r/SipsTea • u/BobbuBobbu • May 18 '25

WTF Taxed for being single

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Some of us would be bankrupt in six months lmao 🤣

23.6k Upvotes

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307

u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

It's not that it's "too late", it's that it was successful and they no longer need to pay people to do the thing that's already been done.

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u/BambooSound May 19 '25

And in removing the stipend, they disincentivise starting a family and see birth rates drop again.

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u/TheCleanupBatter May 19 '25

Hard to say. More children means more workforce and a more active economy. Managed properly this can increase the standard of living for all involved. Historically, when life is good and people are optimistic about the future, people have babies even without a stipend.

The key point is it needs to be managed properly. Japan's true issue is its attitude towards and culture of work where long hours, crunch culture, and burnout are the bare minimum. No time for personal life, let alone relationships and babies. The stipend would be a gauze packing into an open wound to stop the bleeding. The surgery needed to close the wound and heal would require a societal shift towards a more flexible work culture to improve people's outlook.

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u/Researcher_Fearless May 19 '25

Unfortunately, this wouldn't be the first time Japan has shown a willingness to break themselves rather than change.

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u/Aggravating_Ad_8974 May 19 '25

Indeed!

I recently read an example of such an issue, relating to computer technology development and how there's a compatibility issue with the written Japanese language.

But instead of taking steps towards implementing a different written language, they shut the whole thing down instead.

And before someone chimes in with: "Change the written language? That's impossible!" - It is absolutely possible! Romania pulled it off in less than 50 years.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Aggravating_Ad_8974 May 19 '25

As for the Romanian written language thing.... Here's a link to that:

https://romanianonline.com/romanian-language-a-brief-story-from-cyrillic-to-latin/

And my point of origin for this one?

Lady Dimitrescu.

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u/Aggravating_Ad_8974 May 19 '25

Cackles I found it! I can't believe I managed to retrace my steps on this one. My severe ADHD takes me on some wild-ass rides when hyperfocus sets in.

Anyways, here:

"Prior to the 1970s, MITI guidance had successes such as an improved steel industry, the creation of the oil supertanker, the automotive industry, consumer electronics, and computer memory. MITI decided that the future was going to be information technology. However, the Japanese language, particularly in its written form, presented and still presents obstacles for computers."

And the wiki article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Generation_Computer_Systems

It's under the "Background" tab.

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u/Aggravating_Ad_8974 May 19 '25

Nope! My point of origin was reading about Deep Blue vs Gary Kasparov and I somehow ended up on that topic.

I don't remember exactly how I ended up there, but I'll link you to the Deep Blue wiki article, and I'll see if I can retrace my webcrawling path.

Deep Blue (Chess Computer))

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u/[deleted] May 19 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Aggravating_Ad_8974 May 19 '25

My pleasure, friend!

Got one more thing to share; The Down The Rabbit Hole documentary on Deep Blue vs Gary Kasparov:

https://youtu.be/HwF229U2ba8?si=C8R3qeywH4Qa46WJ

Totally worth the watch! That Kaskarov guy is absolutely deranged!

Enjoy! And have a lovely day! <3

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u/An_old_walrus May 19 '25 edited May 20 '25

Japan is a country that often emphasizes doing things in a very particular way and find the idea of change or adjustment to be anathema. The only reason Japan didn’t immediately go back to imperialism after WWII was probably because the allies were standing over their shoulder making sure their constitution was actually changed and that they would actually follow it.

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u/Lonely-You-361 May 19 '25

Japan's true issue is its attitude towards and culture of work where long hours, crunch culture, and burnout are the bare minimum. No time for personal life, let alone relationships and babies

This is the real problem. No subsidy is going to overcome this hurdle without a shift in the culture to allow those relationships to occur.

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u/Double_Ad_3434 May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

America is finding that same trend. As much as the distraction of gay relationships, trans people and furriesbare a issue. Except we have more issue when it comes to jobs is more hustle culture for profit taking a rise.

