Japan is a country that is dying—literally. Japan has more people over the age of 65 and the smallest number of people under the age of 15 in the world. It has the fastest negative population growth in the world, and that's because hardly anyone is having babies. In these difficult times, the Japanese are putting marriage and families on the back burner and seeking recreational love and affection as a form of cheap escape with no strings attached.
I have heard a bit about this but hadn't realized it was becoming quite so bad. I'm sure some of our Japanese (either in country or national) can share their thoughts on this.
I have some japanese Nationals as friends. They say the reason is because of the compeitition in the culture is bad, many are trying to leave as much of that behind, including sex. They do not like the "Work till you drop" Mentality of japan. Atleast that is how they explained it to me.
Their fecundity rate is going down. There is no international adoption for a "pure blood Japanese". Their bringing in other Asians to blend into the gene pool. They're paying females to get pregnant.
Whenever you get a high birth rate you get people saying that's bad, and will soon lead to apocalypse.
Whenever you get a low birth rate you get people saying that's bad, and will soon lead to apocalypse.
I mean, Japan's situation is weird, but it's due to a lot of issues that are likely to dissipate much faster than the impact of that behaviour will work its way through society.
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
But unlike other countries, we can actually support a growing population.
Its an oddity of human reproduction, the less able we are to support offspring the more we tend to have.
Western Society could easily support large families, yet we rarely have more than 2 children per family. If anything we need the odd family to have 6+ kids just to keep the rate above the stable 2 per family.
At least Japan isn't in the danger zone for population problems like China is. Falling population coupled with a gender skew is really going to cause problems.
Japan at least has a normal gender ratio so they could at least stabilize the problem. They just need the culture to shift away from seeing children as being a total drag and burden. With Daycare centers you can dump the little monsters off on your way to work. There is no reason children should hinder careers at all.
Yeah, but does germany have Host Clubs and Cuddle Cafes?
Although I might pay the 70$ and hour for a girl to dress up and go on a date with me as my favorite Anim Character....Maybe Revy.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Yeah, but does germany have Host Clubs and Cuddle Cafes?
Although I might pay the 70$ and hour for a girl to dress up and go on a date with me as my favorite Anim Character....Maybe Revy.
It's incorrect to ascribe the low birth rate to Hello Miffy cafes when countries that don't have them have the same low birthrate as ones that do.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Yeah, but does germany have Host Clubs and Cuddle Cafes?
Although I might pay the 70$ and hour for a girl to dress up and go on a date with me as my favorite Anim Character....Maybe Revy.
It's incorrect to ascribe the low birth rate to Hello Miffy cafes when countries that don't have them have the same low birthrate as ones that do.
As you say, those places exist because people have elected not to have relationships. Things like lolita cafes are starting to be exported around the world so Japan wont be alone in having such a lifestyle. The whole developed world has depressed birthrates anyway for a variety of reasons.
Japan is a very work oriented country, and the common young person sees children, relationships and other complications as detrimental to their success. This is not the exact reason for everyone, but it's a common one, from the workers at Lawsons, to young executives and doctors all over the country.
Japan is also coming out of their post-war bubble, and the baby boomers of that generation are on their way out. Traditional values are going with them, and I can see the Japanese countryside being abandoned in the next thirty years or so. Sex is a necessary urge, and a lot of Japanese admit this, and take steps to avoid commitment and relationships, with either prostitution, or symbiotic marriages.
It's all very sad, but as dedicated fanatic, I can't complain. Everything I love in this world comes out of this country, and the talented young people that drive industry and creativity.
Unless something happens to boost Japan's birth rate, its population will shrink by a third between now and 2060. One reason for the lack of babies is the emergence of a new breed of Japanese men, the otaku, who love manga, anime and computers - and sometimes show little interest in sex.
Tokyo is the world's largest metropolis and home to more than 35 million people, so on the face of it, it is hard to believe there is any kind of population problem at all.
But Akihabara, an area of the city dedicated to the manga and anime subculture provides one clue to the country's problems.
Akihabara is heaven for otaku.
They are a generation of geeks who have grown up through 20 years of economic stagnation and have chosen to tune out and immerse themselves in their own fantasy worlds.
Kunio Kitamara, of the Japan Family Planning Association, describes many young Japanese men as "herbivores" - passive and lacking carnal desire.
It seems they no longer have the ambition of the post-war alpha males who made Japan such an economic powerhouse and no interest in joining a company and becoming a salary man.
They have taken on a mole-like existence and, worryingly, withdrawn from relationships with the opposite sex.
A survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in 2010 found 36% of Japanese males aged 16 to 19 had no interest in sex - a figure that had doubled in the space of two years.
I met two otaku, who believe themselves to be in relationships with virtual girlfriends.
This girlfriend is actually a Nintendo computer game called Love Plus, which comes as a small portable tablet.
Nurikan and Yuge take their girlfriends, Rinko and Ne-ne, on actual dates to the park, and buy them cakes to celebrate their birthdays.
"It's the kind of relationship we wish we'd had at high school," says Nurikan.
In the game he is a 15-year-old, though in reality he is 38.
"As long as I have time, I'll continue the relationship forever," says Yuge, who is 39.
"As she's at high school, she picks me up in the morning and we go to school together. After school we meet at the gates and go home together... In the game I am 17."
Yuge says he often puts Ne-ne - or the games console containing her - into the basket of his bicycle, then he takes photographs of them at his destination.
Though Yuge would like to meet a real woman, and Nurikan is married, they say this is easier than having a real girlfriend.
"At high school you can have relationships without having to think about marriage," says Yuge. "With real girlfriends you have to consider marriage. So I think twice about going out with a 3D woman."
Nurikan says he keeps Rinko a secret from his wife, and hopes he never has to choose between them.
It's hard to avoid feeling that otaku are in a perpetual state of childhood and are quite comfortable with their lives this way.
Exactly why they have retreated into fantasy land is not obvious.
Tokyo-based social commentator Roland Kelts says many young Japanese men are pessimistic about the future. They don't believe they will match their parents' wealth and don't want to commit themselves to relationships.
"If you compare China or Vietnam, most of those kids on scooters going to nightclubs, and dancing their heart away and perhaps having sex - they know it's getting better, they know they are probably going to rock their parents' income," he says. "No-one in Japan feels that way."
Several surveys have shown that even when Japanese men and women are in relationships, they have very little sex. In one survey just 27% said they had sex every week.
Marriage rates are also plunging, and very few babies - only 2% - are born out of wedlock.
Japan's demographic timebomb is also linked to the lack of immigration.
In Britain one in eight people were born abroad, compared to one in 60 in Japan. But immigration in Japan is still heavily restricted, despite a dearth of some qualified workers.
In Britain there are 60,000 healthcare workers from overseas, while in Japan - where there is a serious shortage of nurses - there are only 60.
Japan has managed to preserve its unique culture in an increasingly globalised world but could that very sense of identity stand in the way of solving its population problems?
Or is it just time for Japanese men to grow up, have more sex and make more babies?
These talks often start talking about the Japanese people who are having no children, as if that is the answer. But there's plenty of people all over the world who have no children, and never even have a relationship. And I'm not convinced there's so many more in Japan that it is causing the declining birth rate, when many other countries in the world have similarly flat numbers.
I wonder if the cause, in Japan and other developed countries isn't so much the people who have no children, but the absence of people having 3, 4, 5 or more kids... who would otherwise be offsetting the people who had no children. When the parents are both expected to work very long hours then one kid is tough and two even more so, any more after that would be unthinkable. So I wonder if there are any stats out there that break this down, comparing the number of women who have 0 kids, the number who have 1, then 2, 3 and so on and if it is the decline in tail that explains the low birth rate more than a rise in the number of women who have 0 kids.
I don't get it, isn't the low birth rate something normal for many countries? Portugal is another that has a population that's steadily growing older and if that wasn't bad enough, a lot of qualified young people emigrate. Either there isn't a job or they are payed a laughable amount. People should have more kids? How? A couple hardly can afford to pay for their house, much less a baby, something that just murders your wallet.
