A Yale professor said in a very popular interview that mass suicide could solve Japan’s aging population issue. His controversial opinions have apparently, quite oddly so, made him popular with Japan’s youth, per The New York Times. Yusuke Narita now has a large social media following and even appeared in an energy drink advertisement. People are kind of losing their mind over if at all his popularity was viable to begin with. A Yale professor who suggested that mass suicide could be the solution to Japan’s aging population has gained celebrity status among the country’s youth, even appearing in an advertisement for energy drinks.
Yusuke Narita, who is actually an assistant professor of economics at Yale University, has argued for the controversial solution to Japan’s aging population in several public appearances and interviews. For those who don’t know, Japan has the highest proportion of elderly citizens of any country in the world, and the percentage of the population aged over 65 has steadily increased since the 1950s. Last month, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said that the country was on the verge of a crisis which is staggering. In an interview with an online Japanese news program in December 2021, Narita had boldly commented that a “pretty clear solution” would be the introduction of mass suicide, or mass “seppuku” of the elderly. Seppuku refers to the ritual suicide of samurai, which historically involved self-disembowelment. When pressed by a teenager on his mass seppuku theory last year, Narita referred to a scene in the 2019 horror film “Midsommar” in which an elderly person is sent to die by suicide by jumping off a cliff.
“Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a more difficult question to answer,” Narita said, per the newspaper. “So if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard toward creating a society like that.” He has also discussed euthanasia, a politically contentious debate in Japan , saying that making assisted suicide mandatory in the future will “come up in discussion,” The Times reported. In speaking of euthanasia, Narita has sometimes mentioned his mother, who had an aneurysm when she was 19, describing how caring for her costs him 100,000 yen ($755) a month, per the newspaper which was as a matter of fact, highly dubious and exhausting.
The controversial positions have certainly worried some Japanese policymakers, with critics concerned that it could lead to the kind of public feeling that resulted in a 1948 eugenics law. The Eugenic Protection Law allowed for voluntary and involuntary sterilizations of people with hereditary diseases, mental illnesses, and intellectual disabilities. Despite his detractors, Narita has gained a large following in Japan among young people who feel like the older generations are stunting their economic progress and now the mass is completely divided between these 2 very outrageous feelings. The assistant professor now has more than 550,000 followers on Twitter, regularly appears on online Japanese shows, has been on magazine covers, and appeared in an advertisement for energy drinks.
