In fact, since immigration grows the economy, and assimilated immigrants consumption increases, I'm surprised there's no article calling to reduce immigration to fight climate change.
Those are all individual opinion pieces, none of them are the opinion of “the Times.” The NYT occasionally publishes pieces bylined “New York times editorial board” and those are the pieces that represent their collective opinions. The opinion section of the paper publishes a diverse variety of opinions; readers are up to their own devices to judge which conflicting opinion is correct.
The article from the OP is also not an opinion piece like the ones you linked but is posted from their news section, which is not the same as opinion.
> Those are all individual opinion pieces, none of them are the opinion of “the Times.”
The NYTimes editorial board chooses who gets to write an opinion piece for their paper. It may not be as explicit as an actual opinion piece by the nytimes editorial board, but its still part of their agenda pushing initiative. Just like the NYTimes best sellers list isn't a list of actual best sellers, but a mechanism to push their agenda.
> The opinion section of the paper publishes a diverse variety of opinions;
I have to disagree, but then again, this is a subjective issues.
> The article from the OP is also not an opinion piece like the ones you linked but is posted from their news section, which is not the same as opinion.
I have to disagree again. As best I can tell, it's all opinion, but once again, it's a subjective issue. I've yet to read an objective newspaper that wasn't just opinion.
But I agree with your statement: "readers are up to their own devices to judge which conflicting opinion is correct."
Imagine if artificial wombs were possible. The government could control birth rates simply by producing children like they print money to increase inflation.
"The chains of nature... are called reason, freedom, morality and choice. The human chains foretold by Huxley are of a quite different composition: they are made entirely of flesh and the pleasures of the flesh. They bind so tightly that reason, choice and moral judgement can find no chink in which to grow and corrode them. So completely do they encircle the human soul that it shrinks to a tiny dot within the organism. There is no suffering in the Brave New World; no pain or doubt or terror. Nor is there happiness. It is a world of reliable and undemanding pleasures, from which the causes of suffering have been banished, and with them all striving, all hope, and all joy.
But love is a cause of suffering; so too are freedom, judgement and choice. Hence these things too will disappear from the Brave New World."
There has to be someone else here that finds that perfect
A completely hedonistic society with no consequence? Is everyone else focusing on different things?
The only problem I had was the antiquated racial views of the author. The caste system too wasn’t necessary but it didn't bother me. The concept? Loved it!
I am aware of the highly controversial views on homosexuality of the author (Scruton), but am unaware of anything controversial about race.
Regardless, a person can say many deeply true things across a number of domains, yet be quite wrong in various places. From what I have read from him, this seems to be the case.
For governments to completely control birth rates via artificial wombs/artificial births, they'd also need to neuter/spay the human population to prevent natural births. This would be simple for children of artificial births as the government could spay/neuter them at birth. But how would a government spay/neuter the naturally born population? Government handouts, tax incentives, compulsion? Get spayed/neutered for 20 years of no income tax?
If we were to go the artificial wombs route, then human sexuality/desire/etc would no longer be needed and spaying/neutering should take care of that. But would that lead to more productivity, creativity and progress? Or would it hinder productivity, creativity and progress? The desire to mate/create is a powerful motivator for work and production. But it can also be a source of destruction and decay.
Would we be better off like our pets - spayed and neutered and without any hope and urge for mating?
As Japanese, I can say they are a few of the problems too.
You can't take maternity leave most companies (when you're pregnant, it usually is time to quit), or you're not allowed to be pregnant until none of your coworker is pregnant.
Reading this makes me sad and a little bit angry.
It is ridiculous that a company/employer might suggest your right of getting children.
In a different context this would be considered a joke or something you would read about in a dystopian book, but instead it's happening in one of the most developed countries in the would.
You are conflating economic development and social development. Go check out some youtube channels from westerners living in Japan and you'll see that the economic development has had a cost. I don't really know how to define it because it's their society and I can't put my American values on it, but the salaryman thing has a cost. This birthrate issue is probably it. Will Japan eventually collapse because of it?
After decades of problems with overpopulation now they have depopulation to deal with. Doesn’t really seem like an issue to me. The population has needed to be reduced for a long time due to limited space and an over-reliance on imported produce. It will be a difficult change but one long needed.
Immigration is not to replace, it is to substitute. So eventually Japan will be full of people again. Just of different culture and level of civilisation likely.
Ceasing to be Japan would equal to have the culture be extinct so it's obviously not a solution.
Even if it wasn't (like you seem to argue), I would rather realize than in 10 years many jobs will be automated, so you won't need as much manual labor and Japanese will be just fine.
Exactly, figuring out how to increase happiness without growing the population exponentially, would be major progress. It has some hard limits in terms of resource consumption and distribution.
I’d like To expand on this, Economic models are built on growth. To achieve growth there are three ways, increase the demand, increase the consumers, and increase productivity/efficiency.
The world economy has been expanding rapidly in party because there are more consumers brought about from an increase in population.
You need to fix the dependency on an exponential growth model before you can hope to have a reduction in population and I’ll take it a step further and this needs to be done to solve climate change.