Eck, myself I'm one of those bastards that has no interest about having kids.
IMO a big part of it in most 1st world countries is work and housing.
House prices are high, so we have to work longer in higher paying jobs or live in worse areas/further from work to have a smaller house, which drives up house prices in that area, which means we have to work longer... etc etc.
This leaves no time for family and friends, we live further from them, work more hours etc. Modern housing and centralization of employment drives all of this and it is compounded by restrictions on house building.
On top of all this people (at least in the UK) see a house as an investment.
I see the same thing happening in the UK and Europe, but it dose not make as good a news story because we can't point to it and go "those crazy Japanese!"
Also, if your going to put a rope bondage video in the thread you should really tag it NSFW in my opinion.
Various countries (South Korea, Portugal, Germany and others) have a birthrate about the same as Japan. The difference with Japan is that it started earlier, in the mid-70s, and the effect is more advanced.
Japan has a major problem in that they find it hard to recruit population through immigration owing to the uniqueness of the culture.
However to call it a special Japanese problem allows a TV crew to have a great location shooting trip to Japan, and produce another "those wacky Japanese" type of show.
Kilkrazy wrote: However to call it a special Japanese problem allows a TV crew to have a great location shooting trip to Japan, and produce another "those wacky Japanese" type of show.
No where does the video say that this isn't occurring anywhere in the world, only that at the moment that Japan is in the forefront, and at the beginning of the video other reasons are listed as possible causes (greater independence for women, pressures of career, men spending more time with virtual girls), but this documentary is focusing on how (specifically) Japan is commodifying relationships. and the impact that may be having on the issue. It doesn't seem to be treating Japan as 'wacky', just that it is facing an issue and looking at elements that are bit more specific to Japanese culture than, say, Chinese, who are also beginning to face this problem. You even stated that while others are starting to see this problem Japan is at the forefront because it has been building up there longer.
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
But unlike other countries, we can actually support a growing population.
Its an oddity of human reproduction, the less able we are to support offspring the more we tend to have.
Western Society could easily support large families, yet we rarely have more than 2 children per family. If anything we need the odd family to have 6+ kids just to keep the rate above the stable 2 per family
I've always fount this talk very interesting on the link between health/wealth and family sizes. Check out from about 2:30 or so if you don't want to watch the whole thing.
Well, the name of the video and the first image...
Equating rope bondage to having anything to do with love and children in Japan kind of implies allot. I would say the same about a video on love in the UK that included something about corporal punishment fetish, often called "The English Vice".
Flicking though the video (I haven't sat and watched it all) there is stuff about Cuddle Cafe's and the like. It's not really relevant to the reasons and stinks of "Crazy Japanese"
This is what happens when people are deprived of good Mexican Food or the need to develop a world beating soccer team. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
Japan's football team are quite good: pretty sure they've made it to at least the last 3 world cups (Though 02 was because they co-hosted w/ South Korea)
Because the last 45 seconds of the video is the still frame image. The interviewer goes to different people involved in relationship careers (bar companions, professional cuddlers) and talks to them about their views on relationships and the industry. He also interviews some Yakuza guys about the seedier side of it all, and they hook him up with the part at the end. There is no nudity or sex and what you see there is about all there is to see.
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kronk wrote: I'm willing to do my part. Take a number ladies.
When I was stationed there, I worked pretty closely with my counterparts in the JASDF. Apparently their Wing would hold "english" contests, where their NCO's would go up against each other to see who had the best grasp of our language. Because their weather squadron had such a good relationship with my shop, they cheated and would get our help.
I helped this one female NCO out once with a paper she was writing, and it was on this topic. Apparently, the issue had gotten so bad that the government had turned a total 180 on it, and has started encouraging females in the military to become pregnant. Before that was a complete career destroyer, if they did it was pretty much unofficial policy to ensure they never advanced or would be removed from the service.
So I'd say the government has gotta be sweating this hard, if they've gone as far as to offer women in the military incentives to get pregnant now.
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
I believe the fertility rate in the U.S. is right around replacement level, with immigrants above replacement level, and native born below replacement level.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like kind of an ugly statement to me.
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
I believe the fertility rate in the U.S. is right around replacement level, with immigrants above replacement level, and native born below replacement level.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like kind of an ugly statement to me.
I think it was an Idiocracy reference?
You guys know that was a movie and not a documentary right?
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
I believe the fertility rate in the U.S. is right around replacement level, with immigrants above replacement level, and native born below replacement level.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like kind of an ugly statement to me.
I'll spell it out for you then:
There are too many uneducated and undereducated people reproducing at higher rates, when they're younger, than much of the educated population.
I mean, I'd pretty much direct you to the open scene from Idiocracy:
The only ugly thing is that it's sadly coming true in the United States.
But then again, it's no surprise when attitudes like this exist:
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
I believe the fertility rate in the U.S. is right around replacement level, with immigrants above replacement level, and native born below replacement level.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like kind of an ugly statement to me.
I think it was an Idiocracy reference?
You guys know that was a movie and not a documentary right?
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
I believe the fertility rate in the U.S. is right around replacement level, with immigrants above replacement level, and native born below replacement level.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like kind of an ugly statement to me.
I'll spell it out for you then:
There are too many uneducated and undereducated people reproducing at higher rates, when they're younger, than much of the educated population.
I mean, I'd pretty much direct you to the open scene from Idiocracy:
Hard not to notice the difference in hue involved in your examples.
Probably a solution out of Frazz's book, but a solution none the less to the problem:
Evacuate all of Japan's cities, get the USA to bomb them again, with the end result that the cities will have to be rebuilt = Japan's economic malaise cured for the next 20 years, + the latest generation of Japanese men will be able to emulate their post-war ancestors in having something to strive for, which will result in Japanese women being swept off their feet by the new wave of masculinity, resulting in a population boom!
And they say solutions to the world's problems are complex!
Hard not to notice the difference in hue involved in your examples.
I'm embarrassed for YOU.
Idiocracy is clearly a satire. The sad thing about the satire is that it's coming true.
The second video was simply a topical example of uneducated people super breeding.
Young professionals in the United States (read: college Educated) are having children later and less frequently than those without college educations. It's a pretty simple fact.
Mr Nobody wrote:Couldn't they solve the issue by trying to increase immigration rates?
The common fear that immigration creates is that of culture shift. We're dealing with this in Quebec at the moment with our lovely "charter of values" debate. My fiancee worked as a JET at the turn of the century and she said she never felt accepted because she refused to go too native, and she always stuck out. Nothing too dramatic, but she didn't want to join in traditional female activities (the weird flag and staff housewife choreography comes to mind). The point is, at the moment, cultural preservation is more important to them (which is probably a giant head-in-the-sand issue at this point, young'uns seem to be doing things not quite the traditional way anymore).
Hard not to notice the difference in hue involved in your examples.
I'm embarrassed for YOU.
Idiocracy is clearly a satire. The sad thing about the satire is that it's coming true.
The second video was simply a topical example of uneducated people super breeding.
Young professionals in the United States (read: college Educated) are having children later and less frequently than those without college educations. It's a pretty simple fact.
It's not just the United States. I think it's pretty much the world over. If it is generalised, it ought to keep the Malthusians happy.
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
I believe the fertility rate in the U.S. is right around replacement level, with immigrants above replacement level, and native born below replacement level.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like kind of an ugly statement to me.
I think it was an Idiocracy reference?
You guys know that was a movie and not a documentary right?
Are you sure about that...
Yeah...I think idiocracy was originally intended to be a movie. It just ended up being a reality. It's disturbing how accurate it's becoming.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Yeah, but does germany have Host Clubs and Cuddle Cafes?
Although I might pay the 70$ and hour for a girl to dress up and go on a date with me as my favorite Anim Character....Maybe Revy.
It's incorrect to ascribe the low birth rate to Hello Miffy cafes when countries that don't have them have the same low birthrate as ones that do.
I Should have been more clear. Im not saying it is part of the problem only. I was saying that the reason they are reported on is th weir stuff you can say about it.
