Japan is at the forefront of a post-industrial society. Much of the rest of the west would be in a similar position, if not for imported labor or outsourcing labor.
China will be in a similar spot soon. Eventually all of the world will be where they are.
The things and lessons they learn and discover will be useful to other mature economies soon enough.
The headway will make them leaders in innovating in this area of the economy. Automation will only keep on advancing and displacing jobs --Japan's workforce and jobs are in sync in this regard and if they thread it right, the reduction in human jobs will diminish with the number of able workers.
There seem to be two contradictory narratives: one, that rich Western societies are aging and need to make up for a big shortage of workers; and two, that automation has killed and will kill millions of jobs. Probably both trends are true, but each one pulls in the opposite direction for the demand for labor.
Maybe things aren't as bad as people fear on either side.
The promise of a post industrial society was always that western countries would be able to have smaller families with more highly educated children who were more productive and innovative. Future generations could reduce resource usage but improve the standard of living given there continued scientific and educational progress.
Somewhere along the like that seems to have been thrown out the window and the idea of a 'consumer economy' took its place. Now we have a model of low education low wage consumers who keep the economy going by buying endless plastic junk. Perpetually distracted with entertainment and unhealthy unsustainable lifestyles.
It sounds like robot population started slowly replacing human population -- the former is on the rise, while growth of the latter is slowing down. Year 2017 may be recognized as the tipping point for this process in textbooks. Textbooks for robots, of course.
This is an opinion piece backed up with practically no information whatsoever.
If you want to know about immigration policy in Japan, you need look no further Japan's ministry of foreign affairs website. For example, here are the categories where you can get a long term visa [0]
You will notice there is a points system [1]. You need 70 points to get in. A degree gives you 10 points. A salary of ~$100K gives you 40 points. Being under 30 gives you 15 points. Having 5 years of experience gives you 10 points. N1 on JLTP gives you 15 points.
I mean, it's ridiculous. And this is a 5 year visa with relaxed permanent residence requirements, ability to sponsor your parents, ability to work in any field (even jobs that aren't related to your skill set!!!). The list goes on!
And if by some incredibly unfortunate circumstance you can't qualify for that, there are still over 10 categories where you basically only need a relevant university degree and a job offer for a 3 year visa.
And if that isn't enough, you can start a company in Japan with about ~$50K and sponsor a business visa for yourself.
My wife is Japanese and I'm here on a spousal visa. The application process took 1 week and was free. I am also eligible for relaxed permanent residence status.
Seriously, compare this to your home country and then come back and tell me that Japan doesn't want immigration.
Now if you want to know why Japan doesn't have a lot of immigration, it's because it is difficult for foreigners to live here if they can't speak Japanese and/or they can't accept Japanese culture. But as far as the government is concerned, the red carpet has been rolled out for a long time. If you have an established company in many foreign countries and wish to open a branch office in Japan (so that you can transfer people here), the government will even give you free assistance!
Japan's primary problem, though, is not a lack of skilled professionals (although as someone involved in hiring bilingual IT professionals there, I can assure you that's a problem too), but a lack of unskilled/low-skilled workers to work in agriculture, nursing, etc. And Japan is not at all keen on this type of immigration.
As a simple example, Japan invited a bunch of Filipino nurses to work in Japan for a while, and they could stay if they completed the Japanese national nursing exam... in Japanese:
Instead, there's ever-increasing abuse of various "trainee" and "language student" visa programs to cycle in and out what amounts to indentured labor, with zero prospects for actually staying in the country:
Salaries in Japan are much lower than in the Bay Area: many Japanese companies use a salary grid and reaching the 10 million yen mark requires decades in the same company.
It might be possible to get such a salary much earlier in some startups, and it is certainly possible for people detached from a foreign company. For everybody else following the same route as Japanese people the highly skilled professional visa is very difficult to get.
I just got a (admittedly: limited to 2 years for now, bound to the corporate sponsor) working visa for Singapore. Looking at your description:
- I don't have a recognized degree (I do, but .. it's complicated)
- I never had, nor will for the foreseeable future, reach 100k USD (DE doesn't pay like that, neither will SG in the future based on sources like Glassdoor etc.)
