get to a violent revolution and physically killing of the rich middle class (kulaks 2.0)
>People still think that people making 6 figures are the elite and cheer every time a progressive income tax targeting someone marginally richer than them is introduced by their government. They are not the enemy, they're not the people lobbying the government so their business can make extra millions or avoid paying taxes with loopholes.
Every single person in this country that makes more than $100,000 has outsize political clout and the capacity to change things for the better, and simply don't. Your retirement is more important, or your children's education, or your career. Fiddling while Rome burns.
"But the cost of living." What about it? Take a stand. You make $100k, $200k a year. Collapse the property value pyramid scheme with direct action. Throttle your mortgage payments. Throw out eviction notices. Hire gangbangers to protect your house when the police come to throw you out. Organize with your neighbors to build a series of self-governed mini-ethnostates based on the first two digits of your house addresses, where your trashed credit score and criminal record are meaningless.
Clearly I'm halfway joking. I'm not clever enough to come up with a real solution. But to act like making twice, thrice, quadruple the average household income as an individual still leaves you handcuffed is farcical. You all pay too much for necessities and you buy goods and services you don't need, and you use it to justify inaction while 2/3 of the rest of country languishes in sickness and poverty. Figure out what you're willing to sacrifice to make this better for everyone, gather it up into a big ball and catapult launch it at the walls of the establishment. If a few days off work and some posterboard can set cities ablaze, the power of someone with 5-6 figures to burn and the willingness to really do something substantial would be awesome indeed to behold.
And (completely serious this time) don't tell me that people with six-figure incomes don't donate to political campaigns because you do.
Every single person in this country that makes more than $100,000 has outsize political clout and the capacity to change things for the better, and simply don't. Your retirement is more important, or your children's education, or your career. Fiddling while Rome burns.
"But the cost of living." What about it? Take a stand. You make $100k, $200k a year. Collapse the property value pyramid scheme with direct action. Throttle your mortgage payments. Throw out eviction notices. Hire gangbangers to protect your house when the police come to throw you out. Organize with your neighbors to build a series of self-governed mini-ethnostates based on the first two digits of your house addresses, where your trashed credit score and criminal record are meaningless.
Clearly I'm halfway joking. I'm not clever enough to come up with a real solution. But to act like making twice, thrice, quadruple the average household income as an individual still leaves you handcuffed is farcical. You all pay too much for necessities and you buy goods and services you don't need, and you use it to justify inaction while 2/3 of the rest of country languishes in sickness and poverty. Figure out what you're willing to sacrifice to make this better for everyone, gather it up into a big ball and catapult launch it at the walls of the establishment. If a few days off work and some posterboard can set cities ablaze, the power of someone with 5-6 figures to burn and the willingness to really do something substantial would be awesome indeed to behold.
And (completely serious this time) don't tell me that people with six-figure incomes don't donate to political campaigns because you do.
> People still think that people making 6 figures are the elite and cheer every time a progressive income tax targeting someone marginally richer than them is introduced by their government
... in the US. The world extends slightly beyond the US of A, where your statement doesn’t necessarily apply.
... in the US. The world extends slightly beyond the US of A, where your statement doesn’t necessarily apply.
[deleted]
We need to start thinking about what happens when those people die and our incredibly permissive inheritance laws allow them to pass down literal trillions to... basically a bunch of 50, 60, and 70 year olds.
Especially since a lot of that inheritance is going to be stakes in critical businesses that the heirs are in no way, shape, or form qualified to run.
Especially since a lot of that inheritance is going to be stakes in critical businesses that the heirs are in no way, shape, or form qualified to run.
>I fear the rise of social media has caused more and more people to stay inside all day without interacting with any real humans.
Read _Industrial Society and Its Future_. It has the path paved out already. Japan is, as seems to be customary, ahead of the curve in some respects.
Read _Industrial Society and Its Future_. It has the path paved out already. Japan is, as seems to be customary, ahead of the curve in some respects.
>America desperately needs this
So why the finger pointing like all the other commenters on HN? Go out and fix it! If this problem could be solved with some NOSQL, a Raspberry PI, and soldering, this forum would collectively rally behind the solution. But suddenly when a problem is deemed "social" our hands go in the air and it's not in my backyard?
We're both techies, myself I'm pivoting my career into psychology 5 years after I thought I was done with college. We need more techies fixing this, and you clearly have some interest this problem, why not join the solution?
So why the finger pointing like all the other commenters on HN? Go out and fix it! If this problem could be solved with some NOSQL, a Raspberry PI, and soldering, this forum would collectively rally behind the solution. But suddenly when a problem is deemed "social" our hands go in the air and it's not in my backyard?
We're both techies, myself I'm pivoting my career into psychology 5 years after I thought I was done with college. We need more techies fixing this, and you clearly have some interest this problem, why not join the solution?
I'm sure you were just intended to be encouraging, but posts like this, telling other people what to do with a tinge of moralizing, are crossing into personal attack. Please err on the side of avoiding that here.
The problem is that there's usually a 1000x discrepancy between how a comment appears to the person making it vs. the person receiving it. Comments in the rear-view mirror are much larger than they appear!
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The problem is that there's usually a 1000x discrepancy between how a comment appears to the person making it vs. the person receiving it. Comments in the rear-view mirror are much larger than they appear!
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
The illusion of control and the ability to make a difference. It's why tech-minded people are notorious for trying to find clean technical solutions for messy social/political problems. It's comforting to feel you can reduce a vast societal problem to something you can tinker with in your living room and solve, and doing so also gives you a feeling of power and control.
Yes, I agree we should collectively work on real solutions to real problems. Clearly you understand that we need to encourage more tech workers to think deeper about it. Why not do this more positively? Being negative about how this forum can work hard to improve social tech is unproductive.
Recognizing the state of the current status quo isn't being negative. Understanding it and stating it with direct bluntness can be a good foundation for actually doing something about it. It seems like you're saying that a person shouldn't point our a problem without having a solution. That's incorrect. Properly identifying and staking out the boundaries of a problem is an invaluable service. That ability can exist independently of the understanding or insight necessary to fix the problem. That can be done by those people with the aptitude to do so.
From my comment
>I've found Meetup to work very well for getting out of the house.
That's already a technical solution to this problem.
I've seen startups which appear to be meetup alternatives as well.
That's already a technical solution to this problem.
I've seen startups which appear to be meetup alternatives as well.
> I've found Meetup to work very well for getting out of the house.
Except a lot of the meetups where I live either haven't come back or they are "virtual". :(
Except a lot of the meetups where I live either haven't come back or they are "virtual". :(
I was thinking before Corona, last year was very good for me.
Once you realize social media is mostly fake validation seeking behavior you can decide if that's what you want . Ends up being tons of stress and mental anguish for nothing at all. I'll say without a doubt people are absolutely meaner via social media vs real life. I recall when I lived in Chicago how everyone in certain areas knew each other. Act like a jerk and word travels fast. Thus this keeps people friendly. On Reddit, which I had to step back from , it take 10 seconds to create a username. Then you can throw out all types of vitriol at people you'll never meet. Why be apart of that ? I do find Reddit to be very helpful if you have a specific technical question, but the moment you venture out of tech people get really nasty really fast. I'm still debating if it's worth returning to.
It's at the point where I might hire someone to run the social media accounts for a product I may be releasing. I have absolutely no interest in using social media myself.
I have a sort of live now list for once Corona ends
Once you realize social media is mostly fake validation seeking behavior you can decide if that's what you want . Ends up being tons of stress and mental anguish for nothing at all. I'll say without a doubt people are absolutely meaner via social media vs real life. I recall when I lived in Chicago how everyone in certain areas knew each other. Act like a jerk and word travels fast. Thus this keeps people friendly. On Reddit, which I had to step back from , it take 10 seconds to create a username. Then you can throw out all types of vitriol at people you'll never meet. Why be apart of that ? I do find Reddit to be very helpful if you have a specific technical question, but the moment you venture out of tech people get really nasty really fast. I'm still debating if it's worth returning to.
It's at the point where I might hire someone to run the social media accounts for a product I may be releasing. I have absolutely no interest in using social media myself.
I have a sort of live now list for once Corona ends
>I'll say without a doubt people are absolutely meaner via social media vs real life
HN is somewhat unique in not fostering or tolerating that sort of thing. Sure, sometimes a comments gets downvoted, because it expresses an unpopular view, but not so much if it is well thought-out & presented. And it's extremely rare to come across comments that are mean or otherwise unproductive without it quickly going dead. It's no Utopia of internet peace & tranquility, but you can have a real conversation.
HN is somewhat unique in not fostering or tolerating that sort of thing. Sure, sometimes a comments gets downvoted, because it expresses an unpopular view, but not so much if it is well thought-out & presented. And it's extremely rare to come across comments that are mean or otherwise unproductive without it quickly going dead. It's no Utopia of internet peace & tranquility, but you can have a real conversation.
It depends on the subject, as with Reddit. You are free to mentally ignore comments, too. Moderation, same.
We have a similar problem in The Netherlands. For starters it is hard to buy a house (mortgage), free sector rent is expensive, and social housing is in huge shortage. Result: Young adults remain living with their parents. Daughter of my neighbor is well within her 30s, still living with mom.
We have a similar problem in The Netherlands. For starters it is hard to buy a house (mortgage), free sector rent is expensive, and social housing is in huge shortage. Result: Young adults remain living with their parents. Daughter of my neighbor is well within her 30s, still living with mom.
what are some good meetup for young folks? i find it hard to meet new people when i move to new city like seattle or sf
Anything you want to do.
Generic going out meetups tend to be very strange, and socially awkward.
Before Corona hit I would go to tech meetups and board gaming meetups. I'd specifically warn against going to a Meetup thinking that you're going to get anything out of it aside from just enjoying the Meetup itself.
With that in mind, I happen to meet a nice girl last year after asking if she was there for the meetup. She wasn't , but she took my number down and we enjoyed each other's company.
But if you're looking at meetups in your area, and you're imagining which one's going to be the best, to meet someone you're not going to have a good time . You'll be so focused on that, you won't enjoy yourself.
Generic going out meetups tend to be very strange, and socially awkward.
Before Corona hit I would go to tech meetups and board gaming meetups. I'd specifically warn against going to a Meetup thinking that you're going to get anything out of it aside from just enjoying the Meetup itself.
With that in mind, I happen to meet a nice girl last year after asking if she was there for the meetup. She wasn't , but she took my number down and we enjoyed each other's company.
But if you're looking at meetups in your area, and you're imagining which one's going to be the best, to meet someone you're not going to have a good time . You'll be so focused on that, you won't enjoy yourself.
I found English meetups to be an incredible source for meeting younger people around my age pursuing varying careers and interests, especially when the culture prevents you from talking to strangers in most situations.
You're in the US so there's probably not English meetups, but there's probably an Esperanto interest group or you could try to find a group for another language you're learning.
I haven't personal been to SF but I figure you there's SIGs for a tech stack you like.
You're in the US so there's probably not English meetups, but there's probably an Esperanto interest group or you could try to find a group for another language you're learning.
I haven't personal been to SF but I figure you there's SIGs for a tech stack you like.
I left reddit for the same reason. It gets ugly fast.
I feel like the "Jobless and living with parents" pejorative is missing the mark.
Jobless -- So what? If a country has figured out how to provide for its people w/o jobs, so what? For example if we had perfect AI-robot slaves we'd all be jobless. Would it be a problem? Maybe we should ask people why they want a job, maybe what they want to do doesnt require one?
"Living with their parents" - Again, so what? Much of the world and across much of history this was just how it was. No one denigrates someone 0-20 for living with their parents, why should a 30 yr old be denigrated for the same. Plus, for many of us so lucky the same scenario, with opposite take, will occur-- our parents will move in with us later in their life and we'll "live with our parents" again. Plus when you add that median sq foot of homes (at least in USA) is rising, you can comfortably live with more people in "home". With double master bedrooms more common and more square feet we're blurring the lines of what a single home means. Some houses are so big that you could just put a dividing wall and a separate entrance and you'd have 2 homes...
Jobless -- So what? If a country has figured out how to provide for its people w/o jobs, so what? For example if we had perfect AI-robot slaves we'd all be jobless. Would it be a problem? Maybe we should ask people why they want a job, maybe what they want to do doesnt require one?
"Living with their parents" - Again, so what? Much of the world and across much of history this was just how it was. No one denigrates someone 0-20 for living with their parents, why should a 30 yr old be denigrated for the same. Plus, for many of us so lucky the same scenario, with opposite take, will occur-- our parents will move in with us later in their life and we'll "live with our parents" again. Plus when you add that median sq foot of homes (at least in USA) is rising, you can comfortably live with more people in "home". With double master bedrooms more common and more square feet we're blurring the lines of what a single home means. Some houses are so big that you could just put a dividing wall and a separate entrance and you'd have 2 homes...
That's because the scenario you've mentioned does not describe these households. The problem here is that there are adults who are partially or wholly supported by their parents in a house where they are not living with (nor was it designed for them to live with) a spouse or children.
And what happens when their parents die and they cannot provide for themselves housing?
Yeah, that's really the crux of the problem: an inadequate safety net for these folks.
Problem is Japan culture that make difficult to re-enter workspace and find partner unless employed for life.
Again. We're failing to address the "so what?" What does this scenario represent that is _the actual problem_ of the matter?
> What does this scenario represent that is _the actual problem_ of the matter?
Among others:
- Crippling depression for many of those who are jobless and living with their parents in a culture that is not exactly friendly to them.
- An increased incidence of health issues that are correlated with depression and loneliness.
- Decreased quality of life for elderly parents who need to support their children within the confines of a difficult, stressful job market and a pension system that sees increasing pressure from an aging population.
- An aging working population that has difficulties filling positions around a particular range of experience, which -- in turn -- can make it harder to sustain the social programs required to help people cope.
- Increased pressure on social spending in the long term, since people who are struggling to find jobs in their fourties are unlikely to be in a super well-paid position by the time they're sixty.
It's not like these people are basking in a Russell-esque life of idyllic idleness, like they're taking a perpetual sabbatical year. Many of them don't want to be in the position they're in.
Among others:
- Crippling depression for many of those who are jobless and living with their parents in a culture that is not exactly friendly to them.
- An increased incidence of health issues that are correlated with depression and loneliness.
- Decreased quality of life for elderly parents who need to support their children within the confines of a difficult, stressful job market and a pension system that sees increasing pressure from an aging population.
- An aging working population that has difficulties filling positions around a particular range of experience, which -- in turn -- can make it harder to sustain the social programs required to help people cope.
- Increased pressure on social spending in the long term, since people who are struggling to find jobs in their fourties are unlikely to be in a super well-paid position by the time they're sixty.
It's not like these people are basking in a Russell-esque life of idyllic idleness, like they're taking a perpetual sabbatical year. Many of them don't want to be in the position they're in.
Add that few children living with parents have children of their own. The population shrinks, the GDP stagnates.
> Crippling depression
I wonder how much of this is due to societal pressure vs actualization ?
If the world's message is "you should feel bad because X" it seems unlikely to me that people would feel good about X.
Having a job is a second order attempt to solve many of these things rather than solving the root issues. A job is a technology for solving an issue, I think it's time for a better technology.
I wonder how much of this is due to societal pressure vs actualization ?
If the world's message is "you should feel bad because X" it seems unlikely to me that people would feel good about X.
Having a job is a second order attempt to solve many of these things rather than solving the root issues. A job is a technology for solving an issue, I think it's time for a better technology.
The problem isn't job or jobless, it's the lack of social validation and self actualization.
People don't want to stay home and play video games all day. They want to be able to create, or master some sort of skills.
People don't want to stay home and play video games all day. They want to be able to create, or master some sort of skills.
> People don't want to stay home and play video games all day.
I totally get the sentiment and I agree.
I knew a girl once who really wanted to be a teacher. She had a hard time finding a job as a teacher though. I was discussing this situation with her and asked "What is it you want to do?" and she was like "Get a job as a teacher?" and so I probed further, "So you just want to get the job with title teacher, regardless of the duties?" And she was like "I dont care about the job and the title, I want to teach kids and see them grow" . To which i pondered with her, "so go volunteer as a tutor?" . Yes, she did want to earn an income, but her real goal and actualization was by doing the thing... She was able to do some tutoring in the meantime and it really really improved her outlook and was a great outcome for the kids too!
So often the things we want to do only have the barriers we've constructed/adopted.
I totally get the sentiment and I agree.
I knew a girl once who really wanted to be a teacher. She had a hard time finding a job as a teacher though. I was discussing this situation with her and asked "What is it you want to do?" and she was like "Get a job as a teacher?" and so I probed further, "So you just want to get the job with title teacher, regardless of the duties?" And she was like "I dont care about the job and the title, I want to teach kids and see them grow" . To which i pondered with her, "so go volunteer as a tutor?" . Yes, she did want to earn an income, but her real goal and actualization was by doing the thing... She was able to do some tutoring in the meantime and it really really improved her outlook and was a great outcome for the kids too!
So often the things we want to do only have the barriers we've constructed/adopted.
>Many of them don't want to be in the position they're in.
I wonder what proportion. In some online circles, being a NEET is actually a bit of a badge of honor. In others (in fact, on both sides of the political spectrum), those working regular jobs (in particular low-paid jobs) are prejoratively referred to as wageslaves (or "wagie"). What's more, many hikikomori in Japan have developed pop-culture interests and spend their time consuming media. I can imagine someone in that state of mind finding it hard to get bored, but I can also imagine many who would get bored after a month or two. It may just come down to personal disposition.
I wonder what proportion. In some online circles, being a NEET is actually a bit of a badge of honor. In others (in fact, on both sides of the political spectrum), those working regular jobs (in particular low-paid jobs) are prejoratively referred to as wageslaves (or "wagie"). What's more, many hikikomori in Japan have developed pop-culture interests and spend their time consuming media. I can imagine someone in that state of mind finding it hard to get bored, but I can also imagine many who would get bored after a month or two. It may just come down to personal disposition.
I'm curious to learn more about NEET and good links to communities Sounds like business minded folks / indie hackers would have a lot of perspective in common with the rebel homeless kids I've encountered who see themselves as smart for opting out of the "normal" path
NEET is an acronym that stands for "Not in Education, Employment, or Training - for those not familiar with the anacronym
I suppose if you polled people in this situation, and just asked them, "Is this the life you want to live?", that would answer the your question.
I don't know what the results would be, but I can guess that a large percentage of unemployed 30- and 40-somethings living with their parents would very much rather not be. Is it 10%, 35%, 65%? I'm guessing over 50% to be sure.
You can argue that the society is set up wrong. But there it is, with this large cohort of people isolated and shut in. In an economy that still relies on a younger population to take care of its elders.
Robots might one day deal with all productive work, but we're nowhere near that yet.
I don't know what the results would be, but I can guess that a large percentage of unemployed 30- and 40-somethings living with their parents would very much rather not be. Is it 10%, 35%, 65%? I'm guessing over 50% to be sure.
You can argue that the society is set up wrong. But there it is, with this large cohort of people isolated and shut in. In an economy that still relies on a younger population to take care of its elders.
Robots might one day deal with all productive work, but we're nowhere near that yet.