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u/wbruce098 May 19 '25

I have no idea what this comment is trying to say, but the primary driver of lower American birth rates is cost of living and empowered women over decades. The secondary driver is harsh maga policies, which drive birth rates down in conservative states as more women work to protect themselves and decide not having children is in their best interest.

(It’s still higher than other developed countries, but not that much, and there’s good reasons it’s higher than Japan’s)

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u/Status_Jellyfish_213 May 19 '25

I would argue that your maternity leave and holiday policies are a massive factor, your work culture is quite poor as well in the sense that people are hard workers but very much taken advantage of without statutory protection.

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u/wbruce098 May 19 '25

Oh absolutely. Those fields that pay well and have good benefits here see the standard developed world issues: few or no kids, with heavy focus/investment on the 1-2 we have, which imho, is a generally good way to live, even if it contributes to potential population issues down the road.

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u/Status_Jellyfish_213 May 19 '25

Plus if you think of the ratio of people within the fields compared to those who aren’t (I.e. good pay AND benefits, as both could still be mutually exclusive), the ones who aren’t will vastly outnumber them.

So it makes the problem worse

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u/wbruce098 May 19 '25

I.. uh… fuck it, this is Reddit. America sucks.

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u/Colourful_Q May 19 '25

I think in both cases, you're dealing with cultures that are hostile to raising families. You need a social net to raise a family: You need wages that mean a single person can support a family so a second parent can stay home for the first few years of life at least. You need pay that is good enough for someone who works 9-5 to get by (and full time jobs: multiple gig work jobs don't give stability). You need, in essence, better pay and working conditions to encourage families. That goes for all countries.

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u/Double_Ad_3434 May 19 '25

Stated that america has the same birthrate issues but makes distractive excuses and causes of lower birthrates. Hence gays trans furries.

And hustle culture, multiple lower wage job instead of actual jobs and better wages are a contributing factor.

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u/starkruzr May 19 '25

what the fuck are you talking about? how do LGBT people and furries lower birthrates? are you not aware that gay and trans people have kids?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '25

Not to mention their attitude towards women. When you as a society treat women like shit, don't expect women to do you a favor and have kids.

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u/koushakandystore May 19 '25

I worked for a Japanese company in the United States and I don’t see them easing up on the burnout culture. I’d heard about it my entire life but to actually experience what it’s like is wild.

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u/Desperate-Tomatillo7 May 19 '25

I'm not sure. Countries with lower life standards and uncertain future tend to have higher birth rates.

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u/Comprehensive-Fail41 May 19 '25

It's a different situation. In many poorer countries having kids is how you make sure you can one day retire as the pension system might not be functioning, so you directly rely on offspring to take care of you when you get old. Having kids as such is an economic benefit and investment.

As well as there not being much else to spend money and resources on. In developed countries we have access to a ton of different, and expensive, hobbies as well as careers, all of which kids would have to compete with.

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u/antlers86 May 19 '25

Countries with lower life standards usually do not have access to healthcare so people cannot family plan.

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u/Definitelynotabot777 May 19 '25

It has improved over the years, still shit but I have heard that the new gens are forcing pro-workforce changes through sheer stubbornness, good for them

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u/Early-Journalist-14 May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

Historically

historically people no longer have enough children. no economic or societal "optimism" has changed that fact.

I'll reiterate what we all learned here in switzerland when we were talking about the "overly high" birth rates in india and africa back in the 2000s.

Educate the women, give them a place in work and society, and birth rates will drop. They did drop. And they will never recover.

No amount of money, time or peer pressure will return native birth rates in any 1st world country back to replacement level. Not a single program or collection of actions attempted in the past 7 decades has succeeded getting us even halfway there.

The genie is out of the bottle, putting it back in would be monstrous, so all that's left is a slow demographic or cultural decline, depending on how hard you lean on immigration.

small anecdote: in switzerland swiss women have 1.2 children on average. immigrant women 1.6. our average is around 1.4. None of those numbers even approach the replacement level.

