remind me of Whores of Mensa https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1974/12/16/the-whore-of-m...
The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
71–80 of 265 posts
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#72Sounds like the mind of psychopaths.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same here. I can't help but wonder about the ethical implications of lying to a child about something so fundamental for her entire lifetime.
The article specifically mentions the positive outcome of the arrangement - the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped, and she has the father figure she obviously needs at this critical part of her development. And from all appearances he is genuinely doing his best to be that. It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfu…
> the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped
What makes you think that wouldn't have happened over time by itself? What's the message here, bullying someone for having lost her father is okay, not having a father is not okay? That's normalizing people being bullied for being humans. It's normalizing not allowing a widow to find another lover who at least may have an actual "bigger brother" style connection to her children than some actor who has none.
We don't need "figures" and "role models" for what they seem like, like pixels on a screen. That need comes from being someone, at least the natural initial desire to become someone, and it aims at people who are someone, too.
> Ethics is not black and white.
Except of course for the father figure she "obviously" needs, and how the confidence has "improved" (implied: from not good enough to good enough), during that "critical" part of the development as if there were any non-critical ones in life.
> O righteous crusaders for truth, if this girl was put in front of you, would you tell her?
That's not the question. The question is, would you fake being her father, or would you hire a fake father, and the answer to both of that for me is no, I can bet you my life on that, in writing. Oh righteous crusader for deep considerations, can you at least not turn faking being a father into the burden of "telling the truth" in a situation we would not have incurred in the first place?
When something makes you sad, there is usually good reason for it. Why not simply give her drugs to make her happy, and money to make it not matter if she has a career? If truthfulness, who you actually are, is just this thing on the side trumped by "outcome", why arbitrarily stop there? Why not permanently install on VR helmets and drug pumps onto everybody right after birth, done?
What would people who don't mind something like this have to withstand something even more twisted? How about this is already 20 iterations past sane, how about no? How about having a decent society instead of a rising tide of shut-ins and suicide and elderly people with plastic robot dogs? If you can't see those elephants on the couch, how can you be all life coach about this maybe not being the sad, nutty thing it is on the surface because it's possible that in 20 years it might have turned out well? Start everything like you want it to end. If you can't handle even someone else's mortality, how about your own? When I worked in a hospital, I was constantly amazed at the idle chit chat relatives made with people who had very short time left. I felt like those of the stuff who made human connections were the only ones remotely realizing what was going on. The visitors just dipped in, coated in a shell of activity, and left before anything could sink in. And I believe many genuinely loved those they visited, for some they were the apple of their eye; they were just so inept at life that they wasted those last moments together, too. In short, just to repeat, no. No to all of it. No to that entire branch.
edit: while I don't like to add even more to such a long rant (please don't take it personal in the accusative sense because I mirrored your "oh.." phrasing, take it as personal as meaning a lot to me), another thought occurred to me that actually does make me a bit angry: he's not "giving" her a fake father, he's taking her real and unfortunately dead father away from her. In the sense of role models and emotional support a LOT of things and people can do -- in the sense of the person you are and who your parents are, there are no substitutes. This is unforgivable to me; not that it's my call in this case, but if I was that girl, and I found out one day, that guy would have to fear for his life. How is it even possible that it's legal for him to not own up when she turns 18? Just because the lie started when she wasn't an adult? There is not one single aspect of this that isn't utterly fucked up to me. No, it's not understandable. It's understandable as in you needed to clean the dishes and now there is a 100 m tall sea monster destroying the whole block.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#74In Japanese business culture, there is a situation where you have to visit a company and say I’m deeply sorry for what I did and just bow and bow. Usually, I accompany a salaryman who made a mistake. I take the identity of the salaryman myself, then I apologize profusely for his mistake. Have you seen the way we say sorry? You go have to down on your hands and knees on the floor. Your hands have to tremble. So, my cl…
I understand within that culture an apology must be made, and there's a ritual to apology that has to be observed, but I don't understand why an employer would be willing to put up with the ruse. Is there really no social or cultural stigma involved with paying to have someone else to do it on your behalf?