Japan will be a good place to go to for work soon then if they cannot keep their population, lots of progression and opportunity. guess i better brush up on my japanese
timetowaste85 wrote: Yeah...I think idiocracy was originally intended to be a movie. It just ended up being a reality. It's disturbing how accurate it's becoming.
Yeah, living in a society where we have much more access to information and higher levels of education has somehow made us dumber.
timetowaste85 wrote: Yeah...I think idiocracy was originally intended to be a movie. It just ended up being a reality. It's disturbing how accurate it's becoming.
Yeah, living in a society where we have much more access to information and higher levels of education has somehow made us dumber.
Cant tell if sarcasm....but if not:
You're missing the point. The point is not that we DON'T have more access to information and higher level of education--we do--but that developing an educated class that IS using that information, and IS going to college and graduate school.... but they're not procreating as early, or as often. Most of my college educated friends are starting families around the age of 30, waiting because they want to be secure in their careers and and so that they've unburdened themselves of some of their college debt. They're also having only 1 or 2 children, below the US average.
Contrarily, those that aren't going to college tend to have children earlier, and have more of them, in part due to the fact that they're starting earlier. The video I linked about the 15 Keeeyaaads woman is an example, albiet an extreme one, but its certainly a reality in the US. If you're living off the government, there's literally no reason NOT to have more kids aside from personal accountibilty. Remove that, and more kids equals more gov't cheddar.
timetowaste85 wrote: Yeah...I think idiocracy was originally intended to be a movie. It just ended up being a reality. It's disturbing how accurate it's becoming.
Yeah, living in a society where we have much more access to information and higher levels of education has somehow made us dumber.
Cant tell if sarcasm....but if not:
You're missing the point. The point is not that we DON'T have more access to information and higher level of education--we do--but that developing an educated class that IS using that information, and IS going to college and graduate school.... but they're not procreating as early, or as often. Most of my college educated friends are starting families around the age of 30, waiting because they want to be secure in their careers and and so that they've unburdened themselves of some of their college debt. They're also having only 1 or 2 children, below the US average.
Contrarily, those that aren't going to college tend to have children earlier, and have more of them, in part due to the fact that they're starting earlier. The video I linked about the 15 Keeeyaaads woman is an example, albiet an extreme one, but its certainly a reality in the US. If you're living off the government, there's literally no reason NOT to have more kids aside from personal accountibilty. Remove that, and more kids equals more gov't cheddar.
OK that makes a little more sense I thought you guys were giving a blanket statement about people in general being dumber, that being said shouldn't developed nations be lowering their populations anyway as they consume like 80% of the world's resources and only make up 20% of the
global population. Anyways their are ways of reducing undereducated poor people such as increasing social mobility, offering better education services that are practical to the poor, etc.
Anyways their are ways of reducing undereducated poor people such as increasing social mobility, offering better education services that are practical to the poor, etc.
They MUST pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, or they are stupid and lazy. 'MURICA!
cincydooley wrote: And quite frankly, you can take your "embarassment for me" and shove it. I'm not popping out multiple kids that I can't afford to take care of.
if you popped out kids we - and modern science -would all be shocked.
There are too many uneducated and undereducated people reproducing at higher rates, when they're younger, than much of the educated population.
I mean, I'd pretty much direct you to the open scene from Idiocracy:
You know, that wasn't actually the point of Idiocracy.
You know how the film is basically just exaggerations of current cultural and fashion trends played for laughs... that's because the point of the film is to make fun of how stupid people are right now, not how stupid they might be in some far future society because of some half assed theory about breeding.
And if that wasn't clear enough, the main character spells it out really clearly in a little speach that is all but spoken directly to the audience, many of whom apparently still don't get it; "Tell people to read books. Tell people to stay in school, you know. Tell people to just use their brains or something. I think maybe the world got like this because of people like me. I never did anything with my life."
Idiocracy isn't about despair over breeding rates. It's about despair over how lazy and stupid so many of us are right now, including the exactly averagely intelligent main character.
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cincydooley wrote: Young professionals in the United States (read: college Educated) are having children later and less frequently than those without college educations. It's a pretty simple fact.
The poor having more kids than the rich has been happening for hundreds of years. It's a pretty simple fact. Despite that, IQs have steadily risen, not fallen. It's a pretty simple fact.
cincydooley wrote: I'm not saying it'll cause the apocalypse. I'm just saying there are a lot of people in the US vastly overbreeding.
I believe the fertility rate in the U.S. is right around replacement level, with immigrants above replacement level, and native born below replacement level.
So I'm not sure what you're saying here, but it sounds like kind of an ugly statement to me.
I'll spell it out for you then:
But then again, it's no surprise when attitudes like this exist:
You know, that wasn't actually the point of Idiocracy.
You know how the film is basically just exaggerations of current cultural and fashion trends played for laughs... that's because the point of the film is to make fun of how stupid people are right now, not how stupid they might be in some far future society because of some half assed theory about breeding.
And if that wasn't clear enough, the main character spells it out really clearly in a little speach that is all but spoken directly to the audience, many of whom apparently still don't get it;
"Tell people to read books. Tell people to stay in school, you know. Tell people to just use their brains or something. I think maybe the world got like this because of people like me. I never did anything with my life."
Idiocracy isn't about despair over breeding rates. It's about despair over how lazy and stupid so many of us are right now, including the exactly averagely intelligent main character.
.
Well I guess it's a good thing I wasn't referencing the ENTIRE movie then, but very specifically that opening scene.
Okay, bare with me. This is going to be long but I think there's something to be said with this brief bit of long windedness and a lot of nerding out and reading into things but yeah. I think there's something useful in this. I assume a lot of things here so feel free to comment I'm writing this up kind of on the spot and from memory.
And here we go (spoiler warning);
Japan is undergoing a big generational culture shift right now and that shift can be marked by the resounding underlying pessimism of the younger Japanese generations concerning both their own ability to succeed and I'd argue a feeling of emotionally empty personal relationships. I personally don't feel I can perfectly describe why this has happened per se, but the effects can actually be readily identified in a well known to us medium; Anime (yeah yeah oh no nerd talk incoming stay with me here). I'm going to cut down what I can really say about this for the sake of brevity and only look primarily at a few major Anime franchises; Mobile Suit Gundam, Dragon Ball, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Post NGE Gundam series' and Code Geass (with a few comments on the noticeable differences between Shonen and Shoujo series). I feel anime as a medium tells a telling story about Japanese society.
Mobile Suit Gundam (and you can lump into this Super Dimensional Fortress Macross aka Robotech) is a rather optimistic series. Bad stuff happens. War, genocide, inhuman acts. Characters get killed tragically and it sticks with the characters who keep going. But in it all there's still an optimism to it. Gundam is one of the major cultural institutions born of Post War Japan. Ravaged by war, the baby boomer generation had an optimism to them. You can cut the conflict into a spiritual/physical context.
Physically, as in materially, they had suffered greatly as a result of WWII and its aftermath. Mobile Suit Gundam opens with the destruction of Side 7, where several of the main characters for the series were born and raised. Several of these characters among other die over the course of the series. But a constant sort of optimism continues to underly the series and its immediate sequels Zeta Gundam and Gundam ZZ. Many of the characters get happy endings. They aren't necessarily flawless but they happen. Notable is that Gundam is not quite as optimistic as Super Dimensional Fortress Macross as Amuro and Camille (the central characters) are left out of the happy ending boat but I think that the initial Gundam series are still brimming with a hopeful optimism about the hardships of life and the ability of an individual to achieve success and happiness.
Dragon Ball is the epitome series in this respect. I mean characters get to the point where they can blow up planets through sheer physical effort! The plot archetype of <challenge> <train to beat challenge> <beat challenge> <repeat> <profit!> is the stereotypical Japanese attitude we see when thinking of Japan! This sort of dedicated work effort that achieves results over every hardship. A triumph over material and physical obstacles through dedication. But look at what happens in Dragon Ball! Goku gets married and has a happy life (by fiction franchise standards) but look at Gohan! For much of the series he's kind of the group butt monkey. Most of his life is spent without his father to support him and his mother is a maniac! Constantly pushing him to succeed in her ideals of success (school work) while his father is so busy 'working' he spends most of his child's life dead. Gohan has a sort of faux relationship with his father completely oriented around 'work.' Granted his work is saving the world with martial art fantasy but still you see what I'm getting at here. As a child, Gohan's whole character arc is about meeting and eventually by the Cell saga surpassing his father's success and afterwards it becomes about meeting his mother's expectations for his education. Gohan never does what he wants. He is constantly doing what his parents expect him to do.