> "Is this the life you want to live?"
This is the wrong question. The real question is do you daily want to do the things it takes to have those things. So often a goal is made, but the person doesn't want to be the thing that makes them get the goal.
Eg: Run a marathon, but they loath the daily training and food discipline
eg2: Speak a language, but they dont want to do the practice or be vulnerable speaking to another person.
Jame clear says you have to want to daily be the person that ends up achieving <x>
This is the wrong question. The real question is do you daily want to do the things it takes to have those things. So often a goal is made, but the person doesn't want to be the thing that makes them get the goal.
Eg: Run a marathon, but they loath the daily training and food discipline
eg2: Speak a language, but they dont want to do the practice or be vulnerable speaking to another person.
Jame clear says you have to want to daily be the person that ends up achieving <x>
Playing devil's advocate, how many Americans would truthfully respond "yes" to the same question, "Is this the life you want to live?".
That's a really good point.
I guess I should have sharpened the question a bit: "Would you prefer to have a job and family of your own?"
And, to those who have those things: "Would you prefer to be single and live with your parents?"
I suspect the answers to #1 would be mostly "yes", and the answers to #2 mostly "no".
I guess I should have sharpened the question a bit: "Would you prefer to have a job and family of your own?"
And, to those who have those things: "Would you prefer to be single and live with your parents?"
I suspect the answers to #1 would be mostly "yes", and the answers to #2 mostly "no".
It's just not sustainable if everyone did this. The economy needs people who are gainfully employed and not single and living with their parents. I say this as someone who is single and currently living with my parents.
>The economy needs
I don't really care what the economy needs, I'm far more interested in what people need.
I don't really care what the economy needs, I'm far more interested in what people need.
That is actually not a problem. It's not sustainable if everyone is a full-time chef — that doesn't mean being a full-time chef is bad. The problem here is that these people are in a disadvantaged and unsatisfying position in society with no clear way out.
The problem then is an economy which simultaneously denies opportunity to those in need of it and needs their contribution.
Such a society would be pathologically deranged.
Such a society would be pathologically deranged.
When the parents die, the dependant, now in their middle age, will be left with no income and no life skills.
I agreed with you about the fact living at parents’ home is not that much of an issue if we compare it to previous history, however staying there without spouse is indeed a very different matter than having a three generations family (even 4 for some people I know) under the same roof. New enough babies is a big issue here. Actually, I know two people in this situation and I feel a bit bad for them: it’s hard to find a job and hard to find a partner and even when they have one living together and supporting children would be difficult money wise.
People feeling left out, alienated and powerless. According to me... at least.
This comment seems to be the antithesis of what this community is trying to accomplish, which is asking the what
You appear to be replying to an entirely different article than the one in this submission.
> Jobless -- So what? If a country has figured out how to provide for its people w/o jobs, so what?
This is a fair point, but the problem in this case is that the country hasn't figured out how to provide for them.
This is a fair point, but the problem in this case is that the country hasn't figured out how to provide for them.
> "Living with their parents" - Again, so what?
Interesting advocacy both for [1] and against [2] nuclear families. Many more such studies and articles on both sides. As long as the median demographic for family formation continues to bleed usable income with each passing decade, the advocacy for either way won't matter if there simply is insufficient economic incentive to have children and raise them, and we'll see continued patterns like extended family or high-trust non-familial clans grouping together for sheer survival. We can handwave the trends away by hiding in median compensation figures, but societies with big and durable bifurcations aren't fun to live in for most people on the wrong end of that bifurcation.
[1] https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-real-roots-of-the-nuclear-fam...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuc...
Interesting advocacy both for [1] and against [2] nuclear families. Many more such studies and articles on both sides. As long as the median demographic for family formation continues to bleed usable income with each passing decade, the advocacy for either way won't matter if there simply is insufficient economic incentive to have children and raise them, and we'll see continued patterns like extended family or high-trust non-familial clans grouping together for sheer survival. We can handwave the trends away by hiding in median compensation figures, but societies with big and durable bifurcations aren't fun to live in for most people on the wrong end of that bifurcation.
[1] https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-real-roots-of-the-nuclear-fam...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuc...
I guess if you remove all other data points/context and only stick with the words "jobless" and "living with parents" I guess "so what" is a valid question. It would be a valid question for most issues where ones has barely any other information.
But if you read a little about the price that japan (and this demographic in particular) has been paying and what they think about it, I'm pretty sure you won't find anyone asking "so what".
Your point on how USA (and other countries) should be making better use of their living arrangements is valid. I don't think it compares to the situation Japan or most deeply densed urbanized countries in Asia.
But if you read a little about the price that japan (and this demographic in particular) has been paying and what they think about it, I'm pretty sure you won't find anyone asking "so what".
Your point on how USA (and other countries) should be making better use of their living arrangements is valid. I don't think it compares to the situation Japan or most deeply densed urbanized countries in Asia.
Right, and I think it's the negative stigma of the former ("jobless") than the latter ("living with parents").
Multi-generational family cohabitation is nothing new and still the norm in many parts of the world. There's many advantages of it, though also carries risks (example is Italy's seniors exposure to COVID19).
The "jobless" part is more cross-cultural in its negative stigma, on the expectation that adults are contributing members of their respective societies. But as this article goes into detail, the quality of the job matters as much as having one. "Gainfully employed" > "employed", especially for the person in question.
I think another aspect of this is the age of the individual. When one is in their early 20s, then being "jobless" and "living with parents" is much more acceptable (both by the self and the society). But as one gets older, such as in the article's 40+ year old norm, then it becomes much harder. Add on top the Japanese/Asian emphasis on image and honor, then the resulting perceived sense of shame/failure can be very burdensome.
Multi-generational family cohabitation is nothing new and still the norm in many parts of the world. There's many advantages of it, though also carries risks (example is Italy's seniors exposure to COVID19).
The "jobless" part is more cross-cultural in its negative stigma, on the expectation that adults are contributing members of their respective societies. But as this article goes into detail, the quality of the job matters as much as having one. "Gainfully employed" > "employed", especially for the person in question.
I think another aspect of this is the age of the individual. When one is in their early 20s, then being "jobless" and "living with parents" is much more acceptable (both by the self and the society). But as one gets older, such as in the article's 40+ year old norm, then it becomes much harder. Add on top the Japanese/Asian emphasis on image and honor, then the resulting perceived sense of shame/failure can be very burdensome.
There is another problem with multigenerational housing: it can seriously reinforce inequality.
Living with your parents in a wealthy suburb is very different from living with your parents in a trailer park.
Living with your parents in a wealthy suburb is very different from living with your parents in a trailer park.
you're missing the cause for the effect, multigenerational wealth is the source of inequality. Most generally in the fact the 'west' has been pillaging 'the rest' for 400 odd years.
A factor can be both cause and effect. It’s called a virtuous (or vicious) cycle. These cycles are what reinforce inequality.
A family has more money, so they can afford better education for their kids, so their kids make more money.
A family can afford a good house, in a low-crime neighborhood, with neighbors who are corporate executives. Their kids grow up living next door to the rich and powerful.
Living at home with mom and dad at age 25 might mean living in a house with lead paint and drug use. Or it might get you free membership at the neighborhood country club.
A family has more money, so they can afford better education for their kids, so their kids make more money.
A family can afford a good house, in a low-crime neighborhood, with neighbors who are corporate executives. Their kids grow up living next door to the rich and powerful.
Living at home with mom and dad at age 25 might mean living in a house with lead paint and drug use. Or it might get you free membership at the neighborhood country club.
I agree. These terms are common, euphemistic allusions to other problems. They should state plainly the issue: lack of buying power, economic leverage among the working class, lack of choice, and inadequately available housing. These are of what we're actually suffering.
> If a country has figured out how to provide for its people w/o jobs, so what?
Except no country has done that yet. We are far from full automation and most of the structural unemployment is due to emerging differential between labor demand and existing labor supply, not because we are in a state to provide everyone everything they want.
Also I want you to consider that a vocation is not only about covering one's needs, but also about our need to do something that matters for other people, with other people, to feel useful (vocation = calling). There is only so much need for every unemployed person doing arts and crafts, or another youtube channel to watch gadgets shredded in blenders or mentos put into a swimming pool full of coke. We deep down desire to do things that really matter, really meaningful.
> "Living with their parents" - Again, so what?
There is "living with parents because I value kin work and kin relationships" and there is "living with parents because I need to financially and psychologically". Meaningful participation in society requires having a degree of autonomy, individuation and agency. I would push even further; freedom from serious mental health problems, societally and individually, requires those. This is not an advocacy of hyperindividualism, it is about healthy ego-separation and self-actualization, which counter-intuitively also helps with social cohesion because it prevents ressentiment.
Except no country has done that yet. We are far from full automation and most of the structural unemployment is due to emerging differential between labor demand and existing labor supply, not because we are in a state to provide everyone everything they want.
Also I want you to consider that a vocation is not only about covering one's needs, but also about our need to do something that matters for other people, with other people, to feel useful (vocation = calling). There is only so much need for every unemployed person doing arts and crafts, or another youtube channel to watch gadgets shredded in blenders or mentos put into a swimming pool full of coke. We deep down desire to do things that really matter, really meaningful.
> "Living with their parents" - Again, so what?
There is "living with parents because I value kin work and kin relationships" and there is "living with parents because I need to financially and psychologically". Meaningful participation in society requires having a degree of autonomy, individuation and agency. I would push even further; freedom from serious mental health problems, societally and individually, requires those. This is not an advocacy of hyperindividualism, it is about healthy ego-separation and self-actualization, which counter-intuitively also helps with social cohesion because it prevents ressentiment.
> For example if we had perfect AI-robot slaves we'd all be jobless. Would it be a problem?
i mean, it almost certainly would be, right? feel like we very instinctively/subconsciously derive our self-worth from what we're worth to our society (which tautologically comes from the share of responsibilities we take on).
maybe the jobs wouldn't resemble anything like those of today, but i have no doubt we have an innate need to be doing things that
1) are necessary/valuable to other people
2) visibly satisfy 1)
i mean, it almost certainly would be, right? feel like we very instinctively/subconsciously derive our self-worth from what we're worth to our society (which tautologically comes from the share of responsibilities we take on).
maybe the jobs wouldn't resemble anything like those of today, but i have no doubt we have an innate need to be doing things that
1) are necessary/valuable to other people
2) visibly satisfy 1)
> self-worth from what we're worth to our society
Is employer granted employment the only way to have value in a society?
Personally I value motherhood far more than anything a woman could do in the workplace. Of course it's her choice what she wants to do with her life, but it's my opinion that there's little more important to a society than intensive investment in its children.
Is employer granted employment the only way to have value in a society?
Personally I value motherhood far more than anything a woman could do in the workplace. Of course it's her choice what she wants to do with her life, but it's my opinion that there's little more important to a society than intensive investment in its children.
Just wanted to say that this seems like a very weird statement to me.
I don't consider motherhood to be anything easy but valuing something majority of women can do over 'anything', however revolutionary, amazing or generally helpful a person can do at work seems almost insulting.
just so it's clear I'm not saying that women cannot do whatever a man can in the workplace. I'm saying women can do something that a man cannot "outside" the workplace -- that is gestate, and to some extent bond with and grow, a child.
And I know it seems like "Can't the contribute more at the workplace? Imagine a woman with IQ >= 120 What about research etc?" Well to the extent that desirable traits are heritable is to the extent we want/need these women to be mothers. And iirc the research indicates children grow optimally w/ their biological parents, both of them, and plenty of bonding time. This is in direct contradiction to the mother making deep commitments outside the home. Sadly it becomes a binary choice between being a fantastic mother or a fantastic contributor to a cause/research/business. I dont say this to denigrate anyone, but to recognize the real human limits of everyone involved.
IMO kind of like clean air/water or stable food supply we under estimate the importance of the task because of it being commonplace.
Remove the ability (or actuality) of having kids and much of our society would collapse in ~20 yrs time. All the people involved with making goods for, teaching, training, sports etc around children would be unemployed. Housing market would have a massive shift because who needs extra bedrooms? Politicians + news anchors would just Say "Women" insted of "Women and children" etc. It would completely disrupt society.
And I know it seems like "Can't the contribute more at the workplace? Imagine a woman with IQ >= 120 What about research etc?" Well to the extent that desirable traits are heritable is to the extent we want/need these women to be mothers. And iirc the research indicates children grow optimally w/ their biological parents, both of them, and plenty of bonding time. This is in direct contradiction to the mother making deep commitments outside the home. Sadly it becomes a binary choice between being a fantastic mother or a fantastic contributor to a cause/research/business. I dont say this to denigrate anyone, but to recognize the real human limits of everyone involved.
IMO kind of like clean air/water or stable food supply we under estimate the importance of the task because of it being commonplace.
Remove the ability (or actuality) of having kids and much of our society would collapse in ~20 yrs time. All the people involved with making goods for, teaching, training, sports etc around children would be unemployed. Housing market would have a massive shift because who needs extra bedrooms? Politicians + news anchors would just Say "Women" insted of "Women and children" etc. It would completely disrupt society.
i agree 1000%, and i don’t think anything i said contradicts what you’re saying :)
my point wasn’t meant to be about employment, but about having something important to do/contribute, should have caveated that it wasn’t just about “jobs”
my point wasn’t meant to be about employment, but about having something important to do/contribute, should have caveated that it wasn’t just about “jobs”
The "So What" comes into play here in that this may not be the situation that this generation wants to be in. It is one thing, if this generation is choosing to not seek employment and cohabit with their parents, it is quite another if they have no choice and are being forced into this situation.
It is a bit like saying, people are living in tents on the sidewalk. "So what?". Plenty of people live with less than a tent and some even choose to do so. We have to go one step further and ask ourselves if this is a life that these people are choosing to lead, or if it is one that has been thrust upon them through a lack of options.
It is a bit like saying, people are living in tents on the sidewalk. "So what?". Plenty of people live with less than a tent and some even choose to do so. We have to go one step further and ask ourselves if this is a life that these people are choosing to lead, or if it is one that has been thrust upon them through a lack of options.
Of course it's perjorative. The issue isn't with staying at home, it's with staying at home and doing nothing. If you have all your needs provided for you should seek out to do something meaningful.
Problem is not that these people are not working. They never enter into adulthood. They do not have purpose/responsibility in theirs life. No spouse, children or anything to care. They will quickly develop mental problems and become homeless once parents die. They will become bigger problem than NEET generation in UK.
I wonder if it does not go back a bit further than that. An internal bias towards not living with your parents could be the foundation of modern humans dispersing into every marginally habitable corner the planet in not many generations.
(disclaimer; source unfounded speculation by me)
What about when your parents die and your jobless and parentless?
I think those two properties are probably assumed to be indicative of a pretty unsurprising ticking timebomb for the poor situation brewing in the individual's future. Basically it's a strong signal of lack of independence and a strong sign of dependence, dependency upon a parent who is the one taking care of business in some way that keeps the bills paid and the both of them alive. When the parent passes on how will these individuals function and survive I think is the big gaping question.
To further aggravate things too I suppose, if the parent's health declines and requires the financial help of their children who cannot provide it then you're left with a situation where two dependents are present to the situation.
To further aggravate things too I suppose, if the parent's health declines and requires the financial help of their children who cannot provide it then you're left with a situation where two dependents are present to the situation.
In my early 20s, I actually liked living with my parents and utterly hated that I had to move out when I had a job...man the food.
Can you show me the society that has used robots to replace the need for widespread employment?
The closest I can think of is Brunei and (previously) Saudi Arabia.
Both countries have massive oil income that is generated without regard to whether the citizens are employed.
They don’t use “robot slaves”, but hire foreigners to pump the oil - and do everything else.
Neither are particularly libertarian. They use religion as a way of imposing social discipline.
Saudi Arabia has been moving away from this model.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/02/brunei-spoiled-subjects-of-t...
The closest I can think of is Brunei and (previously) Saudi Arabia.
Both countries have massive oil income that is generated without regard to whether the citizens are employed.
They don’t use “robot slaves”, but hire foreigners to pump the oil - and do everything else.
Neither are particularly libertarian. They use religion as a way of imposing social discipline.
Saudi Arabia has been moving away from this model.
https://thediplomat.com/2020/02/brunei-spoiled-subjects-of-t...
I wonder how much the stories about Japanese unemployment are just driven the the need for a good story vs. looking at actual figures. The Japanese labor force participation rate for 15-64 year-olds rose from about 70% in 1990 to 79% in 2020, as estimated by the International Labour Organization. In that time frame, it overtook China and the US (both have falling labor force participation rates) and the only other country with a similar trajectory I could find is Germany. Most other countries I tried have much lower rates.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS?location...
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS?location...
The participation rate is a really coarse measure.
In Japan, it has increased mainly because among the younger generation, far more women stay in the workforce after their 20s. But as the article describes, their career prospects are very limited and few of them ever get a chance at stable lifetime employment that used to be the norm (but is also becoming less and less available) for men.
In Japan, it has increased mainly because among the younger generation, far more women stay in the workforce after their 20s. But as the article describes, their career prospects are very limited and few of them ever get a chance at stable lifetime employment that used to be the norm (but is also becoming less and less available) for men.
The male labor force participation rate grew from 83% to 86%. So although the increase was greater for women (from 57% to 72%), that hasn't reduced male employment.
Male https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.MA.ZS?locat...
Female https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.FE.ZS?locat...
By "stable lifetime employment" do you mean staying at a single company for one's whole working life? Do you have any statistics showing that this is decreasing? (Even if it does, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.)
Male https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.MA.ZS?locat...
Female https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.ACTI.FE.ZS?locat...
By "stable lifetime employment" do you mean staying at a single company for one's whole working life? Do you have any statistics showing that this is decreasing? (Even if it does, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.)
> By "stable lifetime employment" do you mean staying at a single company for one's whole working life?
Mainly I mean a full-time, non-temporary work contract. Traditionally, in Japan that kind of contract also implies "staying at a single company for one's whole working life".
> Do you have any statistics showing that this is decreasing?
Look at the second chart here: https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00151/
> Even if it does, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
You think so because in the US and Europe, "staying at a single company for one's whole working life" is usually sub-optimal for the employee's career and earning potential. When switching companies, you can usually negotiate a higher salary than you could get via raises at your old company.
In Japan, it's different. High salaries and career prospects are basically only available in those "staying at a single company for one's whole working life" gigs, and they are given only to fresh university graduates. If you don't manage to get one of those (because companies weren't hiring when you were a fresh graduate), you'll be forever a second-class employee with a temporary contract, lower pay and less benefits.
Mainly I mean a full-time, non-temporary work contract. Traditionally, in Japan that kind of contract also implies "staying at a single company for one's whole working life".
> Do you have any statistics showing that this is decreasing?
Look at the second chart here: https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00151/
> Even if it does, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.
You think so because in the US and Europe, "staying at a single company for one's whole working life" is usually sub-optimal for the employee's career and earning potential. When switching companies, you can usually negotiate a higher salary than you could get via raises at your old company.
In Japan, it's different. High salaries and career prospects are basically only available in those "staying at a single company for one's whole working life" gigs, and they are given only to fresh university graduates. If you don't manage to get one of those (because companies weren't hiring when you were a fresh graduate), you'll be forever a second-class employee with a temporary contract, lower pay and less benefits.
