14 replies to this topic

[Droplet]

Probably the most deathist politician out there, or at least the one most open about his views:

Japan's new finance minister has claimed that the elderly should 'hurry up and die' to help ease the cost to the taxpayer of caring for them, it has emerged.

Taro Aso made the controversial statement as he discussed how to deal with the country's emerging demographic crisis as its population continues to shrink while life expectancy soars.

Aso, who said he would hate to be a burden on the state, told the national council on social security reforms: 'Heaven forbid if you are forced to live on when you want to die.

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[Arcanyn]

I wonder if he thinks the same of people with cystic fibrosis, motor neurone disease, terminal cancer and the like.

[niner]

I guess he'll get pilloried for that, at least in the Western media, but at this point, what are the options? Keep the elderly "alive", at least in a technical sense, at vast expense, while their quality of life sucks? I suppose they could take the money they save from, I don't know, shooting all the elders?, and invest it in SENS-like rejuvenation technology so that someday they don't have to do that any more. How silly. Perish the thought. They should just use it to give tax cuts to trillionaires. (In Japan, they have trillionaires, the Yen being as microscopic as it is.) I'm not sure this Aso's alleged statement qualifies him as a deathist, since he's not being presented with a reasonable option. He's just being realistic. He'd be a deathist if someone proposed research into rejuvenation technology and he said that would be a bad idea because people are "supposed to" die of aging.

[Droplet]

I'm not sure this Aso's alleged statement qualifies him as a deathist, since he's not being presented with a reasonable option. He's just being realistic. He'd be a deathist if someone proposed research into rejuvenation technology and he said that would be a bad idea because people are "supposed to" die of aging.

You do have a good point there.

[Lister]

I can only really think of 2 options for the elderly (aside from hurrying the elderly to their grave); one is to invest in a gamble on a short/long term cure for the debilitating effects of aging which would allow the elderly to continue to work to their death. The second would be to force the elderly to work in less demanding positions into their 80’s and 90’s. Extending the retirement age is essentially option two, a work in progress.

I don’t see how we can afford to fund a retirement community the size we’re seeing and will continue to see. On top of that climate change driven inflation is only going to increase costs of funding the retirement community. Even worse we in North America still have a ways to go before we see a community spread like in Japan.

The costs of an aging population really should be a larger driver of Anti-Aging research than it is… Perhaps Mr Taro Aso should jump on the Longecity Train!

[Droplet]

The costs of an aging population really should be a larger driver of Anti-Aging research than it is… Perhaps Mr Taro Aso should jump on the Longecity Train!

I agree with that fully. Does anyone here speak and write Japanese and would be willing to perhaps contact him about this cause? Long shot but worth a try.

[Mind]

The ponzi-like structure of advanced-nation social programs strikes again! What should be done is that people who created these pyramid pension schemes should be voted out of office, so we can get on with more robust social/economic structures for the future.

[Lister]

Is there really an option at this point? All I can see is either a 90% tax rate for everyone (while living in little shacks by the road) or national/international bankruptcy.

We could vote out all the parties but then we’d still be left with an ever increasing debt due to an ever aging population constantly screwing up the ratio! Perhaps Mr. Aso is right... Wish I spoke Japanese Droplet.

Am I crazy and Paranoid or do things really look this bleak to you guys?

[niner]

Am I crazy and Paranoid or do things really look this bleak to you guys?

I don't think that we're doomed, so I'd say no. It's clear that social programs that are designed with a constant demographic ratio of young to old can become untenable when people stop having babies. Japan is gearing up to use humanoid robots to take care of the elderly. China probably has a couple decades before the demographic poop hits the fan big time. The one-child policy seemed like a good idea at the time, I guess. America is being saved by immigration, though in some quarters, immigrants are seen as "the problem". If we're headed to hell in a handbasket, the market doesn't seem to agree. Looks like we are a few hundred points away from breaking the pre-crash record on the Dow. (The Naz suffers, what with Apple and all...)

S. Jay Olshanksy (who has a login here, though he hasn't been around in a while) has made the case that even modest increases in healthspan would pull our butts out of the demographic fire. This is probably the best argument toward funding things like SENS. For the cost of one advanced military aircraft, SENS would probably start bearing some fruit that might lead to making a serious dent in the demographic time bomb.

What should be done is that people who created these pyramid pension schemes should be voted out of office, so we can get on with more robust social/economic structures for the future.

I think everyone who created them is dead. We might want to vote out the knuckleheads who can't even see their way to slowing the growth of Social Security COLAs. That would be the Dems this time. Does that mean I have to join the Republican party? Could I just shoot myself instead? I have to call a spade a spade, though. Mind, you might be surprised to hear me say it, but the Dems are gettin a little crazy there. I guess I should call Bob Casey and give him hell.

[Mind]

Dems are often critiqued for creating/perpetuating problems/dependency just to get elected. With social security, the problem (solvency) is getting bad, but every time someone proposes a solution (even very minor adjustments), the Dems and their supporters SCREAM bloody murder and create cartoons of Republicans pushing old people off a cliff. Where are the brave Dem leaders who can break this cycle?

