Pr0 said:
OmniscientOstrich said:
I guess the abridged version of what I'm trying to get across is lighten up. This topic was clearly never meant to be heavy.
And I think what I'm trying to elucidate is that perhaps the subject is not taken seriously enough, or simply accepted as "not my concern" when collectively it is something that should be considered to potentially be a concern. The population crisis in Japan (Fukushima and surviving one of the largest recorded earthquakes in recent human history notwithstanding) is, I believe, the tip of an iceberg, and in the briny depths of the ocean, lies this subject..and others.
Now I suppose we could say that the population crisis in Japan is not our concern either. But perhaps it should be if Japan is simply a diorama image of a potential larger world problem in the near future where not just Japan is in crisis.
Armchair philosophy or no...it is, at least, critical thought about behavioral trends that could lend themselves to very real world consequences at some point. So while this topic is not meant to be heavy, and I respect it for what it is, the subject matter at hand is a facet of many larger potential philosophical problems which tend to have real world ramifications at some point down the line.
I believe in our pursuit to take things lightly we sometimes forget that without the few people taking things seriously, we'd have no room to take things lightly at all. And perhaps as a generation we are far too irresponsible for our own good.
That post would have been nice if you didn't demonstrate a gross misunderstanding of the Japanese population drop and the social, economic, and environmental pressures that brought it about, not to mention completely lacking in any actual discussion of why those factors are actually relevent outside of an insular nation with a very unique cultural dynamic on the world stage, also failing to actually elucidate on the problems in favor of just stating that it is a problem.
Even in Japan, the "Waifu" thing is a gross minority and only gets brought up by Japanese media for shock value. News outlets talk about it the same way news pundits in the U.S. talk about saying "Happy Holidays' being a widesperead pervasive attack on Christianity. The Prevalence of attraction to fictional characters is a drop in the bucket compared to the actual factors that are causing the drop in births in Japan, things like: massive living costs making it too expensive to raise a family outside of the upper middle class and the rich, a decades long economic slump, the almost complete overuse of land and resources in a small geographic area, an immigration policy that restricts movement and addition of new citizens, a government that has shown little interest in actually increasing population growth by a significant margin, and an extremely insular culture that makes it very difficult to relocate within its own territory. All of these are the actual factors causing Japan's aging population, not people joking about liking fictional characters, nobody outside of sensationalist media centers has even tried to make that connection.
This also ignores the fact that Japan kind of has an unsustainable population as it is, so there is no telling what factors will equalize birth rates as the population drops to a more sustainable level. Pretending to have a heavy conversation about a topic by grossly sensationalizing its effects right out of the gate serves no purpose but to shoot any point you may have had in the foot.
There is a legitimate discussion to be had about how to help people who have become dependent on escapism and refusing to confront reality. Trying to conflate that discussion as if it is some great societal ill will accomplish nothing more than causing the people on this forum to ignore you as a sensationalist who is more interested in starting a flame war, than having an actual discussion.
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