It's very easy in japan to find a "baito" job, that is low skill, part time and paid at the hour and with no benefits. People like the "freeters" cumulate several of these jobs to earn a decent monthly wage. The problem is of course that there is no security of employment, very little rights and as I said no benefits like pension. Housing is still doable as the market is not too high tension, but it's pretty much impossible for them to get a loan for anything. Raising children and sending them to higher education is pretty much not feasible.
I guess for US people it's pretty similar to the fast-food workers earning less than livable wage.
This is more a story about a particular subset of unemployed that follow a rather stereotypical pattern, not the norm. They fizzle out around college, then practically never do anything which requires initiative after that. It seems like just a manifestation of how mental illness can play out within that particular culture.
The things that stand out to me about Japan:
* 3rd largest economy.
* 11th largest population (top 10 until recently, they basically tie with Mexico).
* If you look at a table of countries by area, they are there. Even in the top half, thanks to places like Tuvalu.
I think there is a very strong on-the-face-of-it argument that they just have too many people and not enough for them to do, economically speaking. If they could drop their population and keep the economy about the same (and if they have so many dead-end jobs and so few opportunities, they could) then they would be both a wealthy country and absurdly wealthy on a personal level.
* 3rd largest economy.
* 11th largest population (top 10 until recently, they basically tie with Mexico).
* If you look at a table of countries by area, they are there. Even in the top half, thanks to places like Tuvalu.
I think there is a very strong on-the-face-of-it argument that they just have too many people and not enough for them to do, economically speaking. If they could drop their population and keep the economy about the same (and if they have so many dead-end jobs and so few opportunities, they could) then they would be both a wealthy country and absurdly wealthy on a personal level.
That's not how economy works.
There is no such thing in general as "too many people for the economy".
"The economy" is the sum of goods and services produced and consumed. Everyone who lives consumes, and could easily consume more. The economy is generally limited by the ability to produce, and is generally limited by the number of working-age people to do the producing. Unemployment can be result of production being bottlenecked by something else:
Companies would rather hire a new 22 year old graduate at full pay than give a 30 year old with an even better degree a chance at a 30% discount, not out of concerns over the 30 year old's skills being outdated but simply because hiring new graduates is what you do. They'll hire non-graduates only on temporary contracts when short of workers, but never in a million years consider promoting them and converting them to regular employees, no matter how good they are.
There is no such thing in general as "too many people for the economy".
"The economy" is the sum of goods and services produced and consumed. Everyone who lives consumes, and could easily consume more. The economy is generally limited by the ability to produce, and is generally limited by the number of working-age people to do the producing. Unemployment can be result of production being bottlenecked by something else:
* raw materials - but Japan never had an abundance of those even when their economy looked like it would dominate the world in the 80s
* education - but the people the article talks about have university degrees
* capital - again not something Japan lacks
Companies would rather hire a new 22 year old graduate at full pay than give a 30 year old with an even better degree a chance at a 30% discount, not out of concerns over the 30 year old's skills being outdated but simply because hiring new graduates is what you do. They'll hire non-graduates only on temporary contracts when short of workers, but never in a million years consider promoting them and converting them to regular employees, no matter how good they are.
On HN when people discuss CS/privacy/programming the conversation is very thorough and interesting.
When the discussion is about economics (the topic I have studied at uni) most comments are just plain wrong and show a complete ignorance about the topic.
If one wants a counter argument to "too many people for the economy" one can start here : https://www.jstor.org/stable/2523702?seq=1
"Using data from the Current Population Survey, this paper describes the effect of the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 on the Miami labor market. The Mariel immigrants increased the Miami labor force by 7%, and the percentage increase in labor supply to less-skilled occupations and industries was even greater because most of the immigrants were relatively unskilled. Nevertheless, the Mariel influx appears to have had virtually no effect on the wages or unemployment rates of less-skilled workers, even among Cubans who had immigrated earlier. The author suggests that the ability of Miami's labor market to rapidly absorb the Mariel immigrants was largely owing to its adjustment to other large waves of immigrants in the two decades before the Mariel Boatlift."
There are many causes explaining unemployment some due to macroeconomic factors such as the monetary policy, others due to regulations of the labor market, others due to the lack of innovation, ..... They have been studied in depth. But "too many people for the economy" is not one of them.
When the discussion is about economics (the topic I have studied at uni) most comments are just plain wrong and show a complete ignorance about the topic.
If one wants a counter argument to "too many people for the economy" one can start here : https://www.jstor.org/stable/2523702?seq=1
"Using data from the Current Population Survey, this paper describes the effect of the Mariel Boatlift of 1980 on the Miami labor market. The Mariel immigrants increased the Miami labor force by 7%, and the percentage increase in labor supply to less-skilled occupations and industries was even greater because most of the immigrants were relatively unskilled. Nevertheless, the Mariel influx appears to have had virtually no effect on the wages or unemployment rates of less-skilled workers, even among Cubans who had immigrated earlier. The author suggests that the ability of Miami's labor market to rapidly absorb the Mariel immigrants was largely owing to its adjustment to other large waves of immigrants in the two decades before the Mariel Boatlift."
There are many causes explaining unemployment some due to macroeconomic factors such as the monetary policy, others due to regulations of the labor market, others due to the lack of innovation, ..... They have been studied in depth. But "too many people for the economy" is not one of them.
> most comments are just plain wrong and show a complete ignorance about the topic.
This seems to be a problem inherent to many such forums on the internet. When the discussion is controlled by a certain subset of that population, usually via comments, submissions and voting, that subset tends to self-select and alienate alternative viewpoints. Participants are rewarded with a sense of validation for things that appeal to the group but aren't necessarily true or accurate(or humane, fair, respectful, etc).
I think this topic needs a whole lot more analysis and public debate as more and more opinions are solidified in these balkanized communities. I quit reddit over these issues and am hanging on to HN by a thread. At this point I'd rather pay to hear opinions and analysis of experts than be influenced by, and participate in, internet echo chambers.
This seems to be a problem inherent to many such forums on the internet. When the discussion is controlled by a certain subset of that population, usually via comments, submissions and voting, that subset tends to self-select and alienate alternative viewpoints. Participants are rewarded with a sense of validation for things that appeal to the group but aren't necessarily true or accurate(or humane, fair, respectful, etc).
I think this topic needs a whole lot more analysis and public debate as more and more opinions are solidified in these balkanized communities. I quit reddit over these issues and am hanging on to HN by a thread. At this point I'd rather pay to hear opinions and analysis of experts than be influenced by, and participate in, internet echo chambers.
You have to become an expert to evaluate the expertise of "experts".
The workaround is to try to get better at using methods to pool the wisdom of "experts", to evaluate their claims based on external attributes (eg. looking at the journal that published the paper, looking at other claims of the expert, looking at the methods used to arrive at the claims, examining the used statistical methods, etc.), see also how prediction markets force "experts" to support their confidence with their money - and of course these markets are not infallible either.
The workaround is to try to get better at using methods to pool the wisdom of "experts", to evaluate their claims based on external attributes (eg. looking at the journal that published the paper, looking at other claims of the expert, looking at the methods used to arrive at the claims, examining the used statistical methods, etc.), see also how prediction markets force "experts" to support their confidence with their money - and of course these markets are not infallible either.
> If one wants a counter argument to "too many people for the economy" one can start here : https://www.jstor.org/stable/2523702?seq=1
Or you can just point out that, well, if there are too many people, just (virtually) split the country down the middle: voila, fewer people in the country.
A more sophisticated argument brings up density. But it's usually the sparsely populated parts of a country that are poorer.
Or you can just point out that, well, if there are too many people, just (virtually) split the country down the middle: voila, fewer people in the country.
A more sophisticated argument brings up density. But it's usually the sparsely populated parts of a country that are poorer.
Ah the "snap" strategy.
> When the discussion is about economics (the topic I have studied at uni) most comments are just plain wrong and show a complete ignorance about the topic.
Imagine how little they know about the topics you haven’t studied.
The overall quality of comments here is the same as every other niche discussion forum. OK on the original topic. Pretty poor on everything else. The only advantage is that this place at least has some moderation.
Imagine how little they know about the topics you haven’t studied.
The overall quality of comments here is the same as every other niche discussion forum. OK on the original topic. Pretty poor on everything else. The only advantage is that this place at least has some moderation.
> When the discussion is about economics (the topic I have studied at uni) most comments are just plain wrong and show a complete ignorance about the topic.
I think curating a discussion board to have knowledgeable discussion about many things is a really hard task. On many professional boards, discussions about other subjects are put into an OT corner. HN doesn't split discussions into topics so I guess expectation of comments' quality carries over.
I would just make a mental note: Oh this is not about CS/privacy/programming and adjust accordingly.
I suppose it's one of the reasons one should acquaint themselves with people from a variety of backgrounds and don't run away when others are not as knowledgeable about CS/privacy/programming. Actually
I think curating a discussion board to have knowledgeable discussion about many things is a really hard task. On many professional boards, discussions about other subjects are put into an OT corner. HN doesn't split discussions into topics so I guess expectation of comments' quality carries over.
I would just make a mental note: Oh this is not about CS/privacy/programming and adjust accordingly.
I suppose it's one of the reasons one should acquaint themselves with people from a variety of backgrounds and don't run away when others are not as knowledgeable about CS/privacy/programming. Actually
HN's issue with broad topic knowledge is considerably worse than just the difficulty of curation.
For example, I emailed the staff with regard to the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on HN and the response was that it is policy not to remove COVID-19 misinformation (including raving conspiracy theories) but also to allow flagging by the 'community' to remove posts pointing out that something is misinformation.
Tacitly allowing the platform to be used to give a mouthpiece to spread misinformation and allowing users to bully people for injecting some degree of factual reality does not encourage good discussion.
Facilitating knowledgeable discussion across a broad range of topics starts with attracting people who are knowledgeable in many areas, and that cannot happen in an environment where the administration allows mob bullying--through the very thin veneer of the downvote/flag system--of people who actually know things.
For example, I emailed the staff with regard to the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation on HN and the response was that it is policy not to remove COVID-19 misinformation (including raving conspiracy theories) but also to allow flagging by the 'community' to remove posts pointing out that something is misinformation.
Tacitly allowing the platform to be used to give a mouthpiece to spread misinformation and allowing users to bully people for injecting some degree of factual reality does not encourage good discussion.
Facilitating knowledgeable discussion across a broad range of topics starts with attracting people who are knowledgeable in many areas, and that cannot happen in an environment where the administration allows mob bullying--through the very thin veneer of the downvote/flag system--of people who actually know things.
We already have a solution to the too many people problem. It is called inflation. Inflation rewards future economic activity. It means you can't sit on your savings. You have to keep working for yourself or let someone else work by investing your money.
The Japanese central bank has been trying to increase the inflation rate for years, with limited success.
see also: Malthus.
>That's not how economy works.
>There is no such thing in general as "too many people for the economy".
I think you have it wrong as well. The size of the economy doesn't really matter. We don't say Norway isn't viable because its size is only a fifth of that of the UK. There is no point in doubling the size of the population to make the economy twice as big when each person is no better off. Especially when we are increasingly bumping up against ecological limits.
I think you have it wrong as well. The size of the economy doesn't really matter. We don't say Norway isn't viable because its size is only a fifth of that of the UK. There is no point in doubling the size of the population to make the economy twice as big when each person is no better off. Especially when we are increasingly bumping up against ecological limits.
Like others having lived there for a short period of time, I agree with this observation. The cultural premium on risk, that may merely inconvenience someone, is unreasonably high (by my standard, anyway). Ever have to pay a bribe to a landlord to rent an apartment as a matter of accepted business protocol? Look up "reikin". Then you'll realize why some think it's totally reasonable to live out of an internet cafe.
Loads of countries have something functionally equivalent to reikin - just they call it a "background check fee" or "credit check fee" or "administration charge" or "inventory fee"
Calling it a bribe is seriously misleading. A bribe implies illegal or dishonest behavior. But reikin is perfectly legal, and is typically fully disclosed up front in the rental listing.
It’s basically just a one-time fee that is paid up front - something which is not at all uncommon in the world of commerce.
It’s basically just a one-time fee that is paid up front - something which is not at all uncommon in the world of commerce.
It's not a bribe. That's your negative spin. The positive spin is it's just 2/26th pre-payment of the rent for 2 years. You then pay 1/26th every month for 2 years, repeat when you renew your contract. Do I like having to pay 2/26th up front (2 months rent?) no. But I also would prefer not to have to put down payments on cars/houses.
If it truly were a pre-payment, it would be partially refunded when the rental contract terminates early.
You are wrong. Those fees are added to the normal rent, they are not part of it. I choose my current appartment in part because there was no additional "gift money" to pay. Each time one moves place those have to be paid, which makes moving quite costly.
I'm not wrong. Different apartments give different offers just like everything else in the world.
I think gfxgirl's point is that you can mentally model the gift money as added on the rent, and use that number when comparing apartments.
Ex. 50/mo + 240 gift money (for a 2 year lease) == 60/mo without gift money.
Ex. 50/mo + 240 gift money (for a 2 year lease) == 60/mo without gift money.
Economies not only produce, they also take. For example, two free people could engage in free trade where one is holding a gun and the other voluntarily gives up their wallet. At scale we call that a Trade Agreement.
I'm unsure where you're going with this comment?
I'm saying an empire's wealth in large part is a function of it's military - in modern times, that would be the USA aircraft carriers parked off the persian gulf and china https://news.usni.org/category/fleet-tracker
That is exactly how the economy works.
Demand and supply. Oversupply in labor results directly in diminishing incomes and the ability of employers to be extremely picky about who to hire (e.g. like you said nobody over 30).
Demand and supply. Oversupply in labor results directly in diminishing incomes and the ability of employers to be extremely picky about who to hire (e.g. like you said nobody over 30).
Wrong because every person who supplies labor also generates demand for goods and services, which generates demand for labor. Simply "removing" unemployed people would not in fact fix the oversupply of labor.
I also explained that the problem is not just that employers are picky because of an oversupply, they are picky in ways that are actually not really in their own interest and which contribute to the oversupply problem.
I also explained that the problem is not just that employers are picky because of an oversupply, they are picky in ways that are actually not really in their own interest and which contribute to the oversupply problem.
Wrong. Additional demand beyond bare necessities is only generated if there is disposable income available which is not the case when there is a oversupply of labor driving down wages.
If employers would act systematically against their own interest by hiring only young people it would be easy for investors to come in eliminate them in the market. But they won't because they can't. Employers prefer young people because they are cheap and they hire them because they can.
If employers would act systematically against their own interest by hiring only young people it would be easy for investors to come in eliminate them in the market. But they won't because they can't. Employers prefer young people because they are cheap and they hire them because they can.
Oh boy. The bare necessities of someone is already "additional demand" over that person not being present. Disposable income is a completely irrelevant factor here. In fact, disposable income is the part that doesn't generate the same level of economic demand because it can be saved rather than spent.
And no, it is not easy for investors to outcompete incumbents simply by being more efficient with their employment policies, especially not in a society like Japan. And my point is that employers are not hiring older people even though they could pay them less.
And no, it is not easy for investors to outcompete incumbents simply by being more efficient with their employment policies, especially not in a society like Japan. And my point is that employers are not hiring older people even though they could pay them less.
> There is no such thing in general as "too many people for the economy".
Sure there is. If nothing else, at some point you have more people than can be physically fed with the available land.
Each additional person uses up a certain amount of resources. If the marginal resource gain of adding another worker is smaller than that; then economically there are too many people. There is no principle saying that cannot happen.
Sure there is. If nothing else, at some point you have more people than can be physically fed with the available land.
Each additional person uses up a certain amount of resources. If the marginal resource gain of adding another worker is smaller than that; then economically there are too many people. There is no principle saying that cannot happen.
I did explicitly explain that the economy can be bottlenecked on other things (which is where that "in general" comes from) and why the one that seems to apply in the case of Japan has nothing to do with there being too many people.
> If nothing else, at some point you have more people than can be physically fed with the available land.
The malthusian argument has been used since the old ages to argue for fewer people because of resource shortages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism#Modern_Malthusia...). It has not eventuated.
The more people there are, the more minds there are at looking for solutions to problems, the more able the human race will be. But of course, these people need investment to obtain benefit - they can't just be empty mouths to feed.
The malthusian argument has been used since the old ages to argue for fewer people because of resource shortages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism#Modern_Malthusia...). It has not eventuated.
The more people there are, the more minds there are at looking for solutions to problems, the more able the human race will be. But of course, these people need investment to obtain benefit - they can't just be empty mouths to feed.
Well, water shortages in some places are coming dangerously close to the Malthusian problem eventuating.
Drought has contributed to the Syrian civil war and Egypt threatened Ethiopia with war over their megadamming project on the Blue Nile. Places like Yemen have an order of magnitude more people than in 1950 while relying on the same water resources.
This is not an easy problem to solve, water is too heavy to transport in significant amounts to places like Sanaa (elevation 7000 ft, over a million people, mild desert climate).
Drought has contributed to the Syrian civil war and Egypt threatened Ethiopia with war over their megadamming project on the Blue Nile. Places like Yemen have an order of magnitude more people than in 1950 while relying on the same water resources.
This is not an easy problem to solve, water is too heavy to transport in significant amounts to places like Sanaa (elevation 7000 ft, over a million people, mild desert climate).
What is the argument there, that I can't point to Japan as an example of Malthusianism because you don't believe in Malthusianism?
There is a physical limit somewhere. Just because we didn't find it in the last hundred years doesn't mean we won't in the future. Real growth in % terms eventually stops because it hits a physical limit; that isn't a controversial idea. It is almost too obvious to state. Humanity can't maintain 1% Year-on-year growth in crop yield indefinitely. At some point; the improvements stop. The longer the improvements have been going on for the more likely it is they will stop.
There is a physical limit somewhere. Just because we didn't find it in the last hundred years doesn't mean we won't in the future. Real growth in % terms eventually stops because it hits a physical limit; that isn't a controversial idea. It is almost too obvious to state. Humanity can't maintain 1% Year-on-year growth in crop yield indefinitely. At some point; the improvements stop. The longer the improvements have been going on for the more likely it is they will stop.
Yes (and you can take that argument to deliciously absurd levels by pointing out that eventually humanity would have to form a sphere whose radius expands faster than light speed).
But concerning the actual topic at hand, Japan's labor market problems have nothing whatsoever to do with a resource or land shortage.
But concerning the actual topic at hand, Japan's labor market problems have nothing whatsoever to do with a resource or land shortage.
They probably have something to do with that. At the moment, for Japan has a tiny handful of iron mines [0]. So if they want to produce a steel widget, they have to justify someone transporting the iron either through the Chinese mainland or up the coast, past a lot of people who are learning to do wonderful things with steel. They import a lot of coal from Australia but China has relatively easy access overland from provinces like Inner Mongolia.
I'm not sure how much of an advantage they gain from having very easy port access by virtue of being an island (probably quite a big one, I assume). But it is hard to accept they wouldn't be having a much easier time if they had easy access to something like the Saudi oil fields, the US oil fields, the Chinese coal fields, etc etc. They are a long way away from the good sources of natural resources.