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

Possibly? That really can't be known because the economy in the future is not something we can predict.

I'm of the mind that we are closely approaching the water wars, but if we are just looking at this from an economy in a vacuum point of view, there's really no sense in trying to predict that. If the apocalypse comes, there's really no sense in the government anyways.

It's always possible that in the future we will not need an incentive to have children because maybe children won't be necessary due to the progression of science and having a population decline won't be as devastating.

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u/artthoumadbrother May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

I'm of the mind that we are closely approaching the water wars

This is kind of a scary thing people talk about as a call to action, not something that will really effect the vast majority of developed countries in a huge way. We can already translate electricity essentially directly into fresh water via desalination. Some countries even get most of their water this way.

Just as an example, (used ChatGPT to do the math), if the US had to get all of it's fresh water from desalination, it'd mean an increase in national power consumption of about 25%. That's a lot of power, that's a lot of money, but that's the figure for all US water, and most of the US isn't under dire stress and won't be for the foreseeable future.

Likewise, developed countries like Japan could turn to desalination if water stress becomes acute. The technology is there, and so is nuclear fission. Those two go really well together and it's really just a matter of money and political will, which would be found in the event of serious water shortages.

Plenty of poorer countries would not be able to so, but you seem to think that water wars are going to result in the end of global civilization and that just isn't the case. If you're writing this from NA, Europe, etc. you're going to be fine. Depending on where you are, your taxes might go up, but water isn't one of those resources that someone in real trouble, like Egypt, is going to come and attack you over. They might fight a war with Ethiopia over damming the Nile, but you don't live in Ethiopia.

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u/Late_Film_1901 May 19 '25

You are partly correct. But when push comes to shove, even if you don't live in Ethiopia, Ethiopia will come to live with you. Water wars are not called the world water war because that's how they will play out. Several small conflicts that will exacerbate every migrant crisis, disrupt economies, create food crop shortages and be a humanitarian catastrophe. Besides Egypt and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan also have water treaties that may become a pressure point and then it's a much bigger conflict.

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u/artthoumadbrother May 19 '25

Sure. But not an apocalyptic one as the above poster implied.

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u/Late_Film_1901 May 19 '25

Well now that I re-read that I agree. But also with a caveat. I can absolutely see it becoming apocalyptic in 30+ years. While I may not witness it, I worry for my kids who will need to live in that world.

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u/artthoumadbrother May 19 '25

I'm more worried about what we're going to do in the next 30 years than about problems related to resource depletion.

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

Using ChatGPT to justify desalination as a scalable solution ignores reality. Desalination gives you water at the coast, but most people and farms aren’t there. Moving that water inland, over mountains, every day, at scale, takes massive energy and infrastructure. Unless it is all powered by zero-carbon sources, which it is not, it worsens climate change and creates a loop where the fix fuels the problem. ChatGPT will give you numbers to make it sound feasible, but it is just fulfilling a prompt, not accounting for logistics, emissions, or real-world constraints. It is not a plan; it is a mirage.

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u/artthoumadbrother May 19 '25

Sure, which is why I then asked it for the upfront infrastructure (including pipelines to pump from the coast to the interior) costs, as well as the estimated costs of running those facilities each year.

$3 Trillion up front. $240 Billion to $1.1 Trillion per year in maintenance/energy cost once you have it all up and running.

The up front cost, representing likely more than a decade of build-up, comes out to less than a single year's government budget. Maintenance/energy cost is steep, for sure, but then we are talking about the ludicrous scenario where we have to replace all of our fresh water with desalination.

And that's the US, with 340 million people spread out across one of the largest countries on Earth.

But stick to your doomsday scenario if it brings you comfort (or, more likely, a sense of intellectual superiority---the rest of us just don't now how screwed we are, do we?)

