[theturtlemoves]

You know, many eastern countries apparently intuitively think in cycles. The west tends to think linearly: "We're trending upwards, argh argh overpopulation, famine, death. We're trending downwards, argh argh population collapse, famine, death".

Same with the perception of time. My country sees time as a line. I once had an interesting training where the instructor pointed this out. She went on to say that seeing time as a circle or a point is also an option. It wasn't until I hit the second half of life that I got a glimpse of what that looks like, personally.

Perhaps subconsciously, Japan envisions that the birth rate will go up again sometime in the future and they will have preserved their identity and culture from which to build again.

[HerbManic]

I do find it funny that some folks treat this is like the complete end of Japan (or whatever) nation, like you said a straight line down. But eventually it will bottom out and potentially rebound a bit. It find on the way up or at the top, and it will be fine at the bottom once the trends return but the issue really is the pain of the phase shift.

[bestouff]

Yeah sure. It never happened that a great civilization completely collapsed.

[Balgair]

I mean, Japan has been through a few 'collapses' in it's written history. The most recent arguably being in 1945.

[red-iron-pine]

and then the US invested heavily -- and still does, via military presence -- to build Japan back up to block the Soviets.

who will build them back up in the future? The Chinese would prefer to see them poor.

[bestouff]

Sure but I was thinking about more wide-scale collapses like Egyptians or Mayans.

[ludicrousdispla]

>> You know, many eastern countries apparently intuitively think in cycles.

"a turtle that retracts its head will later extend it"

[justanotherjoe]

Except in growth imperative system we have, to stop growing is not to not grow, it is to spiral into a cascade failure

[theturtlemoves]

And then? Either we think linearly: Crash into the rocks, game over. Or circular: difficult times ahead, we'll get through them again

[Markoff]

you can still grow even with smaller richer more productive population, actually you are encouraged to be more productive with smaller population than vice versa

population growth ≠ wealth growth

[znpy]

Congrats you missed the point completely