And they struggle to be self sufficient in food in the first result I found [1]. That is pretty different from somewhere like the US. There is a real risk of war in East Asia, so I imagine they'd be quite uncomfortable with that.
They have completely different resource-use problems than the economies that are larger than they are. The idea that the US would have to exert itself to be self sufficient in food is rather weird, as is the idea that China would struggle to justify transporting resources to the country from Mongolia, etc. It is obvious to me what could be done with more people in the US or China. In Japan there is probably something, but it does require actual ability to find instead of just "dig more, grow more, build more, forge more" that their competitors for the best-economy crown can manage.
Japan needs transformative technological improvements to grow. The US needs warm bodies. China needed to stop the Great Leap Forward and put competent leaders in charge. The Japanese challenge is much greater.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mines_in_Japan
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture,_forestry,_and_fis...
I'm not sure how much of an advantage they gain from having very easy port access by virtue of being an island (probably quite a big one, I assume). But it is hard to accept they wouldn't be having a much easier time if they had easy access to something like the Saudi oil fields, the US oil fields, the Chinese coal fields, etc etc. They are a long way away from the good sources of natural resources.
And they struggle to be self sufficient in food in the first result I found [1]. That is pretty different from somewhere like the US. There is a real risk of war in East Asia, so I imagine they'd be quite uncomfortable with that.
They have completely different resource-use problems than the economies that are larger than they are. The idea that the US would have to exert itself to be self sufficient in food is rather weird, as is the idea that China would struggle to justify transporting resources to the country from Mongolia, etc. It is obvious to me what could be done with more people in the US or China. In Japan there is probably something, but it does require actual ability to find instead of just "dig more, grow more, build more, forge more" that their competitors for the best-economy crown can manage.
Japan needs transformative technological improvements to grow. The US needs warm bodies. China needed to stop the Great Leap Forward and put competent leaders in charge. The Japanese challenge is much greater.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mines_in_Japan
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture,_forestry,_and_fis...
Japan in the 1980 didn't have any better access to natural resources than it has today, yet it didn't have the labor market problems described in the article. Many, many other countries don't have a lot of natural resources and are not having these problems.
My basic argument is Japan (might have, I did see a few convincing counters in other parts of the thread that were convincing) too many people for the amount of land they have.
Your counterargument is that they didn't have a problem in 1980, when they had less people and the same amount of land. I can't disagree with that, but it isn't relevant.
> Many, many other countries don't have a lot of natural resources and are not having these problems.
They have the 3rd largest economy in the world. It goes US, China and then Japan. 30% higher GDP than the next contender, Germany. If there are any non-linear economic effects at all between size and labour market, Japan is going to find them first.
Your counterargument is that they didn't have a problem in 1980, when they had less people and the same amount of land. I can't disagree with that, but it isn't relevant.
> Many, many other countries don't have a lot of natural resources and are not having these problems.
They have the 3rd largest economy in the world. It goes US, China and then Japan. 30% higher GDP than the next contender, Germany. If there are any non-linear economic effects at all between size and labour market, Japan is going to find them first.
Japan has a smaller population now than they had in 1980, and a much smaller working age population:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan
You may have misread the numbers slightly; population of ~117 million in 1980 and a population of ~ 125 million today.
And the chart in that article shows that they basically stopped having children in 1980 which would be consistent with a "running out of resources" hypothesis as a root cause. If they hit a wall in economic carrying capacity circa 1980 that chart would supporting evidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan
And the chart in that article shows that they basically stopped having children in 1980 which would be consistent with a "running out of resources" hypothesis as a root cause. If they hit a wall in economic carrying capacity circa 1980 that chart would supporting evidence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan
I watch NHK US a bit. Every night they have some show with a westerner riding some train line or riding a bike around and the landscape - which is pretty thin on people. Train lines manned by retired workers just to keep them going. Cyclist stops at at famous peach or strawberry orchards and there is some 90 year old on their knees weeding, kids are all in the city. Of course, it will all become industrial agro-farming once they're gone, but is that the best cultural, social, economic solution?
It reminds me of western Ireland. Hiking around for hours through the country and not seeing a living soul. Expensive (holiday I assume) houses with slate roofs on a couple of hectares and empty.
It reminds me of western Ireland. Hiking around for hours through the country and not seeing a living soul. Expensive (holiday I assume) houses with slate roofs on a couple of hectares and empty.
Western Ireland has been like that since the Great Potato Famine in 1840. Beautiful country; I've ridden from Carna to Galway on horseback. Not good farmland, though.
This sounds interesting, I'd love to watch it, could you link to one of those videos? I see lots of video results for NHK US, but a lot don't seem to be of the type that you're talking about.
YT has mostly clips, not the full shows. These are broadcast on HDTV and probably some cable markets.
Cycling shows: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/cycle/ Train: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/japanrailway/
The best series is Document 72 Hours: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/72hours/
Some can be seen on demand, others, they’ll give a repeat date. These are fascinating, and be warned, they can swing from happy to gut wrenching. There’s one episode where they’re in a Home Center talking to kids about their projects and the next they’re talking to a guy about kitchen tiles. He talks about his wife always wanting a new kitchen, but he was always too busy... and now she’s dead. So he’s working on the kitchen in her memory.
It’s an introspection on a society that is fraying at the edges. The producers seem to be trying to communicate that. As Krugman says, if you want to know our future, look to Japan.
Cycling shows: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/cycle/ Train: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/japanrailway/
The best series is Document 72 Hours: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/tv/72hours/
Some can be seen on demand, others, they’ll give a repeat date. These are fascinating, and be warned, they can swing from happy to gut wrenching. There’s one episode where they’re in a Home Center talking to kids about their projects and the next they’re talking to a guy about kitchen tiles. He talks about his wife always wanting a new kitchen, but he was always too busy... and now she’s dead. So he’s working on the kitchen in her memory.
It’s an introspection on a society that is fraying at the edges. The producers seem to be trying to communicate that. As Krugman says, if you want to know our future, look to Japan.
NHK is just a national broadcaster, like NBC in the US. I assume the grandparent means semi-promotional documentaries about the Japanese countryside, like this.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6yhndEdqrI
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6yhndEdqrI
I love how you are exposing the cognitive dissonance between too many people for the economy/world and immigrants do not depress wages. How can someone hold these two views simultaneously are they not the same, just at a different scale?
> I think there is a very strong on-the-face-of-it argument that they just have too many people and not enough for them to do, economically speaking.
Japan's greatest problem is that they have a geriatric population, coupled with low fertility rates, and an extremely unhealthy work ethic/culture. But, as usual with demographic stuff, the nasty effects won't really appear visible for decades - and by then it may very well be too late.
Japan's greatest problem is that they have a geriatric population, coupled with low fertility rates, and an extremely unhealthy work ethic/culture. But, as usual with demographic stuff, the nasty effects won't really appear visible for decades - and by then it may very well be too late.
what a ridiculous assumption that there could be too many people and not enough for them to do.
in the last decade japanees workforce grew despite overall population decline/getting old. mainly due to women participation increase. If there was not enough to do it wouldn't be possible.
almost all on-the-face-of-it arguments are oversimplification of largely complex issues. Sadly most(all of them?) government interventions are done by politicians on the basis of such arguments...
in the last decade japanees workforce grew despite overall population decline/getting old. mainly due to women participation increase. If there was not enough to do it wouldn't be possible.
almost all on-the-face-of-it arguments are oversimplification of largely complex issues. Sadly most(all of them?) government interventions are done by politicians on the basis of such arguments...
People here are disagreeing with you, but I actually think you're exactly right about most modern economies: too many people and too few jobs leads to all sorts of social issues from wealth inequality to excessive hours to crazy house prices.
> too many people and too few jobs leads to all sorts of social issues from wealth inequality ...
You have causation exactly backwards.
If poor people had higher incomes they would spend them. (In the jargon: "marginal propensity to consume declines with income".) That spending would create jobs and sustain incomes for other people like them. I know in my own case, if I had more money I would hire a personal shopper to buy my clothes, a cleaner, a personal trainer,...
Wealth and income inequality lead to stagnant societies where nobody is happy and most people are miserable.
You have causation exactly backwards.
If poor people had higher incomes they would spend them. (In the jargon: "marginal propensity to consume declines with income".) That spending would create jobs and sustain incomes for other people like them. I know in my own case, if I had more money I would hire a personal shopper to buy my clothes, a cleaner, a personal trainer,...
Wealth and income inequality lead to stagnant societies where nobody is happy and most people are miserable.
So Malthus was in a sense right, as the “too many people” issue has showed up constantly since he wrote his stuff. And before anyone comes and tells me that “he was wrong because the Earth can sustain 8-9 billion humans, like it does right now”, I’ll say that there’s no way Earth’s actual ecosystem can sustain a major part of that population regularly eating beef, or regularly flying, or having scattered individual houses instead of buildings with tens or more flats each etc.
You're awfully pessimistic and ignoring human creativity. And also human capacity for accepting compromises.
When Malthus lived, there were about 1 billion people. It's hard to estimate, but I'd guess at most 10% of those were living non-miserable lives, so about 100 million people at most.
Now the world middle class is 4 billion (40x) and the world upper class is probably around half a billion people (5x). I'm willing to bet that each and every one of those middle class individuals live better lives than the upper class of his time. We've been able to scale that 40x in 200 years. Despite wars, natural disasters, social strife, etc.
We're pretty resilient.
When Malthus lived, there were about 1 billion people. It's hard to estimate, but I'd guess at most 10% of those were living non-miserable lives, so about 100 million people at most.
Now the world middle class is 4 billion (40x) and the world upper class is probably around half a billion people (5x). I'm willing to bet that each and every one of those middle class individuals live better lives than the upper class of his time. We've been able to scale that 40x in 200 years. Despite wars, natural disasters, social strife, etc.
We're pretty resilient.
We have also incurred some ecological debt.
Which as things get more extreme we'll pay off. At this point we're at the "asking nicely" phase, but it will become "at gunpoint" if this doesn't work out.
Let us hope so. Your comparison is apt, but let us not forget that even at gunpoint, some people aren't in a position to pay and their bodies later get dumped into the harbor by the mob.
Where there is a debt, there might be a later bankruptcy.
Where there is a debt, there might be a later bankruptcy.
> You're awfully pessimistic and ignoring human creativity. And also human capacity for accepting compromises.
Sure we might manage to live with 10 billion people on the planet, maybe even more. But why would we want to? I see no value in having more people on the planet. If anything it only reduces the value of each individual.
Sure we might manage to live with 10 billion people on the planet, maybe even more. But why would we want to? I see no value in having more people on the planet. If anything it only reduces the value of each individual.
> I see no value in having more people on the planet. If anything it only reduces the value of each individual.
Does it? A group of people who just know how to raise and care for nerfs may not be worth anything to me. But add a bunch more people who know how to turn nerf wool into a high-quality textile and I start to value the nerf herders a lot more.
Does it? A group of people who just know how to raise and care for nerfs may not be worth anything to me. But add a bunch more people who know how to turn nerf wool into a high-quality textile and I start to value the nerf herders a lot more.
I'm not saying that I want more people (or fewer people) on the planet.
It's just a fact. We're 8 billion and we'll probably be 11 billion when we reach peak population.
> I see no value in having more people on the planet.
I have to point out that you say this as a person on this planet :-)
It's just a fact. We're 8 billion and we'll probably be 11 billion when we reach peak population.
> I see no value in having more people on the planet.
I have to point out that you say this as a person on this planet :-)
Malthus’ argument fits your later points, but not why a sub-population is experiencing unemployment. Unlike food, jobs don’t grow on trees.
I'd say this is effectively the opposite of Malthus, since too much food (or rather too many products in general) kills jobs, and more fundamentally, kills the ability to earn rent from investments.
I don’t think that’s how economies work, but I accept I am likely to have a very flawed understanding of the field.
More people means more potential consumers, surely? So the only way there could be “too many people” is if the market is dominated by goods which have a high one-off cost and trivial per-unit costs, such as software or other digital goods?
More people means more potential consumers, surely? So the only way there could be “too many people” is if the market is dominated by goods which have a high one-off cost and trivial per-unit costs, such as software or other digital goods?
Have you head of the Plant Kingdom?
They just stand around doing nothing the whole day.
They just stand around doing nothing the whole day.
But not just quantity of work, but also quality; the US is infamous for having millions of bullshit jobs with bad pay, poor working conditions, and no future prospects.
This was pretty bad with sub-minimum wage pay jobs (restaurant / bar industry, tipping culture) and people having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, but it's gotten worse with the race-to-the-bottom gig economy, 0-hour contracts, prison labor/slavery, no changes in minimum wage or worker rights, de-unionization / union discouragement, etc.
This was pretty bad with sub-minimum wage pay jobs (restaurant / bar industry, tipping culture) and people having to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, but it's gotten worse with the race-to-the-bottom gig economy, 0-hour contracts, prison labor/slavery, no changes in minimum wage or worker rights, de-unionization / union discouragement, etc.
I also agree with you. I feel that if there were a real shortage of labour (as opposed to our current shortage of cheap labour), a lot of bullshit jobs[1] would become a huge waste of resources.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kehnIQ41y2o
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kehnIQ41y2o
Their population will drop. Each couple only has something like 1.2 kids. Lack of people to pay down their debts will be the long term problem.
Most of the debt is held by the Japanese themselves. They control their own currency. It isn't likely to be a problem for them.
Even still, the debt is held by people who eventually expect to use it to find their retirements. They can avoid external driven shocks, but at some point a smaller population can’t produce enough care for a larger one. That will play out in the debt markets, either with defaults or inflation.
The BOJ has been trying to raise inflation for like 30 years now and has epically failed. Inflation will not be the problem. The velocity of money in Japan is criminally low.
It is going to be a problem because in an inflationary monetary system, you need to give out loans at a constantly increasing rate in order to pay off the debt of the previous generation.
If the new generation is not growing fast enough, they will not be able to afford to take out enough new debt to buy assets from the previous generation (thus allowing the previous generation to pay of their debts from the sale or lease of real estate), then prices could crash quickly when the previous generation starts defaulting on their loans.
It's also why real estate prices are so high in Japan. The older generation needs to squeeze out as much as they can from each member of the younger generation since there are so few of them in numbers.
It's also why real estate prices are so high in Japan. The older generation needs to squeeze out as much as they can from each member of the younger generation since there are so few of them in numbers.
It’s the opposite, no? In an inflationary environment your debt is worth less. (More money is printed to pay it off) That’s why countries inflate it away.
Yes, if there is a shortage of young labor then young labor can simply demand higher wages.
I’m wondering what you mean by “real estate prices are so high in Japan”? Relative to other countries? Or some point in the past in Japan?
My assumption is that declining population is leading to surplus housing and declining real-estate prices in most of the country.
And even in the Tokyo area where demand is still strong, homes are still more affordable than in other large cities like New York and London.
My assumption is that declining population is leading to surplus housing and declining real-estate prices in most of the country.
And even in the Tokyo area where demand is still strong, homes are still more affordable than in other large cities like New York and London.
I suspect it’s a historical observation. They used to be crazy high. (I lived in Tokyo over a decade ago. Prices were crazy then, but they’re roughly the same now. Meanwhile SF has gone up at least 3X in that timeframe)
There was a boom but this pre-dated the debt issue we are discussing in this part of the thread.
You can buy a detached house in the Tokyo Metropolitan area for less than a 1 bedroom condo in Vancouver, Canada. An old house for significantly less. This broad observation is easily confirmed by browsing real estate listings.
E.g. random hit: small 3LDK house in Kashiwa built in 1981:
https://house.goo.ne.jp/buy/uh/detail/4/12217/37091100002300...
6000000 yen ~= $60K USD.
E.g. random hit: small 3LDK house in Kashiwa built in 1981:
https://house.goo.ne.jp/buy/uh/detail/4/12217/37091100002300...
6000000 yen ~= $60K USD.
A friend of mine works at Amazon Japan. She's working 10-12 hrs a day, 6 days week. She gets paid no overtime. AFAIK that's illegal in Japan but here Amazon is doing it.
Not a big news, Amazon is a crap company exploiting its workers worldwide and creating a lot of externalities. If the practice is illegal, an employee could sue (and win) but that personal choice.
On the 10-12 hours, the concept of "work" in Japan is a big different than in the West, in particular because there seems to have almost no notion of productivity. I often see 4 people on a task that would be allocated to one worker in Europe, or 12 person cleaning the same square meter. That combined with perfectionism (again, with no notion of productivity) that if 1% improvement can be done with 300% effort they try to do it, is a perfect cocktail to raise the total "worked" hours.
And finally there is the bureaucracy. Today I spoke with someone about implementing an idea, where the implementation of the idea is literally sending an email. I spend 10 minutes explaining it. But that could not be done directly! No, that person need to consult her boss. How long this will take? Probably at least half an hour... 2 or 3 times more if there is back and forth with me through the intermediate person. How many "worked" hours does this represent in total? I plan on a least one man/hour. In my country: doing the task directly, which represents at least a 120 times better productivity...
On the 10-12 hours, the concept of "work" in Japan is a big different than in the West, in particular because there seems to have almost no notion of productivity. I often see 4 people on a task that would be allocated to one worker in Europe, or 12 person cleaning the same square meter. That combined with perfectionism (again, with no notion of productivity) that if 1% improvement can be done with 300% effort they try to do it, is a perfect cocktail to raise the total "worked" hours.
And finally there is the bureaucracy. Today I spoke with someone about implementing an idea, where the implementation of the idea is literally sending an email. I spend 10 minutes explaining it. But that could not be done directly! No, that person need to consult her boss. How long this will take? Probably at least half an hour... 2 or 3 times more if there is back and forth with me through the intermediate person. How many "worked" hours does this represent in total? I plan on a least one man/hour. In my country: doing the task directly, which represents at least a 120 times better productivity...
Isn't it like a cultural thing over there where you're expected to work overtime and essentially kill yourself for your company? Might be dated info but I remember someone saying nobody even thinks about going home before the boss regardless of when they got in so the boss never has the chance to see them leave.
No that's the government deliberately practice no oversight on corporations.
In Japanese employment, you can have a contract that pays you for overtime regardless of if you work it. Thus, in effect you don't get paid more for working more, but you are technically getting paid overtime by law.
Companies demanding unpaid overtime and long workweeks is common enough that Japanese literature has a term for them: Black Companies.
If they forced all the folks working sixty-hour weeks down to thirty, and hired the unemployed to fill the gaps, the country would be healthier.
What would that do to wages?
That depends entirely on government incentives to maintain wages and labor's power to demand the same.
The idea that wages are driven by market forces is only half true. Someone has to pull the trigger on underpaying people who ought to be earning a piving wage.
The idea that wages are driven by market forces is only half true. Someone has to pull the trigger on underpaying people who ought to be earning a piving wage.
They would adjust depending on how paid, salary or hourly. I believe productivity would be boosted over time as the rusty unemployed got back into the groove.
It'd probably do wonders for their economy, given the results from that Microsoft test where they only worked 4 days a week (https://www.npr.org/2019/11/04/776163853/microsoft-japan-say...).
