I keep hearing racist nationalists say stuff like this worldwide, and not matter how hard I squint it remains a non sequitur.
I mean, "we have a population crisis" and "don't let people come here" seem entirely contradictory unless you are... well, a supremacist.
Which they are, it's just the leap that gets me. So obvious, so rarely called out and never addressed.
Without getting into discussion about how right or wrong they are those people are primarily worried about the identity of their country. They believe that sustaining the population growth by letting in big numbers of foreigners will destroy their culture. They prefer to suffer the consequences of population crisis than live in a country with different values and traditions. Is it supremacy? Sure it is. But it's also logical.
Logical if you believe your race/identity are superior to others, which is an illogical starting premise and the root of why conservatives are always on the wrong side of history.
Doesn't have to the superior, but one of personal preference. You like the current cultural values and know other cultures don't necessarily share them and so fear a cultural shift.
In this case though I think you're right that there's a strong superiority aspect.
What's illogical about it? How can you even apply logic to personal values and opinions?
Recognize that it is an opinion that some people may disagree with, not a fact that everyone has to accept, and act accordingly. In this case, that means not using the force of government to persecute people who disagree with your opinion.
But it’s also logical.
In what world is "I rather die in squalor and let the entire country suffer than see people that look different than me on the street, eat some food I don't recognize", logical?
It is only logical if you're... well, a supremacist.
I mean, it requires a mental framework of how culture and identity work that is fundamentally supremacist.
Culture works by aggregation, it's entirely unrelated to borders and it is in perpetual shift. This assumption requires misunderstanding culture from a very specific perspective.
So no, not logical.
Internally consistent, yes: make women into reproductive vessels and men into the defenders of a fossilized culture enforced through violence. That's a consistent worldview.
But not a logical one if you apply it to reality. The difference matters.
Is there nowhere in the world now that fascist racists are not on the rise?
It feels like we are barreling towards another world war.
I wonder if economics has anything to do with this trend worldwide. When people have to worry about their next meal every day they tend to get frustrated and finding something or someone to blame, rightly or wrongly,is a way to vent that frustration.
With more and more wealth concentrating at the top 1% it stands to reason that the population that feels frustrated is increasing quickly.
it's a direct result of global economies. When things are bad financially the scapegoats are ALWAYS immigrants and the poor. always. every single time. "Things are tough for you? well it's that group over there...it's their fault!" and collectively our society in their infinite wisdom consistently fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
However unlike other countries Japan isn't pumping out kids regardless of the scape goats. So compared to other places this rhetoric coming from them is extremely idiotic. And if a Japanese person believes this is the way forward then I hold them in lower regard than your average MAGA cultist. I didn't think you could have a population more stupid than MAGA but Japan, good job, you proved me wrong.
Inequality breeds resentment, it's hardwired in our brains. And resentful people are easily led to blame minorities, something hateful and/or power hungry can use for political gains. The ones causing the inequality are more than happy to help this process asking as it usually keeps them from being blamed.
And as in the current political and economic system the inequality globally can only increase, blame and hate is what you get.
Its so depressing, swap just a few nouns around and it reads exactly like an article about the UK
Is there nowhere in the world now that fascist racists are not on the rise?
Yes. This is a Western capitalism thing; Chinese politics has only recently discovered rightwing nationalism and there are plenty of non-Western thriving democracies in, say, South America.
This has to be one of the most absurd claims I've seen in a while. You go on to contradict yourself in your second sentence. And still get it wrong. China didn't just discover bigotry. They've been dealing with it since before the founding of the United States or capitalism for that matter.
South America full of thriving democracies? Are we talking about the authoritarian one Trump is paying to torture innocent undocumented. Or is it the fascist one Trump is talking about sending 20 billion to bail out their flailing populist leadership. Or is it the one that got lucky and woke up enough last minute to unseat their burgeoning fascist and take him to trial? But still chock full of the descendants of nazi german expats. Or was it all the tiny ones around them. That have to deal with all of them and the narco cartels. Regularly having elected leaders slaughtered. Hell even Mexico is struggling with that. And I'd say their leadership is far better that what we have here.
It's got nothing to do with the west or capitalism. Though the West and capitalism has done very little to actually help the situation. Tribalism and xenophobic bigotry are basic human nature unfortunately.
... and just like the USA, it's all populism, rage baiting and ZERO actual solutions
As it turns out, we are all human and are all vulnerable to the same psychological manipulations. No country is immune without active resistance.
yes but the more ignorant a population is, the easier the target
Japanese people are extremely racist. They genuinely put republicans to shame.
I've known several people who are half Japanese and whose grandmothers would never forgive them for that fact. They'd love all the cousins and shit on them. It's really sad.
Japan's population crisis is caused by its young people being too overworked and overcharged to want to have children. Their population by age is becoming very top-heavy which means that the young are paying a lot to keep the old alive.
The solution to this (apart from don't get into such a situation) is to import young workers to even out your population spread and to raise wages in line with the cost of living and raising a family.
They appear to be shouting "Damn foreigners! Coming over here and making all our elderly live longer than we can economically support them! Overworking our breeding generation so they don't want kids! Curse those foreigners!"
(overworks and robs an entire generation to death)
"Why would foreigners do this?"
