A Yale professor in Iron Man glasses has a Thanos-style mass suicide solution for Japan

A Yale professor from Japan, Yusuke Narita, who wears Tony Stark glasses has a Thanos-style mass suicide solution for Japan's aging population. Narita has been going on various media platforms in Japan propagating his "pretty clear" idea that pushes old people to just kill themselves. 

Who's Yusuke Narita and why are we talking about him? 

• It is mainly the New York Times that took Narita out of the national/regional attention in Japan and put him in the international spotlight. 
• Narita, a Yale assistant professor of Economics, has been giving interviews to media in Japan sharing his thoughts on how to solve the country's problem of a rapidly burgeoning aging population. 

Japan has the highest percentage of senior citizens in the world and only last month, Japanese PM Fumio Kishida sounded an alarm over the issue. An aging population directly corresponds to a lack of a young labour force to drive the economy and also pressure on the country's social and medical welfare systems. 

• Narita floated the theory of mass suicide for the elderly.

• He was referring to "seppuku" a Samurai practice from the late 19th century where disgraced Samurais would disembowel themselves to save their honour.
• To another audience, he said that voluntary mass suicide would create the best 'Cool Japan' policy ever: 

At times, Dr Narita has pushed boundaries of taste. During a panel, he told audience that “if this can become a Japanese society where people like you all commit seppuku one after another, it wouldn’t be just a social security policy but it would be the best ‘Cool Japan’ policy"

— Motoko Rich (@motokorich) February 12, 2023

While his extreme views on the elderly have gained him celebrity status among Japan's youth who increasingly think the elderly are holding them back from progress, he has also received backlash for propagating mass murder. After the backlash, Narita has walked back on his comments, telling the New York Times that his comments were taken out of context and that he only meant "seppuku" metaphorically and not literally. 

Others have called him an attention seeker, pointing out his funky eyeglasses. 

Part of his villain character design

— Tinodude (@tinoboy31) February 13, 2023

If you haven't noticed from his picture above, take another look. Most people miss noticing it at the first glance.

• Yusuke Narita is wearing a pair of asymmetrical glasses, which gives him a more crazy but sophisticated scientist look (that's what we think). 
• There's no background story for Narita's choice of glasses. But online, people are saying that it's all part of his carefully curated image of a villain. 
• When it comes to the asymmetrical glasses themselves, they are not unique to Yusuke Narita. 
• Asymmetry in fashion has been in trend for a while, even in Japan. A 2005 blog on Trends in Japan says this:

• In terms of fashion geek, symmetry symbolises industrialisation and mass production, and wearing asymmetrical glasses is going back to more natural handmade but imperfect designs. 
• Narita is definitely not the first or the last to wear the glasses. Here's Robert Downey Jr sporting square and circle glasses in a video from 2018:

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Robert Downey Jr. (@robertdowneyjr)

• Here's a Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf wearing asymmetrical glasses. 

That’s what it was! I knew I’d seen these before. It’s that German artist who four years ago put some ridiculous Bluetooth speakers in the middle of the Namibian desert to play “Africa” on constant repeat “for eternity.”

It’s just attention-grabbing, recycled. pic.twitter.com/3wZ0LynLKT

— Mike MacFerrin (@IceSheetMike) February 12, 2023

• Comments online have drawn references to Spider Jerusalem, the fictional protagonist of the comic book Transmetropolitan. His character is a drug-addicted, foul-mouthed, troubled, but brilliant journalist who hates authority, political corruption, and dogs. 

My boy Spider Jerusalem pic.twitter.com/8qYM2A1cp1

— Sebastian (@hydrogentimesp1) February 13, 2023

Regardless of Narita's glasses, Japan's relationship with its aging population is getting complicated. Traditionally, Japan has always respected its elderly, like most Asian societies. But in recent times, a population dilemma has led to people making comments such as "hurry up and die" (former Finance Minister Taro Aso in 2013).

Japan even has a dystopian movie called Plan 75 where elderly people are offered incentives to self-euthanise. 

Japan has a history of mass suicides mostly relating to World War II, including the Kamikaze pilots. And a record of human rights violating laws such as the Eugenics law in 1948 (now outlawed) that mandatorily sterilised people with various disorders to keep their "inferior" contributions out of the Japanese gene pool.