With that boost, people could work less and they could afford to pay them more. It's a win win situation, but it's hard to change views when it comes to work.
Folks want to believe that working more is better, but really it's about quality over quantity.
We'd see crazy economic benefits if we stopped being traditionalists about work and started following the science / data.
With that boost, people could work less and they could afford to pay them more. It's a win win situation, but it's hard to change views when it comes to work.
Folks want to believe that working more is better, but really it's about quality over quantity.
We'd see crazy economic benefits if we stopped being traditionalists about work and started following the science / data.
People working 60 hours aren't going to have time to consume services. If everyone worked 30 hours instead, you'd probably see an increase in the demand for services (entertainment, fitness, etc). This would result in an increase in GDP, growth in the economy, and likely more demand for workers.
But that's just my econ 101 knowledge.
But that's just my econ 101 knowledge.
Yup, and they'd have time to start their own pursuits or small businesses. It's really a win win.
If cutting hours for existing employees leads to increased productivity, then you don't need to hire new workers to make up the difference in hours.
What are you getting at? Why would they be focusing on hours instead of growing the company?
I'm curious about op's suggestion that cutting hours from some will employ others. Maybe I'm thick but on the surface I'm not seeing how.
If you cut back hours from 60 to 30 and pay less then wages drop.
And if you don't pay less then the new employees aren't being paid for by the decrease in hours.
Just trying to understand the original idea here.
If you cut back hours from 60 to 30 and pay less then wages drop.
And if you don't pay less then the new employees aren't being paid for by the decrease in hours.
Just trying to understand the original idea here.
The hikikomori are written about a lot in the Japanese and western press, and I think it's great that Japanese society is making a conscious effort to reach out to people and see how they can be made more happy and productive.
The stats in the article are probably correct, but leaves out some very important context.
- Many Japanese adults live with their parents. Multi-generational households are quite common, especially outside of the big cites. This is not new. In fact, it is becoming less common, not more.
- Japan has an official unemployment rate of about 2%, but for almost all jobs there are more openings than applicants.
From the article: > For the class of 2021, the ratio is set to dip to 1.53 jobs per graduate, from 1.83 this year. “It’s like the employment ice age,” Kubo says. “It’s happening again.”
The situation for these people is not nearly as dire as many try to paint it.
The stats in the article are probably correct, but leaves out some very important context.
- Many Japanese adults live with their parents. Multi-generational households are quite common, especially outside of the big cites. This is not new. In fact, it is becoming less common, not more.
- Japan has an official unemployment rate of about 2%, but for almost all jobs there are more openings than applicants.
From the article: > For the class of 2021, the ratio is set to dip to 1.53 jobs per graduate, from 1.83 this year. “It’s like the employment ice age,” Kubo says. “It’s happening again.”
The situation for these people is not nearly as dire as many try to paint it.
Does Japan really have a ‘lost generation of jobless’ if their unemployment rate is only 2.29%? That seems incredibly low to me.
Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/unemployment...
Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/JPN/japan/unemployment...
Do they count people as unemployed only if they are actively looking for work? If it was the case, there could be many people without a job and not looking for one, which could explain the discrepancy
Japan never cleaned up the debt created by its banking system during the Lost decade. This enormous debt makes it harder for young people to own their own place, in effect tget rent from the bank through loans. This is despite that Japans population is shrinking and there should be more houses on the market. Free debt creation creates a generational ladder where older generations own their houses and younger rent due to high debt creation. Old could buy before the exponential growth of debt was created.
Lost decade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)
Demographic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan
Lost decade https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan)
Demographic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan
I went to university in the same city I grew up in, and made the mistake of living with my with my parents for the first two years. Let me tell you, you don't really become an adult until you move out.
[deleted]
The stresses of university already propels you into adult hood, and by living with your parents, the extra money you save on housing will set you up better for when you do move out. Living with your parents is not the definition of childhood. The definition of childhood is not realizing rent and food cost large sums of money, or that credit systems allow you to purchase rent and food without money, or that houses can be bought with the bank's money. I'd go one step further to say childhood ends when one realizes the fictional settings in books and video games are just linearly connected thoughts etched into their respective paper or magnetic mediums, but that's another topic.
What stresses do you have in mind?
(I'm a third-year right now and I've had nothing to stress about and nothing to do. I just read HN and developer blogs all day. I'd definitely hesitate to say I'm an adult.)
(I'm a third-year right now and I've had nothing to stress about and nothing to do. I just read HN and developer blogs all day. I'd definitely hesitate to say I'm an adult.)
Planning your own meals, fixing things around the apartment when they break[1], unclogging the toilet, planning your own schedule.
That said college is much less stressful, success criteria are well defined (homework, tests, internships, graduate, job) and a lot of things are taken care of for you.
But it is a huge step up compared to high school.
[1] Assuming you don't live in a dorm and you are renting from some semi-shady place that is slow to respond to maintenance requests because they don't figure students will complain.
That said college is much less stressful, success criteria are well defined (homework, tests, internships, graduate, job) and a lot of things are taken care of for you.
But it is a huge step up compared to high school.
[1] Assuming you don't live in a dorm and you are renting from some semi-shady place that is slow to respond to maintenance requests because they don't figure students will complain.
I found university fairly difficult. I studied a Bachelors of Applied Science in a mix of mechanical, electrical, and software engineering, and I had lots of sleepless nights, feeling as if though I was running some sort of daily mathematical gauntlet. I had my parents to help with the cooking and the (rent-free) living, but the daily commute, the 8 hour days of class, the 2AM study sessions, projects, and homework assignments, really threw me into what I perceived to be adult hood. To each their own, though. If one doesn't feel challenged in higher education, then I can see how one could perceive University to just be an extension of high school. The real kicker is, much doesn't change after University. A day job can be easier, and less stress, and learning how to toss a couple chicken breasts on the pan after work is pretty simple
I went to a high school commencement shortly before I graduated college and the speeches were all about how high school prepared them for life and I kept thinking, "buddy/lady, talk to me again after you forget a load of laundry in the washing machine"
My friend wants her kids to stay in town. I've been reminding the kids there are several good college options less than 90 minutes away, which means if you really get into trouble your parents can bail you out, but you still get to figure your life out.
My friend wants her kids to stay in town. I've been reminding the kids there are several good college options less than 90 minutes away, which means if you really get into trouble your parents can bail you out, but you still get to figure your life out.
I agree. Could perhaps even take it a step farther and amend that to, "You don't really become an adult until you move out and there's no longer an option for you to move back home"
Is there anything to this comment except No True Scotsman arbitrary gatekeeping? The internet is full of "you don't become a REAL xyz until" followed by a gatekeeping filter which the commenter just made up, something they have passed and people they look down on have not passed.
What about being able to vote and drive and join the military, those are predicated on a legal value of "being an adult" which is a cutoff at age 18. Well we can guess that Saint_Genet really means something about independence and self-reliance, so exclude them. What about a trust-fund child who moves out but still gets money and support from their parents? Preumably the gate moves slightly to exclude those people because having to take responsibility is the REAL filter? And what about people who had awful parents and had to "grow up early" or take care of their parents? Shift the gate around them, too because they're respectable people who should be on the superior side of the gate. What about people who move out, have children, and rely on the grandparents for childcare and support - well they're adults because that's expected and an approved kind of parental support in US culture, no worries. People who moved out, had children, and want the state to fund childcare in some way? Adults? Not adults? Depends on how ruggedly independent and scared of socialism you are. Someone who lives with their parents but is self-employed and employs others whose income depends on the company being well-run, adult or not adult? Judge it based on where they sleep at night, because that makes sense. Someone who lives with their parents and compromises on a shared living situation vs someone who lives alone and has nobody to please or think about but themselves, and pays for a cleaner, and eats out every day? More or less adult?
Draw the gate wherever it makes you feel superior and able to look down on people you just put on the other side. Empty internet status-grab comment.
What about being able to vote and drive and join the military, those are predicated on a legal value of "being an adult" which is a cutoff at age 18. Well we can guess that Saint_Genet really means something about independence and self-reliance, so exclude them. What about a trust-fund child who moves out but still gets money and support from their parents? Preumably the gate moves slightly to exclude those people because having to take responsibility is the REAL filter? And what about people who had awful parents and had to "grow up early" or take care of their parents? Shift the gate around them, too because they're respectable people who should be on the superior side of the gate. What about people who move out, have children, and rely on the grandparents for childcare and support - well they're adults because that's expected and an approved kind of parental support in US culture, no worries. People who moved out, had children, and want the state to fund childcare in some way? Adults? Not adults? Depends on how ruggedly independent and scared of socialism you are. Someone who lives with their parents but is self-employed and employs others whose income depends on the company being well-run, adult or not adult? Judge it based on where they sleep at night, because that makes sense. Someone who lives with their parents and compromises on a shared living situation vs someone who lives alone and has nobody to please or think about but themselves, and pays for a cleaner, and eats out every day? More or less adult?
Draw the gate wherever it makes you feel superior and able to look down on people you just put on the other side. Empty internet status-grab comment.
You don't really become an adult until your parents move in.
When I moved out it was not much difference. I kept living same lifestyle as when I lived with parents. The only real difference is that now partner done all the vacuum cleaning and I done laundry that I have not done before.
I mean, diffences were pretty minor and mostly in partner being with me all the time now.
I mean, diffences were pretty minor and mostly in partner being with me all the time now.
This is true, and to latch onto your comment, you won't become an adult until you've lived _on your own_ for at least a year.
Too many people who seem to move from their parents to live with their SO and expect everything to be taken care of by said SO.
Too many people who seem to move from their parents to live with their SO and expect everything to be taken care of by said SO.
Just because that's how it worked out for you doesn't mean it's the same for everybody.
The article clearly identifies the source of this challenge:
HR culture
I’ve worked in HR in the US. To say it is unbearably broken doesn’t begin to cover it.
Japan’s rigid hiring rituals are specific but I’ve encountered quite a bit of rigidity in HR culture in the US as well.
As we see nearly daily here on HN, the “filter process” HR uses is highly resistant to change and based on traditions that are objectively useless and horribly biased.
Somehow we seem to miss that economists are not the best experts to consult with here. Put another way - fix HR and suddenly economists wouldn’t need to “explain” so much when it comes to labor market dislocations.
So why haven’t we fixed these issues?
I know hundreds of people in HR trying to address these challenges. They invariably run into the fact that executives and hiring managers are the source of the misconceptions driving these systemic problems. That’s not a category of people who get overridden in companies.
I encountered this even in my own startups. Board members and company leaders believed they had near clairvoyance on how to hire - despite rarely being correct in practice.
tl;dr; The people (execs, hiring managers) who set the expectations around hiring have an unreasonable and inflexible dedication to their assumptions about how hiring should be done, leading those given the job of managing the hiring process (HR) to design woefully inefficient and biased hiring processes, leading to endemic dislocation in the job market that destroys the lives of people who didn’t pass the first check-point in their careers.
Checkout “DIY University” for more history on this issue. This is a problem that can, and has, destroyed nations.
HR culture
I’ve worked in HR in the US. To say it is unbearably broken doesn’t begin to cover it.
Japan’s rigid hiring rituals are specific but I’ve encountered quite a bit of rigidity in HR culture in the US as well.
As we see nearly daily here on HN, the “filter process” HR uses is highly resistant to change and based on traditions that are objectively useless and horribly biased.
Somehow we seem to miss that economists are not the best experts to consult with here. Put another way - fix HR and suddenly economists wouldn’t need to “explain” so much when it comes to labor market dislocations.
So why haven’t we fixed these issues?
I know hundreds of people in HR trying to address these challenges. They invariably run into the fact that executives and hiring managers are the source of the misconceptions driving these systemic problems. That’s not a category of people who get overridden in companies.
I encountered this even in my own startups. Board members and company leaders believed they had near clairvoyance on how to hire - despite rarely being correct in practice.
tl;dr; The people (execs, hiring managers) who set the expectations around hiring have an unreasonable and inflexible dedication to their assumptions about how hiring should be done, leading those given the job of managing the hiring process (HR) to design woefully inefficient and biased hiring processes, leading to endemic dislocation in the job market that destroys the lives of people who didn’t pass the first check-point in their careers.
Checkout “DIY University” for more history on this issue. This is a problem that can, and has, destroyed nations.
If a lot of companies have rigid hiring processes where a lot of talented people through the cracks, why aren't those people snapped up by competitors who are more flexible?
I have seen a few attempts/startups attempting alternative ways of identifying candidates. Mindsumo.com [0] is the one I know best (although they pivoted later on) By and large, it still seems to be the same people who come out on top.
[0] https://www.cnet.com/news/mindsumo-the-x-prize-of-hiring/
It would not surprise me if a lot of decent candidates get turned down in the rush to hire star candidates, but I doubt many star candidates are actually being missed by the economy as a whole.
[0] https://www.cnet.com/news/mindsumo-the-x-prize-of-hiring/
It would not surprise me if a lot of decent candidates get turned down in the rush to hire star candidates, but I doubt many star candidates are actually being missed by the economy as a whole.
I’m a fan of TripleByte, they’ve continued to iterate and evolve in interesting ways.
Still, its nearly a myth that companies hire based on merit.
Hiring through social networks is much more significant.
A simple example:
Most companies see applying for a job as the first step in connecting with a career opportunity.
Every career coach will tell you not to apply until you’ve networked into the company.
Still, its nearly a myth that companies hire based on merit.
Hiring through social networks is much more significant.
A simple example:
Most companies see applying for a job as the first step in connecting with a career opportunity.
Every career coach will tell you not to apply until you’ve networked into the company.
Because this is truly a cultural issue - meaning every company is significantly plagued by it in nearly all of their hiring areas.
Having consulted with hundreds of startups and businesses, and a fair number of Fortune 500s, I’ve personally seen how universal the challenge is.
Here’s an experiment: name one employer that properly vets tech talent for the role and work they do once hired.
Edit: appeasing the autocorrect gods.
Having consulted with hundreds of startups and businesses, and a fair number of Fortune 500s, I’ve personally seen how universal the challenge is.
Here’s an experiment: name one employer that properly vets tech talent for the role and work they do once hired.
Edit: appeasing the autocorrect gods.
[deleted]
> This is a problem that can, and has, destroyed nations.
I agree, and think it should be a national concern. I don't know how building highways is a legitimate use of government power where matchmaking between workers and employers is not. It's the type of big government intervention that virtually no one would complain about. The amount of excess effort wasted in matching people to employment is entirely wasted. Minimizing it would be like giving everybody a raise.
I agree, and think it should be a national concern. I don't know how building highways is a legitimate use of government power where matchmaking between workers and employers is not. It's the type of big government intervention that virtually no one would complain about. The amount of excess effort wasted in matching people to employment is entirely wasted. Minimizing it would be like giving everybody a raise.
>The article clearly identifies the source of this
challenge:
HR culture
I don't think so. I don't think the problem here is companies struggling to find the right people. It seems to me that companies have slashed hiring. There are too few regular job positions and too many people seeking them.
I don't think so. I don't think the problem here is companies struggling to find the right people. It seems to me that companies have slashed hiring. There are too few regular job positions and too many people seeking them.
I can see that point. Supply & demand are usually the go-to explanation.
However, liquidity in the labor market is rarely well-understood.
This article specifically addresses people who are never able to enter the workforce.
In the US the data is stark - there are literally hundreds of thousands of positions that are never filled, despite millions of job seekers.
To oversimplify with one major hiring filter - most jobs require X years of experience in Y narrowly-defined industry/region/tool/skill.
Liquidity in the labor market is the only answer to this problem - to get experience you have to be able to get a position in the first place, often in a role unrelated to where you end up.
Economists see jobs as “widgets.”
Of course, we all know we spend most of our time doing none of the things listed on the job we originally applied for (or were tested for in interviews).
Supply/demand explanations mask the fact that most work today is fluid. Getting people into the workforce creates economic growth. The barrier to that growth is a broken HR system.
It doesn’t seem to be, at first, a root cause that is significant enough in size to hobble a whole economy.
Until you consider that nearly every employer has the same issue.
However, liquidity in the labor market is rarely well-understood.
This article specifically addresses people who are never able to enter the workforce.
In the US the data is stark - there are literally hundreds of thousands of positions that are never filled, despite millions of job seekers.
To oversimplify with one major hiring filter - most jobs require X years of experience in Y narrowly-defined industry/region/tool/skill.
Liquidity in the labor market is the only answer to this problem - to get experience you have to be able to get a position in the first place, often in a role unrelated to where you end up.
Economists see jobs as “widgets.”
Of course, we all know we spend most of our time doing none of the things listed on the job we originally applied for (or were tested for in interviews).
Supply/demand explanations mask the fact that most work today is fluid. Getting people into the workforce creates economic growth. The barrier to that growth is a broken HR system.
It doesn’t seem to be, at first, a root cause that is significant enough in size to hobble a whole economy.
Until you consider that nearly every employer has the same issue.
After watching this I feel a little bit ungrateful. I lived there for a while and had a permanent position, which is really coveted. I left after a year and half because I just hated the working culture so much. Because I speak English I was able to leave. Japan is largely monolingual, and the English education for children stresses test performance over communication. Japan has always had a powerful enough economy that monolingualism worked okay for the country as a whole. But for the miserable individuals who believe they have no opportunities, monolingualism is a trap that keeps them in the system where they do not find the opportunities.
Meanwhile I speak English and can therefore work in dozens of countries if I so choose, though as a linguist I actually savor opportunities to study new languages).
Meanwhile I speak English and can therefore work in dozens of countries if I so choose, though as a linguist I actually savor opportunities to study new languages).
I don't think it's a coincidence that Japan has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio and also the largest number of jobless youth living with their parents.
Debt fueled by inflationary government money-printing drives wealth inequality between asset owners and salary earners. Newly printed currency boosts asset prices and inflates away salaries.
As Milton Friedman pointed out, it also increases the tax burden on citizens two-fold because inflation causes salary earners to be pushed into higher tax brackets over time as some of their salaries are eventually negotiated upwards to offset inflation.
My guess is that it has something to do with what happened in 1971 when the US dollar (and all currencies which were pegged to it) moved off of the gold standard. This was the time when asset values started inflating. This is why it only affected millennials and they could not afford their own house.
Japan took on more public debt than any other country which is why they felt this effect more strongly since they ended up having to print their national currency at a higher rate (thus resulting in worse asset-inflation) in order to pay off the interest on their debt.
Debt fueled by inflationary government money-printing drives wealth inequality between asset owners and salary earners. Newly printed currency boosts asset prices and inflates away salaries.
As Milton Friedman pointed out, it also increases the tax burden on citizens two-fold because inflation causes salary earners to be pushed into higher tax brackets over time as some of their salaries are eventually negotiated upwards to offset inflation.
My guess is that it has something to do with what happened in 1971 when the US dollar (and all currencies which were pegged to it) moved off of the gold standard. This was the time when asset values started inflating. This is why it only affected millennials and they could not afford their own house.
Japan took on more public debt than any other country which is why they felt this effect more strongly since they ended up having to print their national currency at a higher rate (thus resulting in worse asset-inflation) in order to pay off the interest on their debt.
