Anti-foreigner sentiments are on the rise as Japan faces a population crisis

Logical if you believe your race/identity are superior to others, which is an illogical starting premise and the root of why conservatives are always on the wrong side of history.

But it’s also logical.

In what world is "I rather die in squalor and let the entire country suffer than see people that look different than me on the street, eat some food I don't recognize", logical?

It is only logical if you're... well, a supremacist.

I mean, it requires a mental framework of how culture and identity work that is fundamentally supremacist.

Culture works by aggregation, it's entirely unrelated to borders and it is in perpetual shift. This assumption requires misunderstanding culture from a very specific perspective.

So no, not logical.

Internally consistent, yes: make women into reproductive vessels and men into the defenders of a fossilized culture enforced through violence. That's a consistent worldview.

But not a logical one if you apply it to reality. The difference matters.

Looks at pile of dead cultures in textbook.... No, that's not logical. That's Jingoist dumbassery.

Many cultures adapt for the better / become more humanist with open migration. Think of it as enhancing your identity (which is likely just mid at best in its current form if we're being real)

Sorry but in the case of Japan, it's definitely not logical. At best, they have an argument against over-tourism. But the Sanseito party acts like foreigners moving to Japan are creating a spike in crime. They literally have young women weeping through a megaphone on the street, crying that foreigners are rapists. But that's simply not backed up by statistics. Crime per capita has not increased, and the demographic committing the most serious crimes in Japan is predominantly native Japanese.

If your culture can't stand up to outside influence was it really that great? Also, the door to the world has been opened. There's no closing that one it's been open. So they'd rather crash into civil unrest because ignorant people have a hard on for the old days?

Yeah the consistent and ever growing wealth gap as corporations continue to grow more profitable and people have more trouble affording food and housing is at the core of a lot of it. People are angry, but the corporations/1% are spending billions on social media, lobbying, funding certain political campaigns etc to convince people that their anger should be directed towards others around them. It’s the fault of foreigners, immigrants, minorities, women, LGBTQ, the young, the old, etc etc.

And on the other side of that, Russia has been working to stir up division in a ton of nations since the 90s and has gotten much better at it with social media, so these two groups have homogenized.

Then on the third level, the super rich billionaires like musk and Thiel want dark enlightenment, which is the collapse of society so they can create neofuedalism and run their own techno-slavery-kingdoms, so they want it just as bad.

Just don't acknowledge Alberta and it's all good

This has to be one of the most absurd claims I've seen in a while. You go on to contradict yourself in your second sentence. And still get it wrong. China didn't just discover bigotry. They've been dealing with it since before the founding of the United States or capitalism for that matter.

South America full of thriving democracies? Are we talking about the authoritarian one Trump is paying to torture innocent undocumented. Or is it the fascist one Trump is talking about sending 20 billion to bail out their flailing populist leadership. Or is it the one that got lucky and woke up enough last minute to unseat their burgeoning fascist and take him to trial? But still chock full of the descendants of nazi german expats. Or was it all the tiny ones around them. That have to deal with all of them and the narco cartels. Regularly having elected leaders slaughtered. Hell even Mexico is struggling with that. And I'd say their leadership is far better that what we have here.

It's got nothing to do with the west or capitalism. Though the West and capitalism has done very little to actually help the situation. Tribalism and xenophobic bigotry are basic human nature unfortunately.

I was comparing the racist japanese candidate with the trump clown show

I'm not sure I like this comic because it suggests:

1. The immigrant worker is absent a cookie not the other way around
2. That the working class is dimwitted and easily hoodwinked into racism

I think both assumptions are actually copes by a middle class who, afraid to look at its own complicity in neoliberalism, find's easier to condemn the common people as racist and intellectually deficient.

In actuality I think the working class is intuitively aware that their disfranchisement is directly connected to policies like immigration. Along with the opening up of global markets which had a disruptive affect on wages the policy of open immigration has kept wages low and fractured communities and a common sense of culture.

That party is minority. So yeah, fuck them. But what about the rest of the people in the country? There are many well intentioned folks in Japan, some of them have some xenophobic beliefs, but that doesn't mean they'll all never learn.

They need someone to blame, the outsiders are easiest.

The first sign of a feeble mind.

Alas, it's so ubiquitous :(

but I don’t see how.

Tax the F out of the rich and give it to child-bearing families. The amount is based on the rate of decline. Hand it out as a monthly stipend, and enforce checks for kids' quality of life.

Free government-staffed daycare.

3 Months Paid Paternity/Maternity, guaranteed jobs.

Free Fertility Clinics.

It's going to be expensive AF for a generation or two.

It might be possible to have a society that could survive less-than-replacement birth rates, but I don’t see how.

I want to add that historically, in the US from 1680 to 1880, the population has grown by approximately 3% annually. Source

(In the table, since the growth rate given is per 10-year interval, you have to divide it by 10, roughly, to get 3% annual growth)

This suggests that it should be possible (at least in theory) that the population can shrink at the same speed, i.e. 3% annually. This would mean an average fertility rate around 0.66 children/woman. Currently, in most western nations, it's around 1.4, while 2.1 would be "replacement levels", i.e where the population numbers stagnate.

The reason why i think you can have a 3% annual population decline is because it's kinda symmetric: instead of a surplus in children (which eat and consume resources but don't contribute through their labor power), you have a surplus of old people (which, mostly, also consume resources but don't work). So, the situation is kinda symmetric, and that's why i suggest that it should be possible.