- I'm over 30
I guess what I'm trying to say is: For me the list you provided is merely a curiosity and doesn't feel like I would have a good way to migrate to Japan if I'd like to. It was trivial for Singapore. "Incredibly unfortunate circumstances" seem to imply that you believe that nearly anyone can check all the boxes. Which for the salary requirement alone seems rather insane from my European point of view.
That said: I have no clue about immigration requirements for Germany, so I cannot compare Japan to my home country. DE might be worse.
This ignores the issue that while Japan opens the red carpet for people to move and work in Japan, once you get past the welcoming mat you enter the vaunted Japanese Business Grind where you get to deal with incredibly long working hours, abuse and shitty pay. This is before you even start talking about black companies.
The reason why foreigners have trouble accepting Japanese culture is because work culture in Japan is so incredibly toxic except in rare circumstances that you don't bother adapting and you don't bother learning.
So just be in your twenties with a degree, making $100k, and have 5 years of experience and you're in for five years. Why would someone like that want to move to Japan when they could flourish just about anywhere else in the world including many places where the business culture doesn't amount to white collar slavery? These are the same type of insane regulations the current administration is, appropriately, criticized for trying to bring to the U.S. Seems like an extremely high bar to me.
That is incredibly high for Japanese standard... Even Google JP engineers might not be paid for that much, and they are the top of the food chain. Most engineers I know, their salary is around 40k-50k a year. Apparently, Japan doesn't want below exceptional engineers in their country, which is a fair requirement, but hardly a welcoming one.
My commentary with support from that article follows:
A country with the population of Japan has no chance of maintaining a higher absolute GDP than countries with multiples of their population and more land to expand population. A policy to try to maintain their status in the world in terms of GDP is just silly.
If, however, Japan is more interested in the well-being of their population than some sort of international power-play, then this is the route to go. Population growth has no correlation to GDP per capita, so what's the point of increasing immigration of low-skilled workers? The upside is minimal, and the potential downside is unknown and unbounded.
I've been living in Japan for a little over 2 years now, and haven't talked to anyone who is worried about the long-term prospects of Japan's economy. There are structural changes that can and probably should be made, as outlined in the link above, but the country is not on some death-spiral like a lot of Western media would have you believe.
Is Japan a magical land of far-advanced technology, delicious food, safe and clean cities, beautiful countrysides, and amazing public transportation? Actually, yes; the "far-advanced technology" part just doesn't extend to mass-market consumer electronics in the same way any more.
> Is Japan a magical land of far-advanced technology
Is the technology really that far advanced. I understand it was in the 80s maybe? None of the devices I have are made by Japanese companies. None of the software I use is developed in Japan primarily. My car is but that's about it, but I picked it because of reliability not because of high tech features.
Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standards (looking at you, FeliCa)
China may surpass Japan in the automation/AI sphere. Lots of young, English-speaking, western-educated workers, plus the PRC has already innovated so much in manufacturing, shipbuilding, etc., and an ecosystem willing to splash cash on daring startups (albeit a lot of that is state funding, and you need CCP connections to come up in the Chinese startup world) in ways that leave Japan in the dust. Look at how Nvidia is working in China, look at the rise of Aliyun, Baidu Cloud and Tencent Cloud.
The only Japanese companies I know that are geared for automation for the new economy are companies like Mujin, LeapMind and Preferred Networks.
As a side note, the fact that Japan has managed zero-growth despite a rapidly shrinking, aging population; almost zero immigration; and roughly the same economic policy as from the 1980, is nothing short of a Herculean endeavor. I wonder what Japan is going to do when the population decline really gets in gear around 2040.
"The only Japanese companies I know that are geared for automation for the new economy are companies like Mujin, LeapMind and Preferred Networks."
I've worked closely with one of these companies... Perhaps they were just not suited to the project we were working on, but I found them quite dis-organized, lacking in focus and mostly buzzwords and fakery. Kind of sad.
I really can't see, at least the company I worked with, as "the future of automation"... a lot of it just seems to be neat but impractical toys.
>As a side note, the fact that Japan has managed zero-growth despite a rapidly shrinking, aging population...
I think they have done an admirable job to be the no. 3 economy in the world despite neo-liberal economics --as they say, even Fukuyama is no longer a Fukuyama-ist and I think they are working hard at making a soft landing for their post neo-liberal economy, whatever shape that takes.
We all know consumerism only gets us so far and what lies beyond is still amorphous. They're trying to give it some shape.