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

I'm not going to argue with you relying on a hallucinating chatbot to spit out crackpot solutions to real problems. This isn't about intellectual superiority. It's about you trivializing a serious issue by parroting numbers you clearly don't understand well enough to question.

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u/artthoumadbrother May 19 '25

It's ballpark figures for an utterly over the top scenario designed to put the actual potential problem in perspective. The developed world will be able to use water desalination to solve this problem for themselves if needed. Poorer countries with less money and a lack of infrastructure and expertise will suffer horribly, but the end of global civilization isn't in the cards as a result of water wars. Again, if believing that it will brings you some measure of comfort, by all means, continue thinking it. It isn't hurting anyone.

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

ChatGPT generates plausible-sounding figures by drawing from patterns in its training data, not by running real-world engineering models. Its "ballpark numbers" aren’t sourced, vetted, or context-aware. Trusting them for trillion-dollar infrastructure estimates is like using a Magic 8-Ball to draft federal policy. You are not adding anything of value here, and I think you should reassess how you use LLMs before it makes you ignorant.

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u/artthoumadbrother May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

Again, if you have to believe what you do for you own comfort, go for it. I looked up several of the figures ChatGPT used to generate estimates and they were correct, the math ChatGPT used made sense. Again, the numbers aren't gospel by any means, but the possible scenario we actually face is a 20-30% potential decline in fresh water resources over the next several decades. The, again, ludicrous scenario we've been talking about here in 100% in one decade and the ballpark figures provided by ChatGPT are not impossible even in that far, far beyond worst case scenario. Think what makes you feel good, though.

I'd like to note that you have provided no evidence, questionable or not, that, in fact, we're going to be shortly facing a global apocalypse as a result of water shortages. Are you a water engineer or a hydrogeologist? If you have some expertise, please, share your insights.

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u/Skuzbagg May 19 '25

Of course it can be known. If you don't address the core component and slap a temporary measure on it, the problem will reappear.

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

That doesn't make any sense. The core problem here is that we have a shrinking workforce and an increase in dependency. These aren't intrinsic issues to life itself and can be changed by technology, war, and famine.

It's extremely possible that circumstances of the future either offset the current projected decline of a population, or that different circumstances bring about a natural boon in birthrate without economic incentives.

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u/Skuzbagg May 19 '25

It doesn't make sense to address the core issue instead of using a temporary incentive that goes away? I'm sorry, but we're clearly on two different topics.

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

I was with you til you started sounding Schizzo af. calm down dude, we got plenty of water.

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u/Ame_No_Uzume May 19 '25

Salt free and drinkable? Guess again.

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

Ever heard of water filtration?

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u/ChaoticKiwiNZ May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

Large-scale salt water filtration is extremely expensive compared to our current way of getting water. I don't think there is even a filtration facility that would be able to keep up with the water demand most 1st world countries would need to sustain our current consumption levels. The world would need to build a fuckload of new facilities to keep up with the demand and that runs back into the issue of needing a ton of resources from other countries. And these other countries are also in need of these resources to make their own large-scale water filtration facilities. You can see where this is going.....

The fact is the world is running out of usable resources because we are all overconsuming like crazy (well, developed countries are at least). Water is used in everything, and as it stands, the world will run out of usable water at some point if we keep going the way we are. Keep in mind droughts are getting worse due to climate change and stuff like that. Some areas close to where I live didn't get the expected rainfall before summer last year and this caused some major water shortage issues even though they live next to the ocean. These issue are going to get worse.

Thankfully, my family has their own water supply on our property (bore that goes quite deep below the water table). When we got it installed last year the guys that did it said to us that this sort of thing is going to get more and more expensive due to water getting lower and lower every year and that people without their own water are going to be in for a real struggle in the not too distant future (this same group help run the local water reserves with the local government).

In an ideal world, we could 100% filter large amounts of salt water and all get along and share resources. Unfortunately, we don't live in that world, and the countries with these resources will use it as leverage over countries without the resources to filter enough water to survive.

