re: #134 HappyWarrior

I have to admit, i don’t know a ton about Japan but I do know that their country is losing a lot of population and that it’s due to hostility to immigration. One way, I like to stick it to paleos is by pointing out that we have done well because of immigration. But of course, they bitch because the “wrong” kind of people are emigrating more these days. Sigh. I take that shit very personally since my great grandmother emigrated just before the 1924 Quotas were passed to limit emigration from Eastern Europe. Who knows, had she emigrated attempted to emigrate only a few years later than she did, I wouldn’t be here.

The reason Japan is *losing population* is because their population is ageing rapidly, much like the populations of other post-industrial advanced nations. They’ve actually been bringing in people from the Philippines to keep their agriculture sector going for some time now. Another problem they have is a trend among young people to be asexual, with predictable consequences for the birthrate. Sure, there’s xenophobia in Japan, just as in any other society you care to name, but it isn’t the major driver of their population issues.