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article specifically mentions the positive outcome of the arrangement - the young woman's confidence has improved, destructive behaviour stopped, bullying stopped, and she has the father figure she obviously needs at this critical part of her development. And from all appearances he is genuinely doing his best to be that. It's very hard for me to condemn this when the outcome seems so inarguably positive. Truthfu…
It seems positive from what he says, but we only have one side of the story. How does the daughter feel about having a father she sees so infrequently? Is it hard on her? Does she wonder why he won't come help her when she calls him out of the blue over some emergency? Now that she's older, would it be easier for her to know the truth? We don't know. What I do know is eventually she'll find out, somehow. What happens…
This question should be possible to be semi-answered by psychology studies. Do stability during the teen years outweigh a large negative event during adolescence? Seems like a question that researchers has been poking at for the last 100 years.
Bullying also has its own share of research (https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/bullying/conditionin...). It will not be easy to get a fair evaluation of harm vs harm mitigation.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I see many lonely people in western big cities for instance Not true for Berlin, though. If you regularily visit some hackerspaces (or other meetups with like-minded people, such as various user groups such as Emacs user group, political groups such as FSFE, whatever), or go to university and study there, you have very good chances finding friends, some of whom may turn out to be very good friends. Sometimes it see…
One problem with your comment is that you do not actually address the point you quote. Instead, you present an anecdote about how you went to lots of places where you met new people, had the courage to talk to them and made friends. I agree that what you described is a good way (maybe the only way) to make friends. But consider what proportion of attendees at those meetups ended up becoming your friends. I'm guessing…
> For people who don't go to many social events/don't talk to many others there/don't deepen those ties as much
Indeed! But my point is that making friendships in those cities is not prevented by the people or social norms in that country (while in Japan it apparently is, if I understood the previous comments correctly).
> But consider what proportion of attendees at those meetups ended up becoming your friends. I'm guessing a single digit percentage, at best.
Of course. However, if most people would refuse me due to social norms, that number would have been easily dropped to zero.
> I don't tend to attempt conversations with strangers (or people I know, for that matter), so very few of those acquaintances even learned my name. In essence, I don't have any friends.
But that's a purely personal choice, not something imposed onto you by the society, isn't it?
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#77This reminds me of an episode of the podcast Weird Work where they interview someone who works as a bridesmaid for hire. For a fee, she'll help with wedding planning and go as far as flying out to act the part of bridesmaid in your wedding [1].
So this isn't just a Japanese thing. Just as I think that most people in the US would find hiring a bridesmaid in the US to be a little bit weird, I'm sure most people in Japan would feel the same way about the service described here.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Now imagine a future technology where you could undergo some hypnosis / gaslighting treatment to forget you even hired this person. I.e. pay a lot of money in advance, it's invested and the actor gets paid from the interest. You undergo memory treatment, and now your mother who you see once a week is real as far as you know, but really she's an actor you hired years back because your actual mother died.
This was explored (all the way to its grim dystopian conclusion) in tv series Dollhouse. Might want to check it out.
WestWorld too.
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans are direct only about a certain set of things. My Thai friends are much more direct discussing appearance, for instance. As an American, that was actually quite a shock visiting Thailand -- but you get used to it and adjust, and now it feels weird that there is this taboo in the US. Americans are more open and direct than Japan, but I don't know that I'd say they're particularly open and direct -- about the…
I find American friendship to be super complex and difficult to navigate. Since inviting certain people to certain places is almost mandatory in America, it is often hard to tell if an invitation or an expression of interest is sincere. In the Czech republic, I get far fewer invitations, but if they are in person (not through facebook) then they have always been sincere.
Non American here: what do you mean by "inviting certain people to certain places"? Like to a wedding?
Re: The Booming Japanese Rent-A-Friend Business
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a good point. We generally don't talk about our finances or deep personal life (vs the stereotypical Chinese aunt who demands to know your income as well as your dating history). American men tend to not talk about our emotions to one another. I'm not sure how best to describe the difference. When I talk to Japanese "friends", I feel that I am talking to a mask, or that they're playing a part. In the States, o…
Its also because Japanese dont have much to talk about in the first place. Look at their media, its all tabloid level at best, and you would have a hard time finding people who talk about other things than completely mundane subjects in ANY context. I think this is mostly due to an education trying to kill any ounce of individual thinking.
How much time have you spent in Japan or among Japanese people?