This is not a dig on Dragon Ball's plot per se but rather a comment on how Japanese culture can be said to be mirrored by it. Culture feeds media and media in turn feeds back into the culture and Dragon Ball in a fantasy world where snapping your finger can obliterate a moon if you practice hard enough is a reflection of Japanese attitudes to parents and children and the ability to achieve happiness in life. It reflects a post war attitude that hard work can solve any problem while also showing the sort of emotional and spiritual void in personal relationships regarding this success.
Now I come to the turning point. The 80's and 90's were a major turning point for Japan generationaly. The post war baby boom was over, Japan had reached astounding success in its recovery as a country. While Germany was still split in two and Europe and America still in the grips of the Cold War Japan had achieved great success becoming an economic power house and leader in many industries. I don't call it that because I think it is the literal turning point but rather because I think this is sort of a showcase of the turning point where it becomes blindingly obvious to an observer that something has changed. Neon Genesis Evangelion. This series is first most written by its creator as a critique of Otaku culture and second most as a deconstruction of Anime that ended with ironic results for its thematic message. But I think it can also be taken as a statement about the nature of Japanese society at that time.
I'm going on longer than I wanted here so I'm going to focus on Shinji Ikari's character. He's famous for two things; being more annoying than Michelle Bachman could ever dream be and for being the series butt monkey to end all butt monkeys. He never wins. Anything. His life story is a story of never really winning the game he just does a little better each time... until the world ends because he was a childish twit. But his relationship dynamics deserve some real mention. No one in his life, really supports him. Like Gohan, Shenji is constantly pushed to achieve but unlike Gohan he is being pushed to do things he doesn't want to do. He wants his father's approval but his father spends the entire series working hard and not really supporting his son. His mother is dead, ignoring the female pseudo-clone of her that is his creepy love interest and the character who supports him the most. What does that say about Shenji that the character that supports him the most is essentially his mother and not actually a real person? There's a cynicism in the series about youth and adulthood. Adults are so focused and busy with their work they have no time for their children and while this was more of an undercurrent in Dragon Ball in NGE its a major plot point!
And this is essentially my point. Anime up to this point by and large reflects a materialist idea of success born of hard work with an optimistic tone that by material and physical means people can be happy. Shenji however is surrounded by people who are working so hard he turns to a fake person as a proxy for emotional support (she dies by the way). The series is completely lacking for the most part in optimism. It's so pessimistic some people can't even stand to watch it past the first half the series! On its own, it's little more than a representation of the authors own emotional depression but that the series has taken off like it has and has such a resounding influence on its medium says a lot more is at play. Media reflects culture, and that Anime has increasingly reflected NGE over the last decade says something about the attitudes of the people who watch it.
They don't hold the optimism of the post war generation. If anything they've become sickeningly pessimistic about personal success and relationships. NGE is not the first series to have be less optimistic about the ideals that can be seen in Dragon Ball, Gundam, or Macross. Akira existed more than a decade prior. But NGE marks a major turning point in Anime in that after it, Anime became very noticeably darker and often borrowed from NGE.
There aren't exactly a shortage of optimism in anime mind you. Fairy Tale, One Piece, and Gurren Lagan are walking optimism turned up to 11 and pumped full of rainbow enhanced steroids. But where they could once be said to be a standard and while the tone of many Anime remain optimistic on their surface they often end on a major note of pessimism. Case and point; those of us who watch anime often complain about lack luster endings. Not just because they're a let down but they're often bitter even for a bitter sweet ending. Code Geass ends with one hero dead and the other stuck behind a mask for the rest of his life. Guilty Crown ends with the female love interest dying to save the hero and in spit of it the hero is left crippled and blind in the aftermath! Dead Man Wonderland is more brutal to its characters than I care to mention along with Mirai Nikki. Numerous NGE rip offs exist including Bokurano and Fafnir that pretty much mimic its themes and ideas and some of them are even more bigger downers than the series they mimic!
There's a split in anime today. On one side, the series that adhere to older thematic style of Dragon Ball and Macross and on the other those that have become increasingly pessimistic. Gundam has itself become something of a casualty to this split. Post NGE Gundam series like Seed (especially Seed Destiny) and OO are much darker than their predecessors.
And there's a gender divide in this! Major Shonen series like Bleach, Naruto, and One Piece have a vastly different tone from ones like Peach Girl or Skip Beat. Even Suzuka which while targeted at boys ultimately appealed more to girls shares this. Romance is heavily empty in a lot of male series (a stark contrast from western media where nearly everything over the age of ten has strong romantic sub plots). Sure Hinata has a crush on Naruto but nothing ever comes of it. It's mostly just a character quirk in the series. Sanji flirts with every woman he meets but its played for laughs and is never taken seriously. Male characters in series' marketed to boys, are often devoid of parents! They don't have romantic relationships and when they do the relationship is often something of a side thought not really something given much importance. The opposite is true in series' direct at girls which are often more focused on personal relationships including romantic ones and you'll even notice some of the still optimistic series' I mentioned above? They give a lot of credence to romance and in the case of both Eureka Seven and Gurren Lagan were more successful in the US than they were in Japan where they got lukewarm receptions.
What exactly does this mean? Not really sure. I think it's evident from this that the younger Japanese generations have a very strong pessimistic attitude about the viability of long term success. Even the characters in media who succeed often make great sacrifices to get that success and they don't get everything they want. On the one hand we can say this is actually a little more true to reality, but I'd argue that it suggests something underlying Japanese attitudes that is a major problem. Even by the standards of bitter endings some anime end especially bitterly, cruely even. The younger generation doesn't buy into the optimism of the generation before them. They're in a world where they're economy is walking a tight rope, where the push to succeed is overwhelming to the point that it becomes emotionless and machine like.
The typical Anime Hero is someone with childish idealism, who flaunts the traditional ideals of success and at times even mock them. Naruto is a ninja dressed in orange even in a series that majorly plays itself off as a spiritual successor to Dragon Ball. Monkey D Luffy is a pirate. We even have Attack of Titan the ultimate form of pessimism in anime! A series about young characters dying tragic deaths trapped in a walled society they can't escape no matter how hard they try, so they die and while in the series they die in a physical sense the series is really emphasizing how this walled society is killing their spirit while forces of nature kill their bodies. Sound familiar?
LordofHats wrote: But a constant sort of optimism continues to underly the series... ...Zeta Gundam
Vegetable soup.
There's a reason they called him "Kill 'Em All Tomino," and it wasn't for his optimism.
I'm going on longer than I wanted here so I'm going to focus on Shinji Ikari's character. He's famous for two things; being more annoying than Michelle Bachman could ever dream be and for being the series butt monkey to end all butt monkeys. He never wins. Anything. His life story is a story of never really winning the game he just does a little better each time... until the world ends because he was a childish twit. But his relationship dynamics deserve some real mention. No one in his life, really supports him. Like Gohan, Shenji is constantly pushed to achieve but unlike Gohan he is being pushed to do things he doesn't want to do. He wants his father's approval but his father spends the entire series working hard and not really supporting his son. His mother is dead, ignoring the female pseudo-clone of her that is his creepy love interest and the character who supports him the most. What does that say about Shenji that the character that supports him the most is essentially his mother and not actually a real person? There's a cynicism in the series about youth and adulthood. Adults are so focused and busy with their work they have no time for their children and while this was more of an undercurrent in Dragon Ball in NGE its a major plot point!
You left out the part where he masturbates to/on a comatose chick.
The series is completely lacking for the most part in optimism. It's so pessimistic some people can't even stand to watch it past the first half the series!