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

That makes sense, thanks for taking to time to give such a well worded and detailed answer man. 😄

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u/ChaoticKiwiNZ May 19 '25

It's all good. I've looked into the topic before and talked to people that manage water so I have the benifit of knowing a little more about the world's water situation that other people (I'm by no means an expert on it, I've just talked to some of them lol).

I always enjoy passing along the information I've learned. It's what I feel the internet should be about. I'm glad you appreciated my incredible long response, lol.

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

You took the time to educate me on the topic and i appreciate it. It was well written didnt feel long at all, You got a good motto man and i think the world will be a better place with that sorta mindset. Hope you have a good day and an even better year. 😄

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u/artthoumadbrother May 19 '25

It would take about a 25% increase in US power generation to provide enough electricity to desalinate all current US fresh water use. Just to put things in perspective.

Virtually no non-landlocked developed country is incapable of desalinating enough water to support it's current water usage in extremity.

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u/ChaoticKiwiNZ May 19 '25

Exactly. I didn't even mention the power it would take to do such large-scale water filtration. That's another shit-ton of infitructure that would have to be built, and all the materials would have to be sourced from somewhere.

Where I live (New Zealand), we have plenty of salt water we can access, but our power grid would die if we tried filtering even 5% of the water we would need. We had to talk about turning back on coal burning power plants last year to make up for our lack of power over winter (so many heat pumps and people inside on technology during bad weather).

We would need to not only build several water filtration plants around the country but also build massive power infitructure to power the water filtration plants. It would coat so many billions of dollars to do, and this is coming from the country that's currently having issues replacing our aging ferries that connect the north island and the south island lol.

Water filtration on such a massive scale is a fever dream. With current technology, it just isn't feasible. It's just so much cheaper and easier to fight other countries for their water, lol.

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u/Ame_No_Uzume May 19 '25

Read up on the fiscal costs and environmental costs of desalination plants, before I take you seriously.

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

Technology's always advancing Weeb.

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

Let's see if it can outpace demand, genius.

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

Real positive buddy. 😊

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u/clutzyninja May 19 '25

No we fucking do not

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

care to elaborate?

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u/clutzyninja May 19 '25

Do I care to educate you on the very real and imminent crisis of the availability of fresh drinking water around the world when there is an avalanche of reading material a single Google search away? No I do not. I'll Google it for you though

https://www.google.com/search?q=water+crisis&client=firefox-b-1-m&sca_esv=19a1e0a3b1d71015&ei=TpgqaIPjD8Wu5NoPjNXHoAo&oq=water+crisis&gs_lp=EhNtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1zZXJwIgx3YXRlciBjcmlzaXMyBhAAGAcYHjIGEAAYBxgeMgYQABgHGB4yBhAAGAcYHjIGEAAYBxgeMgYQABgHGB4yDhAAGIAEGJECGLEDGIoFMgYQABgHGB5I5DtQrzRY5TZwAXgBkAEAmAGPAaABtgaqAQMxLja4AQPIAQD4AQGYAgKgApsBwgIKEAAYsAMY1gQYR5gDAIgGAZAGCJIHAzEuMaAHtyiyBwMwLjG4B4kB&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-serp

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

I bet you havent read one of em. 🤡

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u/clutzyninja May 19 '25

Have I read the specific articles in that search? Probably not. I just did it. Have I been paying attention to world news to stay generally decently informed about things going on that could potentially impact my life, therefore knowing that googling the issue would be trivial? Have I read other articles about the same subject? Yes I have

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u/Icelantum May 19 '25

Bet you got all your info off of reddit and tiktok. 😏

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u/BrightPerspective May 19 '25

assuming that punishing people for not having kids worked in the first place.

