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A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

nytimes.com

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Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#91

Post by rxhernandez »

jlj wrote: post #87
fallingfrog wrote: post #24

I think I tend towards the Aubrey de Grey point of view on this- it's not necessarily anything anyone is doing wrong here, it's more that these folks are living in dying bodies that can't do what they want them to do. If they were suddenly young again- they could go out, make new connections, start over. With that said, I do see the point that this is a western/capitalist phenomenon in the sense that capitalism encou…

No one ever says "I wished I worked more" from their deathbed. Prioritizing money and status ahead of family and friends is a personal decision. Business and personal success can coexist in capitalism but many people choose the former over the latter and assume they are mutually exclusive. I made that choice out of college and it took me until my mid 30's to realize it. It's really hard to re-learn how to go the othe…

> No one ever says "I wished I worked more" from their deathbed.

I did, well at least on what could have been and what I thought was my death bed. I was very ill for months and when I started to feel like I wasn't ever going to get better I tried my best to scramble to produce publishable research.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#92

Post by aacook »

cpeterso wrote: post #90
andygcook wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! NanaGram’s made a big difference for them and I’m glad we gave up nights/weeekends to build it. The photos also give us more stuff to talk about during visits. One other interesting unanticipated side effect is that we built the service to let your (approved) family all send photos into the same phone number for the same delivery. There’s a web UI that you can log into and see all the photos. You also get a t…

Do you have offline advertising of NanaGram in retirement communities? That seems like a great way to reach more customers. Get "Nana" and the retirement community staff to market your product for you. :) Another idea: if the photo has any date/time or location metadata, you could print that on the photo so the recipient has more information about the photos when they look at them later.

Thinking about things like that but don't want to end up like Saul Goodman.

Reddit suggested an Adopt a Nana last week (https://redd.it/7fg6q3) which I love in theory but would need to go deep on to make it work in practice.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#93

Post by krapp »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #66
krapp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not capitalism unless the people making emotional investments are doing so strictly for monetary gain, which doesn't appear to be supported by the article.

We're encouraged in capitalism to spend our limited time developing networks and connections with people who can benefit us financially or career wise. A true capitalistic value system considers it a waste of time to pursue relationships with simply interesting people with mostly non-capitalizable quality's like good sense of humor, compassion, storytelling...etc. reply. The point of the article is that no one is mak…

But we don't live in a "true" capitalistic value system, and most people don't approach their relationships in the game-theoretic way you're describing. So while you're correct about the point of the article, I think you're overstating the influence of capitalist ideology in the general case of human relationships.

Also, pasting the same comment in the thread several times makes it seem as if you don't actually care to respond to what other posters are saying, you just want to spam your thoughts.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#94

Post by aacook »

cpeterso wrote: post #90
andygcook wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks! NanaGram’s made a big difference for them and I’m glad we gave up nights/weeekends to build it. The photos also give us more stuff to talk about during visits. One other interesting unanticipated side effect is that we built the service to let your (approved) family all send photos into the same phone number for the same delivery. There’s a web UI that you can log into and see all the photos. You also get a t…

Do you have offline advertising of NanaGram in retirement communities? That seems like a great way to reach more customers. Get "Nana" and the retirement community staff to market your product for you. :) Another idea: if the photo has any date/time or location metadata, you could print that on the photo so the recipient has more information about the photos when they look at them later.

I hadn't thought of metadata yet. I'm unsure if it comes through MMS. I'll have to check.

We do know who is sending in the photo and we support captions (scroll down to the mushroom hunting photos for an example). When captions get added, we add the name and date of the user who added the photo. Lots of improvements to make in this area, for example, I'll probably release a way to insert full note cards (maybe 1 free per order) into the shipment this month.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#95

Post by TheCoelacanth »

jlj wrote: post #87
fallingfrog wrote: post #24

I think I tend towards the Aubrey de Grey point of view on this- it's not necessarily anything anyone is doing wrong here, it's more that these folks are living in dying bodies that can't do what they want them to do. If they were suddenly young again- they could go out, make new connections, start over. With that said, I do see the point that this is a western/capitalist phenomenon in the sense that capitalism encou…

No one ever says "I wished I worked more" from their deathbed. Prioritizing money and status ahead of family and friends is a personal decision. Business and personal success can coexist in capitalism but many people choose the former over the latter and assume they are mutually exclusive. I made that choice out of college and it took me until my mid 30's to realize it. It's really hard to re-learn how to go the othe…