That might have more to do with the fact that it's actually pretty bad for the first 16 episodes. It picks up a lot after that, thankfully, what with the comatose masturbation and whatnot.
Waitaminute, cincy. Are you saying that even people that can afford to independently support lots of children and want a big family shouldn't allowed to do so/are in the wrong? Because my astrophysics Ph.D aunt and her 6 kids would like a word with you.
There's a reason they called him "Kill 'Em All Tomino," and it wasn't for his optimism.
Yeah but just because people die doesn't mean the story isn't at its heart optimistic. Macross probably carries more of this but I don't remember a lot of the middle of Macross. The deaths of a lot of characters in Gundam I think are more an attempt to make sense of the loss of friends and family in WWII. It's a bitter optimism but it is an optimism about the outcome of terrible things. That in the end stuff will work out and be okay.
Compare it to NGE. In Gundam someone dies, everyone feels bad but they keep going (Until Char's Counter Attack in 88). In NGE, someone dies, and Shinji completely loses it and the world gets destroyed. Very different outcomes for bad stuff happening. Gundam is archetypal of post war attitudes in Japan. A sort of quit 'gak happens' attitude, learn to deal with it and overcome. Typical heroes journey stuff. It's dark but its more of a light dark than dark dark.
While NGE is meant to be a criticism that isn't what happened to it. It was embraced for opposite reasons the creator intended. People for some god awful reason back in the mid 90's, embraced Shinji, Rei, and Asuaka as characters when they were designed to be off putting and clones of those characters are so common now as to be cliches. Watchmen ended up in a slightly similar position but no one ever really pretended Watchmen wasn't a criticism of comic book super heroes. NGE and Watchmen sought to do similar things. Both resulted in their genre's becoming a little darker but attitudes towards them among fandom is radically different. It says something about attitudes I think that this happened. Anime culture responded positively to something that was mean to be critical of them because NGE carried undertones beyond just Anime and Otaku culture. It resounds in a younger generation that in part feels unsupported and unable to live up to expectations.
Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote: Waitaminute, cincy. Are you saying that even people that can afford to independently support lots of children and want a big family shouldn't allowed to do so/are in the wrong? Because my astrophysics Ph.D aunt and her 6 kids would like a word with you.
~Tim?
Another dakkanaught where reading his post in the voice of their avatar is fantastic.
Best I can tell is that it is a long uphill climb when you have parents that are "always-on" and experts in their field.
The alpha individual sees a threat in the emerging independent child and some of them make a point of crushing that spirit utterly (or ride them hard and it is never good enough).
So you get man-kids that go on dates with their ipads and pretend they are teens: about as non-threatening as you get.
Only thing I could see to fix this is get out from under the thumb of the oppressor and have a chance to be an independent person.
The Japanese environment is so insanely disciplined, I admire it a lot because there is strength in the message of sharpening your wits and skills to a fine point.
It is unfortunate when it goes too far and does not reward the steps in-between as you achieve and you turn around one day and say "what is the point???".
What is funny is I have achieved better in so many ways than my parents but they do not see it that way because it does not emulate anything they did.
Finding your own path and making the reward clear for independence is the best carrot I think these young "crazy Japanese" could find, I hope it works out for them.
While NGE is meant to be a criticism that isn't what happened to it. It was embraced for opposite reasons the creator intended. People for some god awful reason back in the mid 90's, embraced Shinji, Rei, and Asuaka as characters when they were designed to be off putting and clones of those characters are so common now as to be cliches. Watchmen ended up in a slightly similar position but no one ever really pretended Watchmen wasn't a criticism of comic book super heroes. NGE and Watchmen sought to do similar things. Both resulted in their genre's becoming a little darker but attitudes towards them among fandom is radically different. It says something about attitudes I think that this happened. Anime culture responded positively to something that was mean to be critical of them because NGE carried undertones beyond just Anime and Otaku culture. It resounds in a younger generation that in part feels unsupported and unable to live up to expectations.
...I think that pretty much sums up the entire masturbation scene, actually...
Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote: Waitaminute, cincy. Are you saying that even people that can afford to independently support lots of children and want a big family shouldn't allowed to do so/are in the wrong? Because my astrophysics Ph.D aunt and her 6 kids would like a word with you.
~Tim?
Another dakkanaught where reading his post in the voice of their avatar is fantastic.
Best I can tell is that it is a long uphill climb when you have parents that are "always-on" and experts in their field.
The alpha individual sees a threat in the emerging independent child and some of them make a point of crushing that spirit utterly (or ride them hard and it is never good enough).
So you get man-kids that go on dates with their ipads and pretend they are teens: about as non-threatening as you get.
Only thing I could see to fix this is get out from under the thumb of the oppressor and have a chance to be an independent person.
The Japanese environment is so insanely disciplined, I admire it a lot because there is strength in the message of sharpening your wits and skills to a fine point.
It is unfortunate when it goes too far and does not reward the steps in-between as you achieve and you turn around one day and say "what is the point???".
What is funny is I have achieved better in so many ways than my parents but they do not see it that way because it does not emulate anything they did.
Finding your own path and making the reward clear for independence is the best carrot I think these young "crazy Japanese" could find, I hope it works out for them.
...My brain seems to be stuck on stupid mode today because that made no sense to me. Something to do with parents being bad?
Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote: Waitaminute, cincy. Are you saying that even people that can afford to independently support lots of children and want a big family shouldn't allowed to do so/are in the wrong? Because my astrophysics Ph.D aunt and her 6 kids would like a word with you.
~Tim?
Of course not. I even made a point to say "can't afford."
You know, that wasn't actually the point of Idiocracy.
You know how the film is basically just exaggerations of current cultural and fashion trends played for laughs... that's because the point of the film is to make fun of how stupid people are right now, not how stupid they might be in some far future society because of some half assed theory about breeding.
And if that wasn't clear enough, the main character spells it out really clearly in a little speach that is all but spoken directly to the audience, many of whom apparently still don't get it;
"Tell people to read books. Tell people to stay in school, you know. Tell people to just use their brains or something. I think maybe the world got like this because of people like me. I never did anything with my life."
Idiocracy isn't about despair over breeding rates. It's about despair over how lazy and stupid so many of us are right now, including the exactly averagely intelligent main character.
.
Well I guess it's a good thing I wasn't referencing the ENTIRE movie then, but very specifically that opening scene.
But, you know, thanks for playing.
You aren't responding to his point, tho. The more educated (and not necessarily the more intelligent) part of any given population has pretty much always been the one with the lowest reproduction rates. There might have been exceptions in weird cases like harems and such, but generally, since the division between educated and non-educated also corresponded with the division between manual workers/rural populations and professionals/urban populations, families with worse conditions have been the bigger ones. And while this process has been going on for more than 500 generations since the dawn of civilization, we still are showing up a net gain in intelligence.
Someone once made me read a text where a sociologue was arguing that we would soon see a branching out in the human race, because fat, ugly, unhealthy and poor people reproduce with fat, ugly, unhealthy and poor people while intelligent, beautiful, healthy and rich people reproduce with intelligent, beautiful, healthy and rich people. Problem is, social evolution isn't evolution. It doesn't work that way. The same could be said about your point of view on the matter.
Realistically in the Western world you'll struggle to get enough income to support a family when you're young - age is the major factor in fertility rates, since it's less about how many children you have and more about how old you are when you have them.
In the 60s or 70s, unless you were a professional your income in your 20s would be broadly the same as your income in your 40s. Now it seems like people think they are entitled to a good wage, and have no interest in having children when they are earning little money in their 20s.
The breakdown of marriage has also had an effect, since families are no longer investments, especially for the man. The lack of structure caused by low marriage rates plus the high divorce rates, makes children less desirable since people inherantly look for stability before having children.
cincydooley wrote: Well I guess it's a good thing I wasn't referencing the ENTIRE movie then, but very specifically that opening scene.
But, you know, thanks for playing.
So you're point is that things are just like the beginning of that comedy movie that isn't actually about that but the opening scene that's nothing more than a setup totally is.
