Same thing that happens everywhere. Low cost innovation gets expensive as companies grow and salaries rise, profit seekers move to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere.
this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2025
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Hentai happened
it's wild seeing americans say japan is in decline... by whose standards? why must they want what you want?
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They invented Hikikomori.
no they didn't lol hikikomori have existed in some form throughout the world for centuries
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Anon probably thinks the gundam statues are just statues
I mean Misskey came from there. So they’re still innovating.
It's more feature complete than mastodon, but it's also one hell of a resource hog on your browser
Japan has been living in the year 2000 since 1980.
The last good year. Truly they are the most intellectually advanced society.
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Economics Explained has an interesting video on the topic. After WWII, Japan became the first country in Asia to undergo an industrial revolution and soon became the second largest economy after the US and was by many accounts set to match or even overtake the US. They then suffered an economic collapse due to unchecked growth and speculative markets and decided to never again speculate on the future and just stick to tried and true methods.
Since the 1990s, Japan's economy has barely changed while other nations have seen huge growth. You'd assume that would mean Japan is now far behind, but they aren't. They seem to have mastered keeping everything the same for decades without the normal decline that comes with it.
Honestly, sounds great to me. I know they've had "issues" (is it really an issue for me if my money becomes more valuable?) with deflation, but I'd be OK with that if it meant no more speculation.
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Japan is on the verge if major economic collapse if they do not increase the population
They'll survive it, their markets and investments aren't overvalued like ours are. They'll crash, re-evaluate their societal priorities, and start to build again
That's an incredibly optimistic outlook.
I mean every society has to rebuild after a crash, I'm just optimistic that they'll do it faster
You might want to look into the population studies on Japan. They are pretty bleak
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That'd require significant societal change to an environment where having children is actually manageable
Which is why this is a problem
No, they're absolutely not. Their GDP will majorly decline, but their QOL will stay the same or even improve and their GDP per capita also won't see much change.
Birtherism is bullshit.
Their nation needs tax revenue. That depends on having people to tax. If the population declines too much they cannot afford to maintain social services and QoL will decline.
None of this is particularly controversial or surprising.
The services' costs are dependent on the number of recipients. They're already in the slump of elderly being a drain on the system, it can only get better not worse.
The only concern of the population decline that I can see is the decrease in funding available for Military Expenses.
And, if things get really bad, all they have to do is open up for immigration and able bodied workers will magically appear.
You are the only person I have seen claiming the elder population of Japan is decreasing or that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
https://www.ipss.go.jp/pp-zenkoku/e/zenkoku_e2023/pp2023e_PressRelease.pdf
Japan might not get the right immigrants at the right time. They shouldn't count on skilled labor appearing when they need it.
If Generation A has a higher number of people than Generation B then when Generation A dies off there will be a lower number of elderly. It's a temporary slump. It might last a decade or more, but it is temporary.
According to your source the Percentage of people aged over 65 peaks in 2042 or 2043 at about 38% if the government does nothing, compared to the 29.6% currently.
Right now a lot of skilled workers are fleeing to the EU, so Japan could totally capitalize on that. Or it can just educate its population to be skilled labor and give all the low skilled labor (if that even exists) to immigrants. Immigrants work hard for lower wages and are less prone to crime, there is no good faith argument against that.
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Sadly Japan may be a culture in decline.
Their culture is basically work yourself to the bone even more than the US. Young people study their ass off and get a job working long hours while still living at home because they still can't afford their own place. And you have stuff like if the subway is a minute late they hand out apology slips to workers so they don't get in trouble with their bosses for being 30 seconds late.
Meanwhile there is a very strong 'defer to elder authority' note in their culture. And in many industries people are expected to work a 10-hour day and then go drinking with the bus until 2:00 a.m. only to be back at work the next day at 8:00 a.m.
The end result is young people have neither the time nor the money to have kids. So they don't.
Their population is literally aging and shrinking. They are facing a very serious problem in wondering who is going to take care of their elderly. Their birth to death ratio is 0.44, meaning that for every baby born in a year more than two people die. In a nation of about 125 million, the population is shrinking by just under a million every year. That's not good.
And while the Japanese people are highly educated and very capable, the 'defer to authority' culture prevents the sort of entrepreneurship you see in the US. An example of this, Japanese companies have a stamp called the hanko, when a paper memo is circulated around the office each employee stamps it with their personal hanko stamp to signify that they have read it. Many Japanese companies stayed in person during COVID simply because there was no digital equivalent to the hanko and managers refused to give it up.
If you wants an example, look at Toyota Motors. It's been obvious to everyone with eyes that electric vehicles are the future, and it has been obvious for probably 8 or 10 years. Every major automaker is investing in EV technology. Except Toyota, which up until recently was still betting the farm on hybrids and hydrogen. But that's because the good Mr Toyoda didn't like EVs, and unlike in an American company no one would dare challenge him on that.
It is really too bad. Japan is a wonderful place with an amazing culture and rich history. But if they are going to survive they need to make very serious changes to their society and they need to do it soon. That is going to involve dumping most of what currently qualifies as Japanese business culture, an instituting some real work-life balance laws with teeth. I don't know if they're going to do it.
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Because Japan has become conservative in everything it seems, including technology..
Japan is living in the year 2000, since 50 years.
what does that even mean?
I think it means that they were ahead of the curve prior to the year 2000, which is when they started to fall behind the curve.
Not going to comment on the accuracy, but it makes sense to me.
I actually find this interesting, part of me wonders if there technological advancement meant they didn't need to make changes/innovation, which led to others having issues having to innovate beyond what Japan did.
Hence why they are still stuck in 2000s
Looking back, I think we can say that the year 2000 was a much better time than 2025
Are they still using fax?
There are some things where fax still makes sense. Maybe I'm old, but I'm not a fan of "digital signatures" and "digital seals" for professional licenses. In cases where a document needs to be signed and/or sealed, I would much prefer a fax to a PDF with a "digital seal". But that's just me and I'm a weird dude.
Edit: Turns out fax is insecure. Did not know this but it makes sense.
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Largest market for fax machines...
and floppy discs
Not true. Their goverment stopped requiring floppy disks... *checks notes* ...last year!
im sure its still the biggest market.
On God.
Nintendo Switch 2 will be released this year
Nintendo comes out with pretty innovative gameplay.
If AI is the chief innovation in the US, then the US is massively fucked.
I'd much rather have a fancy shinkansen.
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