Thread

More than 100k people in Japan are now aged 100 or older

217 points · 282 comments · karakoram

shoobiedoo · 1789687401 · focus · HN ↗
This article calls it a "quiet emergency" but even as a foreigner living in Japan there are alarm bells everywhere. And the government buying 150 F35's is just a slap in the face when there's a massive chunk of the population that is, very quickly, going to need extra care.
I looked into becoming a care aid myself as I'm tired of office culture in Japan and have some experience in that field. I was shocked to see that they start at less than 10USD, and working your way up takes years, decades even.
Continuing to kick this can down the road is going to be an absolute disaster.
1. stickfigure · 1789690944 · focus · HN ↗
  > buying 150 F35's
  Your immediate neighbor is going on an imperialist streak right now, and Xi says he wants the fireworks to start in his lifetime. I don't know if F35s are the right answer for Japan, but Xi isn't that young. Get ready however you can.
  1. r3trohack3r · 1789694973 · focus · HN ↗
    The ministry of propaganda in China runs an English language international news channel available as an IPTV stream (<a href="https://tvexplorer.live/" rel="nofollow">https://tvexplorer.live/)
    If you want a better understanding of which world events China is not happy about, tuning in there to see what they cover unfavorably has been useful for me.
    They seem to be very unhappy about Japan building up its war fighting capacity.
    Walf · 1789695733 · focus · HN ↗
    Japan is never going to voluntarily attack China. Even if there was a desire to, they know they could not win. Any military build up by the former is due to fear of the latter.
    0manrho · 1789703928 · focus · HN ↗
    Japan probably won't not attack China (I don't see why they would, not proactively at least), that's not what was being asserted. Japan however may defend Taiwan or allies/neighbors in the south china sea should things go hot there elsewise. And Japan have stated at least some interest in doing so which means that if China wants Taiwan, they might have to contend with japan.
    These sort of things can work as a deterrent as much as power projection, and they don't have to get into direct violent/physical conflict for there to be diplomatic tension/worsening of relations as a result. I'm not saying this is most effective use of Japan's resources or focus or that China is for sure going to do anything or making any other such claims, just explaining the potential rational for why China would be non-plussed at Japan over F35 purchases even if they don't feel Japan is gunning for them.
    Of course, if china has no actual wartime intentions in Japans sphere of influence, then yeah, they probably give much less of a shit. So depends on what their intentions really are as to how they feel about it. The fact that they're publicly broadcasting displeasure is probably not a sign that they're cool with it though.
    seanmcdirmid · 1789716285 · focus · HN ↗
    Even if Japan doesn't want to defend Taiwan, the close geography makes conflict between china and Japan (and the USA) if China invades Taiwan.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.