This is a serious inquiry. Please no dismissive comments.
Japan has one of the lowest levels of food security among modernized countries, no fossil fuel reserves, an aging demographic that cannot support societal infrastructure as it currently exists, and a population that severely exceed its natural carrying capacity as we face more extreme climactic conditions in the near future.
I’d like to know if any other long-term residents are considering the implications of this precarious condition that Japan finds itself in.
Are there any online communities in which to share resources for how to better self-educate on this topic (specific to Japan)? The aim being to raise greater general awareness of these painful inevitabilities and to create dialogue around achievable solutions that may practiced on an individual/communal level.
Any sincere responses are greatly appreciated.
33 comments
The Japanese economy is on the brink. It could get very bad.
I have no hopeful or helpful groups to point you towards, but yeah, it’s hard to imagine things are on a positive sort of trajectory. Climate change is increasingly intrusive these days, and it’s disorienting to be experiencing that happen while mostly people keep on as though this is fine.
This can be significantly delayed by the option of large scale agricultural reforms. It’ll never happen, but the collapse is not inevitable. Japan has a lot of agricultural overhead and a lost of waste.
Nah Japan will do just fine.
There’s too much doom and gloom about Japan, I don’t buy for a second that the Japanese population will die out either. At most things get worse for a generation, things then improve just like most 1st world countries.
When you say long term how long are thinking because nothing is changing in a decade +
What do you mean by food security?
Are you saying Melon pan will obari?
Japan has massive cash reserves, relatively little foreign debt compared to other countries, and is holding a lot of foreign debt owed to it by other countries. The economy isn’t going to collapse suddenly.
There is no inevitable “collapse” as you try to make out. The future is uncertain. You could start there.
“collapse aware” sounds like a positive way to call a doomsday preacher
A lot of these talking points really stink of eco-fascism/accelerationism. I’d advise you to take a step back and breathe for a second, OP, unless you’re actually just trying to push the envelope on this type of thinking.
Take one look at the amount of food waste going on daily in Japan and you’ll realise there’s enough food to go around.
If you’re truly worried about all this rubbish, go buy an akiya in a rural prefecture and start farming your own back garden, and leave us sensible cunts alone.
I think Japan will be one of the safest places to be. (1) It is a cohesive and law-abiding society, other countries are more likely to fall into anarchy, (2) Mountain areas will provide refuge from rising sea levels and mild temperatures, (3) Population is already collapsing which should reduce the dependency on imported foods. My main concern is latent xenophobia coming to the surface when times get tough. Also, checkout r\singularity for another perspective on the near-term future.
Population decline is probably coming at a good time with the recent boom in AI.
do you even live here take this shit to /r/japan
You got to Japan somehow. You get back on an airplane and find somewhere else? If a prerequisite to the doomsday scenario is to stay in one place no matter what happens, that seems unwise.
I like your energy and attitude. I am worried for my children’s future. I do teach my kids in a way that assumes modern society is unsustainble… Sorry but I can not add anything to this discussion beside my additional concern.
I’m not sure what answers you’re looking for. As you point out, Japan has a high population relative to the available arable land, so it is fundamentally impossible for it to become independent of food imports without making sacrifices that will be (rightly) unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of the population. If this worries you, your only option is to leave the country – I don’t know what alternative you think there is.
Yes, Japan faces serious demographic problems. So does practically every other wealthy country. It’s a challenge that all wealthy countries will have to deal with over the coming decades.
Japan has poor energy security. However, we are in the middle of a global energy transition. Over the coming decades, just like practically every other wealthy country, Japan’s fossil fuel usage will be largely replaced by renewables and, depending on politics, nuclear. Renewables in particular will greatly boost energy security.
It’s important to underline the fact that there is *no evidence that societal collapse is imminent or likely*. The issues you’re concerned about are important, and we shouldn’t dismiss the dangers associated with low-probability high-impact events, but there is no need for panic. If, for whatever reason, you believe that societal collapse is likely, Japan is not a sensible country to be in. But basing your life decisions around the assumption of societal collapse is not rational.
What is with these constant Malthusian takes on this subreddit? No, Japan is no where near its “natural carrying capacity” nor is the world.
The Japanese population will likely decline but the world’s isn’t and there’s a lot of productive capacity out there
I don’t know why people worry about these things. I’d just off myself at the first sign of trouble.
I came from an area with a lot of farms in my home country, and am living in a similar type of situation here in Japan. This has been the topic for many conversations with locals.
The below might be of interest.
The UN data on Japan’s food production can be found at [https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS](https://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/FBS)
Be prepared to look at raw data and spreadsheets, it’s not pretty. But the TL;DR is about 49.7 million tonnes produced for 2019
Japan also is one of the world’s biggest food wasters with 25.31 tonnes being thrown away in the 2018FY according to the ministry of environment. Link below
[https://www.env.go.jp/en/headline/2515.html](https://www.env.go.jp/en/headline/2515.html)
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I remember reading in a jr high textbook about how food is often destroyed at the source to avoid deflation of vegetable prices. It had a nice picture of a tractor with a giant lawnmower looking attachment chewing up a paddock full of cabbage.
Food shortages have been a running theme throughout Japan’s history, and there were significant campaigns to ensure Japan’s food security in the Meiji restoration by introducing western foods such as dairy so that one failed rice harvest doesn’t lead to mass starvation. Wheat and other grains were also introduced.
