YHK - yet another hacker news clone

As usual, games of telephone change things pretty radically:

  Porn showing choking or incest

(Not that Mormon voting was ever directed by Japanese mating habits. But you get my point.)

This male/female divide is becoming huge in Korea, if I've heard correctly.

In my experience of having lived in Japan, I find this simply not true. Of course this is my own anecdata. Physical contact, from my experience, is seen as a more intimate gesture. It depends on the nature of the relationship. In places like America, lots of people would give a hug (at the very least a one arm hug) to their friends when they're parting ways. Japanese don't do that ever from what I've seen, they'll just wave goodbye to each other. But I have seen plenty of hugging, hand holding, and other public displays of affection among those who are intimate.

I remember when I lived in Japan and was with my male friend visiting temples. I was 21 years old and I'm male. At one point he grabbed my hand to direct me to a temple and didn't immediately let go. I felt strange because in the US that would be misconstrued.

Are you sure Japanese people hate physical contact? I never really considered whether that's true or not.

For example cheetahs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXQD3nPaO-k

You can give cheetahs all the food and luxury and they won't mate. They need exercise and danger and free space for courtship

All these trends are happening everywhere to varying degrees with less developed places like much of Africa simply earlier on the curve but following the same trajectory.

So where does it end? I’m skeptical of population doomerism but shrinking population, like too rapid population growth, creates economic and social problems.

On the other hand if we are about to automate tons of stuff it means we need less humans to run things, and if medicine keeps getting better longer life and health spans somewhat offset lower birth rates.

I just dont think teen outdoor sex is the thing that should come back.

If you were a peasant in 1300s you worked hard probably 8-12 hours a day but once it was dark or the winter what you did radically changed because you couldn't see. It was just hanging out with people or going to bed, or other indoor task that usually involved other people or being around a limited light source. Those were the options of which one is kind of boring after a while. You'd thus interact with people and by interacting you'd end up having sex because it was fun when compared with doing anything else. Porn also didn't really exist so that as an outlet was basically zero so I'd attribute that to part of the attention occupying culture we have today

yup.

the rural town i'm originally from is down from ~9500 residents to a bit more than 6000 (and trending down).

For some reason when we started sending women out to work, the work they had been doing at home stopped being counted as work. But of course it is work, it still needs to be done. As a result, the modern 50h weeks can be anything between 60-80h weeks depending on your comfort with living in squalor, and the presence of children, it's just we for some reason only count the part you get paid for.

More interesting than each other?

To me it’s surprising that so many observers and pundits seem to be so confused about this development.

But in the digital world You just swap apps, nobody judges, and You alway get dopamine.

Have you guys seen how beautiful some of the women in Kpop are? Not only that, but they are also idols, meaning they have a strong presence on social media (post pictures, shorts), appear on variety shows, interact with fans through all sorts of fanmeets, online services and so on... They make fans feel like they have a relationship with them. After an event/concert you can usually easily find 4K fancams of the idol. They fill that gap both emotionally and sexually as they're really lovely girls. Japan also has a strong idol culture, although it's not as popular as Korea's internationally.

Then there's things like onlyfans, live-streamers and so on... Of course people are having less sex. On top of what you said of people just generally choosing to interact less because of the amount of digital entertainment. 50 years ago if you didn't get of your house the most entertainment you would have is probably books or TV, situation is wildly different these days. With AI probably gonna get even worse.

All that said, I don't think it's necessarily bad. But for future generations human interaction won't be the default anymore. They will have toto re-discover the value of that interaction.

Maybe people are watching porn because they can't get the real deal?

Many marriages succumb to 'dead bedrooms' and many young people feel that they cannot compete in the modern dating game, which is essentially Top Trumps for Humans.