By the logic of our current economic models (along with our observations of thousand years of economic history), we don't even have to figure anything out. As technology advances and capital accumulates without population growth; consumption per capita and wages go up, and rent of capital goes down. However, cutting down population growth (along with economic growth) is usually not in the nations' interests.
We are not seeing a gradual reduction though, populations in Africa and West Asia are continually increasing, and will drive the population on Earth to 11.2 billion by 2100:
Japanese population is a little over 126 million. 500k is a roundoff error -- literally. In reality the population is not growing. The issue is more that the population demographics is moving upwards in age. The big place I see a problem is with the ageing farmer population. Also, the demands on the pensions system are going to peak. Living in Japan, I'm quite worried about the pension system. They already "lost" a whole bunch of records and asked people to provide proof of employment over their lifetime or risk losing benefits at employment. They've pushed retirement age from 60 to 65 and I reckon they'll push it further.
But it's all good. We'll have some pain and the rest of the world can learn from it. We all need to do this and it's better that there is at least one country that's going through it now. I expect scandals and hardship, but in the end this country will be better off for it -- like the world itself.
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[ 58.2 ms ] story [ 3265 ms ] thread"For some, encouraging Danes to make more babies while television news programs showed Syrian refugees trudging through Europe carried an inadvertent whiff of ugly nativism.": https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/opinion/sunda...
"The study found that having a child has an impact that far outweighs that of other energy-saving behaviors.": https://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/07/having-children-b...
"Add this to the list of decisions affected by climate change: Should I have children?": https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/climate/climate-change-ch...
In fact, since immigration grows the economy, and assimilated immigrants consumption increases, I'm surprised there's no article calling to reduce immigration to fight climate change.
People breeding above replacement? The population is growing, and that's terrible.
People breeding below replacement? The population is shrinking, and that's terrible.
Maybe if some country had exact replacement, but, realistically, that would require government intervention... And That's Terrible.
Nobody has an incentive to report good news, so if you want to report something, you have to make it bad.
Why would that be terrible? People don’t want to have (as many) kids, that’s none of NYT’s or government’s business.
The “problem” is it becomes harder to milk the remaining herd and create more debt when it becomes increasingly clear it won’t ever be paid back.
The article from the OP is also not an opinion piece like the ones you linked but is posted from their news section, which is not the same as opinion.
The NYTimes editorial board chooses who gets to write an opinion piece for their paper. It may not be as explicit as an actual opinion piece by the nytimes editorial board, but its still part of their agenda pushing initiative. Just like the NYTimes best sellers list isn't a list of actual best sellers, but a mechanism to push their agenda.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/new-york-times-bestse...
> The opinion section of the paper publishes a diverse variety of opinions;
I have to disagree, but then again, this is a subjective issues.
> The article from the OP is also not an opinion piece like the ones you linked but is posted from their news section, which is not the same as opinion.
I have to disagree again. As best I can tell, it's all opinion, but once again, it's a subjective issue. I've yet to read an objective newspaper that wasn't just opinion.
But I agree with your statement: "readers are up to their own devices to judge which conflicting opinion is correct."
I loved it sounds almost perfect! Ironic that its grouped with “dystopian futures” but that was news to me.
But love is a cause of suffering; so too are freedom, judgement and choice. Hence these things too will disappear from the Brave New World."
A completely hedonistic society with no consequence? Is everyone else focusing on different things?
The only problem I had was the antiquated racial views of the author. The caste system too wasn’t necessary but it didn't bother me. The concept? Loved it!
Regardless, a person can say many deeply true things across a number of domains, yet be quite wrong in various places. From what I have read from him, this seems to be the case.
Glad you liked that passage!
If we were to go the artificial wombs route, then human sexuality/desire/etc would no longer be needed and spaying/neutering should take care of that. But would that lead to more productivity, creativity and progress? Or would it hinder productivity, creativity and progress? The desire to mate/create is a powerful motivator for work and production. But it can also be a source of destruction and decay.
Would we be better off like our pets - spayed and neutered and without any hope and urge for mating?
Probably by making it very obvious that someone came from an artificial womb. Then you can have racism against "naturals".
> Case of child care worker chided for getting pregnant before her 'turn' not uncommon https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180402/p2a/00m/0na/00...
Even if it wasn't (like you seem to argue), I would rather realize than in 10 years many jobs will be automated, so you won't need as much manual labor and Japanese will be just fine.
The world economy has been expanding rapidly in party because there are more consumers brought about from an increase in population.
You need to fix the dependency on an exponential growth model before you can hope to have a reduction in population and I’ll take it a step further and this needs to be done to solve climate change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar#Humans'_unreliab...
https://ourworldindata.org/app/uploads/2019/07/historical-an...
With CO2 emissions we need better technology to solve the problem. Low birthrate is no solution
But it's all good. We'll have some pain and the rest of the world can learn from it. We all need to do this and it's better that there is at least one country that's going through it now. I expect scandals and hardship, but in the end this country will be better off for it -- like the world itself.