> Automation has changed from when Japan was on top. The focus is now on software and open collaboration in a globalized society, not hardware built by factory workers with proprietary standard s(looking at you, FeliCa)
Like before, won't software and open collaboration merely be an aspect of automation? Who's open-sourced their driverless car tech - anyone with wheels on the ground and a car you can buy? Some advanced mechatronics will be required to fill a lot of voids in the manual labour space. Whose battery tech and engineering prowess will we be using in these vehicles and machines? Japan's?
> As a side note, the fact that Japan has managed zero-growth despite a rapidly shrinking, aging population; almost zero immigration; and roughly the same economic policy as from the 1980s.
That should be praise, no? I mean, aspects of sexism and odd views about social hierarchy can go in the trash, but their productivity is still very good.
> I wonder what Japan is going to do when the population decline really gets in gear around 2040.
With freed up housing and resources? Probably get better pay, make more children and ultimately kick off a new cycle of growth. A bit hard when you're in your 40's and still living with your parents...who are still working at retirement age.
it's funny you mention open collaboration and praise China in same comment, while China is slowly shutting itself from rest of the world and literally none startups from China have been successful abroad where they don't have benefit of government protectionism
Japan has never been one to shy away from high-tech industries, and as the article notes, aesthetic sensibilities towards kawaii robots make this a natural progression for a high-tech, ethnically homogeneous, aging nation.
Although Japan was once an imperial power, its reconciliation with its past has not included a transition to a multicultural post-colonial state promoted by intellectuals and practiced by widespread (and largely economic) migration from former colonies to the home country at the seat of power, as it has occurred in the case of most other imperial powers. The difference being, the places where this transition did take place had been colonial empires for longer, and had for centuries notions of nationhood derived from shared values more so than shared ethnicity.
Germany comes to mind as a counterexample: a homogenous nation until the late 1950s, with no colonies to speak of, and jus sanguinis. Yet it transition to a functioning, diverse society today.
And Japan is arguably paying a steep price for keeping their blood oh-so-pure: it's a society frozen in tradition and fear, with an economy in what is essentially a 20-year recession.
Making robots care for the elderly will just be another step in the dehumanisation of that society, indeed. It's the coup the grace for a generation that replaced social life with "being in the office" and love life with blow-up dolls and pornography.
An idea: Some blue-collar workers displaced by factory automation could be retrained to maintain and repair robots used in healthcare and home assistance.
As developed nations age, there will be increasing needs for healthcare workers including those for home assistance. Since the supply of people wanting the jobs might be limited and many blue-collar workers tend to balk at taking pink-collar jobs, robots could be the intermediary that satisfies both the supply for services and demand for jobs.
The notion of retaining workers to maintain the robots that replaced them reminds me of a quip from the sci-fi book series The Expanse. One of the characters, a space vessel's engineer, remarks that hundreds of years ago on Earth (today) he'd be a nuclear physicist, but in his time he's just a mechanic.
I think this is a brilliant solution for them because of the way their country is setup. (Strong culture with extremely homogeneous population and low birth rate) I really do think a lot of what makes japan special would go away with too much immigration. That being said, America is the opposite and automation would hurt us and so would restricting immigration.
Makes a lot of sense. Why risk their cultural homogeneity - something clearly valued by the majority of Japan - if there are technological solutions to increasing productivity?
I think people tend to project their western cultural framework onto Japan and see it not fitting well.
Much of east Asia is very internal-looking (China was the middle kingdom for a reason). They tend to keep to themselves as a society and value their values from their perspective --not as self-critical as other societies, in some ways. It's something anathema to a number of westerners.
So of course to some people it looks like Japan (or east Asia in general) is not "sharing" in their wealth with others as your implicit agreement is kind of a non-sequitur for some people.
Going on a tangent here, but for example, in India, Dalits will at times use English but primarily western philosophy to argue their position vis a vis the dominant castes because they lend themselves better to examine these questions.
