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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.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
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.
Proud Member of the Infidels of OIF/OEF
No longer defending the US Military or US Gov't. Just going to ""**feed into your fears**"" with Duffel Blog Did not fight my way up on top the food chain to become a Vegan...
Warning: Stupid Allergy
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend
DE 6700
Harlequin 2500
RIP Muhammad Ali.
Jihadin, Scorched Earth 791. Leader of the Pork Eating Crusader. Alpha
Proud Member of the Infidels of OIF/OEF
No longer defending the US Military or US Gov't. Just going to ""**feed into your fears**"" with Duffel Blog Did not fight my way up on top the food chain to become a Vegan...
Warning: Stupid Allergy
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend
DE 6700
Harlequin 2500
RIP Muhammad Ali.
Jihadin, Scorched Earth 791. Leader of the Pork Eating Crusader. Alpha
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.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
Waiting for my shill money from Spiral Arm Studios
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.
Self-proclaimed evil Cat-person. Dues Ex Felines
Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.
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.
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 wasn't commenting directly on your post, but just generally, based mostly on the thread title.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
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?
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
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.
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
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.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2013/10/25 09:18:08
"Fear is freedom! Subjugation is liberation! Contradiction is truth! These are the truths of this world! Surrender to these truths, you pigs in human clothing!" - Satsuki Kiryuin, Kill la Kill
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/25 09:39:49
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
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.
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
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.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/25 10:36:19
Looking for a club in Brisbane, Australia? Come and enjoy a game and a beer at Pubhammer, our friendly club in a pub at the Junction pub in Annerley (opposite Ace Comics), Sunday nights from 6:30. All brisbanites welcome, don't wait, check out our Club Page on Facebook group for details or to organize a game. We play all sorts of board and war games, so hit us up if you're interested.
Pubhammer is Moving! Starting from the 25th of May we'll be gaming at The Junction pub (AKA The Muddy Farmer), opposite Ace Comics & Games in Annerley! Still Sunday nights from 6:30 in the Function room Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else!
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"
insaniak wrote: Sometimes, Exterminatus is the only option.
And sometimes, it's just a case of too much scotch combined with too many buttons...
This is what happens when people are deprived of good Mexican Food or the need to develop a world beating soccer team. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
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)
Currently debating whether to study for my exams or paint some Deathwing
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.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
kronk wrote: I'm willing to do my part. Take a number ladies.
Truly no one is more selfless.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2013/10/25 12:41:46
Amidst the mists and coldest frosts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts.
5000pts 
6000pts 
3000pts
Come along and play Warmachine, 40k, boardgames or anything else! 