If the entire country wants to enact policies and cultures that would lead to their disappearance then who are we to tell them otherwise?

but you are basically advocating for entire countries to disappear

In biology, a species is considered threatened if there's fewer than 200 individuals of that species around.

Here's your short reminder that south korea has 52 million people, so even if people almost stop having children for a generation or two and the population stabilizes at 5 million people, which is 1/10 of what it currently is, it's still very far away from extinction.

Is it possible there wasn't much census data between 500 AD and 1500 AD in the regions we're seeing a big explosion of people?

While true, that's an inherently unsustainable model. Pensions need to be self-sustaining, rather than relying on the next generation to pay for them. It's ridiculous that one generation basically got a free generation and now every generation afterwards is paying the previous generation's retirement

you're wrongly assuming that pensions have to be paid by labor taxes. there is no natural law of the universe that forces that. introduce taxes on the rich and pensions will be easily paid for.

Sweden is becoming pretty bad in that regard too, they recently cracked down on immigration because old white people don't like people of color.

Wait... wait Your list is mild.. let me add these and feel free to look up each on youtube and wikipedia:

Canada : against Indians , Africans, Arabs + others

Germany : against Romania , Turkish + everyone thats not white

Norway & Sweden : against Romania and Syrian and Iraqi regufees.

Netherland & Italy: againat Gypsies, Romania & Africans

France : against Moroccons & Lybia & Africans

Australia : againat Indians and nonwhite

Irland & UK : against Indians, Pakistan, Arabs and others who are nonwhites

... And here more are some unexpected ones: Developing and 3rd world countries:

Thailand : against Mynamar & Lao + others

India : against Bangladesh and Nepal.

Bangladish : against Myanmar (Rohingya).

Pakistan : against Afghans

South Africa : against migrants from Zimbabwe, Mozambique + others

Kenya : againat Somalis and Nairobi.

Nigeria : against Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

Lebanon: against Syria and Palestine

Kuwait: against Eygptions and Syria, Lebanese + others

Ethiopia : against Somalia and Eritrea

Honduras : against El Salvador and Guatemala.

Venzula : against Columbia

And... that's why xenophobia and socio-economy leave me speechless because I'm pretty sure I have not listed all. It's really just worldwide , and they all cry about forigners hiking up housings and rents, and taking our jobs.

A UBI is a necessity for societies going forward.

Basically, wealth inequality is so bad now that our economies and societies no longer serve the majority of people's needs.

So wealth redistribution is required to fix the problem, the question after realizing that is how to go about it.

We can do a one time redistribution of wealth, but without fundamentally changing the system with regulations, incomes will inevitably become imbalanced again. This is what we did after the Great Depression with the jobs program that was the national parks and highway/railroad projects.

IMO it's better to just stop treating money like it's harmless to allow excess accumulation. It would be better if all wealth were perpetually redistribed via a UBI, this would permanently maintain wealth equality. This is similar to what we did after the Great Depression in regards to corporate tax rates and setting a maximum profit.

Probably a millennial delusion shored up by gaming. Japanese tech hasn't been anything to talk about for nearly 20 years.

It's always outdone by Korean or Chinese tech.

I wouldn't, personally. Just read around on basic etiquette, don't litter, etc. If you're planning on going to Kyoto, it's been a zoo for years now and the people there always hate it (but also some ridiculous part of their economy is tourism as they found out during corona when the money dried up). Oh, and a lot of smaller places are still cash only so carry cash.

I always encourage people to consider places other than just Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, especially these days where technology helps any language barrier.

(which they for some reason keep electing)

I've been told that this is because the population is largely completely politically apathetic, owing to a belief that they aren't able to meaningfully affect political change. So they don't engage, and the existing political structures basically persist on inertia, which feeds back into their belief that things can't change. It's finally gotten bad enough for people to start trying, but of course angry people tend to vote for racists, because racism provides an easy answer for problems.

The biggest issue is probably not being able to play pensions

...and that means retirees will literally starve and live on the streets? I don't think it will. It will just be less luxurious.

have people care for the older generation.

So wages in care work are rising?

This causes a number of problems.

Yes, I'm asking you (or other people making the argument that population decline is so bad) to list them.

Ok, but all of the things you listed are reasons why I would like this kind of economic system to decline. It's what's creating these circumstances and problems in the first place.

Those 700k are now going to have to pay nearly 1/3 more just to keep the same trains running.

That's assuming you only tax income.

Even taxing the rich like crazy won’t make up for it if it’s bad enough

Yep, not buying it. Let's tax them like crazy first, for 20-40 years and when that has actually failed, we can talk about next steps.

okay then i guess you should think about what rate of population decline is acceptable? like, you're saying the current rate is unacceptable; where do you draw the limit and why?

the country HAS to improve the life of persons, particularly women, so that having children and raising them to adulthood is a activity that is more joy than stress.

There is no developed country on the planet where women have the replacment rate or more of children..it will never matter how much support they get. Look to Sweden etal

Always and every time if women are given the ability to be independent and have a choice they will nearly all choose 0,1 or 2. All of that leads to negative population growth. For every woman that chooses 0, you need another that chooses 3 or 4 just for stasis

What you're describing does and would never exist unless women are coerced, have no contraception or are brainwashed (religion) the vast majority obky ont 0,1 or 2.

To have a larger family women need a tribe, we no longer live in tribes (as we did for nearly all of human existence) so the support network is a horror and always will be with the stupidity that is a nuclear famiky.

Then there is ecology, the planet is massively over populated, we are killing ourselves in our own filth, we should have less then a billion people amd probably closer to 100 million.