Old people in Japan should commit mass suicide says Yale professor

- "Since 2008"
  
  Australian dude used a home-made robot to kill himself in 2008
  https://www.wired.com/2008/03/australian-man/
  9 years late on a corporate model
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarco_pod
- "For an extra quarter, would you like to have your eyes scooped out by a melon baller?"
- I would very much love to have the choice.
  
  You already do.
  But if you think suicide is a desirable choice, call a helpline. In all but some rare cases, your problem is disordered thinking.

Actual Japanese here, even within the dark humor context, I wholeheartedly agree with Yusuke Narita.
It's precisely the gerontocracy in Japan why the nation is heading extremely far right. The aging oppressive population needs to retire, vacate, and leave the younger generation capable of making their choices. We are the lowest GDP first nation because of elders oppressing.
I'm glad Yusukeさん is in the 🇺🇲, but I’m afraid he’ll be deathcamped soon.
I'm thankful 28 folks read the article correctly. Fuck oppression.
- Thanks for the added opinion and context.
  When I read he actually used the word "seppuku", I immediately knew that it wasn't just suicide he was talking about. He's also saying that the oldest generation needs to admit they screwed everything up beyond repair, and answer for it.
- People tend to conservadorism as they age, due to cognitive decline and loss of plasticity of the brain. It's a global phenomenon and usually make them make bad decisions in regards to what's best for the public or public interest.
  That's why I think there must be age limit to occupy public lidership roles.
- It's precisely the gerontocracy in Japan why the nation is heading extremely far right.
  Is it 参政党 and their ilk were mostly voted for by the younger crowds whereas the olds stayed with the LDP, at least from the exit polling I saw. I mean, for me personally, the LDP is too far right, but Sanseitou is definitely a lot further off. Some older also split to the DPFTP to show disappointment, but I'm less clear on those numbers.
- What on Earth is with the links.
  A link to a Lemmy micro-opinion, a link to a Sega video, and a link to some random article.
  
  The links have other links to sources, so nested sources.
  The Sega video has citations on how our economy got dwindled by greedy kusojijii forcing us to work for longer hours and years than they ever did. I'm too overworked to find you an encapsulating video essay on how spiralled to death our economy got fucked over by our boomers. Koreans have nothing on how fascistic our society already is.
  Yusuke Narita lives in 🇺🇲. The article references folks ICE has abducted that maybe legal Japanese-US citizens, on their way to whichever deathcamp Trump sent these workers to.

Pro-life website. The article is probably not worth reading lmao.
- EUTHANASIA / ASS SUICIDE
  Their proofreading skills check out.
  
  Should be EUTHANASSIA in that case, right?
- Thanks. Obvious rage bait.
- Doesn't sound very "pro-life" to me. But then their self-identification was always a severe misnomer.

Why the fuck does this publication abbreviate assisted suicide as "ass suicide"
- It should obviously be ass suc
- Any means you choose. Ass suicide is just a recomendation.
- And why Apple is using “Liquid Glass” for “Liquid Ass”?
- I had a colleague who would write to the public health unit summarising that she had discussed whatever issues with the childcare's "ass director".. So now I know it's not just her.
- That could lead to pressuring people into euthananal.

If you've ever seen Thank You for Smoking and appreciated the dark political satire, check out Boomsday from Christopher Buckley by the same author, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomsday_(novel)
Cassandra Devine, "a morally superior twenty-nine-year-old PR chick" and moonlit angry blogger, incites generational warfare when she proposes that the financially nonviable Baby Boomers be given incentives (free Botox, no estate tax) to kill themselves at 70. The proposal, meant only as a catalyst for debate on the issue, catches the approval of millions of citizens, chief among them an ambitious presidential candidate, Senator Randolph Jepperson.
It's been a decade or more since I last read it, but I remember it being pretty funny and insightful.
- It's a good book. And I remember them to be good to read back to back.
- Interesting. Thanks!

Dr Narita has now told The New York Times his comments were “taken out of context”, and the paper reported that he added “they related to demands for older people in leadership positions to make way for the younger generation”.
- "I didn't mean 'they should kill themselves', I merely stated that the old fucks should gtfo and cease to exist. By killing themselves. Media takes things so far out of context..."

