South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths' • Hacker News Board

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#41

Post by Mistletoe » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

cornstalks wrote: post #38

Mistletoe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve read and reread this comment and I still don’t understand what you are suggesting.

They plan on taking their “long nap” in a chest freezer, with electrical bills prepaid so the freezer (hopefully) doesn’t lose power before someone finds their frozen body.

But like how would one know they are going to die and crawl in? That sounds impossible and/or extremely painful. You could die 20 years ahead of time this way. A better solution seems to be something like a Fitbit or Apple Watch with a dead man’s switch feature that calls in every day. But honestly this all seems like an absurd thing to worry about.

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#42

Post by orwin » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

gedy wrote: post #31

orwin wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, yes, but there is 108 male for 100 female at birth, what does it solve? And do you want to force those 100 female to each marry a guy, even if they don't want to?

That's what I'm getting at with unique circumstances. And of course there is a wide spectrum between forced marriage and encouraging.

Naturally, we birth more males than females. The natural ratio seems to be 1.05 and not 1.08 like i thought. No idea why.

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#43

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #16

seydor wrote: post #2

This is a situation that will affect too many men worldwide as they are more likely to live single / be childless. The solution is to have communities or networks of people built explitictly around the idea of caring for others.

I wonder how these might look. Building relationships is really hard and ultimately that's what's needed. To build relationships, you need repeated exposure and need to overcome an initial barrier of familiarity to get to the point where you can have meaningful interactions and not just smalltalk. Given men are also bad at maintaining relationships, I wonder if something like different, more communal living arrangeme…

[deleted]

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#44

Post by Waterluvian » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

Mistletoe wrote: post #41

cornstalks wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They plan on taking their “long nap” in a chest freezer, with electrical bills prepaid so the freezer (hopefully) doesn’t lose power before someone finds their frozen body.

But like how would one know they are going to die and crawl in? That sounds impossible and/or extremely painful. You could die 20 years ahead of time this way. A better solution seems to be something like a Fitbit or Apple Watch with a dead man’s switch feature that calls in every day. But honestly this all seems like an absurd thing to worry about.

I’ve just prepaid the Neptune Society to dump me in the ocean for $80.

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#45

Post by seydor » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #16

seydor wrote: post #2

This is a situation that will affect too many men worldwide as they are more likely to live single / be childless. The solution is to have communities or networks of people built explitictly around the idea of caring for others.

I wonder how these might look. Building relationships is really hard and ultimately that's what's needed. To build relationships, you need repeated exposure and need to overcome an initial barrier of familiarity to get to the point where you can have meaningful interactions and not just smalltalk. Given men are also bad at maintaining relationships, I wonder if something like different, more communal living arrangeme…

Transactional but also intentional. Nothing more or less.

Men are not bad at maintaining relationships, that is a falsehood. Historically, men built all the hierarchical structures we have today. Antrhopologists used to say that men build a large and shallow network of relationships (while women prefer small but more intimate groups or pairs).

It doesn't have to involve communal living, but instead regular gatherings. Basically what traditional groups like church or brotherhoods like the freemasons did. Currently, however, there is a stigma against those things which has to be overcome

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#46

Post by mbrameld » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

leeroyjenkins11 wrote: post #24

tshaddox wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some examples of proposed solutions that the progressive left would oppose?

Encouraging people to marry and have committed monogamous relationships. Create a stigma to encourage people to only have sex inside of committed marriage relationships so when they get older the have a lasting relationship with someone. Also it's would help killing the sex trade as a young man will pe willing to pay for it via websites or in person, but don't form those long term relationships before it's too late.

It sounds like you're suggesting the reason these people are struggling socially in middle age is that they were overly social as younger people. Seems unlikely to me.

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#47

Post by throwaway290 » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

orwin wrote: post #40

leeroyjenkins11 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Encouraging people to marry and have committed monogamous relationships. Create a stigma to encourage people to only have sex inside of committed marriage relationships so when they get older the have a lasting relationship with someone. Also it's would help killing the sex trade as a young man will pe willing to pay for it via websites or in person, but don't form those long term relationships before it's too late.

Like I said in a sister comment, you have 108 male to 100 female at birth (correction: 105 to 100[0] in the US), so what do you do with the 'leftovers'? And if some females don't want to play house now that they can survive on their own, do you force them to play? [0] https://www.who.int/data/maternal-newborn-child-adolescent-a...

Excess at-birth human males die way younger than females. From other males and higher genetic variance. It evens out and even skews the other way.

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#48

Post by seydor » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

sushzbdbehsh wrote: post #37

seydor wrote: post #2

This is a situation that will affect too many men worldwide as they are more likely to live single / be childless. The solution is to have communities or networks of people built explitictly around the idea of caring for others.

not sure that meshes well with the deities of profit and wealth

I don't see a reason why it would not be commercially exploitable either. Trade and commerce is part of any human community

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#49

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:17 PM UTC

Mistletoe wrote: post #30

scotty79 wrote: post #6

I'm a middle aged man living alone. My plan for when I need to die is to buy top loaded freezer and prepay my electric bill to give people at least few years to find my body, keeping the process as easy, for the unfortunates who do, and as clean as possible.

I’ve read and reread this comment and I still don’t understand what you are suggesting.

[deleted]

Re: South Korea's middle aged men are dying 'lonely deaths'

#50

Post by forinti » Sat, Dec 31, 2022, 4:18 PM UTC

I was going to suggest calling on people who haven't used their phone in a while, but there it was in the article.

Anyway, a better solution would be for people to have some kind of neighbourhood association so that they can interact and support each other. I don't know Koreans to assess if this would be possible.