I agree completely with you. I think you may have been downvoted because you implied that multiculturalism isn't a panacea everywhere. Japan's culture doesn't demand perpetual exponential growth like a lot of capitalistic societies do, thus racial and cultural diversity isn't needed to provide a constantly growing, continually deleveraged workforce like the US does. A homogeneous culture provides a common identity and lowers conflict and miscommunication during interaction. They have low economic inequality and high quality of life. I see very little reason why things should change very much for them.
you are downvoted because it's not politically correct to tell truth, you should promote multiculturalism and get enriched by car or bomb shrapnel hitting you
telling this as European whose wife is from China and she agrees with me that what's necessary are legal educated migrants, not illegal uneducated religious welfare migrants
They don't realize there are very few truly multi-cultural countries, even for most that say they are multi-cultural, multi-ethnic would be a much more accurate description. True multi-culturalism typically ends up with cultural ghettos and all the pros and cons that they bring.
This breaks the HN guidelines against flamewars and political battle. We ban accounts that do this, so please read them and follow them if you want to continue commenting here.
Go away racist. Refugees need a safe place and germany needs fresh foreign blood to keep its society running. It's a win win. German children are going to take a long time before they start contributing and even then they will end up on Hartz IV before they accept a normal job.
Automation is no cure for Japan. Their influence is waning rapidly, in many sectors. I would say that, with an aging population, Japan is turning into a stale country, culture wise and economy wise alike.
I think the average Japanese person doesn't care about how stale outsiders think they are, and they certainly don't feel like they need a "cure." If anything, society here is reverting more to a norm after being in a massive economic bubble.
Really, it's honestly kind of freaky how often I see western media articles about how Japan needs to act now, or they're doomed to fail and their population will vanish. Yet I see nothing about Bulgaria losing 25% of its population in 25 years or Belgium needing to reevaluate its global image for fear of irrelevancy.
Thank goodness Japan doesn't share the West's bizarre fixation on economics. The market is a means to an end rather than an end in itself. If the economy is not furthering the interests of the Japanese people, its the economy which needs to be replaced, rather than the Japanese people.
mc32|8 years ago
China will be in a similar spot soon. Eventually all of the world will be where they are.
The things and lessons they learn and discover will be useful to other mature economies soon enough.
The headway will make them leaders in innovating in this area of the economy. Automation will only keep on advancing and displacing jobs --Japan's workforce and jobs are in sync in this regard and if they thread it right, the reduction in human jobs will diminish with the number of able workers.
surfmike|8 years ago
Maybe things aren't as bad as people fear on either side.
generic_user|8 years ago
Somewhere along the like that seems to have been thrown out the window and the idea of a 'consumer economy' took its place. Now we have a model of low education low wage consumers who keep the economy going by buying endless plastic junk. Perpetually distracted with entertainment and unhealthy unsustainable lifestyles.
I think Japan is making a wise choice.
dgudkov|8 years ago
mikekchar|8 years ago
If you want to know about immigration policy in Japan, you need look no further Japan's ministry of foreign affairs website. For example, here are the categories where you can get a long term visa [0]
You will notice there is a points system [1]. You need 70 points to get in. A degree gives you 10 points. A salary of ~$100K gives you 40 points. Being under 30 gives you 15 points. Having 5 years of experience gives you 10 points. N1 on JLTP gives you 15 points.
I mean, it's ridiculous. And this is a 5 year visa with relaxed permanent residence requirements, ability to sponsor your parents, ability to work in any field (even jobs that aren't related to your skill set!!!). The list goes on!
And if by some incredibly unfortunate circumstance you can't qualify for that, there are still over 10 categories where you basically only need a relevant university degree and a job offer for a 3 year visa.
And if that isn't enough, you can start a company in Japan with about ~$50K and sponsor a business visa for yourself.
My wife is Japanese and I'm here on a spousal visa. The application process took 1 week and was free. I am also eligible for relaxed permanent residence status.
Seriously, compare this to your home country and then come back and tell me that Japan doesn't want immigration.
Now if you want to know why Japan doesn't have a lot of immigration, it's because it is difficult for foreigners to live here if they can't speak Japanese and/or they can't accept Japanese culture. But as far as the government is concerned, the red carpet has been rolled out for a long time. If you have an established company in many foreign countries and wish to open a branch office in Japan (so that you can transfer people here), the government will even give you free assistance!
[0] - http://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/long/index.html [1] - http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_3/en/pdf/point_calculat...
jpatokal|8 years ago
As a simple example, Japan invited a bunch of Filipino nurses to work in Japan for a while, and they could stay if they completed the Japanese national nursing exam... in Japanese:
http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/pinoyabroad/253140/13-pi...