Oh yes! Anything but immigration!
But seriously, I feel like this is the broad sentiment of Japanese and the non-Japanese alike. Anti- immigration right applaud Japan for "keeping their country theirs" (as if ethnic Japanese aren't the ones who came later and displaced the local Ainus already living there), and not going on supposed national suicide, unlike the West. Not having enough babies is tantamount to suicide anyway. The narrative then becomes: either allow immigration and go on national and cultural suicide; or don't allow immigration and not have enough babies, which is still considered national suicide. Either way is committing national suicide.
I am not naive to think that immigration has no baggage; but at the same time, if countries want to increase birth rate, then increase the wages and standard of living for young people and families to encourage more people to marry and raise families. However, the elites aren't going to do the former because they don't want to disappoint their shareholders. If they don't want to do that, then allow more immigration, which they also don't want to do.
- Orrrr (and this applies to most western countries in the near future too) they could maybe kinda consider not creating conditions in which its fucking impossible to have kids?
  
  The problem is already well underway in the west. Some potential growth has already been squandered, acting now is an emergency.
  
  As someone in a western country now inconceivable! Heck we still have a good portion of Americans who complain about the living standards but will stay home in November or actively vote for things like deporting immigrants like that magically fixes the over arching problem
  56 is the median age for home buyers in 2025 and it’s been this way for a very long time.
  We’re as doomed as Japan honestly we just happen to encourage immigration lol. So I agree with you.
  
  For a lot of people, delaying to settle down and have family is a choice (like for myself), but you are right that conditions are being created to dis-incentivise raising a family.
  I think South Korea could provide a model to encourage more birth rate. They created a new administrative capital city where it is more family oriented. The result? Explosion in birth rate. In the following years, other places replicated the model and South Korea as a whole experienced more birth this year for the first time in nine years.
- Yeah, plus consider how many people already learn Japanese as it’s considered to be a sexy language in many countries
- I completely sympathize with the Japanese view about immigration. Their society has a lot going for it which is held up by the culture. And diversity would lead to a tragedy of the commons in many cases, like keeping public spaces clean.
  However, sacrificing your elders is not exactly Japan’s culture either.
  
  The "tragedy of the commons" was an economic thought experiment involving unmanged commons. Learn the history of how commons were actually managed through history and you'll draw a different conclusion.
  Also, don't let the rich expropriate the commons like they did in the UK in the late 17th and all the 18th centuries. That causes all kinds of social problems, including mass (sometimes coerced) emigration.

You first, buddy

He might have to talk about this with his universities ethics commission...

The article is from 2023 and the source is a anti abortion site. The big red flag for me was the tweet from Pierre Pollievre saying how Conservatives are there to help people.
From what I've seen when Japanese people saw the footage and context of the conversation they do believe it was more about older generation moving on.
Dr Narita has now told The New York Times his comments were “taken out of context”, and the paper reported that he added “they related to demands for older people in leadership positions to make way for the younger generation”.

Does he see the same solution for old people everywhere, or just Japan? Seems like anyone can become a professor nowadays. There used to be standards, dammit!
- Being generous to him, few places have such a stereotype of people being willing to take his advice as Japan. By which I mean, for 90% of the world, stating his opinion is even more pointless.
  On The Other Hand, maybe he just wanted to try to get people to do it for his own gratification, and picked the most vulnerable targets he could think of.
- it's a lot less controversial when phrased as euthanasia should be an option as a part of palliative care ...
- Remember ‘dinosaurs’ by Jim henson. Yeet grandma in the swap

What an incredibly heartless comment to make.

Aren't we all committing mass suicide already tho? I mean, have you looked at earth lately? I mean I want to kill myself as much as the next person, maybe more, but if we are ranking demographics that should go first, my vote is for the rich not just the elderly
- It's more of a murder/suicide
  
  Yes you are right. I think there is a bell curve of murder culpability that starts at jeff bezo's wedding and ends at children starving to death. No that's wrong bell curves measure the mean and that would just be the working class. Idk what I'm trying to describe. Jeff bezos should volunteer to lead the first human expedition to set foot on the sun. There makes sense now
- In the grande scheme of things, philosophically speaking, maybe.
  
  Well that works for me. The life of the mind is all I have anyway.
- That's one of the funniest lines I've heard today ty
  
  You're welcome, I was surprised to see I'd written it. Could use polish, but you can never go home again I suppose
- Aren't we all committing mass suicide already tho?
  Your comment made me so sad that we kinda are in a more capitalist way.
  We're withholding meds from old people by taking away their health insurance, not giving them any income, and pushing them into the street.
  In the US, Social Security benefits is from $553-$943.
  Boy we are so fucked.
  
  I'm people, I'm social security, I'll lose medicaid, I'll lose snap, I'll lose Medicare with the ai auto denials, maybe I'll street, not for long though.
  