That’s a lot of words but your facts are false.
1. Japan has low wealth inequality
2. Japan does NOT have high inflation
3. Japan has both low unemployment and high labor participation
[1] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SI.POV.GINI/rank...
[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/inflation-cpi
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_market_of_Japan
1. Japan has low wealth inequality
2. Japan does NOT have high inflation
3. Japan has both low unemployment and high labor participation
[1] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/indicators/SI.POV.GINI/rank...
[2] https://tradingeconomics.com/japan/inflation-cpi
[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_market_of_Japan
2 and 3 are true, 1 is more debatable. Gini coefficient of Japan is quite higher than most European countries, though it measures income not wealth. US are at 0.39, Japan at 0.34, most Western European countries below 0.3.
A lot of people here also base their thinking on visits to Japan, but that's sampling bias. Poverty is less obvious than in the US or even Europe, but Japan poverty rate is at ~15.5 %, much closer again to the US (~17.5 %) than to Western European countries, closer to 10 % or even below.
There are plenty of "dead" cities in Japan that are depopulating fast, but they are not on a typical tour when you visit the country. Some of them are < 1 hour of train from center Tokyo.
A lot of people here also base their thinking on visits to Japan, but that's sampling bias. Poverty is less obvious than in the US or even Europe, but Japan poverty rate is at ~15.5 %, much closer again to the US (~17.5 %) than to Western European countries, closer to 10 % or even below.
There are plenty of "dead" cities in Japan that are depopulating fast, but they are not on a typical tour when you visit the country. Some of them are < 1 hour of train from center Tokyo.
> Debt fueled by inflationary government money-printing drives wealth inequality between asset owners and salary earners
How does that even work? Inflation tends to decrease wealth inequality as basic salaries keep pace with inflation, and large hordes of wealth and assets slowly get whittled away. According to Piketty, the high inflation during the World Wars drastically increased income equality.
How does that even work? Inflation tends to decrease wealth inequality as basic salaries keep pace with inflation, and large hordes of wealth and assets slowly get whittled away. According to Piketty, the high inflation during the World Wars drastically increased income equality.
This is probably closer to the truth. It's not a coincidence that Japan was the first developed country to experience stagflation and is experiencing these problems.
Japan has the problems now we, Western society will be facing in 20 years. This has been true since the 80s, so it's be nice to learn from it, and not follow it.
In my opinion, the end of cheap fossil fuels necessitates we'll look like either Japan or Africa, and I know which of those I'd prefer. Shrinking GDP or shrinking GDP per person may seem like a difficult call for a country's leader, but as a citizen it's a rather obvious choice.
Lot of western countries have immigration, Japan does not. I dont think the west will follow Japan.
I agree with you but I think we are already starting to face the same problems now.
> This has been true since the 80s, so it's be nice to learn from it, and not follow it.
Unfortunately, history has a tendency to repeat itself. And, even when it's recent history, people are unlike to enact drastic change. Just look at the climate change "debate" :'(
Unfortunately, history has a tendency to repeat itself. And, even when it's recent history, people are unlike to enact drastic change. Just look at the climate change "debate" :'(
> not follow it.
How? Any idea?
How? Any idea?
A hard reset through a conflict aka war (and war preparation) on some scale has historically been used to reboot economies. Should Things get bad enough economically it'll happen again.
[deleted]
The obvious method would be to have more children.
Biology puts some limits on that. Fertility of women goes down in the fourth decade of life. The # of aneuploid ova rises sharply.
It is possible that there will be scientific development solving that, but so far, we do not have enough young fertile people to practice your obvious method, unless they were ready to have 4+ kids each.
It is possible that there will be scientific development solving that, but so far, we do not have enough young fertile people to practice your obvious method, unless they were ready to have 4+ kids each.
in vitro fertilization is the development you are looking for, and exists for those who can afford it.
I know quite a lot about IVF, we are currently going through it.
For IVF to work, you need good ova (eggs). You can stimulate the woman to harvest eggs, but in women over 35, the share of ova that have unrecoverable genetic errors (aneuploidy) grows fast and women over 40 hardly have any good eggs.
This might be amenable to future therapies, given that old mice were currently medicated with NMN (a NAD+ precursor) and produced many more good eggs compared to the control group. But as of today, this is the hardest biological limit on IVF efficiency.
For IVF to work, you need good ova (eggs). You can stimulate the woman to harvest eggs, but in women over 35, the share of ova that have unrecoverable genetic errors (aneuploidy) grows fast and women over 40 hardly have any good eggs.
This might be amenable to future therapies, given that old mice were currently medicated with NMN (a NAD+ precursor) and produced many more good eggs compared to the control group. But as of today, this is the hardest biological limit on IVF efficiency.
You can select for the good ova, but it's true that you are best off freezing eggs and sperm when you are young.
Being able to have kids at 40 does not change the fact that you will still have only 20-30 years left to spend on them.
You obviously didn't read the starting article.
or immigration.
I don't understand why Western countries are not incentivising people to have children.
Most European countries give parents monthly stipends for children and even one-off payments for births, so that's.. a little incentive.
Yes. US wasn't incentivizing having children because the population growth historically always used to be a solid 1%. But it ended around 2008, so policy is likely to change soon.
"The West" taken in general predictably provides incentives when it sees effects of small or negative population growth.
Take for example stats for the year 2000 to see how the past shaped policy of today:
"The West" taken in general predictably provides incentives when it sees effects of small or negative population growth.
Take for example stats for the year 2000 to see how the past shaped policy of today:
- US 1.1%
- France 0.7%
- UK 0.4%
- Germany 0.1%
- Italy 0.0%It'd take a lot of propaganda to turn the ship around. Too many people are focused on short-term returns to collectively sign off on that.
At the moment (speaking for myself), cost of living is a negative pressure on having children; in a lot of places you can no longer own a house without a double income.
Because we don't want to overpopulate as well.
It won't make much difference, people aren't having children because they don't want them.
source?
Their use of birth control.
Perhaps they are using contraception because there are disincentives, and they are working.
Where I am in the US the average cost of first birth without c-section is ~$8k to the patient. With c-section it's ~$20k to the patient. ~30% of all births where I am are c-sections. These prices do not include any other treatment to the mother or child, only the delivery fee. I assume these prices include medicaid/VA patients as well, but I cannot confirm. Likely that means people not under government insurance are paying more than what I stated, but I'd go with those numbers with a gun to my head.
So, the simple act of having children in my part of the US is quite expensive.
So, the simple act of having children in my part of the US is quite expensive.
Some do.
One common tactic is to have very cheap daycare, which solves a huge issue for many. Quebec is the most notable example: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/quebec-ch...
One common tactic is to have very cheap daycare, which solves a huge issue for many. Quebec is the most notable example: https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/05/quebec-ch...
You'd need to make a compelling reason for incentivizing it if anything.
Western countries are incentivized by corporate interests. Corporate interests don't care for children because they get in the way of profits. You'd need someone who can rise above corporate interests to do things like health care, children, human rights, etc.
Western countries are incentivized by corporate interests. Corporate interests don't care for children because they get in the way of profits. You'd need someone who can rise above corporate interests to do things like health care, children, human rights, etc.
> Corporate interests don't care for children because they get in the way of profits.
Baloney. People having more children is the dream scenario for all business--more children = more consumers = more economic growth.
This has nothing to do with some evil corporate boogeyman.
Just look at the data. There's a direct correlation between rising standards of living and having less children. This is because, if you give humans education and birth control, it turns out most of them don't actually want to have 8 kids.
Baloney. People having more children is the dream scenario for all business--more children = more consumers = more economic growth.
This has nothing to do with some evil corporate boogeyman.
Just look at the data. There's a direct correlation between rising standards of living and having less children. This is because, if you give humans education and birth control, it turns out most of them don't actually want to have 8 kids.
No, they dream of having customers who buy more stuff.
As employers, having parents take care of children cuts into work and is a distraction.
As employers, having parents take care of children cuts into work and is a distraction.
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Couples usually need a good prospect for the future to commit to having children. Many don't feel that the future is bright enough.
To which entity are they 'lost'? To the state?
To corporations?
"Those who successfully navigate the arduous corporate recruiting process will be rewarded with a secure place on the corporate ladder"
Those who do not see that (+ the 60-80-hour weeks) as rewarding will not be motivated to pursue it. Economic slavery is over-rated.
They may or may not be 'lost' to themselves, depending on what they're doing with all that time. Across Asia, many people found themselves meditating for decades. They weren't jacked into any perverse realities.
"The rest are largely condemned to flit from one low-paying job to the next, with little avenue for advancement and zero job security." Wow, judgemental much?
Many well-known authors, poets, artists, composers, DJs,even hackers found themselves in that position. It's a fair cop, but society's to blame.
"Those who successfully navigate the arduous corporate recruiting process will be rewarded with a secure place on the corporate ladder"
Those who do not see that (+ the 60-80-hour weeks) as rewarding will not be motivated to pursue it. Economic slavery is over-rated.
They may or may not be 'lost' to themselves, depending on what they're doing with all that time. Across Asia, many people found themselves meditating for decades. They weren't jacked into any perverse realities.
"The rest are largely condemned to flit from one low-paying job to the next, with little avenue for advancement and zero job security." Wow, judgemental much?
Many well-known authors, poets, artists, composers, DJs,even hackers found themselves in that position. It's a fair cop, but society's to blame.
This is delusional. It would be fine if all these shut-ins were living personally satisfied, fulfilling lives. But the vast, vast, vast majority are not. Most live with deep regret, shame, depression, and isolation, and romanticizing their situation as some sort of meditative peace is f'd up in my opinion.
It's not delusional, it's a simple statement of fact. It would also be nice if we would stop shaming these people and instead protect them and encourage them to socialize and study. Maybe they wouldn't be so angry on internet forums.
Presuming this will undermine birth rates (read: low or no population growth) Japan might be stuck in the cycle for years to come.
That said, many First World economies have leaded on immigration to back fill the gap of low birth-rates.
For examples:
In the USA, that's been a noticeable growth in Spanish-speaking residents.
In Germany and France, there's been growth in the Middle Eastern (mainly Muslim) residents. Needless to say, these shifts - economically necessary - have sociopolitical implications. It's possible these disconnects amplify as robotics and AI take over more and more jobs.
Japan? What would be Japan's source of new immigrants? How easily or not can they assimilate into that culture? Or is a relative lack of diversity a positive as the socio-political fabric in the West gets more and more frayed, and not just at the edges.
That said, many First World economies have leaded on immigration to back fill the gap of low birth-rates.
For examples:
In the USA, that's been a noticeable growth in Spanish-speaking residents.
In Germany and France, there's been growth in the Middle Eastern (mainly Muslim) residents. Needless to say, these shifts - economically necessary - have sociopolitical implications. It's possible these disconnects amplify as robotics and AI take over more and more jobs.
Japan? What would be Japan's source of new immigrants? How easily or not can they assimilate into that culture? Or is a relative lack of diversity a positive as the socio-political fabric in the West gets more and more frayed, and not just at the edges.
In France it's more North and Sub-Saharan Africa than Middle/Near-East
I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future [compared to anywhere else I've been].
Yet there seems to be a fairly constant negative economic narrative about Japan (and this narrative seems to be decades old). What's the deal? Are my observations superficial, or are economists just annoyed that Japan doesn't fit their world-view (low growth must equal disaster).
Yet there seems to be a fairly constant negative economic narrative about Japan (and this narrative seems to be decades old). What's the deal? Are my observations superficial, or are economists just annoyed that Japan doesn't fit their world-view (low growth must equal disaster).
I’ve lived in japan and believe me, what you see as a tourist does not translate into reality. Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world and in some places even more. Sure, tourist facing areas and central tokyo are pretty nice, but that’s not the reality in most places.
Are you currently in the western world? I live in Los Angeles, which is a city that feels like it's trapped in the 1990s. Our highways were never finished and the city is fundamentally crippled as a result. We are building rail faster than any other city but it's still far too little and much too late, and what we do build is littered with compromises and further issues that hobble its utility, such as a failure to develop grade separations, until the project is redone entirely. The local government is corrupt. The FBI is indicting councilmen and city hall officials left and right. We are zoned for a smaller population than we were in the 1920s, with 4x the population living here today compared to the 1920s.
This isn't just LA. Development across the U.S. over the past 20 years has been largely stagnant, and this is reflective in our huge shortage of housing supply that has come to bite us in the rear in recent decades with homes increasingly out of reach for working people, not just in California, but increasingly in flyover places like Idaho and Ohio too.
Of course, maybe it's the U.S. that is 30 years behind the western world.
This isn't just LA. Development across the U.S. over the past 20 years has been largely stagnant, and this is reflective in our huge shortage of housing supply that has come to bite us in the rear in recent decades with homes increasingly out of reach for working people, not just in California, but increasingly in flyover places like Idaho and Ohio too.
Of course, maybe it's the U.S. that is 30 years behind the western world.
The part about U.S. development is partially true. Idaho has been developing immensely, with Boise Area 10x'ing since 1930 and averaging 30% YoY population increase the past few decades.[0] If you go there, there's immense construction with frequent road closures and cranes everywhere. So while Idaho may still be dealing with the second-order effects of California's underdevelopment, I would struggle to find anywhere that's been building as much as Idaho is.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boise_metropolitan_area#Demogr...
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boise_metropolitan_area#Demogr...
I'm willing to bet Boise is still not building nearly enough housing to put a dent in increasing cost of living.
While that could be true, it wouldn't point to the root cause. There exists a limit to how fast an area can physically develop by modern construction speeds and government permitting procedures, orthogonal to the area's willingness to develop. It's possible that 600k population Boise area is unable to build as fast as California's 700k yearly exodus would like to be accommodated.
I’ve stayed there for extended periods (months) and while I may not live like a poorer or even average income Japanese, I can say day to day life quality is pretty ahead in Tokyo/Osaka/ surrounding areas at least (but then most people live in and around Tokyo or big cities).
> Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world and in some places even more
Sounds good to me
Edit: because the West is such a utopia in 2020? Please...
Sounds good to me
Edit: because the West is such a utopia in 2020? Please...
> Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world
In which areas is Japan behind? What are some of your observations?
In which areas is Japan behind? What are some of your observations?
When was the last time you used a fax machine? We maintain one specifically for communicating with Japanese companies.
Last month when I had to fax my social security number to HR. Still in full force if you work in any sort of bureaucratic organization in the U.S...
It's possible this is for legislative reasons rather than anything else.
At least until a few years back only fax was considered 'in writing', so if like a lawyer wanted to submit an appeal to a court it either had to be a letter or a fax, no email. Now the government invented a new authenticated email system which supposedly is like 'in writing'
If that's the case, then a fax isn't too bad (compared to some of the bureaucratic contortionism in the west).
Japanese has the most complicated writing system of any language. For a long time handwriting was the easiest means of written communication, and faxes can transmit handwriting. There are good Japanese IMEs now, but if faxes already work why change them?
Really, what's makes Kanji so complex compared to Mandarin that it originated from?
Chinese is second most complicated. Japanese has all the Chinese characters, and hiragana and katakana in addition.
This is not true at all. Japanese Kanji comprise only a few thousand characters (~2000 being considered sufficient for functional literacy). Chinese has well over 50000 characters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanji https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_characters
All Traditional Chinese characters are valid in Japanese even if they're only used for names. Japanese also has kanji invented in Japan which are not valid in Chinese. There are currently 2136 jōyō (general use) kanji, which are the bare minimum you need to known to be considered literate, but if that's all you know you're going to spend a lot of time with a dictionary. In practice you need at least 3000 characters, which is about the same as you need in Chinese.
Based on this answer and your other answers, I have to think that you know neither Chinese nor Japanese at particularly high level of proficiency. Furthermore, your answers look like they are Wikipedia stock.
1. “all traditional Chinese characters...” — The vast majority of these are only used in classical literature or historical documents. Furthermore, multiple times throughout Japanese history, certain Chinese characters (usually similar) have been merged into one character. This is one reason Japanese characters often have multiple ways to pronounce them, while Chinese characters typically only have one.
2. Joyo kanji 1 — This is hardly the “bare minimum” for basic literacy for daily life (which is maybe half that). Japanese kids learn about 1000 kanji (kyouiku) in elementary school and about 1000 more (the remaining joyo) in junior high school. JHS is the end of compulsory education in Japan. Daily life kanji are more in the kyouiku kanji. The JHS has some practical kanji, but it gets bookish and sometimes a bit obscure very quickly.
3. Joyo kanji 2 - Note that government documents can only use joyo kanji. Maybe they can use furigana if necessary for non-joyo. As a default, most of the press only uses joyo, and they definitely use furigana liberally.
4. Joyo kanji 3 - Given that I have used joyo kanji at one time or another that most of my Japanese friends and acquaintances did not know, I think that calling this a “bare minimum” needed to be considered literate is a bit harsh. That said, I don’t recall ever having stumped academics, K-12 teachers, doctors, or lawyers on any joyo kanji. So if you want to call it a bare minimum to be considered highly educated, then I would agree.
5. Joyo kanji 4 - No Japanese person I know who pretty much caps out at joyo kanji uses a dictionary very often — perhaps as much as an American would looking up relatively uncommon Latin or Greek words/terms.
6. From my experience, you need about 5k characters to read a newspaper in Chinese (that was around what I learned), while the 2k joyo were complete fine for Japanese. While I did/do look up words in both languages, they are either domain-specific words (where I often don’t know much about the domain in English, Chinese, or Japanese), or it is a scholarly flavor word. Note that I still look up words in English as well (thank you every George Will article ever).
I don’t have any links or sources readily available (I’m on my phone), but I am fairly certain that research on word and kanji frequency lists in these languages will support my numbers much more than they support yours.
1. “all traditional Chinese characters...” — The vast majority of these are only used in classical literature or historical documents. Furthermore, multiple times throughout Japanese history, certain Chinese characters (usually similar) have been merged into one character. This is one reason Japanese characters often have multiple ways to pronounce them, while Chinese characters typically only have one.
2. Joyo kanji 1 — This is hardly the “bare minimum” for basic literacy for daily life (which is maybe half that). Japanese kids learn about 1000 kanji (kyouiku) in elementary school and about 1000 more (the remaining joyo) in junior high school. JHS is the end of compulsory education in Japan. Daily life kanji are more in the kyouiku kanji. The JHS has some practical kanji, but it gets bookish and sometimes a bit obscure very quickly.
3. Joyo kanji 2 - Note that government documents can only use joyo kanji. Maybe they can use furigana if necessary for non-joyo. As a default, most of the press only uses joyo, and they definitely use furigana liberally.
4. Joyo kanji 3 - Given that I have used joyo kanji at one time or another that most of my Japanese friends and acquaintances did not know, I think that calling this a “bare minimum” needed to be considered literate is a bit harsh. That said, I don’t recall ever having stumped academics, K-12 teachers, doctors, or lawyers on any joyo kanji. So if you want to call it a bare minimum to be considered highly educated, then I would agree.
5. Joyo kanji 4 - No Japanese person I know who pretty much caps out at joyo kanji uses a dictionary very often — perhaps as much as an American would looking up relatively uncommon Latin or Greek words/terms.