Surprise surprise, the pass rate was 8%, and many of those who passed have returned home:
http://news.abs-cbn.com/global-filipino/04/13/16/some-filipi...
Instead, there's ever-increasing abuse of various "trainee" and "language student" visa programs to cycle in and out what amounts to indentured labor, with zero prospects for actually staying in the country:
http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/travel/welcome-to-th...
cgarrigue|8 years ago
darklajid|8 years ago
- I don't have a recognized degree (I do, but .. it's complicated)
- I never had, nor will for the foreseeable future, reach 100k USD (DE doesn't pay like that, neither will SG in the future based on sources like Glassdoor etc.)
- I'm over 30
I guess what I'm trying to say is: For me the list you provided is merely a curiosity and doesn't feel like I would have a good way to migrate to Japan if I'd like to. It was trivial for Singapore. "Incredibly unfortunate circumstances" seem to imply that you believe that nearly anyone can check all the boxes. Which for the salary requirement alone seems rather insane from my European point of view.
That said: I have no clue about immigration requirements for Germany, so I cannot compare Japan to my home country. DE might be worse.
fzeroracer|8 years ago
The reason why foreigners have trouble accepting Japanese culture is because work culture in Japan is so incredibly toxic except in rare circumstances that you don't bother adapting and you don't bother learning.
mnm1|8 years ago
zcbenz|8 years ago
tanilama|8 years ago
That is incredibly high for Japanese standard... Even Google JP engineers might not be paid for that much, and they are the top of the food chain. Most engineers I know, their salary is around 40k-50k a year. Apparently, Japan doesn't want below exceptional engineers in their country, which is a fair requirement, but hardly a welcoming one.
andy_ppp|8 years ago
ericdykstra|8 years ago
My commentary with support from that article follows:
A country with the population of Japan has no chance of maintaining a higher absolute GDP than countries with multiples of their population and more land to expand population. A policy to try to maintain their status in the world in terms of GDP is just silly.
If, however, Japan is more interested in the well-being of their population than some sort of international power-play, then this is the route to go. Population growth has no correlation to GDP per capita, so what's the point of increasing immigration of low-skilled workers? The upside is minimal, and the potential downside is unknown and unbounded.
I've been living in Japan for a little over 2 years now, and haven't talked to anyone who is worried about the long-term prospects of Japan's economy. There are structural changes that can and probably should be made, as outlined in the link above, but the country is not on some death-spiral like a lot of Western media would have you believe.
Is Japan a magical land of far-advanced technology, delicious food, safe and clean cities, beautiful countrysides, and amazing public transportation? Actually, yes; the "far-advanced technology" part just doesn't extend to mass-market consumer electronics in the same way any more.
rdtsc|8 years ago
Is the technology really that far advanced. I understand it was in the 80s maybe? None of the devices I have are made by Japanese companies. None of the software I use is developed in Japan primarily. My car is but that's about it, but I picked it because of reliability not because of high tech features.
neptunespear|8 years ago
China may surpass Japan in the automation/AI sphere. Lots of young, English-speaking, western-educated workers, plus the PRC has already innovated so much in manufacturing, shipbuilding, etc., and an ecosystem willing to splash cash on daring startups (albeit a lot of that is state funding, and you need CCP connections to come up in the Chinese startup world) in ways that leave Japan in the dust. Look at how Nvidia is working in China, look at the rise of Aliyun, Baidu Cloud and Tencent Cloud.
The only Japanese companies I know that are geared for automation for the new economy are companies like Mujin, LeapMind and Preferred Networks.
As a side note, the fact that Japan has managed zero-growth despite a rapidly shrinking, aging population; almost zero immigration; and roughly the same economic policy as from the 1980, is nothing short of a Herculean endeavor. I wonder what Japan is going to do when the population decline really gets in gear around 2040.
comstock|8 years ago
I've worked closely with one of these companies... Perhaps they were just not suited to the project we were working on, but I found them quite dis-organized, lacking in focus and mostly buzzwords and fakery. Kind of sad.
I really can't see, at least the company I worked with, as "the future of automation"... a lot of it just seems to be neat but impractical toys.
mc32|8 years ago
I think they have done an admirable job to be the no. 3 economy in the world despite neo-liberal economics --as they say, even Fukuyama is no longer a Fukuyama-ist and I think they are working hard at making a soft landing for their post neo-liberal economy, whatever shape that takes.