After the pacific war more effort was put in to better utilise other grains like wheat, which led to a boom in wheat based Japanese foods. You will regularly see documentaries about this, and how the adoption of ramen, udon, okonomiyaki was able to add to the caloric intake of a starving post-war japan. One story I became familiar with was how they discovered some areas of the country that had thick muddy clay soil, that were thought to be useless for farming, so they grew trees for firewood. Post-war these region were used for farming potatoes and daikon.
Japan is facing challenges in sustaining a farming population for a number of reasons. Aging being the obvious one, but the lack of profitability is another; as wholesalers squeeze them for all they’re worth making farming a little unsustainable as a business.
There is so much potential for reform, and I am seeing some of it put into practice. Some of the reforms being seen are:
Increased mechanisation of farming: Japan seriously lags behind. Potatoes for instance, around here are almost universally hand picked (the fingernail holes give me the creeps), but I am seeing farmers resort to tractors and mechanical harvesting.
A big push by major retailers to sell imperfect produce at a markdown instead of binning it. Even local konbinis have started doing eco-wari.
I don’t think Japan’s farming will collapse per se. Japan is still consuming food like it’s pre-bubble, and as the writing appears on the wall in the next 10-20yrs, Japan will have to innovate. I think aside from major war, Japan will overcome this problem.
This article sound the alarm for that concern.
[https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/08/29/business/japan-food-self-sufficiency-security/](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/08/29/business/japan-food-self-sufficiency-security/)
Does this answer your question? Or were you looking for more prepper type advice?
If ww3 or some kinda shit happens my plans are simple:
Move back home if things are better there, or:
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/guess-ill-die
There have been doomsday soothsayers since time immemorial. There have been countless times where people have augured that the sky is falling.
The current situation in Japan seems far removed from past apocalyptic scenarios. I’d like to hear more persuasive factual evidence from OP about our impending doom.
>Please no dismissive comments.
I wish you the best of luck with that.
>and a population that severely exceed its natural carrying capacity as we face more extreme climactic conditions in the near future.
I have bad news for you: Pretty much any place on Earth that has a person in it has exceeded its “natural carrying capacity” because without the Haber method and mechanized agriculture, 8 billion humans with rumbly tummies is too much, no matter how you spread them out. Luckily, “natural carrying capacity” is a meaningless measurement anyway for any species capable of technology, so it doesn’t matter.
Otherwise, no prediction for big, unplanned changes in the future is ever right except by accident, and the people who are most confident that they know what’s coming tend to be the most blinded by ideology and wishful thinking. If we’re talking societal collapse-level disruptions, we’re talking so many unexpected variables that basically it’s a crapshoot who among us is going to get through it or not no matter how we prepare. We don’t know what disaster is going to eventually come for us, but we do know that there hasn’t been a major societal-level crisis yet that people didn’t get through by working together, so your best insurance for the future is being at least a bit likable and able to get along with others, regardless of what prepper youtube channels may tell you.
It almost seems like you posted this just to talk down to anyone who disagrees with you.
What you are describing is a theoretical future. One of many. While I agree it’s good to be cognizant of worse-case scenarios, there’s no evidence that they are highly likely to occur. Certainly not to the level that justifies some of the rather arrogant and condescending replies you’ve been giving people.
By all means, educate people on the issue. But don’t act like you have a crystal ball and everyone else is stupid. You’re defeating your own cause.
I’m more concerned about being drawn into armed conflict with China than I am about the Japanese economy collapsing any time soon. Ha ha Akai yoake
All these doomposting while you might not see that doom in your lifetime…
Idk what Japan will be in 100+ years, but the next 50-70 years will be fine. If you are worried about your kids, teach them how to adapt and possibly move to other country if needed.
You’re worrying too much.
For anyone being dismissive, we’ve already entered [overshoot](https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-already-too-late-to-save-civilization-e834cb4ec694) .
The possibility of societal collapse is most certainly something that at least needs to discussed, with contingencies to lessen or slow down the impact put in place.
I’d be surprised if G7 country leaderships aren’t quietly aware.
>and to create dialogue around achievable solutions
Did you google in Japanese? There are many people talking about the topic for decades, people who went back to farming and so on. This is not a new problem after all.
For starters, we overproduce food so scarcity isn’t actually an issue. Second, there’s a litany of other farming techniques outside the current large-scale industrial farming methods that we could utilize to produce the same amount of food, while also being sustainable and having a substantially reduced carbon footprint.
If you’re seriously looking into becoming a prepper, this is a great country for doing so. You can find houses in the middle of nowhere, inconvenient locations but cheap, and then you can set up your vegetable gardens, start canning that food, and do whatever you feel like doing while you wait for the doom.
How about switching the tv off for a while friend
Lol. You won’t live 200 years. You will be dead and buried before the collapse kicks in.
What you’re doing is called ‘doomerism’, google it.
Seeing this post reminds me of countless nhk specials about Japan sinking and economic collapses. I’m living here till the day I die, nothing will change my mind. That said, I personally think the country will rot away. Culturally, it will be totally different in about 20-30 years. Not for the better mind you. However, I’ll be retired in the country side and can easily ignore whatever happens around me.
Japanese societal collapse for the reasons OP describes is certainly a possibility, but many other countries will almost certainly collapse before Japan. By that point, it will be part of a global collapse that will not be good for anyone but the richest of the rich. It certainly is not limited or unique to Japan.