That's probably not the foundation I'd want to be using for my predictions about the future but you appear happy doing things that way, so carry on.
cincydooley wrote: Well I guess it's a good thing I wasn't referencing the ENTIRE movie then, but very specifically that opening scene.
But, you know, thanks for playing.
So you're point is that things are just like the beginning of that comedy movie that isn't actually about that but the opening scene that's nothing more than a setup totally is.
That's probably not the foundation I'd want to be using for my predictions about the future but you appear happy doing things that way, so carry on.
Thanks for your blessing, oh wise one. I'm humbled by your approval.
LordofHats wrote: Okay, bare with me. This is going to be long but I think there's something to be said with this brief bit of long windedness and a lot of nerding out and reading into things but yeah. I think there's something useful in this. I assume a lot of things here so feel free to comment I'm writing this up kind of on the spot and from memory.
I think you've captured it pretty well. I mean, I don't know anime that well but I have spent a little bit of time reading about Japan through the lost decade and since then, and what I've read matches nicely with what you've seen in anime.
I think the intense work culture in Japan continued because the promise was there and believed - work hard and you'll be rewarded. Sure, that can't ever be completely true because a true meritocracy is basically impossible to achieve, but it can be true enough that most people believe it. But over what is now a lot more than a decade of economic stagnation, enough cracks were revealed in the Japanese system that a lot of people just stopped believing it.
But at the same time, other cultural institutions held strong. People may no longer believe that hard work alone will let them become salarymen, but at the same time there is still tremendous status and a much greater chance of pulling a nice girl if you are a salaryman.
So it kind of makes sense to see why younger generations would back off from all that nonsense pretty hard.
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xruslanx wrote: Realistically in the Western world you'll struggle to get enough income to support a family when you're young - age is the major factor in fertility rates, since it's less about how many children you have and more about how old you are when you have them.
True, this puts a cap on how many kids a couple can have - if you decide to have your first at 35 then 2 is probably the most you'll have, 3 if you push it. But I think the bigger factor in women having less kids is simply that they choose to have less kids.
When offered the choice, a lot of women decide that a career and a little more material wealth are more desirable than a third kid, let alone a fourth or fifth one. Two kids would be enough to maintain the population, but of course not everyone gets to 2 kids.
So if you have a situation where say 15% of women have no kids (either through choice, inability or never meeting the right man), and another 15% of women have 1 kid, well then normally the women having 3, 4, 5 etc kids would more than make up for it. But if more and more women are stopping at two kids who in previous generations might have gone on to have 3+ kids, then you can quickly reach a point of failing to sustain the population, without changing the number of women having less than 2 kids.
That's just an anecdote from personal experience. My dad was one of five, my mum was one of four. There's no way my wife and I are going past two, and I know of one couple that have three kids, the rest have two at most.
The breakdown of marriage has also had an effect, since families are no longer investments, especially for the man. The lack of structure caused by low marriage rates plus the high divorce rates, makes children less desirable since people inherantly look for stability before having children.
Divorce rates have been declining for a couple of decades. Overall social expectation does play a role, though, I agree.
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cincydooley wrote: Thanks for your blessing, oh wise one. I'm humbled by your approval.
Your response was that your political opinion was based on just the first few minutes of a comedy movie, not even the whole of the movie.
There is no doubt that Japan has a variety of social problems.
The economy has been stagnant for 20 years.
Job insecurity has increased.
Average incomes are low compared to cost of housing.
People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.
Japanese women are largely excluded from the workforce. At the same time, a lot of them want only to be full time housewives when the cost of living demands two incomes. (But see the previous point.)
All the above helps create a bad work-life balance.
All that being said, Germany, South Korean and Portugal have similar low birthrates to Japan.
The phenomenon cannot be explained by reference to peculiarly Japanese social conditions.
Kilkrazy wrote: All that being said, Germany, South Korean and Portugal have similar low birthrates to Japan.
No argument has been presented saying that only Japan has low birthrate. I would imagine each country has their own conditions that have lead to low birthrates, but this video, and by extension thread, is about what is happening in Japan, nor does the video claim to be about global birthrates. Just as a discussion about poverty in the US doesn't mean people think there is no poverty anywhere else in the world, a discussion about low birthrates in Japan doesn't mean that there are no other countries that are facing low birthrate.
Kilkrazy wrote: The phenomenon cannot be explained by reference to peculiarly Japanese social conditions.
Which is probably a good reason why that hasn't been an argument that has been made. Still it is difficult to talk about Japanese issues without reference to Japanese social conditions.
Kilkrazy wrote: This isn't a Japanese issue, though. It is common in developed countries.
So is poverty, but that doesn't mean every discussion of it can only be in global terms. I'm not really sure where you got the idea that just because we are discussing the issue in one area means that we somehow think it isn't happening anywhere else. The only reason this started with Japan is because someone posted the video on Facebook and I thought Dakka might enjoy discussing the topic. Admittedly I was more interested in the first part where they are going over numbers then the second part with the interviews, but the we ended up with a lot of posts that didn't watch the video, guessed what was in the video, or made up things that weren't even in the video. It was just supposed to open the door to talk about it, not be the end of it. I'm more then happy to discuss it in other areas as well, as the point of bringing all this up was to promote discussion, but just saying that it happens elsewhere and leaving it at that is deflection, not discourse. I know South Korea has been having a problem as well, but was unaware Germany was also dealing with low birth rate and I would love to hear from those who know something about it their thoughts on the subject.
Germany has some similarities to Japan -- a strong work culture, women are expected to become housewives, and the concept of nationality through blood more than residence/culture/affiliation.
I don't know what the Germans are doing about their birth rate or even if they are worried about it.
South Korea's society is more similar to Japanese than either country would like to admit.
I would have thought that Portugal was quite different to both Japan and Germany, so maybe these social/cultural factors are not the important thing.
The UK had a birthrate problem 10-20 years ago, which has been solved by absorbing immigrants who have increased the birth rate.
One thing about the Japanese work/life balance is that it was as bad in the 50s and 60s when they had a population boom. OTOH the UK currently has a moderately bad work/life balance for a lot of people.
Kilkrazy wrote: This isn't a Japanese issue, though. It is common in developed countries.
Different places can have different reasons for having the same problem (see Russia for a country with reasons for a birth rate decline not very relatable to others). Japan probably gets mentioned a lot 1) because many Americans have a fascination with Japan and 2) the colorful sub-cultures that can be found in Japan, at least from our perspective. Otaku for example get a lot of attention, mostly because they're so out there I think, not necessariy because they're unique, but they draw a lot of outside fascination.
It's not like we can't talk about the issue in a specific place and why it might happen there for its own reasons. We can't really draw parallels from a problem in one place to that problem in another until the cause in both has been identified in some way. To start from the global and move to the regional is backwards.
Japan to me seems to have had a toxic breakdown in faith in the family on one end, particularly on the male side. This can probably be related to the work/life balance in the 60's and 70's you mention and that it doesn't seem as badly mirrored on the women's side might be relatable to stay at home moms. For a global comparison, I can think of at least 1 group in the US that can be directly related to this; Army brats. There's a similar divide among children who grew up with military parents. Similarities of note include fathers who are often absent for long periods of time and stay at home mothers. I can't speak for the other service branches because I've never read anything to say they have the same problem but many young men who grew up in the army can be broken into two groups. The ones that are very hard working and become quite successful and the ones who have work ethic problems and seem disillusioned about family and success. They ahve difficulty forming personal relationships, especially romantic ones. To my knowledge no ones ever done a direct comparison between Japanese youth and Army brats but when reading articles about these groups creates a lot of similarities in respect to social outlooks and birth rates (women are a little different from AB's though because fembrats tend to end up having the typical number of kids or a lot of kids, so there's still clearly som differences at least on that front).
So yeah. This problem might very much have something to do with work/life balances, but I don't think that alone can explain. Families in third world countries often have parents who spend almost all their time working but they still have large families.
People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.
Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.
As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.
I commented on the rest of your political opinion, and you couldn't even bring yourself to defend that. You just said that your opinion is like only one part of a comedy movie, not the whole movie, and the real world claims where I pointed out you were wrong you just left out.