We all know consumerism only gets us so far and what lies beyond is still amorphous. They're trying to give it some shape.
icanhackit|8 years ago
Like before, won't software and open collaboration merely be an aspect of automation? Who's open-sourced their driverless car tech - anyone with wheels on the ground and a car you can buy? Some advanced mechatronics will be required to fill a lot of voids in the manual labour space. Whose battery tech and engineering prowess will we be using in these vehicles and machines? Japan's?
> As a side note, the fact that Japan has managed zero-growth despite a rapidly shrinking, aging population; almost zero immigration; and roughly the same economic policy as from the 1980s.
That should be praise, no? I mean, aspects of sexism and odd views about social hierarchy can go in the trash, but their productivity is still very good.
> I wonder what Japan is going to do when the population decline really gets in gear around 2040.
With freed up housing and resources? Probably get better pay, make more children and ultimately kick off a new cycle of growth. A bit hard when you're in your 40's and still living with your parents...who are still working at retirement age.
smallnamespace|8 years ago
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
Markoff|8 years ago
temp-dude-87844|8 years ago
Although Japan was once an imperial power, its reconciliation with its past has not included a transition to a multicultural post-colonial state promoted by intellectuals and practiced by widespread (and largely economic) migration from former colonies to the home country at the seat of power, as it has occurred in the case of most other imperial powers. The difference being, the places where this transition did take place had been colonial empires for longer, and had for centuries notions of nationhood derived from shared values more so than shared ethnicity.
matt4077|8 years ago
And Japan is arguably paying a steep price for keeping their blood oh-so-pure: it's a society frozen in tradition and fear, with an economy in what is essentially a 20-year recession.
Making robots care for the elderly will just be another step in the dehumanisation of that society, indeed. It's the coup the grace for a generation that replaced social life with "being in the office" and love life with blow-up dolls and pornography.
irishasaurus|8 years ago
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/manufacturing-innovation-...
unknown|8 years ago
[deleted]
nopinsight|8 years ago
As developed nations age, there will be increasing needs for healthcare workers including those for home assistance. Since the supply of people wanting the jobs might be limited and many blue-collar workers tend to balk at taking pink-collar jobs, robots could be the intermediary that satisfies both the supply for services and demand for jobs.
nkrisc|8 years ago
oculusthrift|8 years ago
matt4077|8 years ago
Moshe_Silnorin|8 years ago
0xbear|8 years ago
StudyAnimal|8 years ago
cylinder|8 years ago
zxcvvcxz|8 years ago
Edit - why the downvotes?
mc32|8 years ago
Much of east Asia is very internal-looking (China was the middle kingdom for a reason). They tend to keep to themselves as a society and value their values from their perspective --not as self-critical as other societies, in some ways. It's something anathema to a number of westerners.
So of course to some people it looks like Japan (or east Asia in general) is not "sharing" in their wealth with others as your implicit agreement is kind of a non-sequitur for some people.
Going on a tangent here, but for example, in India, Dalits will at times use English but primarily western philosophy to argue their position vis a vis the dominant castes because they lend themselves better to examine these questions.
TheAdamAndChe|8 years ago
Markoff|8 years ago
telling this as European whose wife is from China and she agrees with me that what's necessary are legal educated migrants, not illegal uneducated religious welfare migrants
flukus|8 years ago
Praising cultural homogeneity isn't PC.
They don't realize there are very few truly multi-cultural countries, even for most that say they are multi-cultural, multi-ethnic would be a much more accurate description. True multi-culturalism typically ends up with cultural ghettos and all the pros and cons that they bring.
petre|8 years ago
dang|8 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15078466 and marked it off-topic.
StudyAnimal|8 years ago
tanilama|8 years ago
fiblye|8 years ago
Really, it's honestly kind of freaky how often I see western media articles about how Japan needs to act now, or they're doomed to fail and their population will vanish. Yet I see nothing about Bulgaria losing 25% of its population in 25 years or Belgium needing to reevaluate its global image for fear of irrelevancy.
smallnamespace|8 years ago
Your implicit value judgment very much reflects a Western, linear, 'progress' based view of history, one which not all cultures share.
kingmanaz|8 years ago
jackcosgrove|8 years ago