[rcme]

I always find it weird that people lament population decline. Japan still has a lot of people. Sure, that number is going down now, but you can’t look at the trend and extrapolate that number down to zero. And as the population declines, the number of resources per citizen increases. So people may be better off than before. The largest dangers to Japanese society lie in the transition period, where many elderly people will need to be supported by relatively fewer working age people.

[Tor3]

The problem is that the transition period is not a transition period, as long as the birthrate is too low the population will continue to be age-heavy, and that will always be a problem. As for resources, Japan's resources are of the type which need people to work them (seafood, rice, other agriculture, and industry). So a population decline just makes it worse. They already have problems with rice fields, even with machinery and automation - a lot of rice fields are run by very old people at this point. The resources just aren't there for the picking for those left, to put it that way.

[Gud]

In theory, isn't the problem actually that older people are unable to work? What if we are on the brink of reversing the aging process, thus bringing the elderly back into the work force? OK, I understand it sounds a bit dystopian.

I'm just thinking there might be more solutions to consider than "make more children". Automation, robotic assistance, age reversal etc.

[RestlessMind]

> I'm just thinking there might be more solutions to consider than "make more children". Automation, robotic assistance, age reversal etc.

Age reversal is interesting. If that happens and everyone can be in their 20's forever, nothing like it. But automation or robots? Close your eyes and imagine a town where the youngest person is 68yo with only robots to take care of the entire town. That scenario seems fucking dystopian to me. YMMV.

[quickthrower2]

Dystopian… until you are 68 yourself then it sounds pretty cool

[RestlessMind]

You mean, you find the idea of you being 68 and the youngest person in your town a cool one? Which is why I said YMMV. For me, it is a terrible nightmare.

[smrq]

If humanity can't figure out how to handle population decline, then it's doomed, full stop. There's only so much planet to go around; there's a finite limit somewhere. Rather than treating population decline as the issue, perhaps focusing on the actual issues that it exposes would be prudent. As it is now, we're just making every new generation into a layer of a global pyramid scheme.

[dragonwriter]

> If humanity can't figure out how to handle population decline, then it's doomed, full stop.

If it is going to enter a state of perpetual decline, then it is doomed, full stop.

> There's only so much planet to go around; there's a finite limit somewhere.

Perhaps, but the existence of an asymptote to growth doesn't imply a need to ever switch to decline.

The normal shape of a resource constrained growth curve is logistic.

[fatfingerd]

> If it is going to enter a state of perpetual decline, then it is doomed, full stop

There's nothing about the types of decline we are seeing that imply they are perpetual. I think these declines are a positive alternative to having decline roman empire style whenever we get too close to a political stalemate in resource allocation.

[dragonwriter]

> There's nothing about the types of decline we are seeing that imply they are perpetual.

The types of decline we are seeing are local and temporary and don't require humanity to figure out how to deal with decline at all, because humanity continues growing.

I’m responding to the suggestion of something meaningfully different than what we are seeing.

[ffgjgf1]

The Roman empire was unsustainable though since it was built entirely on exploitation. Turns out paying the barbarians to leave you in peace is significantly cheaper than the taxes for the army (by the end almost entirely staffed by the same barbarians) to protect you from them.

Also the collapse occurred in parallel with climate change and plague which were responsible for most of the population decline.

[lr1970]

> Turns out paying the barbarians to leave you in peace is significantly cheaper than the taxes for the army (by the end almost entirely staffed by the same barbarians) to protect you from them.

If you do not want to pay for your own army you will be paying for someone else's one.

[ffgjgf1]

Not sure if that applies here that much.

For random peasants the Roman army was as much (if not less) theirs as the those of the barbarians that settled in their lands.

Also the barbarians were often somewhat less exploitative and most of the tax money stayed in the local area instead off being shipped of to Rome/Constantinople

[RestlessMind]

> Japan still has a lot of people.

But what type of people? Are they dependents (old, children, disabled) or independent ones who can support the rest of the society? If the ratio of workers : dependents gets unhealthy, a society is doomed. In spite of all the technological progress, we still need humans for a lot of things - long term care, food, entertainment, security etc. If there are no young people, who is going to do all that?

[lm28469]

> I always find it weird that people lament population decline.

> The largest dangers to Japanese society lie in the transition period, where many elderly people will need to be supported by relatively fewer working age people.

You answered your own question.

In a lot of countries the working population pays the pensions, more pensioners and less workers = more stress on the workers. In the long run it's good but it's going to suck ass for a few generations

And that's not even talking about the logistic of taking care of elders, it gets either very expensive or very time consuming, or both. For example in France it costs about $3k a month to have a small room in a shitty retirement house that is already overcrowded and understaffed

[red-iron-pine]

> For example in France it costs about $3k a month to have a small room in a shitty retirement house that is already overcrowded and understaffed

my grandmother had Alzheimer's and her care, in rural WA, was around $9000/month USD. Reasonably new building but still pretty understaffed.

[trafficante]

Same here in the burbs of Portland: ~$8k/month with a six figure buy-in. And that’s for a place aimed strictly at “professional class” Boomers - I can think of at least 2-3 other retirement places that are significantly more expensive.

More than anything else, THIS is what I think will ultimately kick off a housing crash. These “retirement” prices are clearly designed to squeeze the Boomers of their housing equity.

[yongjik]

> And as the population declines, the number of resources per citizen increases. So people may be better off than before.

Japan's resource is its people. Engineers, teachers, government officers, train conductors, and so on. When population declines, the Japanese don't have more resources per people. They just have less resources, period.