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posted by martyb on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:26PM   Printer-friendly
from the 'fair'-choice? dept.

Virtual reality games usually promise shoot 'em up adventures but in Hong Kong Friday lovelorn tech fans donned headsets to go on imaginary dates.

The city's annual Ani-Com and Games fair sees thousands queue to try out the latest consoles or buy up comic book collectibles, often dressed up as their favourite characters.

But for those who had spent too long alone in their rooms, a new VR smartphone app offered some romantic solace.

Users can choose between four female models and spend a vacation with them in either Japan or Thailand, joining them on trips to cafes, hot springs and karaoke.

They slot their phones into a plastic headset and are then immersed on a date, during which they can choose options for activities.

Promoters of the Hong Kong-made app, which is known by its Cantonese name "leoi yau" or "VR travel friend", said it was to help what they called "Otakus" to practise their dating skills.

The name is a Japanese term for obsessive manga or anime fans.

"We want to allow more people to try out what it's like to date a girl because there are a lot of Otakus who don't know how to communicate with girls," Margaret Ming, the app's communication officer, told AFP.

"This game can teach them how to get to know girls," Ming said, adding that there is some flirting involved in the story arcs with the models.

Helpful, or sad?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:47AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @03:47AM (#546538)

    That evidence is based upon registrations. As I stated, a lot of those "missing" women aren't so much missing as unregistered because the parents don't want to pay the fine and the local officials are more concerned with local harmony than they are with following the central government's rules. In many cases, especially down south, there's a tremendous amount of resentment because they have never liked the governments based in Beijing.

    Consequently, nobody knows that the sex gap exists, let alone why it exists if it does.

    The page that you're linking to begs the question. It assumes that there are a significantly fewer number of women than there should be for the number of men and it then goes into reasons why that might be the case. But, there's little evidence that it's actually true.

    Especially given that the Chinese government had a 1.5 child policy during the period where this is alleged to have happened where couples having a girl for their first child were allowed to have a second child without paying a penalty.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 30 2017, @11:46AM (#546644)

    Especially given that the Chinese government had a 1.5 child policy during the period where this is alleged to have happened where couples having a girl for their first child were allowed to have a second child without paying a penalty.

    Since you think that makes the problem go away, you must think the options are:
    children|probability
    --------+-----------
       B    | 50%
       GB   | 25%
       GG   | 25%

    Which yields an expected value of 0.75 girls and 0.75 boys per couple, yay!

    But either there's no pro-male bias (in which case the one-child policy turns out a 50/50 mix as well), or there is, and it will apply at least as strongly to a couple with one girl, and a second female pregnancy. (I don't know enough about Chinese culture to compare, but in the US it seems most couples specifically desire mixed offspring, and are unhappy with all boys or all girls; if there's even a weak preference for this in Chinese culture, it augments whatever pro-male bias there would be under the one-child policy.) So in reality, wouldn't it be more like:
    children|probability
    --------+-----------
       B    | 50%
       GB   | 40%
       GG   | 10%

    for an expected value of 0.9 boys and 0.6 girls per family. Sure, it's better than the one-child policy, but a long way from perfect.