Yale University economics professor sparks outrage by suggesting mass suicide in Japan

A Yale University professor has sparked outrage when he suggested the only way to deal with Japan’s rapidly aging population is through mass suicide and evisceration.

Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, defended his views in a New York Times profile this weekend after making the remarks on a streaming news program in 2021.

“I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,” he said at the time. “Isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ by the elderly in the end?”

Seppuku was a ritual disembowelment imposed on samurai who had dishonored themselves in 19th-century Japan.

Yusuke Narita (pictured right), an assistant professor of economics at Yale, has sparked outrage when he suggested the only way to deal with Japan’s rapidly aging population is through mass suicide and evisceration

Narita told the New York Times he was “taken out of context” but also said that euthanasia may become mandatory in the future, his comments nonetheless forced a backlash.

He claims that this would allow younger generations to assert themselves in business, politics and other areas of society that the older generation does not want to leave.

Japan has a low birth rate and the highest national debt in the First World. The country has 1.34 births per woman, below the United States’ 1.65.

Last year, Japan’s population fell by more than 600,000 due to declining birth rates and a rapidly aging population.

The country’s population fell for the 11th straight year, falling by 644,000, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.

The overall population declined as deaths exceeded births by 609,000 and people moving out of the country outnumbered those moving in by 35,000.

Yasuke’s comments not only infuriated people, but also gained him an audience — he has over 569,000 Twitter followers.

He often appears in Japanese media in casual clothes and presents himself as a radio shock jock. His Twitter bio reads: “The things they say not to say are usually true.”

“I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,” he said at the time. “Isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ by the elderly in the end?”

Japan has a low birth rate and the highest national debt in the First World. The country has 1.34 births per woman, below the United States’ 1.65

Japan, whose birthrate has been declining for many years, could potentially “disappear,” according to Musk. Above: Data from the Japan Bureau of Statistics shows Japan’s population decline and negative interest rate change since 2010

Asked to defend his views in a class earlier this year, Narita shared a clip from the 2019 film Midsommar, in which a cult forces an elderly member to jump off a cliff.

“Whether that’s good or not, that’s harder to answer,” Narita said. “So if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard to create such a society.”

His remarks drew renewed attention when social media spotted them in January and a sociologist labeled them “hatred of the weak”.

Narita told the Times he was “primarily concerned about the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons will continue to dominate the world of politics, traditional industries and media/entertainment/journalism for many years to come.”

He admits the way he said it was intended as a metaphor for how an older generation needs to be phased out, and he’s softened his speech ever since.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said in late January that the birth rate was a crisis in a state of “now or never” resolution

Narita told the Times he was “primarily concerned about the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons will continue to dominate the world of politics, traditional industries and media/entertainment/journalism for many years to come.”

“I should have been more careful about their potential negative connotations,” Narita said. “After some self-reflection, I stopped using the words last year.”

He is not alone, however, as one of the key figures in the country’s Liberal Democratic Party has suggested that old people should “hurry up and die”.

Narita is spreading his message on social media and on comedy shows, energy drink ads, and even via TikTok impressionists.

Polls have even shown that the public in Japan supports voluntary euthanasia.

Narita continues to emphasize that he is softening his position and not to be taken literally, but the discussion comes.

“I am not advocating its introduction,” he said. “I assume that it will be discussed more widely.”

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk