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The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

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Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#41

Post by lani »

teek wrote: post #21
civilian wrote: post #9

> His epiphany came when his current partner told him how she had lost her grandmother. Unlike Koremura’s loss, her grandmother had died alone—a kodokushi. It was seeing the deep regret in her, and accepting his own ennui, that made Koremura finally take action. He left his job as a stockbroker and set up his own removal company dedicated to the cleanup of kodokushi victims. He wanted to give something back to the ge…

Japan is incredibly stubborn and ignorant when it comes to addressing core social and psychological problems in their society. It isn't even recognized by most of the population so when people begin to complain of their own social issues or depression, people around them will slowly distance themselves from that person. As a result, most people will choose to hide their issues until it is unbearable. At the point the…

How about a startup where one can dial a 1-800 number from Japan and get someone in ,say, Europe, who is also bored, and the two can rant to each other about how bad things are , and then go back to their lives ? International PainBuddy program, Dial-An-Agony . 1800-call-pain !! Best part, we pay a couple of life coaches to analyse some rants and provide anonymous advice

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#42

Post by impendia »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #40
civilian wrote: post #9

> His epiphany came when his current partner told him how she had lost her grandmother. Unlike Koremura’s loss, her grandmother had died alone—a kodokushi. It was seeing the deep regret in her, and accepting his own ennui, that made Koremura finally take action. He left his job as a stockbroker and set up his own removal company dedicated to the cleanup of kodokushi victims. He wanted to give something back to the ge…

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

I lived in Japan for two years, and studied the language, and it was amazing how that sentence always brought any discussion to a conclusion.

Grammatically, its negation would be "Shikata ga aru", but I never heard this said once.

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#43

Post by coldtea »

ams6110 wrote: post #26
coldtea wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society. The very notion of "well" etc (and most things we believe to be "good" or "ethical") comes from shared culture, else it's totally arbitrary personal preference. It's not about "logical objective reasoning" either. Treating people bad for example. Nothing "logical" about it being more wrong that treating them nice (especially if it benefits you to do so). But the culture we co-created and live in makes it wro…

Society has been trending towards "arbitrary personal preference" in many areas lately. Conversely, society has condoned and even encouraged things that are horribly unfair. So I don't see why we would carve out an exception for judging the "well-lived-ness" of a person's life based on society's precepts about the number or closeness of friends and family.

>Society has been trending towards "arbitrary personal preference" in many areas lately

Yeah, or degenerating, one could say. It also happened in the last days of Rome...

>Conversely, society has condoned and even encouraged things that are horribly unfair.

Well, it's a balancing act. Society doesn't mean people get a free pass to abandon personal judgement. That said, all those "horribly unfair" things seem horribly unfair to us, from a distance. To their own society they looked perfectly normal.

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#44

Post by jackvalentine »

lani wrote: post #41
teek wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan is incredibly stubborn and ignorant when it comes to addressing core social and psychological problems in their society. It isn't even recognized by most of the population so when people begin to complain of their own social issues or depression, people around them will slowly distance themselves from that person. As a result, most people will choose to hide their issues until it is unbearable. At the point the…

How about a startup where one can dial a 1-800 number from Japan and get someone in ,say, Europe, who is also bored, and the two can rant to each other about how bad things are , and then go back to their lives ? International PainBuddy program, Dial-An-Agony . 1800-call-pain !! Best part, we pay a couple of life coaches to analyse some rants and provide anonymous advice

I was going to comment that you'd have language issues but then I realised, most people who want to vent don't actually need to be understood they just need to get it out.

Good idea!

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#45

Post by Klinky »

Spooky23 wrote: post #20
FrankenPC wrote: post #16

In my mind I see this as a social health crisis. The elderly provide an unbelievable amount of wisdom to the next generation. By abandoning them, we abandon our children's future. I think of the elderly as an essential vitamin for children. They impart valuable social memes and at the same time tell the children, by there mere existence in their lives, that we value our family and when the children's time comes to ag…

Society is bizarre in innumerable ways. The number of people who I know that have contempt for children or people having children is repugnant to me. I think the disdain for the young and old is a sign of decadence.

What kind of mental gymnastics are involved in portraying the people who aren't sinking $200K into a child as decadent?

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#46

Post by mjklin »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #40
civilian wrote: post #9

> His epiphany came when his current partner told him how she had lost her grandmother. Unlike Koremura’s loss, her grandmother had died alone—a kodokushi. It was seeing the deep regret in her, and accepting his own ennui, that made Koremura finally take action. He left his job as a stockbroker and set up his own removal company dedicated to the cleanup of kodokushi victims. He wanted to give something back to the ge…

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

Ah, this must be the Japanese equivalent of the Chinese "mei banfa" (没办法), probably the national slogan. Oh, they are building a dam and you need to move your house twenty metres up the hill? "Mei banfa".

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#47

Post by reddytowns »

Spooky23 wrote: post #20
FrankenPC wrote: post #16

In my mind I see this as a social health crisis. The elderly provide an unbelievable amount of wisdom to the next generation. By abandoning them, we abandon our children's future. I think of the elderly as an essential vitamin for children. They impart valuable social memes and at the same time tell the children, by there mere existence in their lives, that we value our family and when the children's time comes to ag…

Society is bizarre in innumerable ways. The number of people who I know that have contempt for children or people having children is repugnant to me. I think the disdain for the young and old is a sign of decadence.

Having children is the single most damaging thing to the environment a person will realistically do in their lifetime.

Edit: why all the downvotes?

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#48

Post by FrankenPC »

NPSpace wrote: post #24
FrankenPC wrote: post #16

In my mind I see this as a social health crisis. The elderly provide an unbelievable amount of wisdom to the next generation. By abandoning them, we abandon our children's future. I think of the elderly as an essential vitamin for children. They impart valuable social memes and at the same time tell the children, by there mere existence in their lives, that we value our family and when the children's time comes to ag…

Really have to qualify your comment. All horrible people will eventually become elderly. Despite the "wisdom" that such people may have, many have an incredible ability to wreak havoc in the lives of others... to the point of being a net negative on future generations.

You bring up a good point. There's no qualification test for wisdom. Is someone a bitter dogmatic psycho? Or are they warm and truly emotionally intelligent? No way to know. One problem is that there is no real regard for wisdom in modern American society. We value youth and energy over wisdom and depth. So, why even be bothered to think about such things?

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#49

Post by sfall »

taternuts wrote: post #39
tomcam wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing. My heart is with you. Why don't you plan to marry?

To some that question is the same as "Why don't you plan on being a billionaire?"

if it happens, it happens. Not something I put on my years end goals.

Re: The Lonely End: in aging Japan, thousands die alone and unnoticed

#50

Post by justifier »

is this a causation correlation issue of generations?

could i die alone without any great effort to do so having grown up on the internet?

i have seen promotional material for teaching seniors computer skills.. and there seem to be so many similar services and efforts that a search was unable to lead me to the specific video..

the internet is filled with a mess of stuff but within there are many communities covering very many interests

why imagine yourself alone?

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