Maybe not in those words, but I would bet there are a lot of people who wish that they had more financial security throughout their life. It's much harder to maintain relationships without financial security. One of the leading causes of divorce is extended periods of unemployment. There is also some evidence that men who work longer hours tend to have happier marriages. That would suggest that it might at least sometimes be a rational decision to put in extra hours even if you are optimizing for relationship quality rather than money or status.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#96

Post by gaius »

crispyambulance wrote: post #74
fallingfrog wrote: post #24

I think I tend towards the Aubrey de Grey point of view on this- it's not necessarily anything anyone is doing wrong here, it's more that these folks are living in dying bodies that can't do what they want them to do. If they were suddenly young again- they could go out, make new connections, start over. With that said, I do see the point that this is a western/capitalist phenomenon in the sense that capitalism encou…

Folks following the Aubrey de Grey line of thought separate "the person" and "their body" as though the person exists as some kind of "software" running in "hardware" that is about to fail. It might not be that simple. Being suddenly young again would certainly be delightful for a while but there's a huge psychological burden that comes with living for a long time. While it may be possible to extend the life of the b…

Being suddenly young again would certainly be delightful for a while but there's a huge psychological burden that comes with living for a long time

Such as what exactly? No-one knows - including you - because no-one has ever run old "software" on young/rejuvenated "hardware". I think that 99% of people in failing hardware given the option to try their 18- or even 30-year old bodies again would jump at the chance and worry about vague hand-wavy "psychological burdens" later - or perhaps not ever if the new body didn't age...

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#97

Post by gaius »

jlj wrote: post #87
fallingfrog wrote: post #24

I think I tend towards the Aubrey de Grey point of view on this- it's not necessarily anything anyone is doing wrong here, it's more that these folks are living in dying bodies that can't do what they want them to do. If they were suddenly young again- they could go out, make new connections, start over. With that said, I do see the point that this is a western/capitalist phenomenon in the sense that capitalism encou…

No one ever says "I wished I worked more" from their deathbed. Prioritizing money and status ahead of family and friends is a personal decision. Business and personal success can coexist in capitalism but many people choose the former over the latter and assume they are mutually exclusive. I made that choice out of college and it took me until my mid 30's to realize it. It's really hard to re-learn how to go the othe…

No one ever says "I wished I worked more" from their deathbed.

No-one wishes they'd spent more time at some pointless job sure, but I'll wager there are many who wish they'd pursued some opportunity with greater effort.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#98

Post by gaius »

sandworm101 wrote: post #57
fallingfrog wrote: post #24

I think I tend towards the Aubrey de Grey point of view on this- it's not necessarily anything anyone is doing wrong here, it's more that these folks are living in dying bodies that can't do what they want them to do. If they were suddenly young again- they could go out, make new connections, start over. With that said, I do see the point that this is a western/capitalist phenomenon in the sense that capitalism encou…

>>> If they were suddenly young again- they could go out, make new connections, start over. I'm not so sure about that. I've met a great many elderly people who want nothing more than to rewind the clock. Given the opportunity they don't want to meet new people or do new things. They fear such experiences. That may be as symptom of being older and more frail, buy any answers to the problem wont come from trying to tr…

Given the opportunity they don't want to meet new people

But what if all their old friends were young again too?

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#99

Post by mikeokner »

andygcook wrote: post #36

Elder loneliness is something I think about a lot. My grandparents on my father’s side are both 94. They’re also both hard of hearing. My grandpa had scarlett fever as a child and went almost deaf. He struggled through school and eventually got hearing aids in his 20’s. A huge improvement for him and every time he recounts that story he revels at the wonders of technology. I like to think my love of tech just runs in…

This is one of the best ideas (and execution) I've seen in a while! Great example of solving a problem w/ technology and turning it into a business.

Re: A Generation in Japan Is Facing a Lonely Death

#100

Post by aacook »

chis wrote: post #61
andygcook wrote: post #36

Elder loneliness is something I think about a lot. My grandparents on my father’s side are both 94. They’re also both hard of hearing. My grandpa had scarlett fever as a child and went almost deaf. He struggled through school and eventually got hearing aids in his 20’s. A huge improvement for him and every time he recounts that story he revels at the wonders of technology. I like to think my love of tech just runs in…

This is a really cool idea. You could totally get on shark tank, they love stuff like this.

At some point, Shark Tank could be fun. Someone on Reddit mentioned a similar postcard app and I still need to find and watch that episode.

Right now the plan is to spend as much time as I can talking to customers and improving the product.

I would like to get some local tv media coverage in December. I'll wear a suit and a bowtie and say hi to my Grandparents through the TV. (And bring Andy too if he can swing it.)

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