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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

#71

Post by navbaker »

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

Wow, I knew this phrase from the Metasploit encoder, but never knew that it had such deep cultural meaning!

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

#72

Post by minikomi »

mc32 wrote: post #63
ChuckMcM wrote: post #55

Sad but not uncommon I think. There was a guy who had a radio show that interviewed people with odd jobs. One such jobs was sort of like Toru's but was "special cleaning". Basically the guy started a business to clean up crime scenes. But found that most of his business came from landlords and others discovering deceased elders in their rooms. His suggestion was to crawl your grandparents from time to time to say hi.…

This could be addressed with monitoring. We have more and more alternatives to choose from. Either from external sensors (movement within the house, toilet usage, phone activity, bank account activity; or, alternatively, from devices worn by the people. This would be a great use of the IoT.

There's a boiling water pot in Japan which will send an sms to you when it's used - since making tea / miso soup is so integral to the lives of especially the elderly here. The idea is if you don't get your morning SMS from gradma's pot something might be up.

Edit : this is the pot http://www.mimamori.net/service/index.html

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

#73

Post by nostrademons »

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

https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest

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

#74

Post by tsotha »

minikomi wrote: post #72
mc32 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be addressed with monitoring. We have more and more alternatives to choose from. Either from external sensors (movement within the house, toilet usage, phone activity, bank account activity; or, alternatively, from devices worn by the people. This would be a great use of the IoT.

There's a boiling water pot in Japan which will send an sms to you when it's used - since making tea / miso soup is so integral to the lives of especially the elderly here. The idea is if you don't get your morning SMS from gradma's pot something might be up. Edit : this is the pot http://www.mimamori.net/service/index.html

That's kind of clever.

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

#75

Post by jodrellblank »

mc32 wrote: post #64
mattm wrote: post #58

My wife is a hospice nurse here in Japan visiting terminally ill patients at their homes. She comes home with many different stories. Some people are incredibly wealthy but their family doesn't want anything to do with them so they basically wait to die alone. Some people are poor and mentally ill and are basically living in dumps with rodents running around. Some people do have good situations in which they are care…

Instead of the elderly living in homes/apartments by themselves, why not try to get them to live in elderly communities where they can engage with other elderpeople and have caregivers oversee their journey into eol. @timhon, I meant as a society, why not invest in elderly communities. Their pop is only going to get older, so it behooves them to address this option. As, a side note, there is a curious phenomenon of r…

Why not put untouchables in communities where they can engage with other untouchables, with software monitors which call robot helpers if there's a problem and they are dying of loneliness and despair unacceptably quickly.

As long as it all happens to them, at a distance, and we're not having to get involved, eh?

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

#76

Post by tsotha »

reddytowns wrote: post #47
Spooky23 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The way I see it the environment exists for people. Otherwise it has no use at all.

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

#77

Post by tsotha »

JesperRavn wrote: post #34

Why are there so many stories HN on social problems in Asia? I would have expected that smart people on HN would make some effort to understand Orientalism[0]. In the case of this story, this is a phenomenon that is occurring all around the developed world. Japan is in many ways just another developed country. But through the eyes of Orientalism, Japan's problems are unique and quaint, and the objective Westerner can…

People look at Japan because most first world countries are going to have the same sorts of problems in 20 years. There's no reason to bring in terms that don't fit.

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

#78

Post by codesushi42 »

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?"

Getting married is easy. And plenty of people don't want it. :) You'd be hard pressed to find a person who doesn't want to be a billionaire.

Try online dating, or go to a bar to meet a girl. It's a lot easier than you think, especially when you're gainfully employed.

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

#79

Post by DanBC »

irishcoffee wrote: post #52
taternuts wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The more interesting question is: how has one traversed their entire life up to gainful employment and has no friends? This seems to be the more telling question.

There are several ways this can happen.

A person can be at school and have a small number of friends. They then leave to go to college and lose those friends. They may make a few more friends at college. They then leave college and go to work - and again they lose their friends.

Once you're at work it is hard for some people to male friends.

This isn't a new or unusual point of view. We freqently hear about how lonely cities can feel.

"$cityname is lonely" returns hits of people talking about how lonely they are in any city. The fact that they do this on the Internet makes it, to me at least, very sad.

Some people just struggle to make and keep friends.

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

#80

Post by [deleted] »

smil wrote: post #65
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 has your country (you must be American) distinguished itself by doing these same core social and psychological issues? Or are Americans stubborn and ignorant?

[deleted]
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