From our other sites
The story
A thread on 5ch’s “Nandemo Jikkyo G” board went up discussing people who only ever say “Japan is over” or “Japan has no future.” In response to the original poster’s question, “Is that actually true?”, some commenters agreed, citing the declining birthrate, aging population, and sluggish GDP, while plenty of others pushed back hard with lines like “That’s just people shouting their wishes online” and “You’re the only one who’s over.” Replies invoking entrepreneur Takafumi Horie’s comments and others pointing to the real struggles of the “Employment Ice Age” generation kept the thread from turning into a simple back-and-forth of doom and gloom.
What people said
Hit hard by the Lehman Shock, couldn't land jobs despite having good degrees
I know guys like that — highly educated, still living with their parents and working part-time
Then why'd you even bother posting here?
You're the only one who's over, as always
You've got a future though, right?
Isn't that the same guy who says the working conditions are so bad he only wants to visit as a tourist?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
The “Employment Ice Age generation,” repeatedly mentioned in the thread, refers to people who graduated school from the late 1990s through the early 2000s and faced the harsh hiring environment known as Japan’s “employment ice age.” The problem of people who couldn’t land regular full-time jobs back then and are now reaching middle age while still stuck in non-regular employment remains a live issue in social security and labor policy today. On the other hand, the claim that “GDP and the birth rate are both hopeless” is partly rooted in real statistical shifts — such as Japan’s nominal GDP being overtaken by Germany in 2023, dropping it to fourth place in the world. The clash in the thread comes down to a gap in temperature between those who cite these structural numbers as grounds for pessimism and those who treat the very act of complaining as a personal failing — and it’s worth noting that both sides are cherry-picking certain facts to make their case.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (“Nandemo Jikkyo G”) thread “[Ultra Bad News] Guys Who Only Ever Post “Japan Is Over” or “Japan Has No Future” lol.”
Leave a Reply