Old people in Japan should commit mass suicide says Yale professor
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As someone in a western country now inconceivable! Heck we still have a good portion of Americans who complain about the living standards but will stay home in November or actively vote for things like deporting immigrants like that magically fixes the over arching problem
56 is the median age for home buyers in 2025 and it’s been this way for a very long time.
We’re as doomed as Japan honestly we just happen to encourage immigration lol. So I agree with you.
Look at the median age of first-time homebuyers, it's less skewed. Many people make more than one home purchase in a lifetime, including whan they buy smaller places when they're old in order to downsize, or when they buy into a retirement community.
The median age of first-time home buyers is 35, according to this: https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-median-homebuyer-age-is-now-so-old/
National Association of Realtors gives a slightly higher number.
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The problem is already well underway in the west. Some potential growth has already been squandered, acting now is an emergency.
"Squandered" is carrying lots of baggage there, in particular the assumptions that population growth is a good thing, that it's sustainable, and that the average person will be better off in a positive-growth scenario. None of those are proven. And the assumption that population reduction is bad is often because measures such as GDP (which is approximately proportional to population) drops if population does. But aggregate GDP is not the appropriate measure in such a case.
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I completely sympathize with the Japanese view about immigration. Their society has a lot going for it which is held up by the culture. And diversity would lead to a tragedy of the commons in many cases, like keeping public spaces clean.
However, sacrificing your elders is not exactly Japan’s culture either.
The "tragedy of the commons" was an economic thought experiment involving unmanged commons. Learn the history of how commons were actually managed through history and you'll draw a different conclusion.
Also, don't let the rich expropriate the commons like they did in the UK in the late 17th and all the 18th centuries. That causes all kinds of social problems, including mass (sometimes coerced) emigration.
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I would very much love to have the choice.
You already do.
But if you think suicide is a desirable choice, call a helpline. In all but some rare cases, your problem is disordered thinking.
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Why the fuck does this publication abbreviate assisted suicide as "ass suicide"
That could lead to pressuring people into euthananal.
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Similarly, ättestupa.
My instructions to family members in case I get brain rot are essentially ättestupa.
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Honestly? We can't eventually afford to pay for everyone's retirement.
American system with the 401Ks and stuff is looking better by the day, as there you're supposed to earn your pension and it keeps earning interest while you're still working. It's still not an ideal system, but if you take that, increase the tax benefits, and in addition to employer matching, add government matching...
Of course what good is money when there's nobody to work and actually produce things... But at least it would take most of the burden off young people.
Right now, 12% of what I earn goes to the pension system to fund current retirees. This is going by the full salary fund not gross income, because in Estonia, gross income isn't actually gross income (there are employer side taxes so us employees don't think about how much our income is really taxed). The funniest thing of course is that "social tax" only comes out of salaries, never dividends. So while they'll say companies are paying it, it's directly based on what the company's paying it's employees. In all honesty, it's the employees paying it via reduced gross salaries.
So 12% isn't much, but consider that in 1994 the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women. In 1998 it was decided that by 2016 it would be 63 for both. In 2009 they decided it'd be 65 by 2026. Starting 2027 it'll rise as life expectancy rises. National pension prediction calculator says my estimated retirement age is 69. In all reality, I don't expect to ever be able to retire, not on national pension anyway. There won't be enough young people to pay for my retirement. But I have to keep paying for the current old people, who got to retire at 63, some of them even younger. Amazing system.
Most European countries impremented comprehensive welfare states after the end of WW1 or WW2 despite their economies being in horrendous shape (and there being far less median wealth then than there is now).
That makes it obvious that this is an argument over spending priorities, not over affordability per se.
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Most European countries impremented comprehensive welfare states after the end of WW1 or WW2 despite their economies being in horrendous shape (and there being far less median wealth then than there is now).
That makes it obvious that this is an argument over spending priorities, not over affordability per se.
Median wealth is irrelevant, that's just money. You have to keep in mind that to produce goods and services that money can buy, you need people who can work. Right now we've still got more people working than not. This will not be the case forever.
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The "tragedy of the commons" was an economic thought experiment involving unmanged commons. Learn the history of how commons were actually managed through history and you'll draw a different conclusion.
Also, don't let the rich expropriate the commons like they did in the UK in the late 17th and all the 18th centuries. That causes all kinds of social problems, including mass (sometimes coerced) emigration.
I do understand that the words “tragedy of the commons” are not some magic spell that causes any shared resource to become degraded, perforce, always. I am familiar with the origin of the phrase and how it is used/misused.
I use it only in situations where I do believe that the shared resource would be spoiled, and not simply by virtue of its being shared.
The public cleanliness in Japan would be seriously degraded and there would be significant resentment over it. Even conscientious Japanese would stop trying. It would be an actual tragedy of the commons, not just a nominal tragedy of the commons.
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These people should sacrifice themselves in service of an economic system's growth I.operative.
Capitalism is the atheists religion.
Typos ignored, only one in six is able to accept this fact. America has a way to fall.
