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from the explain-the-sound-of-one-hand dept.
With no families or visitors to speak of, many older tenants spent weeks or months cocooned in their small apartments, offering little hint of their existence to the world outside their doors. And each year, some of them died without anyone knowing, only to be discovered after their neighbors caught the smell.
The first time it happened, or at least the first time it drew national attention, the corpse of a 69-year-old man living near Mrs. Ito had been lying on the floor for three years, without anyone noticing his absence. His monthly rent and utilities had been withdrawn automatically from his bank account. Finally, after his savings were depleted in 2000, the authorities came to the apartment and found his skeleton near the kitchen, its flesh picked clean by maggots and beetles, just a few feet away from his next-door neighbors.
The huge government apartment complex where Mrs. Ito has lived for nearly 60 years — one of the biggest in Japan, a monument to the nation's postwar baby boom and aspirations for a modern, American way of life — suddenly became known for something else entirely: the "lonely deaths" of the world's most rapidly aging society.
To many residents in Mrs. Ito's complex, the deaths were the natural and frightening conclusion of Japan's journey since the 1960s. A single-minded focus on economic growth, followed by painful economic stagnation over the past generation, had frayed families and communities, leaving them trapped in a demographic crucible of increasing age and declining births. The extreme isolation of elderly Japanese is so common that an entire industry has emerged around it, specializing in cleaning out apartments where decomposing remains are found.
Compounding matters, Japan has a declining birthrate and bans immigration.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday December 03 2017, @07:25PM (8 children)
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and—in spite of True Romance magazines—we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely—at least, not all the time—but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”
― Hunter S. Thompson
Go ahead - someone try to argue that, let's see you disprove it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @08:30PM
The Vulcan mind meld?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 03 2017, @09:56PM (1 child)
I dunno about you, but I wasn't born alone. My mom was there when I crawled out of her, my dad was hovering nearby too... but yea the respect bit makes sense.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday December 05 2017, @08:46PM
Offtopic but this made me remember cutting my twins umbilical cords. That texture that you feel though the scissors is horrifying, with third child coming up I think I will let the doctors take care of this step.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday December 04 2017, @12:03AM
While I agree with the technicalities of the post, I disagree that all humans die alone. Every human wants to die alongside their peers, and some do even if it isn't alongside their peers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 04 2017, @03:43AM
Long Live Hunter Thompson, too desperate to make his deadlines to be afraid of what might happen if he actually submitted the work.
Genius, from the unexamined, unedited, unfiltered output of a drug fueled mind.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 04 2017, @02:51PM
Perhaps Mr. H. Thompson went through life without finding that one true love, the one that touches your spirit.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Monday December 04 2017, @02:52PM (1 child)
Doing a Hannibal Lector and taking pride in how you cook the brains and hearts of your victims? :)
(tounge firmly planted in cheek)
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday December 04 2017, @03:19PM
Well, I would HOPE that if you waste a human being to cook their brains, you do a good job of it. Anything less would be disrespectful!! ;^)