6. From my experience, you need about 5k characters to read a newspaper in Chinese (that was around what I learned), while the 2k joyo were complete fine for Japanese. While I did/do look up words in both languages, they are either domain-specific words (where I often don’t know much about the domain in English, Chinese, or Japanese), or it is a scholarly flavor word. Note that I still look up words in English as well (thank you every George Will article ever).
I don’t have any links or sources readily available (I’m on my phone), but I am fairly certain that research on word and kanji frequency lists in these languages will support my numbers much more than they support yours.
Clarification — One needs to know about 5k Chinese characters to have similar text coverage in Chinese newspapers as joyo kanji would give one in Japanese newspapers.
The actual percentages can vary small bit based on how one treats characters for names, but these numbers are directionally correct.
The actual percentages can vary small bit based on how one treats characters for names, but these numbers are directionally correct.
JIS X 0213 has 11,233 characters across multiple alphabets that gets mixed together in the same sentence, plus the issue of horizontal and vertical typesetting, ruby text, and having to use Unicode Ideographic Variation Sequences to handle things like writing people's names correctly.
I just realized something. I have no idea how one deals with the rest of the kanji one doesn't know.
Upon encountering kanji one doesn't know, how does one find out the meaning?
How would you "look it up?"
Upon encountering kanji one doesn't know, how does one find out the meaning?
How would you "look it up?"
Characters have a defined way of writing the strokes, so you look them up by number of strokes and radical. ("Radical" being, usually, the bit on the left or the top)
You can see a web-based example at [2]. Click on the "Radicals" button in the upper right. You'll see a list of radicals (sorted by stroke order), and clicking/unclicking on them will cause the list of kanji below to change.
[0] https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-stroke-order/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kanji_by_stroke_count [2] https://tangorin.com/kanji
You can see a web-based example at [2]. Click on the "Radicals" button in the upper right. You'll see a list of radicals (sorted by stroke order), and clicking/unclicking on them will cause the list of kanji below to change.
[0] https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/kanji-stroke-order/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kanji_by_stroke_count [2] https://tangorin.com/kanji
I truly appreciate this answer. Thank you very much.
Kanji are composed from a much smaller set of radicals, so you look it up by the radicals that compose it. Some dictionaries also divide characters up by stroke count. For the past 15+ years, electronic dictionaries with handwriting recognition have been popular, and now you can just use your phone keyboard.
In practice, sometimes you can also kind of guess at the pronunciation (since characters with the same main radical often have a similar pronunciation) and see what autocomplete lists; maybe that's less true outside of the joyo kanji, though.
In practice, sometimes you can also kind of guess at the pronunciation (since characters with the same main radical often have a similar pronunciation) and see what autocomplete lists; maybe that's less true outside of the joyo kanji, though.
Thank you so much for this answer.
Do Chinese people even have dictionaries???
Of course they do. In fact, there are two main types of Chinese dictionaries: phonetic dictionaries organized by pronunciation and character dictionaries organized by radical.
Thanks for the reply, my question was intented to be rhetorical but my writing style wasn't the best. I was just trying to get JohnBooty to do a quick google search for Kanji/Hanzi dictionaries, after all how else could the east have developed such a sophisicated literary tradition without dictionaries.
I just realize something. Upon encountering kanji one doesn't know, how does one find out the meaning?
How would you "look it up?"
How would you "look it up?"
Japanese also having commonly used phonetic writing systems makes it easier than Chinese in my book.
But Japanese has fewer phonemes than Chinese, and no real tones, which results in a large number of homophones, which makes phonetic writing harder to read. It's not appropriate for business communications.
Faxes don't work. What are you supposed to do with them? Stick them a filing cabinet and then go look them up there when needed? Faxes were better than snail mail but they suck compared to anything modern. Even the Japanese know this.
Recently I have began to wish we still used them, and I say that as a consumer and a UI designer, as I think about all the designs I have made and discarded that could have easily been solved with pen and paper. It may not scale for an Amazon-sized business, but it totally works for small restaurant.
What do you mean? You can still print at the other end if you really needed certain designs to be somewhere on paper, no?
I mean, the design never needed to be designed in the first place. We should have created some manual process until it it becomes so cumbersome to process the requests that it needs to be someone’s full time job.
What does it mean to be "10 years behind the western world" ? Are they behind in technology, values, policy? Can you give some examples? I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious for more info. (I don't know much about Japan myself.)
I've been working in the computer graphics field for 25-years, the last 10 of which (and currently) have been in Japan. Before I got here 10-years ago, I had visions of Japanese studios having cutting-edge tools, all built in-house, created to automate tasks, making production efficient.
I was extremely disappointed.
I understand that Japan has a reputation of being at the forefront of technology and, while the manufacturing sector may have had extreme advances in the 80's and 90's, those advances have fallen, with nothing really of note since. No longer is Sony the leader in electronic hardware. Toyota is no longer the leader of car manufacturing efficiency. When was the last time you've heard or read about anything innovative coming out of Japan? There's nothing "disruptive" coming out of here. They are riding on their long-past reputation of being fore-runners of tech. In my opinion, it's not so much a lack of intellectual availability here, but rather, deep-rooted cultural phenomena that has been holding this place hostage for so long.
Disclaimer: my experience is in computer graphics, so is limited to that industry. Please take my opinions with a grain of salt. But when I was jumping around different studios back home, before moving to Japan, there was always a dedicated technology team present, from small 10-person outfits, to huge 400-people studios. CG companies know that using software just out-of-the-box was not enough to produce animation profitably, so they invested in tech teams to create tools and production pipelines that would make the production process faster, reduce human error, and ultimately, make the company more money. I was blown away that this mindset was not present in most of the studios here. Most of the studios do not want to invest money into a tech team, as the benefits of technology are not exactly tangible or visible right away to the executives. There is also a deeper issue with taking pride in "doing it by hand". There are more issues, but both of the ones described above point to a pretty "old school" way of thinking.
Of course, not every person I have worked with agrees with any of the above, but the mindset is present enough to stifle innovation in my field. Where there IS innovation, it is created by non-Japanese folks. Much of this technology is quickly forgotten after being used briefly.
I live here, so I guess it can't be that bad. But I have to say that there is a particular naievety present. Even when proposed with new ideas that make sense, there is almost always push-back.
Holy cow, I could write a lot more, but I'll just leave it at this: Japan is absolutely not the technology utopia one may think it is.
I was extremely disappointed.
I understand that Japan has a reputation of being at the forefront of technology and, while the manufacturing sector may have had extreme advances in the 80's and 90's, those advances have fallen, with nothing really of note since. No longer is Sony the leader in electronic hardware. Toyota is no longer the leader of car manufacturing efficiency. When was the last time you've heard or read about anything innovative coming out of Japan? There's nothing "disruptive" coming out of here. They are riding on their long-past reputation of being fore-runners of tech. In my opinion, it's not so much a lack of intellectual availability here, but rather, deep-rooted cultural phenomena that has been holding this place hostage for so long.
Disclaimer: my experience is in computer graphics, so is limited to that industry. Please take my opinions with a grain of salt. But when I was jumping around different studios back home, before moving to Japan, there was always a dedicated technology team present, from small 10-person outfits, to huge 400-people studios. CG companies know that using software just out-of-the-box was not enough to produce animation profitably, so they invested in tech teams to create tools and production pipelines that would make the production process faster, reduce human error, and ultimately, make the company more money. I was blown away that this mindset was not present in most of the studios here. Most of the studios do not want to invest money into a tech team, as the benefits of technology are not exactly tangible or visible right away to the executives. There is also a deeper issue with taking pride in "doing it by hand". There are more issues, but both of the ones described above point to a pretty "old school" way of thinking.
Of course, not every person I have worked with agrees with any of the above, but the mindset is present enough to stifle innovation in my field. Where there IS innovation, it is created by non-Japanese folks. Much of this technology is quickly forgotten after being used briefly.
I live here, so I guess it can't be that bad. But I have to say that there is a particular naievety present. Even when proposed with new ideas that make sense, there is almost always push-back.
Holy cow, I could write a lot more, but I'll just leave it at this: Japan is absolutely not the technology utopia one may think it is.
I find it strange to say Sony isn't a leader in electronic hardware, at least using it as a blanket statement. Some divisions are clearly innovative. For example, they make the best camera sensors bar none and camera sensors are cutting edge and hard to design and manufacture. Nobody comes close to Sony from my understanding from some camera experts that I work with. They are also working on sensor like this https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/14/21258403/sony-image-senso..., which if it works could be huge for the AV industry. There could be a lack of innovation in japan as a whole, but could that be because you just aren't aware of it? Both Honda and Toyota manufacture fuel cell cars, something that always seemed 10 years out, then all of a sudden it popped up for sale. So it seems strange to say that Toyota isn't innovative, simply because they aren't a leader in one specific area that they were previously. It could be that they aren't experts in CG, but I highly doubt a country can be a world leader in every single field in technology.
you should turn this into a blog post. this is a very interesting take.
A partial answer: Googling 'japan fax' would give you many articles attesting that faxes are still a stable for communication in offices.
e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-ja...
> Japan’s health ministry has said it will allow health centres to report new coronavirus cases online, instead of by handwritten faxes, after a doctor lambasted the legal requirement.
Another very externally visible example is that the Japanese have taken a long time to transition from SHIFT_JIS to Unicode on the web, and on Windows.
e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-ja...
> Japan’s health ministry has said it will allow health centres to report new coronavirus cases online, instead of by handwritten faxes, after a doctor lambasted the legal requirement.
Another very externally visible example is that the Japanese have taken a long time to transition from SHIFT_JIS to Unicode on the web, and on Windows.
I appreciate this is a partial answer, but by those standards the US is also similarly behind. For example, still commonly use checks and they are nowhere near transitioning to the metric system.
While I don't think Japan should be judged solely on its fax machines (they're ahead in some places and behind in others), there is a difference with fax machine usage in Japan vs the US - they're a trailing indicator of another bottleneck. Fax machines are so widespread in Japan largely because they ease the process of physically stamping documents with a registered stamp (a hanko), which is used instead of a signature. So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. One of the goals of the new prime minister is to finally start phasing them out.
> So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic.
Compare this to the US where Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures Act[1] back in 2000.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...
Compare this to the US where Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures Act[1] back in 2000.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...
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It's partly related to economics: 2 generations of extremely rapid growth followed by a generation of stagnation. It's partly demographic. An aging population. It's partly cultural phenomenons that seem pathological, particularly among youth. These seem to be connected to the earlier two.
>I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future
That's strange. To me traveling Japan feels like entering an alternative history where the 80s never ended.
That's strange. To me traveling Japan feels like entering an alternative history where the 80s never ended.
Japan seemed to me a case study in hiding sociocultural problems with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition and specifically some sort of perverse derivative of Confucianism. Korea has the same problem. It's a dead-end culture: China and Vietnam finally threw off the shackles in the 20th century at great cost, but Northeast Asia's sociocultural and political economies are apparently still largely running on ideas generated by a 5th century upwardly mobile accountant.
China's behavior in their Western provinces doesn't convince me they have really dropped their shackles last century
Uh, they just shackled someone else. This is depressingly common across human history.
Japan seems fairly adaptive. Unlike China in the 1800s, they recognized that they had to open up to the West and did so, taking the West at their own game. They were pretty successful at that for about 100 years, going from feudalism to a modern colonial power faster than anyone else, until the people in charge decided to bomb Pearl Harbor. Contrast with China, which refused to open up, got invaded several times, and then embraced Communism which destroyed their economy, and they are still lagging behind Japan in many areas (fashion, literature, manufacturing quality, building quality, general living standard, etc.) It's hard to say that living in Beijing/Shanghai is a better quality of life than Japan, and outside those two cities Japan is definitely better.
China hasn't thrown off Confucianism, either, just pieces of it, and not really so much in the rural areas. The Confucian solution to conflict by avoidance and/or top-down control is still there, and women still have it pretty rough.
China hasn't thrown off Confucianism, either, just pieces of it, and not really so much in the rural areas. The Confucian solution to conflict by avoidance and/or top-down control is still there, and women still have it pretty rough.
I think you'll have to be a lot more concrete to make this claim particularly strong. What is a 'dead end' culture? How does that contrast with the problems in the West (and yes, especially those in the US)? How did China 'throw off' their shackles in a way different to Japan post WW2? What are the actual 5th century ideas in play?
Confucianism promotes a centralized and hierarchical sociopolitical system, fundamentally conservative in nature, and deeply misogynistic. Being therefore limited in its adaptive capacity, it is necessarily being phased out even in its homeland. I think you can educate yourself as to national histories in the 20th century. I am not going to get in to comparisons with the west.
> I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future [compared to anywhere else I've been].
Have you been to Singapore?
Have you been to Singapore?
Yes, lived there for 4 years.
Fron when to when? I lived there between 2004 and 2009 and I thought there were a a lot of transitions (like the era matters a lot).
Do you think Japan is a decade ahead of Singapore as well?
If anything, I always have the impression Singapore is ahead of the rest of the world in many respects.
(Not in all respect. Not in cycling or craft beer.)
If anything, I always have the impression Singapore is ahead of the rest of the world in many respects.
(Not in all respect. Not in cycling or craft beer.)
Yes. And I love Singapore.
I'd like to think that cities / countries of the future have lower inequality and are more self sustainable (not too much Singapore can do here, but it might become increasingly important).
I don't want to speak too much subjectively. Because I've lived in Singapore and I've only visited Japan. So maybe I just haven't seen Japan's dirty side - which was kind of what I was asking in my original post. I've heard (and seen (maid cafe)) that Japan has a sexism issue, but so does Singapore, and I wouldn't know how to quantify them.
I'd like to think that cities / countries of the future have lower inequality and are more self sustainable (not too much Singapore can do here, but it might become increasingly important).
I don't want to speak too much subjectively. Because I've lived in Singapore and I've only visited Japan. So maybe I just haven't seen Japan's dirty side - which was kind of what I was asking in my original post. I've heard (and seen (maid cafe)) that Japan has a sexism issue, but so does Singapore, and I wouldn't know how to quantify them.
Doesn't Singapore run on $1/hr workers from other countries? It has much higher inequality than Japan.
Global inequality doesn't go away just because we close our eyes to it.
Yes, Singapore has special visas for people to come as construction workers or maids. Some Google suggests they make about 800 SGD/month in basic pay in construction
Alas, if Singapore wouldn't hire them, not only would the city lose out on infrastructure projects, but the construction workers would lose out on high paying jobs. (High paying relative to the alternatives for them.)
Yes, not hiring them would technically decrease measured inflation in Singapore, but that would be functionally equivalent to deporting your poor people in an effort to decrease measured inequality inside your borders.
Yes, Singapore has special visas for people to come as construction workers or maids. Some Google suggests they make about 800 SGD/month in basic pay in construction
Alas, if Singapore wouldn't hire them, not only would the city lose out on infrastructure projects, but the construction workers would lose out on high paying jobs. (High paying relative to the alternatives for them.)
Yes, not hiring them would technically decrease measured inflation in Singapore, but that would be functionally equivalent to deporting your poor people in an effort to decrease measured inequality inside your borders.
I have no problem with how Singapore operates. I thought the post above me said "I'd like to think that cities / countries of the future have lower inequality". I thought Singapore was a poor example of that.
Maybe.
Though I interpreted that as implying "places of the future help combat inequality" (like that particular policy of Singapore arguably does), not "places of the future sweep inequality under the rug".
There are other policies in Singapore that you can argue increase inequality. But giving poor foreigner a chance sort-of does the opposite.
Though I interpreted that as implying "places of the future help combat inequality" (like that particular policy of Singapore arguably does), not "places of the future sweep inequality under the rug".
There are other policies in Singapore that you can argue increase inequality. But giving poor foreigner a chance sort-of does the opposite.
What about Japan seems like the future? Maybe you should try Singapore or many of the big cities in China. Singapore's architecture looks far more in the future than anything in Japan at this point. So do many other more modern Asian cities. China has lots of poverty but the big cities are far further along in their switch to digital than Japan.
It was a big deal during lockdown that so much of Japan's government runs on paper documents that have to be stamped with official personal seals (hanko). The new prime minister has claimed it's one of this top priorities because Japan is so far behind.
It was a big deal during lockdown that so much of Japan's government runs on paper documents that have to be stamped with official personal seals (hanko). The new prime minister has claimed it's one of this top priorities because Japan is so far behind.
I've lived for multiple years in Singapore, Shanghai and Hong Kong. I think they're all great.
For the sake of argument, I'll try to keep this about Tokyo, but a key observation of mine is that _all_ of Japan is like this.
Objectively, Tokyo has the lowest pollution. Singapore is close, on average, but it can have awful week-long spikes. Tokyo has the lowest crime rate. Again, Singapore is basically the same, but it does have a high incarceration rate. Japan has the lowest income inequality gap (couldn't find Tokyo-specific statistics). Japan has the highest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality rate (tied with Singapore re infant mortality). Japan also has the highest rate of people who completed tertiary education.
Pollution and income inequality are, for me, major indicators. Income equality benefits everyone; and, as much as I love Singapore (I really do), it's hard for me to consider it an ideal future city because of this (and the inequality has a racial aspect which, I think, is the source of its persistence).
The lockdown highlighted the worst in every country. Both China and Singapore had clear failings (and successes).
I guess we're measuring "future" differently. Technology vs [e]quality of life.
For the sake of argument, I'll try to keep this about Tokyo, but a key observation of mine is that _all_ of Japan is like this.
Objectively, Tokyo has the lowest pollution. Singapore is close, on average, but it can have awful week-long spikes. Tokyo has the lowest crime rate. Again, Singapore is basically the same, but it does have a high incarceration rate. Japan has the lowest income inequality gap (couldn't find Tokyo-specific statistics). Japan has the highest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality rate (tied with Singapore re infant mortality). Japan also has the highest rate of people who completed tertiary education.
Pollution and income inequality are, for me, major indicators. Income equality benefits everyone; and, as much as I love Singapore (I really do), it's hard for me to consider it an ideal future city because of this (and the inequality has a racial aspect which, I think, is the source of its persistence).
The lockdown highlighted the worst in every country. Both China and Singapore had clear failings (and successes).
I guess we're measuring "future" differently. Technology vs [e]quality of life.
What I thought as the most striking difference between singapore and tokyo is the noise level feels much less in tokyo.
Singapore is boring, the whole place seems like a plastic copy of whatever the original is. Tokyo has its own culture and vibe and it shows, it is just much more fun. Every day in Tokyo you can discover new things, in Singapore the only thing you discover is another international food franchise. So apart from all the technicalities those are not even comparable places.
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The American obsession over living or not with parents sounds almost pathological to me. Being jobless is issue. Long term inability to find partner is issue. But, if you don't have partner, what exactly is the reason for moving to live alone and why is focus specifically on "omg someone lives with parents"?
I mean, multigenerational households were historical norm. It is not something super special that happened just now nor catastrophy. It does have disadvantages, especially when relationships are bad. But, if you get along then it is a good thing and pretty often makes living together rational decision.
Also, every time topic of loneliness comes out, hacker news is full of lonely people talking about how it sux. One way to be less lonely is to live with other people and keep close contact with family - assuming no one is narcissist or overly controlling or something like that.