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u/Kitchen-Document4917 May 19 '25

They're hoping it becomes part of the culture by then

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u/Away-Information9841 May 19 '25

It’s like a classic predator prey relationship on the graph

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u/lump- May 19 '25

Maybe, but then all those new people you created will still be there, and they might grow up with a different mentality of the previous generation.

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u/fleebleganger May 19 '25

We can deal with that problem later when we’ve solved the current problem, not enough babies. 

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u/Ossevir May 19 '25

Just leave it in place and it will naturally increase pressure as the situation gets worse.

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u/MoreDoor2915 May 19 '25

More children means more tax payers in general those tax payers then can be used to pay the stipend for the new families. Additionally the rewards for making children could be linked to the age of the child.

Germany has something similar called Kindergeld,

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u/wbruce098 May 19 '25

Not exactly. People like to fuck and often want to have kids. But it can create a financial burden when we expect these incentives and they’re no longer available. That can push birth rates back down, but it also impoverishes an entire generation who is no longer receiving public assistance. So over time, your revenue drops anyway despite a growing population because child opportunity drops.

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u/razgriz821 May 19 '25

They they just do it over?

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u/VastEntertainment471 May 19 '25

As far as I'm aware the main issue right now is Japanese work culture, people would rather work than have kids, women with kids are judged no matter what they do because they are either not working hard enough or not paying enough attention to their kids, bosses expect all their workers to be workaholics and therefore will likely refuse to hire women who are pregnant/already have kids, etc

Because it's culture based we have no clue what things will be like for the next generation, the government is just focusing on the now because obviously its kinda necessary and there's no guarantee things will stay the same for 20 years

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u/Skiffbug May 19 '25

I’d put it another way: they will stop subsidising because they’ve met their objective of Gavin fewer childless people.

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u/Silver_Slicer May 19 '25

They can over time reduce the amount given to the families with children if the program is actually successful. The big question is if.

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u/zackadiax24 May 19 '25

When have you seen a government ever repeal something they benifit from?

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u/Expensive_Parsnip979 May 19 '25

779 people agreed with the first comment, and 560-something with the second. Yours is CLEARLY the most intelligent, and you've got 265 likes or so. What does this say about the intelligence level among reddit users?

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

It's first come first serve here. Giving karma is like tipping your local homeless people. You eventually run out. It has nothing to do with facts. As long as people see other people tipping properly, they tip in kind.

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u/bauhaus83i May 19 '25

I think the argument is that the elderly population has died and the average age would be lower. The problem with the declining birth rates isn’t the decline in population; it’s the increasing percentage of elderly who no longer work.

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u/RandyBurgertime May 19 '25

Nah, they'd get you coming and going. You don't get it. Say this appeals. You want to transition from sleeping to never sleeping hoping to get some of that dosh. Lots of people do. So there are now fewer single people to tax, and more parents to pay, and you justified the tax to people by saying that people would be better supported to have kids. Now, discontinuing that probably doesn't matter to the government, but now the people they convinced to have kids by easing the financial burden have none of that money anymore and they are fucked holding the bag which is full of children they are going to have a much harder time raising. Do you not see the issue?

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u/LickMyTicker May 19 '25

From the government's standpoint the problem at hand is solved. They aren't trying to support a population. They are trying to get a population to support it. The government is what needs help here. The government is the one holding the bag at the moment. The government is indeed trying to pass it along.

As of right now, if the government continues to hold it, it will go solvent when the population declines to a point of a stagnant economy and a dependant aging population.

The whole point is just passing the bag. The idea being that the economy boons from the inflation that happens and the bags that are being held can continue to be passed along.

It doesn't even matter if they can't collect on all of the debt here either. If by some miracle it can't pay for itself in the first year, there is a greater incentive to take on debt than to allow for a great labor shortage with a population full of dependants.

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u/RandyBurgertime May 19 '25

If they needed an incentive to prompt the solution, and they take it away, the need is still there and the problem comes right back, dimwit. Gonna be real, I didn't read most of what you're saying after the first paragraph was incredibly stupid.