How is South Korea's very low birth rate about not having enough of the "right" people? Perhaps they could allow mass immigration to fix it but that would destroy the culture. The issue is happening everywhere, how is it racist?

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DaSHacka 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Perhaps they could allow mass immigration to fix it but that would destroy the culture. The issue is happening everywhere, how is it racist?

Well, there are people that think the idea of preserving cultures itself is racist (well, at least western ones), or that there is no detrimental effect to an existing culture by enabling mass migration.

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glenstein 8 hours ago | parent [-]

I think the racist part is the pivot from demographic changes to the inference that they herald an extinction event for a particular culture, and especially tying that assumption to unwarranted extrapolations that misread the data, and especially when it's a fixation on populations that don't realistically face any such threat but nevertheless talking about the perceived threat in existential terms.

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DaSHacka 7 hours ago | parent [-]

The racist part is extrapolating from mass-scale migration of different demographics and cultures that it will cause demographic and cultural change? You may disagree it is a problem, but I fail to see how it isn't true.

You think if, say tomorrow, all 1.4 billion citizens in China were teleported into the U.S., that there would now be 1.7 billion Americans, indistinguishable from the Americans that came before? Or, would it simply be 1.4 billion Chinese, alongside ~300 million Americans (if we're being generous...)?

Demographics and culture are obviously intrinsically tied, each individual migrant holds beliefs and values that have been forged and shaped over the span of the lives that they have lived in their country of origin. This is, and has always, been the case, its just more of a hot-button issue recently because:

A: We are currently getting an overwhelming amount of migration to stave off our own demographic issues, so the strain begins to have a more noticeable impact,

and B: Many of the migrants (from abroad) are coming from countries with cultures intrinsically incompatible with values Westerners have come to expect in their own countries (See: Sharia Law as contrasted with Women's Suffrage), so they stick out somewhat like a sore thumb when advocating to enact such policies and practicing such cultures.

	▲	glenstein 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Right, the racist part is equivocating between "demographic change" and "extinction event" and thinking in terms of hypotheticals and extrapolations that aren't supported by data. And there's all kinds of value prejudging that is entirely external to the data about what cultural change means, what it implies, what effects it will have, all of which involve disputable and extremely politicized assumptions that are trying to borrow from the objectivity of population data for rhetorical momentum in favor of specific preferences of racial composition.

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feoren 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Perhaps they could allow mass immigration to fix it but that would destroy the culture.

This is the racist part. The majority is always worried about how awful everything would be if they were to become the minority. Usually it's because they treat minorities like shit, and they'll worried that they'll suddenly be treated that way too.

Why would that possibly destroy their culture? Are the cultures of all minorities always destroyed? Why would that be? Is it because of racist assholes?

It's an incredibly weak argument when you think about it. The South Korean culture doesn't have to go anywhere: there will be the same number of Korean pop stars and artists and chefs as there was before, it's just that there will also be others coexisting with them in the same country. Somehow this is a huge threat? They're worried about their culture being "watered down" by lesser cultures? These are racism-adjacent fears, similar to their pure blood being mixed with the lesser races. If you're worried that the South Korean youth will get so much exposure to other cultures that they somehow drop or forget the Korean culture, that just feels like weird gatekeeping and more "mixed blood" concerns to me.

Is there a limit on how much culture can exist? If so, it's surely based on population. We're not talking about the South Korean population declining more due to immigration; it's already declining. If their culture is in danger, it's surely due to that, rather than some sneaky danger of all those dirty immigrants. How is it not based in racism? We're just talking about more culture overall.

Not to mention the fact that most culture spreads over communication channels, not physical bodies. Those terrifying 8 billion non-Koreans who are threatening to destroy Korea's culture are already influencing Korea's culture. Would it really make that big of a difference if they were physically within its borders?

	▲	arbitrary_name 39 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		i think racist is a projection. example: I'm a new Zealander. i don't want Americans immigrating in large quantities to New Zealand, because they have cultural values that change the nature of the society, in ways that i don't want it to change. And i don't consider American a 'race', but more an agglomeration pf people with some general preferences, shared experience and even material characteristics ($$$) that will have negative impacts. Now, if i could filter, as a voter, to 'allow in Americans that share my values and that would minimize change on axes that matter to me', i would accept immigration of Americans. but, as a voter, i cannot do that. So instead i vote to keep immigration restrictive. that does not mean I consider Americans inferior, not that i hold that they are meaningfully different from me in any way except culture. it's not racism. but instead a generalization that we are forced to apply as individuals. does that change your perspective on this?

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awongh 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The racist part is thinking that the confucianist misogynistic hyper capitalistic culture is worth protecting in the first place, as if Bangladeshi, Indonesian or Filipino people living in the same country as you will somehow be the thing that is the end of "Koreanness" and not all of the culture's inherent issues itself- the other kind of end of Koreanness (the implied preferred end) is when almost everyone who is Korean dies out. (Which, to be clear, is not limited to Korea- it's the same set of issues everywhere people complain about "immigrants")

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api 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I'm not saying there's zero problems. Both too-rapid population growth and too-rapid population decline can cause problems with social stability and economic systems. I specifically called out doomerism.

South Korea's birth rate is indeed dangerously low and threatens their economy. If they cared they could do something about their extreme workaholism and cost of living.

As far as immigration destroying the culture: it depends on the rate. A healthy but limited rate of immigration revitalizes cultures, but it's pretty clear that sudden mass immigration is dangerous and causes a lot of problems and backlash.

Speaking of fixing problems... if our billionaire class who seem so worked up about birth rates wanted to do something about it they could also address the most frequently cited problems preventing young families from forming. Like housing prices.

If we really get into a situation where dangerously low birth rates are threatening the economy and social stability, the boring solution is to do what we do for other goods and services that the free market isn't adequately providing: directly subsidize it. Pay people to have kids. The easy way would be a payment or tax rebate to married couples with 0 children to have one child. But that's the boring solution that doesn't involve massive reactionary cultural transformations, so the right-wing "problemists" won't like it.

Edit: by problemism I mean people who use a problem as a lead-in to push only one solution, and they're not actually interested in solving the problem unless it's their solution. An example from the left side of the spectrum would be Marxists for whom any solution to climate change that doesn't destroy capitalism is unacceptable, or anarcho-primitivists or anti-tech trads for whom any solution that doesn't involve shutting everything down is unacceptable. In reality the solution to climate change is to emit less carbon, and physics doesn't care how we do that or what political system we are using.

There's a lot of right-wing problemists for whom any solution to excessive population decline that doesn't involve taking rights from women and re-introducing reactionary theocratic or nationalist structures isn't acceptable.

	▲	boelboel 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think financial incentives will actually do that much, it's generally seen as something that works only marginally. People get more kids when they get stable/good jobs, have a support network, have a culture that incentivizes births. South Korea is currently throwing money at the problem, upped parental leave even did some things to make it easier to retire if you got a lot of kids. I'm almost certain these things won't meaningfully change the situation (maybe go from 0.8 to 1.0) as all korean children are expected to get good jobs (white collar, certain professions) , they structure their society towards this and it's impossible to get a high birthrate like this. I actually read about how something like presence of nuns in your town in italy was quite correlated with birthrates as it basically relieved all women but the nurses of some duties. In Korea you can see how the stability leads to a very significant effect on birthrates as Sejong is by far the highest birthrate region. Interesting since those really obsessed about birthrates also seem to hate the worker protections that make it difficult to fire people. I guess housing is another of those stability factors since renting really ups the risks of children.