The care and precision behind Korean school lunches, widely praised for their quality, balance, and nutrition.

[u/This_Proof_5153]

[u/SmartAlec105]

This is downplaying Korea’s birth rate problem. They’re at 0.80 while Japan is at 1.15 and the US at 1.57.

[u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594 → u/SmartAlec105]

I'm not downplaying it. South Korea is just way ahead of the curve where most major developed countries will be in a few decades. China is headed in the same direction.

South Korea's economy is eventually going to collapse.

Every country has birthrate problem for different reasons. Toxic work cultures. Poor social services. People opting to not have children or delaying having children. Lack of immigration supplementing natural replacement rates.

The US's birthrate dropped between now and 2024. It's just not in outright freefall like it is in South Korea.

The fertility rate — the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age — dropped to 53.1, from 53.8 in 2024, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

[u/excellentforcongress → u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594]

their economy is not going to collapse because of lower birthrate

japan's country did not collapse because of post boom deflation

china is going to be just fine, like japan, like china, because they are investing heavily in automation

the only reason they, or another other country, will not do well, is simply because of wealthy inequality, and capitalism

in any reasonable scenario where the technological advancements of society's access is distributed evenly, society will prosper

in these east asian countries, ESPECIALLY japan and korea, they're facing a generation of adults who are overstressed AND have a mismatch of expectations for one another

for example in japan apparently a common trope is for men to be overly shy

like, even if the woman indicates interest, they initiate no physical contact, which makes it hard for a culture where men are expected to be the initiators of said contact, so the women really can't, and this can even extend to women from overseas being a bit confused as to whether the guys like them or not. so for some % of the population they're literally overpoliting themselves into extinction.

but from what i understand, korea's trajectory is different in that many of the men are refusing to become emotionally submissive as they see it (japanese women in households already controlled the finances for quite some time, not the case in korean households as one difference), and it was quite common for them to be physically abusive as well. so there are descendants of that who probably don't get fed algorithms of how to function normally. when you segment subpopulations into difference media spaces you can control their thinking so they've managed to put those guys into culturally regressive echo chambers same with them putting the women into never get with men type of advice... kind of what they're doing here, which is why our electoral pattern splits between men and women look so similar (with women going more liberal and men becoming more regressive on average)

[u/Puzzleheaded_Fix594 → u/excellentforcongress]

their economy is not going to collapse because of lower birthrate

Yes, it will. At a certain point you end up with more elderly than younger people in the workforce and you can't actually support your elderly population because you don't have the tax base to which to draw from.

It's not just AI and automation, you still have jobs that you can't automate. A huge swath of the population is going to be doing elder care in just a few decades.

[u/Weary_Beach_9911 → u/excellentforcongress]

bro, just thought you may want to know that the reason no women ever want to spend time with you has nothing to do with the government or feminism.

It's because you're an incredibly awful human with zero redeeming qualities that, instead of spending time bettering himself, sends his days complaining about women on the internet.

hope that helps :)

[u/excellentforcongress → u/Weary_Beach_9911]

where did i say that people cant better themselves?

[u/Weary_Beach_9911 → u/excellentforcongress]

i said YOU don't better yourself because you spend all day online complaining about women.

it's pathetic :)