[niner]

Dems are often critiqued for creating/perpetuating problems/dependency just to get elected. With social security, the problem (solvency) is getting bad, but every time someone proposes a solution (even very minor adjustments), the Dems and their supporters SCREAM bloody murder and create cartoons of Republicans pushing old people off a cliff. Where are the brave Dem leaders who can break this cycle?

I don't think it's as simple as that. For the past thirty years, we've had tremendous productivity gains in our economy, and all of the benefits have accrued to the top five or ten percent. The middle class is in danger of being crushed out of existence, but Republican policies have been substantially beneficial only to the wealthy. I think that a lot of Dems are refusing to go along with something that looks like balancing the budget on the backs of the middle class until something is done to level the playing field at least a little bit. Maybe that's what is meant by the "Grand Bargain". Maybe we will see the brave Dem leaders emerge when we see some brave Rep leaders who are willing to move on tax rates. We got a bit of that just recently, so maybe more Dems will be willing to come around now. To be honest, Social Security is not a very big problem. It could be fixed "easily", if you discount the politics. The real problem is Medicare/Medicaid. That's where the really mammoth liability is. And there, the emotion is notched up by an order of magnitude. Fixing that will involve fixing the American health care system in general, which should do us a lot of good economically, given what a huge fraction of gdp we spend on it.

[Lister]

I think everyone who created them is dead. We might want to vote out the knuckleheads who can't even see their way to slowing the growth of Social Security COLAs. That would be the Dems this time. Does that mean I have to join the Republican party? Could I just shoot myself instead? I have to call a spade a spade, though. Mind, you might be surprised to hear me say it, but the Dems are gettin a little crazy there. I guess I should call Bob Casey and give him hell.

Haha! Priceless. It is a bit out of control though...

Dems are often critiqued for creating/perpetuating problems/dependency just to get elected. With social security, the problem (solvency) is getting bad, but every time someone proposes a solution (even very minor adjustments), the Dems and their supporters SCREAM bloody murder and create cartoons of Republicans pushing old people off a cliff. Where are the brave Dem leaders who can break this cycle?

What!? lol! I thought it was Obama's death panels that were set to end old peoples lives...

See the reason I view things as dire is politics seems to move slower than we really have time for. The point of our friend in Japan is that old people aren't dieing fast enough. Unless you're lucky enough to live in North Korea then likely your political system isn't powerful or fast enough to cope with these kinds of dramatic changes. We've been here before perhaps but not with this size of population and not with the weight of climate change.

As long as China holds onto communism they may be able to stuff their aging population into inexpensive containers while feeding them an mixture of Vicodin and perhaps some heavy metals. While we in the west are being dragged down by our civility.

Republicans may be somewhat "Evil" but that's only because they're willing to do things like kicking the elderly to the curb and telling them to look after themselves. Though is that really alright?

[corb]

Instead of telling old people to die shouldn't they try to make them less of an economic burden for the country ?
In my parts of the world it's not unheard of for retired people to work. All of my grandparents were working well into their 70's. My sole surviving grandparent is still working in fact, he's damn well payed too, experience is key in his field of work.

That being said I do know a lot about japanese culture and I know a good number of Japanese personally and I have to say that statement doesn't surprise me at all. In fact I believe it's a very popular opinion shared by most, including the people he's telling to die. 1500 years of suicide culture aren't easy to erase, accepting death is a part of their way of life.

[Major Legend]

I think this is ridiculous, we don't have an scarcity problem on Earth, we have a wealth distribution problem. The elderly shouldn't have to be forced to die, there needs to be sadly a cut off point where people decide the expenses of keeping a person alive, becomes unreasonable, weighted against their odds of survival.

There is more than enough money in the world, in fact the largest industry in the world (finance) goes about managing and hedging it pretty much. How can we justify paying bankers 300k a year (and even more), completely with gold plated insurance policy, pensions. The politicians that get paid loads of money for doing jack all, and the 1% that endlessly push down our wages, whilst inflation runs amok.

The elderly with their large pensions and maintenance is the least of our problems. Why do we not have secured retirement pensions like the previous-previous generation? Why is social mobility getting crushed? We need wealth redistribution, the current system is pretty much killing everyone but the top 1%. Government always resort to crappy tactics, because they have no power to take from the real rich, so instead they have to divide and conquer everyone else.

Population control is going to be have to be on the table eventually. We can't be reproducing exponentially, we need to work on extending the quality of life as well as life extension. At the moment it isn't right asking for an elderly to work beyond 70, because of physical ageing. We have to be able to increase peoples health and life span, not kill off the old...besides without antiaging and life extension technology - its only a matter of time everyone reaches that sad point. The world is aging, we need to stop throwing money at stupid crap, and focus on the real problem - our medical technology is insanely inept and expensive at the moment for most of the living.

[YOLF]

Most of the time, it looks like Japan is an existential despot.