Also I'm almost getting tired of posting this brilliant illustration but sheesh, if the jingoistic authoritarian entitlement clan isn't using the same playbook every. Time.
Boomers of the world consumed all resources and pulled up all ladders behind them. American Boomers are especially oblivious to their roles in creating the current world, and seemingly oblivious to concepts like basic empathy. Their entire worldview is a function of how they can best benefit. "Generation Me," was the perfect tag.
The nazi party is funded by Russia btw and there's so much propaganda in Japan rn its insane. One major piece still making news is that foreign tourists dont pay their hospital bills and losing "Japan so much money". The amount of unpaid bills was 400k usd that year and foreign tourists revenue was 58 BILLION usd. That's 0.00069% loss of total revenue.
This constant propaganda around the world is so depressing and not because its there but because truth is right next to it and nobody's looking.
funded by Russia btw
This constant propaganda around the world is so depressing and not because its there but because truth is right next to it and nobody's looking.
That much is obvious. Japan only has miniscule amount of foreigners compared to other countries but somehow managed to also have been stoken up with anti-foreign sentiment. It's all the dark money flowing into social media algorithms brainwashing people. And the truth is that data is the new gold. Personal information is not only commodified but also weaponised. However, as you said, the truth is next to it but nobody is looking.
They are really hell bent on self destruction.
They are having a population crisis ... an aging boomer generation that just won't die and their many children who will add to the aging population while the generations after these groups had fewer children. The population is now full of old people with very few young Japanese to take care of them.
It won't matter how nationalist they want to be ... they're stuck with the problem of having a huge aging population and far too few young people.
Whether they like it or not, if they want to maintain the country's current level of development, they're going to need young people from somewhere else to fill the gaps.
Racism and xenophobia aside, how many humans do we need? Our poor earth. A declining population is probably an ok thing. I think it's the capitalist class ringing the alarm bell as they see their profit forecasts take a blow. How many hundreds of millions should that island hold?
It's actually scary how quick they're rising. I live in Japan, and I once heard them at a intersection nearby on a car giving a speech. I hated how they speak. They sounded like they were heavily appealing to the emotion and used a lot of sentence final particles like ne, in a tone that sounded half-aggressive and also... very conservative in a way. They were talking some shit about how Japanese people should come first and that we should "protect Japan", as if there was some sort of foreign force trying to tear Japan down to pieces. What's worse was that there were actually people cheering for them. I actually wanted to go downstairs to shout at them but I restrained myself from doing that. I still sort of regret not going there to shout at them.
Their society will collapse from this racism in a generation or so. No point in correcting people who can't see the writing on the wall. As much as the current regime tries to deny it, immigrants have been the strength of the US.
"Population crisis" is a myth, created by people who want cheap labor. What's the crisis? What's so bad about a declining population number? Spell it out!
It's also possible they are racist.
But if the choice were between racist and greedy, I'm going to bet on greedy 100% of the time.
What's so bad about a declining population number?
The biggest issue is probably not being able to play pensions or have people care for the older generation.
Correct. When we hear concerns about a declining population, the concern (typically) isn’t that a population should always be rising, or even that it shouldn’t shrink, it’s more about the long-term economic stability of the age distribution of a population within the demographic pyramid. If your demography skews significantly older, you’re going to have fewer working age people supporting your economy and more post-retirement age people needing to be supported. This can do double damage to government revenue in particular, as they will see a simultaneous decrease in tax income and an increase in pension payouts, and this can lead to a sharp contraction in the available share of the budget for all of the other government priorities.
It’s a bit ironic in this case, as this is pretty common in developed economies, and typically the way you would offset this is via immigration, as that allows you to tailor your requirements to exactly what you need to balance your demography, and so anti-immigration sentiment is only likely to cause a more severe spiral.
The crisis isn't simply from a declining total population number. It's from the demographic shape of that population. Here's Japan's population pyramid. As you can see, it's not really a pyramid - it's heavily weighted at the older end. As people continue to age that big bulge reaches retirement, and then you have more people retired than you have people still of working age. This causes a number of problems.
More people need to raise hell about this group because they also have members who deny the Nanking Massacre.
Is anyone making a list of those anti-foreigner countries, so we know where not to shop, where not to visit, and where not to invest in?
A better question is if you can name a country that isn't "anti-foreigner" or don't have a significant % of the population that's anti-foreigner. This is a widespread problem everywhere you go, even supposedly "woke" European countries (especially those countries, really).
A better question would be is anyone making a list of the people financing these candidates. Id bet anything if you follow the money trail, there's a common denominator.
In December 2024, there were 3,768,977 foreign residents in Japan, representing 3.04% of the Japanese population.
Fucking foreigners sucking up all the jobs and destabilizing a country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan#Foreign_residents
When I was growing up too many people I knew wanted to move to Japan because of the technology sectors and the “modernity”. Turns out both are a lie, and after learning about Japanese work culture, it’s even worse than the USA. I can’t imagine why anyone would choose to work in Japan over an EU country outside of family reasons.
RIP. I really want to study abroad there and have been making plans, but the current admin + Japan's rising anti-foreigner stance really dampens my hopes. I get there's been some awful, entitled, shitty tourists and vloggers over there in the past few years, but I wish they'd realize that we're not all like that...
You’d think the Japanese of all people would know better.
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