I mean, multigenerational households were historical norm. It is not something super special that happened just now nor catastrophy. It does have disadvantages, especially when relationships are bad. But, if you get along then it is a good thing and pretty often makes living together rational decision.
Also, every time topic of loneliness comes out, hacker news is full of lonely people talking about how it sux. One way to be less lonely is to live with other people and keep close contact with family - assuming no one is narcissist or overly controlling or something like that.
So, there's a huge difference between these two situations:
1) Being roommates with your parents when everyone is adults, have appropriate adult relationships, and everyone contributes to the household
2) Perpetually staying a child and never moving out because you don't have the skills to live without being taken care of by your parents. (Think about the movie "Stepbrothers")
It just ends up being that in the US most people who don't move out are part of the second group. So that's why it has negative connotations, because it's more likely than not someone who is living at home is doing so because they haven't grown up, not because they want a roommate who is also a close family member. It's been my experience that the adults who have adult relationships with their parents and are living with their parents actually get praised for being "financially smart."
People always throw out "but... multigenerational households in {culture}" I guess don't realize "multigenerational households" are not the same as "living in your parents basement."
Beyond that, moving out of your parents house doesn't mean living by yourself, you can live with roommates or a spouse, a dorm, rent a room, etc., So you are not necessarily giving up something financially.
As an aside, I know someone who dated a guy who was living in his parents basement (in his late 20s) and it felt to her like she was dating his parents just as much as she was dating him, his parents were still treating him like he was 12 years old. Needless to say, the relationship didn't really work out.
1) Being roommates with your parents when everyone is adults, have appropriate adult relationships, and everyone contributes to the household
2) Perpetually staying a child and never moving out because you don't have the skills to live without being taken care of by your parents. (Think about the movie "Stepbrothers")
It just ends up being that in the US most people who don't move out are part of the second group. So that's why it has negative connotations, because it's more likely than not someone who is living at home is doing so because they haven't grown up, not because they want a roommate who is also a close family member. It's been my experience that the adults who have adult relationships with their parents and are living with their parents actually get praised for being "financially smart."
People always throw out "but... multigenerational households in {culture}" I guess don't realize "multigenerational households" are not the same as "living in your parents basement."
Beyond that, moving out of your parents house doesn't mean living by yourself, you can live with roommates or a spouse, a dorm, rent a room, etc., So you are not necessarily giving up something financially.
As an aside, I know someone who dated a guy who was living in his parents basement (in his late 20s) and it felt to her like she was dating his parents just as much as she was dating him, his parents were still treating him like he was 12 years old. Needless to say, the relationship didn't really work out.
> But, if you don't have partner, what exactly is the reason for moving to live alone and why is focus specifically on "omg someone lives with parents"?
Freedom, independence, personal autonomy. Even having good relations with my parents i prefer to have some distance and meet them on equal terms.
And i do not know about 'American'. Preference for independent living seems common also here in Europe.
> I mean, multigenerational households were historical norm.
Yes, because people cannot afford independent home from young age. Once society became wealthier, norms changed.
Freedom, independence, personal autonomy. Even having good relations with my parents i prefer to have some distance and meet them on equal terms.
And i do not know about 'American'. Preference for independent living seems common also here in Europe.
> I mean, multigenerational households were historical norm.
Yes, because people cannot afford independent home from young age. Once society became wealthier, norms changed.
I prefer not to meet with my parents on equal terms even though I'm middle-aged and they're approaching old age. I've got billions of people I can treat like strangers, why not give my first teachers a special status? You might say that I treat my parents as if they were my very own parents.
I don't understand the lionization of letting the atomization of society pervade even your closest and oldest relationships. I understood what my mother was before I understood what walking was, and far before I understood what a dollar was. I don't feel a need to be absolutely autonomous to be an adult. I also don't feel free to disappoint my parents just because they can't punish me for it.
I don't understand the lionization of letting the atomization of society pervade even your closest and oldest relationships. I understood what my mother was before I understood what walking was, and far before I understood what a dollar was. I don't feel a need to be absolutely autonomous to be an adult. I also don't feel free to disappoint my parents just because they can't punish me for it.
i prefer to have some distance and meet them on equal terms
This is an interesting observation. I know several cultures typically have children living with parents until they are married, but I've (anecdotally) noticed they tend to have very different relationships with their parents. Parents are much more involved in their children's lives and decisions they make, sometimes to the detriment of the children.
This is an interesting observation. I know several cultures typically have children living with parents until they are married, but I've (anecdotally) noticed they tend to have very different relationships with their parents. Parents are much more involved in their children's lives and decisions they make, sometimes to the detriment of the children.
When I moved out, I did not gained autonomy or freedom I would be missing in your theory. I largely lived same lifestyle as when with parents. I for more space, but that is it.
I lost autonomy and freedom and independence when I had children. That was hard to accept for me. But it was something completely different.
I lost autonomy and freedom and independence when I had children. That was hard to accept for me. But it was something completely different.
You need to help spread the idea that the reason people don't live with their parents is corporations brainwashed them into wanting to move out so they'd buy cars, rent apartments, and fill those apartments with things.
No idea if it's true
Of course corporations brainwashed us into believing smoking is cool and wedding rings are required and no amount of try to point that out as made a single % dent in getting people to stop wanting either.
Maybe sponsor a few movies a year showing happy families living under the same roof caring for each other.
No idea if it's true
Of course corporations brainwashed us into believing smoking is cool and wedding rings are required and no amount of try to point that out as made a single % dent in getting people to stop wanting either.
Maybe sponsor a few movies a year showing happy families living under the same roof caring for each other.
Completely agree. I'm a Korean American in my thirties, and most of my East Asian American friends lived with their parents until they got married, or they had to move a very long distance away for work. Several of my friends who are now entering their early 40s and are still unmarried continue to live with their parents. All are doing at least above average financially and could easily afford to move out, but they (myself included) don't see the point.
In contrast, my non Asian friends are shocked when the hear about stuff like this. It's like they cannot possibly imagine living with your parents beyond college. It's tantamount to admitting you are a failure at life.
I once lived on my own for two years in my twenties just to see what it was like. My apartment was barely 15 minutes away from my parents home. After two years, I came to the conclusion it was pointless because all I did at my place was sleep, so I moved back in. I didn't move back out until I got married many years later.
I will admit, I was not exactly a big hit with women and at least part of the reason I chose to move out back then was to see if it would improve my love life. It did not. YMMV, but many of my aforementioned Asian friends who are happily living with their parents today at an "advanced age" are also happily dating. For that matter, I was completely dateless/loveless when I was living on my own, but it ironically improved significantly after I had moved back in with my parents, culminating in my marriage.
In contrast, my non Asian friends are shocked when the hear about stuff like this. It's like they cannot possibly imagine living with your parents beyond college. It's tantamount to admitting you are a failure at life.
I once lived on my own for two years in my twenties just to see what it was like. My apartment was barely 15 minutes away from my parents home. After two years, I came to the conclusion it was pointless because all I did at my place was sleep, so I moved back in. I didn't move back out until I got married many years later.
I will admit, I was not exactly a big hit with women and at least part of the reason I chose to move out back then was to see if it would improve my love life. It did not. YMMV, but many of my aforementioned Asian friends who are happily living with their parents today at an "advanced age" are also happily dating. For that matter, I was completely dateless/loveless when I was living on my own, but it ironically improved significantly after I had moved back in with my parents, culminating in my marriage.
Living with their parents is a symptom of not being able to afford living on their own.
Outside of Western society, or maybe just outside of American society, this is completely untrue.
In parts of Asia, and even in Asian enclaves in the US, you can even see high earning people (say...hedge fundies, or FAANG SWEs) living with their parents. In these cultures, marriage is typically the point where you move out, not graduating college.
In parts of Asia, and even in Asian enclaves in the US, you can even see high earning people (say...hedge fundies, or FAANG SWEs) living with their parents. In these cultures, marriage is typically the point where you move out, not graduating college.
Small nuclear family domiciles (as opposed to multigenerational family domiciles) are a particular feature of Anglo-Saxon-influenced cultures. So it's more common to see this in Mediterranean Europe (e.g. the Italian 'mammone') https://www.thelocal.it/20180619/italy-mammone-living-at-hom... as well.
Not just Anglo-Saxon but Northwest Europe, and the pattern goes back at least 400 years. I haven't seen any maps but I think it probably very roughly corresponds with the Hajnal line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajnal_line
Of course, modern American notions of the nuclear family are a little different from the historical norm as wealth and health put limits on its expression. Modern, middle-class East Asian norms are probably closer to the pattern hundreds of years ago in Northwest Europe.[1] But in terms of comparative culture the distinctions are crystal clear across time.
[1] Of course, hundreds of years ago (or just 100 years ago), many East Asian cultures had uber multigenerational clan households and even entire villages. I heard a story over dinner once from an elderly Chinese-Singaporean. His parents were migrants from China. His father died when he was a baby, and his mother died when he was about 8. Every night his mother had him sing and memorize a song that described his [paternal] family's village. Fast-forward to his late 60s, he finally has the urge to travel to China to find his roots. All he had to go on was the general region and the song, which described some kind of confluence of mountains and rivers. He got close enough that a local was able to recognize the details and tell him the precise village. When he got there the villagers--mostly cousins, and even an uncle, IIRC--already knew all about him and his parents. Both his parents' death as well as his birth were recorded in the clan books, even though they happened in Malaysia and he has no idea how news traveled back to the village. They even showed him the shrine to his father, which was tended to by the new occupant (presumably a distant cousin) of the house his father had previously lived in.
Of course, modern American notions of the nuclear family are a little different from the historical norm as wealth and health put limits on its expression. Modern, middle-class East Asian norms are probably closer to the pattern hundreds of years ago in Northwest Europe.[1] But in terms of comparative culture the distinctions are crystal clear across time.
[1] Of course, hundreds of years ago (or just 100 years ago), many East Asian cultures had uber multigenerational clan households and even entire villages. I heard a story over dinner once from an elderly Chinese-Singaporean. His parents were migrants from China. His father died when he was a baby, and his mother died when he was about 8. Every night his mother had him sing and memorize a song that described his [paternal] family's village. Fast-forward to his late 60s, he finally has the urge to travel to China to find his roots. All he had to go on was the general region and the song, which described some kind of confluence of mountains and rivers. He got close enough that a local was able to recognize the details and tell him the precise village. When he got there the villagers--mostly cousins, and even an uncle, IIRC--already knew all about him and his parents. Both his parents' death as well as his birth were recorded in the clan books, even though they happened in Malaysia and he has no idea how news traveled back to the village. They even showed him the shrine to his father, which was tended to by the new occupant (presumably a distant cousin) of the house his father had previously lived in.
I could afford to move out sooner, but it would be waste of money. Instead I gave parents something out of what I earned to cover what I eat and some. It just was not an issue in any way. What exactly would I gained if I moved elsewhere to live alone or with roommate?
Not everyone has parents that are normal people. Some people have parents that are abusive. Unsure if you're looking for why some people do want to move out as soon as possible but that's a main one for a lot of people. I know a lot of college adults cannot afford to go to university while having a part time job and living alone. Sucks for them if their parents are abusive. Not so much if parents are okay.
Also some people don't have parents. But your family doesn't have to be the one you're born with. There are lots of families who have taken in one of their children's friends as a virtual child to rescue them from a bad situation. I'd assumed that most families have members who aren't actually related by blood or marriage. In my family, they end up being "uncles" and "aunts," but started off as "play-cousins" and "play-children." Maybe it's a black thing.
What exactly would I gained if I moved elsewhere to live alone or with roommate?
Independence. A sense of self-reliance. Freedom to make your own decisions (good or bad) and learn from them. Freedom to live your life as you want, even if your parents disagree with it.
Independence. A sense of self-reliance. Freedom to make your own decisions (good or bad) and learn from them. Freedom to live your life as you want, even if your parents disagree with it.
You can do all of that while living with your parents, depending on if they treat you as an adult or not.
To a degree. But there’s a difference between making sure you pay rent because otherwise you’ll be homeless and being worried your parents will be upset because you didn’t pay for groceries this week.
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Sounds like America
Can’t view the article without paying
I blame the parents for this, they should have kicked the kids out of the house when they were 22. Then they could live with roommates, men and women and learn how to live. There was a show about that in the '90s bunch of good-looking men and women and sometimes a monkey. I can't remember the name of it though.
I was wondering about that "enabling" angle as well. I remember when I was in my young twenties a good friend of mine had a parent who pushed him out of the nest. I remember being shocked and offended by the crazy act and thought it equally outrageous as he did. Years later I look back and see that it actually taught my friend the ropes and the difficulties in life taken for granted with the parents taking care of things they figured out years ago. People won't know how hard life is until they get their hands dirty and make it on their own.
I always found it curious how the various species out there push their offspring on to adulthood. Trial by fire, diving in to learn how to swim, there's a lot of wisdom in all that. Life is hard, and at some point you realize people don't get get old by default, unencumbered by adversity and trials and tribulations--all those older folks you see are actually survivors.
I always found it curious how the various species out there push their offspring on to adulthood. Trial by fire, diving in to learn how to swim, there's a lot of wisdom in all that. Life is hard, and at some point you realize people don't get get old by default, unencumbered by adversity and trials and tribulations--all those older folks you see are actually survivors.
I bet for every one like your friend that succeeds there will be another that ends up lying in the gutter somewhere.
They'll also get a burst of creativity. I know that whenever I am unemployed my creativity just gets diverted into the nearest interesting endeavour. One of those might have paid off and become a business. Quite likely in fact, if I hadn't had to work. I've often considered going on benefits so that I can work on my own ideas unhindered by work life. But I wanted a family more than I wanted time to pursue my other dreams.
I am very sure there are a great many others who are taking the opportunity to follow their dreams now that they have been forced to stay at home, out of work.
Please actually read the article. You couldn't be further from the truth.
This isn't about people temporarily out of a job for whom having a lot of free time is a breath of fresh air.
This is about people who have spent decades without a job or on-and-off underpaid jobs because they missed a critical, narrow window in their lives where full-time employment with actual career prospects was available. They feel stifled and useless, not creative.
This isn't about people temporarily out of a job for whom having a lot of free time is a breath of fresh air.
This is about people who have spent decades without a job or on-and-off underpaid jobs because they missed a critical, narrow window in their lives where full-time employment with actual career prospects was available. They feel stifled and useless, not creative.
I read the article and all I could think was, "wow, what a load of excuses".
The idea that you can only get a job if you take advantage of a critical window in your life is nonsense.
There is plenty of work for people who are willing to work. For example, you could go door to door in your apartment complex and offer to take people's trash out to the dumpster. You could offer to clean their house, wash their dishes, do their laundry, walk their dogs, whatever. Mow people's lawns, weed their flowers, whatever.
If you are trustworthy and reliable and even slightly entrepreneurial, you will have more work than you know what to do with. It might not pay well (or hardly at all) at first, but it will build over time.
But instead, these losers are sitting at home watching anime and listening to K-Pop and moaning about how they missed their window of opportunity, while they live off their parents for years.
Gimme a friggin break.
I could definitely see this as being an issue with culture and depression, though. If the culture represses and shames entrepreneurs or people doing menial labor, for example, that would be a big issue. And if you are depressed, it's hard to find motivation to get out there and work and be rejected by all of the people who turn you down as you go door to door.
The idea that you can only get a job if you take advantage of a critical window in your life is nonsense.
There is plenty of work for people who are willing to work. For example, you could go door to door in your apartment complex and offer to take people's trash out to the dumpster. You could offer to clean their house, wash their dishes, do their laundry, walk their dogs, whatever. Mow people's lawns, weed their flowers, whatever.
If you are trustworthy and reliable and even slightly entrepreneurial, you will have more work than you know what to do with. It might not pay well (or hardly at all) at first, but it will build over time.
But instead, these losers are sitting at home watching anime and listening to K-Pop and moaning about how they missed their window of opportunity, while they live off their parents for years.
Gimme a friggin break.
I could definitely see this as being an issue with culture and depression, though. If the culture represses and shames entrepreneurs or people doing menial labor, for example, that would be a big issue. And if you are depressed, it's hard to find motivation to get out there and work and be rejected by all of the people who turn you down as you go door to door.
> If the culture represses and shames entrepreneurs or people doing menial labor, for example, that would be a big issue.
You nailed it. In Japan, if you did that kind of thing it would be hugely shameful for your entire family. People will go to great lengths to hide the fact that they don't have a conventional job.
> And if you are depressed, it's hard to find motivation to get out there and work and be rejected by all of the people who turn you down as you go door to door.
And of course the first point above amplifies any tendency for depression that people may already have.
You nailed it. In Japan, if you did that kind of thing it would be hugely shameful for your entire family. People will go to great lengths to hide the fact that they don't have a conventional job.
> And if you are depressed, it's hard to find motivation to get out there and work and be rejected by all of the people who turn you down as you go door to door.
And of course the first point above amplifies any tendency for depression that people may already have.
I have understood the article. I am saying for a minority this will be a liberation from duty and will allow for their natural creativity to express itself. Many will feel stifled, useless and un creative - but a few will have an opportunity to create that a normal life would not have afforded them.
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What sorts of dreams can you follow when you are broke? I mean, realistically? And creative endeavors - how are your affording these things? Are your hobbies cheap? Does the stress of non-work bother you? Were you lucky enough to have decent compensation when you were unemployed or have someone else to support you?
How in the world do you "go on benefits" if you are able-bodied? Are you in a country where benefits mean you get more than poverty money?
How in the world do you "go on benefits" if you are able-bodied? Are you in a country where benefits mean you get more than poverty money?
Poverty would be fine if I had the chance to work on what I want to work on. All I need is a computer for my work. I could work on mathematics, physics, I could write a novel. I could read academic papers day in day out, gorge on information. It would be wonderful.
In other words: Yes, your hobby is cheap. You only have to buy a computer every once in a while, though you'll run into trouble the moment it gets too out of date or breaks. Poverty doesn't allow you to replace such things.
Lots of hobbies require investment. I do art: more specifically, draw and paint, both of which require supplies. My mother sews, but that requires material and making a shirt is more expensive than buying it unless you get material, thread, and things for free. Spouse makes music: Some guitars eat strings and synths take space and electricity (not to mention the cost: Used synths are still expensive).
Lots of hobbies require investment. I do art: more specifically, draw and paint, both of which require supplies. My mother sews, but that requires material and making a shirt is more expensive than buying it unless you get material, thread, and things for free. Spouse makes music: Some guitars eat strings and synths take space and electricity (not to mention the cost: Used synths are still expensive).
Then I would use the computer in the local library. Failing that I'm quite comfortable just working on things with a pencil and paper, I could quite easily lose myself in mathematics for a life time.
Who buys you food?
And shelter? Sewer? You could conceivably be a nomad but that takes some effort and still has baseline costs.
America desperately needs this. I fear the rise of social media has caused more and more people to stay inside all day without interacting with any real humans. I've found Meetup to work very well for getting out of the house.
I did find it interesting how closely moving out and getting married was linked here. I've seen members of my family have children, without moving out and I definitely moved out while single.