So again, what kind of response do you think that merits?
I commented on the rest of your political opinion, and you couldn't even bring yourself to defend that. You just said that your opinion is like only one part of a comedy movie, not the whole movie, and the real world claims where I pointed out you were wrong you just left out.
So again, what kind of response do you think that merits?
Again, you're wrong.
I noted that the open scene, which is a satire, is actually very much a truth in the United States.
Kilkrazy wrote: This isn't a Japanese issue, though. It is common in developed countries.
Different places can have different reasons for having the same problem (see Russia for a country with reasons for a birth rate decline not very relatable to others). Japan probably gets mentioned a lot 1) because many Americans have a fascination with Japan and 2) the colorful sub-cultures that can be found in Japan, at least from our perspective. Otaku for example get a lot of attention, mostly because they're so out there I think, not necessariy because they're unique, but they draw a lot of outside fascination.
It's not like we can't talk about the issue in a specific place and why it might happen there for its own reasons. We can't really draw parallels from a problem in one place to that problem in another until the cause in both has been identified in some way. To start from the global and move to the regional is backwards.
Japan to me seems to have had a toxic breakdown in faith in the family on one end, particularly on the male side. This can probably be related to the work/life balance in the 60's and 70's you mention and that it doesn't seem as badly mirrored on the women's side might be relatable to stay at home moms. For a global comparison, I can think of at least 1 group in the US that can be directly related to this; Army brats. There's a similar divide among children who grew up with military parents. Similarities of note include fathers who are often absent for long periods of time and stay at home mothers. I can't speak for the other service branches because I've never read anything to say they have the same problem but many young men who grew up in the army can be broken into two groups. The ones that are very hard working and become quite successful and the ones who have work ethic problems and seem disillusioned about family and success. They ahve difficulty forming personal relationships, especially romantic ones. To my knowledge no ones ever done a direct comparison between Japanese youth and Army brats but when reading articles about these groups creates a lot of similarities in respect to social outlooks and birth rates (women are a little different from AB's though because fembrats tend to end up having the typical number of kids or a lot of kids, so there's still clearly som differences at least on that front).
So yeah. This problem might very much have something to do with work/life balances, but I don't think that alone can explain. Families in third world countries often have parents who spend almost all their time working but they still have large families.
Very good thought process on that. Being a military brat (Air Force), I can empasize with the parent being gone for long periods of time. 4-5 years of my childhood all together probably. If your breakdown is accurate, I'd certainly describe myself as being part of the succesful group of children. My father took a job as a Recruiter in the last quarter of his career, so I spent my teen years away from the military life, and lost track of all of my friends, so I can't really say with any experience how others in my "social group" turned out.
But like you said, that can't be the entire issue. The Japanese view on sexuality has got to have a lot to do with it as well. Despite how "open" they seem about it, it always struck me as being very repressed, and given the combination with other social factors, it may just be a casualty of everything combined.
I am nothing remotely close to being an expert on this. I've spent a very large chunk of my life living in Japan, but I didn't study their society on such a level, so just kinda spit balling here.
People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.
Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.
As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.
Gosh, I had a friend who had a boss like that. He had no kids. Usually called ahead at the lab to make sure everyone knew he expected them to be working, and then around quarter to five would announce a meeting or come out to jazz the troops into staying a little longer since he wasn't leaving, they should stay with him.
I noted that the open scene, which is a satire, is actually very much a truth in the United States.
Yeah, exactly, I pointed out reasons you were wrong about your claim, in addition to saying that wasn't what the movie was about, and you just replied that you were only talking about the beginning of the movie, and making no comment on the actual points in which you were wrong.
People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.
Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.
As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.
That Documentary said that each resident can expect as much as 10 days off a year.
Don't despair, you might be a long way from being my favourite poster right now, but my standards aren't that high. Just respond to the content in posts with meaningful content of your own, and you'll be my very favourite dakkaite.
People have to commute long distances, and office workers have hours of pointless overtime due to presenteeism.
Presenteeism? Please enlighten me, oh wise one. My fiancee doesn't know the term either.
As I understand there are two somewhat different versions of it. One means always being at work no matter what. Sick? Go to work. Had your fist kid? Go to work. Kaiju attack? Go to work. The other is an in-group peer pressure sort of thing. You are expected to be there, even if there isn't much to do. No one wants to be the guy who went home when everyone else is there, and you certainly don't want to not be there (even after work is over) if someone is looking for you and they have to say that you went home. Or, to put it another way, you are evaluated on how much you love your job by how much time you devote to it. If you just do your 9 to 5, even if you do a good job and like what you do, it is seen as not really caring, and can hurt your upward mobility.
That Documentary said that each resident can expect as much as 10 days off a year.
10 days is the typical holiday allowance. There are also 14 national holidays so people get at least one long weekend a month. OTOH sick leave is not paid.
Presenteesism is a result of the general problem that office work productivity tends to be judged by the amount of face time because it is very hard to set quality/productivity work standards.
Kilkrazy wrote: it is very hard to set quality/productivity work standards.
wut
Don't get that either, Japan has that whole Company first mentality, if you are always at work, your chances of promotion increases.
Being from Holland, i am strange and only work overtime when the project demands it, safe to say this is not appreciated.
I myself have never understood japans presenteeism. Surely if you have time to sleep and enjoy yourself you will be more effective at work?
I'm clearly missing something.
Bullockist wrote: I myself have never understood japans presenteeism. Surely if you have time to sleep and enjoy yourself you will be more effective at work? I'm clearly missing something.
A friend of mine described the culture shock teaching in South Korea compared to Australia. Here in Australia he was pleading with parents to get their kids to sit down and do just a little homework, while in South Korea he was pleading with them to stop making their kids study in to the wee hours of the morning, because it meant they were learning less.
Kilkrazy wrote: it is very hard to set quality/productivity work standards.
wut
To give made up examples, let’s suppose you are employed in a car factory to fit the windscreens. Your work norm is to fit six windscreens per hour with a maximum of one defect per 100 fitted.
Alternatively, you might be a low level manager in a large insurance company. Your work norm is to write six memos per hour with a maximum of one grammatical error per 100 sentences.
I am sure you can see how the first work norm is a clear, sensible definition of duties, while the second work norm is complete nonsense. Yet activities such as writing memos, doing research (reading) and other hard to define activities are typical office tasks.
As a more extreme example, a graphic artist might make take a week to make 99 sketches of a new logo, all of which are rejected. The 100th is dynamite because his creative process has been active all the time developing towards the perfect design. Should the artist be sacked because 99% of his output was rejected?
The bloke who designed the I heart NY logo sketched it on a paper napkin on his way to a meeting without doing any preparation. He had the basic design in a minute. All he had to do to finish it was choose the font.
In general it is hard to tell if office worker output is properly productive, so input (time in the office) often is measured instead.
As a more extreme example, a graphic artist might make take a week to make 99 sketches of a new logo, all of which are rejected. The 100th is dynamite because his creative process has been active all the time developing towards the perfect design. Should the artist be sacked because 99% of his output was rejected?
The bloke who designed the I heart NY logo sketched it on a paper napkin on his way to a meeting without doing any preparation. He had the basic design in a minute. All he had to do to finish it was choose the font.
Yep, the problem here is that you're paying for ideas, and the time invested in creating an idea is incredibly variable and dependent on factors far beyond our comprehension. Creativity is impossibly hard to measure or even quantify, let alone monetize. And as our industrialized world continues to grow, our reliance on ideas over physical productivity will grow with it.
Some people work better pushing things together at a tight deadline, while others push their work further with hours upon hours of dedicated work. Most will likely work best at different times in both methods. As much as I live for the wok I do, even I can grow tired and in need a break. Overworking hurts more than your physical productivity. Your ideas and thoughts end up growing stagnant.
House prices are insanely high in Japan, and 75-year, or inter-generational mortgages are common.
This is the actual reason that no news website will ever be willing to acknowledge.
Children aren't being born because people can't afford to be a stable home for them to live in. It's economic castration caused by the deliberate speculation over property.