  In the US, Social Security benefits is from $553-$943.
  Nope. The max is more like $3600 a month.
  Source: I get Social Security and I'm paid about that amount. I was over max Social Security income for all the years I needed to quality.
- no
  proof provided in your continued posting on lemmy
  
  Oh that's just to ameliorate the insanity; I'm fully resigned to the inevitability of my death and factual nature of my contribution, however minor it may be, to our collective demise

Counterpoint: Everyone who ever attended yale should commit mass suicide
- I know this is meant to be a joke but it is incentive.
  
  We you meaning "pertinent" or "appropriate"? Incentive has always been a noun in my experience.

I do wish there was a way to check out early without endangering your insurance, though.
- Simple, don't have insurance
  taps head 🧠
- Whoops my car drove off of a bridge

That did he write his thesis on, The Giver?

I was kinda hoping I'd read the article and it would be a modern day "a modest proposal" but it doesn't seem to be and now I'm sad.

And he's not even a professor of medicine or pathology, this talking authoritatively about things outside your field is really getting out of hand /s

Oh hey, I've read that Vonnegut story.
- We are what we pretend to be?

Ubasute (elder senicide): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubasute
- Similarly, ättestupa.
  
  My instructions to family members in case I get brain rot are essentially ättestupa.
- left there to die
  Couldn't even do them the service of running them through with a katana. Just left them alone to suffer. Lol

What a radical thing to say.

Just asking out of curiosity, but if that occurred, would that actually solve the problem of population decline?
To be clear I’m not advocating for this, I’m just trying to understand the what’s going on.
- Well it would free up a lot of resources that could be redirected to free child care.
  but it seems more like people are being over worked and underpaid. They just can't afford to spend time or money on kids
  
  Grandparents are a major source of free childcare
  
  My wife and I make decent money and could afford a kid, but we do not have the time.
  We are both working over 40 hour weeks.
- No. This would have lots of weird impacts. In the countryside, a lot of employees are quite old. A lot also do childcare for their grandkids at least some of the time. A lot of farmers would be gone as well. There's also a lot of paperwork that suddenly needs to be done grinding a lot of government to a halt. A lot of businesses as well since, from what I've seen form friends' older relatives dying, a lot of people do NOT have their shit in order and Japan has lots of small businesses and sole proprietorships.
  Depending upon the wording of the policies and suicide, life insurance companies might have big issues or families might have huge monetary issues. I guess we can pretend they don't all die at once and clog up the whole morgue and funeral infrastructure which is a whole other thing.
  The religious and political implications could be interesting. Bhuddist gravesites in Japan for family graves tend to be very expensive to buy and maintain.
  I could actually keep going for a while, but the short version is that, at least in the short term, it would likely do more harm than good. This says nothing of the actual emotional impact on people.
  
  Thanks, it’s seemed that his “solution” was off.

Aha. Before committing mass suicide, they might want to use the next 75 years to invent robot caregivers. That'd be another option to deal with old people.
- Who's paying for it? All the old people going to work?
  
  Well, for one, the people who are old in 75 years, haven't even all finished school as of today. They're going to have to pay for it and manufacture them themselves while they're young (which is today), or it won't be a thing once they're old.
- but we could isolate and study those old people to determine what nutrients they have that might be extracted for our personal use!

I think old people in the US should do this too. I actually think it would have a net positive impact.
- Kind of sad death with dignity is not allowed in most places. I really dont want to be a walking corpse like my great grand parents were with Parkinson and/or alzheimers. Ill take hard drugs please. I get its hard to say goodbye to love ones but I saw them as already dead wasting away.

I don't speak Japanese, but if you follow the link to the video it starts about 18 minutes into the 20 minutes video. The professor says something and then everyone laughs.

I'm not confident that courting the suggestion of suicide by bringing public attention to it is the ethical move for a journalist.

I think we should all have dots in our hands and when it glows at the age of 30 we enter the Carousel to be renewed.
- Renew! Renew!

Old people in Japan should commit mass suicide says random asshole idiot
Just because he's something something from Yale doesn't mean he's right or even an authority on the subject. With the statement he made it's fairly obvious that he's an idiot and likely a psychopath soooooo why is the press giving this any attention?
Heck, I could argue that by giving this attention, some people might be tempted to implement this idea, this article it just plain stupid.

Why is the picture ai?

These people should sacrifice themselves in service of an economic system's growth I.operative.
Capitalism is the atheists religion.
- Typos ignored, only one in six is able to accept this fact. America has a way to fall.