Bullockist wrote: I myself have never understood japans presenteeism. Surely if you have time to sleep and enjoy yourself you will be more effective at work?
I'm clearly missing something.
A friend of mine described the culture shock teaching in South Korea compared to Australia. Here in Australia he was pleading with parents to get their kids to sit down and do just a little homework, while in South Korea he was pleading with them to stop making their kids study in to the wee hours of the morning, because it meant they were learning less.
I had customer service jobs where they compared the optimal result for a call (chosen at random) with the time it took for resolution. There was even a factor that was applied if the hardware was hard to connect to. Every piece of paperwork that had to be addressed and filed was accounted for. Even if I did all of these things exceedingly well, I would still get middling marks on my evaluation forms "because I was so young, so they wanted to be able to show improvement over the years."
Another job as a data entry clerk was linked to how many credit apps we could punch in during an hour, mistakes counting against your score. Apparently, the economy taking it easy and no apps coming in was a strike against us, apparently.
Now I'm in the same boat as the teacher friend, pleading with parents to encourage their children to do homework. Le sigh.
scarletsquig wrote: House prices are insanely high in Japan, and 75-year, or inter-generational mortgages are common.
This is the actual reason that no news website will ever be willing to acknowledge.
Children aren't being born because people can't afford to be a stable home for them to live in. It's economic castration caused by the deliberate speculation over property.
Well, if these mortgages are truly inter-generational than surely you end up with your parent's old place.
It is fairly common in Japan to build multi-generational houses. The building plot will have one house divided into two dwellings for the parents and one son or daughter and their family.
Kilkrazy wrote: In general it is hard to tell if office worker output is properly productive, so input (time in the office) often is measured instead.
Yep. There is an obeservation frequently made in bevavioural economics that incentive schemes work extremely well for people at the base level of the company and extremely poorly at the top end of the company, and despite this almost all KPI based remuneration schemes are for the top end of the company (where they work poorly) and not for the bottom end of the company (where they would work well).
I commented on the rest of your political opinion, and you couldn't even bring yourself to defend that. You just said that your opinion is like only one part of a comedy movie, not the whole movie, and the real world claims where I pointed out you were wrong you just left out.
So again, what kind of response do you think that merits?
Again, you're wrong.
I noted that the open scene, which is a satire, is actually very much a truth in the United States.
You're my favorite!
Jesus haven't seen that exact wording on a analogy on the state of America before. Did you come up with that yourself ?
You're one of everyone's favorites, bud.
In reply to the topic I find this wonderful that a nation where nothing is sacred Is committing slow suicide as extension to this. Pretty therapeutic on my conscious and hopefully as an example to help keep at least some things sacred and dear. I remember trying to get my mitts on a Japanese 3ds and Monster Hunter 4 (not released stateside) and realized something. They pay like 50-120% more for everything. It's hilarious how cruel and sneaky their government is with lies of "poorly made" foreign products.
I brought this up in my Sociolgy class at a portion where my teacher wante to talk about the news.
I kid you not, A girl sitting next to me, who is japanese said "Thats because japanese men are horrible Lays"
hotsauceman1 wrote: I brought this up in my Sociolgy class at a portion where my teacher wante to talk about the news.
I kid you not, A girl sitting next to me, who is japanese said "Thats because japanese men are horrible Lays"
hotsauceman1 wrote: I brought this up in my Sociolgy class at a portion where my teacher wante to talk about the news.
I kid you not, A girl sitting next to me, who is japanese said "Thats because japanese men are horrible Lays"
Jesus haven't seen that exact wording on a analogy on the state of America before. Did you come up with that yourself ?
You're one of everyone's favorites, bud.
In reply to the topic I find this wonderful that a nation where nothing is sacred Is committing slow suicide as extension to this. Pretty therapeutic on my conscious and hopefully as an example to help keep at least some things sacred and dear. I remember trying to get my mitts on a Japanese 3ds and Monster Hunter 4 (not released stateside) and realized something. They pay like 50-120% more for everything. It's hilarious how cruel and sneaky their government is with lies of "poorly made" foreign products.
I'm trying real hard to understand all the unstated assumptions in your post.
1)Japan seems to me, as an outsider, to still have a strong commitment to traditional values and so a lot of things are apparently sacred. Unless you meant something else when using the word sacred, if you do, spell it out.
2)I don't think it is so much poorly made as much as cultural patriotism. A little like some would perceive America to be.
3)Paying more for consumer goods can be related to many, many factors, among them higher taxes due to government services. But with an aging population, and them not willing not to take care of them, it's a choice they made.
Japan is a prison without walls for Japanese nationals who have their individuality beaten out of them by age 10. The biggest thing that most of them get to look forward to in their lives is a one week honeymoon to Bali or Hawaii. Maybe a homestay in Australia.
If you're a foreigner, particularly Western, on the other hand, it's Disney on roids. But after living in Dizzyland for too long the malaise sets it and you start posting on toy soldier forums. If you're unfortunate enough to live in Tokyo, you get to ride the train twice a day with like 10,000 other people in a small space who all are hungover, have coughs, use stinky shampoo, etc. It's a materialists wet-dream, but when you look into the dead eyes of 80% of the people living there, the facade falls away. They'd like to escape, but they can't.
Not me. I live at the beach go surfing and hiking 5 times a week and live in the grey zone of knowing the score and not giving a toss.
This is one of the weird things about this forum...
First I read the opening post of this forum and was like "casual love with no strings attached with japanese girls" where can I sign in?
Then, after that passed, I read through the thread and saw this post...
Khornholio wrote: Japan is a prison without walls for Japanese nationals who have their individuality beaten out of them by age 10. The biggest thing that most of them get to look forward to in their lives is a one week honeymoon to Bali or Hawaii. Maybe a homestay in Australia.
If you're a foreigner, particularly Western, on the other hand, it's Disney on roids. But after living in Dizzyland for too long the malaise sets it and you start posting on toy soldier forums. If you're unfortunate enough to live in Tokyo, you get to ride the train twice a day with like 10,000 other people in a small space who all are hungover, have coughs, use stinky shampoo, etc. It's a materialists wet-dream, but when you look into the dead eyes of 80% of the people living there, the facade falls away. They'd like to escape, but they can't.
Not me. I live at the beach go surfing and hiking 5 times a week and live in the grey zone of knowing the score and not giving a toss.
...which made me really depressed. World is a horrible, horrible place.
I was shocked when they said only 27% of marriages get it once a week. Is that all? Holy crap man I'd be climbing the walls. Mmmm wonder if its all the red meat I eat.
wowsmash wrote: I was shocked when they said only 27% of marriages get it once a week. Is that all? Holy crap man I'd be climbing the walls. Mmmm wonder if its all the red meat I eat.
When you're at work all the time looking busy waiting for the boss to go home (the boss always hates his wife, so he doesn't want to leave his little fiefdom to listen to his wife complain about everything) or out of your mind on Nihonshu, who has time to screw?
Reminds me of the military honestly. "Come on Staff Sergeant, it's fething Friday and it's 1900" "No, I refuse to go home and be miserable" "...fine, so you stay here and let the REST OF US leave."
wowsmash wrote: I was shocked when they said only 27% of marriages get it once a week. Is that all? Holy crap man I'd be climbing the walls. Mmmm wonder if its all the red meat I eat.
That means in marriages right, not counting mistresses and getting extra services at the hostess bar right?
Reminds me of the military honestly. "Come on Staff Sergeant, it's fething Friday and it's 1900" "No, I refuse to go home and be miserable" "...fine, so you stay here and let the REST OF US leave."
Go to chow and come back. 24/7. 52 weeks.
I would volunteer my service to help boost Asian populations but my wife will straight out jack me, b??ch slapping the Emperor, nut kick Abbadon, make Dante fear for his life, Magner be worried that she might DeNat's him, make Lucifer stand at Parade Rest as she stomps by. All to kill Kronk for giving me the idea to volunteer.
We talking full blooded Japanese right? KillKrazy I have not heard "productivity/quality" in a long time. I truly believe that's something of a work ethos that a majority of Americans have forgotten.
