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South Korea to give $490 allowance to reclusive youths to help them leave house
- fallat 4y agoHonestly a great idea. Not being able to afford outings is a huge barrier to socializing.
- danjoredd 4y agoLets hope they spend it on being social! Going to social events, clubs, get togethers, etc. Thing is though, when I think of when I was 17, I spent almost every penny of every paycheck at my job on video games and movies, and all my friends were the same way.
- skizm 4y agoI mean you had friends so you probably wouldn’t fall into this category.
- tokai 4y agoIf you are withdrawn enough, just going to buy groceries is a win.
- AlecSchueler 4y agoThere's an app for that!
- vuln 4y agoAnd it’s only 35% more expensive than shopping in person. /s
- ilaksh 4y agoThey may need to save it. Don't underestimate the financial aspect of this.
- dabluecaboose 4y agoI have to imagine there's some sort of requirement to continue receiving the allowance, otherwise isn't this just giving them $450 to spend on more anime figurines?
- whstl 4y agoFunny. When I was 17 I also spent most of my money on video games, but it actually helped me socialize a lot because pretty much none of us had internet. The more I think about those problems, the more I see the internet as the big culprit.
- ogurechny 4y agoI suppose the allowance is only given in presence, so they have to leave house to get it. Very creative!
- worrycue 4y agoDoesn't mean much though. A shut-in can usually handle occasionally leaving the house. I wonder if they have to spend the money in person too. It's all moot if they spend it all via ordering on the internet and paying cash on delivery.
- rasengan 4y agoThe affordability for sure helps a small cohort but there are a lot of other reasons not to leave the house that have yet to be addressed. Some of these can’t be addressed by government as there are fundamentally decentralized yet aligned issues relating to culture among other things (for example, SK really shuns baldness [1] so they don’t go outside). [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhNYl3HVTU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jLhNYl3HVTU
- 908B64B197 4y agoGiving money is nice, but I wonder how much of the problem is due to the incredible pressure put on young people by the traditional Korean society. Dating seems to be closed off to a large number of Koreans who don't see a path toward marriage and economic prosperity. Interestingly, a lot of Korean woman seem to think the best place to start a family is ... right here in America! The gender ratio of immigrants to America from South Korea isn't 50-50 as one would expect but closer to 60% women. For Japan, another state struggling with fertility and youth isolation, this ratio is about 75%.
- tokai 4y agoAin't both countries very big on male chauvinism? Makes sense that they want to leave more than the men.
- nicolas_t 4y agoAnecdotal but when I lived there, I had a few female coworkers who confided to me that they only wanted to date foreigners because they felt trapped by the cultural expectations that came with dating a Japanese man. So, yes it might be a factor :)
- rasengan 4y agoYou hit the nail on the head. The culture is very male focused, even despite the male-rights movements that have come about recently. Go out drinking in Asia... and you'll be pretty surprised, shocked, upset, dismayed at how things work over there.
- Der_Einzige 4y agoCorrect, cheating is basically normalized among men in east and south east Asia. Western mens liberalism and lower rates of cheating are among the many reasons why westerners are popular there.
- arolihas 4y agoRacism also plays a part.
- COGlory 4y agoThis is damn near what PhD students get paid in the US
- juujian 4y agoOuch!
- wenc 4y ago490 a month? No it is not.
- COGlory 4y ago$16k/year is not that uncommon. After taxes and fees, it's really not that far off.
- alsodumb 4y agoI don't know where you're doing your PhD but this absolutely not true.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- selimthegrim 4y agoIt was true about a decade ago (a UC in chemistry)
- lordnacho 4y agoOne thing that came to mind recently is this imaginary subsidy that I came up with: Give people money to go and eat a meal with strangers. A sit-down meal at a restaurant where you can talk. I think this would benefit society immensely: - New random connection, outside your bubble - Someone who you can talk to, who might have a different point of view - Making it real that there are other people than the ones you know
- haliskerbas 4y agoImmediately imagining another random person asking me “but what part of arabic are you from” even though I’m not middle eastern.
- jarebear6expepj 4y agoWhat better opportunity to educate!
- rocketflumes 4y agoI love this idea in principle, but when our school ran something similar to connect grad students who didn't have the opportunity to socialize due to covid remote work, I got a feeling some of them just showed up for the free coffee (we did free coffee chats instead of meals) and just weren't that interested in the social aspect.
- luckylion 4y agoWould that be a problem? I mean, you want them to socialize, and they'll do for a while, even if not for "the right reasons". If some of them do so more because the free coffee is that valuable to them, what's the downside with letting them have the free coffee you wanted to give away anyhow? Imho that would be a good opportunity to get them more support, not a problem with that approach.
- vuln 4y ago> free coffee They showed up for a sub $1/a cup coffee. I doubt there is much malicious intent.
- jollyllama 4y agoLet the NeetBux flow
- AdrianB1 4y agoSo instead of looking for the root cause of the problem (probably many factors, not just one), the government is doing what a stupid government is always doing: throw some money at the problem hoping it will be effective enough to win the next election. It is not solving any problem, just rolling it for later. SK has a huge demographic problem; this one cannot be fixed later, when people are in their 40-es or even 50-es they cannot have babies anymore. Also giving money to 9 year old to socialize is weird, one would rather have them do team activities like sport or boy/girl/mixed scout, not give money - what financial culture does a 9-year old have?
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago>one would rather have them do team activities like sport or boy/girl/mixed scout Plenty of developed countries where mixed team activities are the norm and the fertility rates aren't looking that much better once you filter first/second generation immigrants (including, many are already bordering on Japan's levels). Having them do sports together until the age of 18 isn't going to solve the increasing cost of milestones, consumerism, increasing standards pushed by multimedia, crushing work cultures, pushing the norm to 30+, and more. Several of the aforementioned countries don't have half of these and still sit at 1.6 or less, while continuing to drop.
- AdrianB1 4y agoI am considering team sports as a way to (secondary) socialize, not to produce kids. Same for boy scout type of activities, in my experience people that do activities in nature get stronger spirits and are better at handling adverse conditions - for example kids in the Switzerland or Finland do a lot of outside activities at school.
- dahwolf 4y agoDoesn't hurt to try, but I don't think giving money to a depressed isolated person will change their ways. They've "pulled back" and somehow manage to get by financially without putting in any effort. Anyway, I recently read that if one is to project SK's birth rate far into the future, the country ceases to exist: 94% population decrease. There was also an article describing a rural area where for the first time in 25(!) years, a baby was born.
- LorenPechtel 4y agoI am not surprised at a rural area where babies are rare. The thing is opportunity is generally far greater in the cities. People who aren't failures will generally move to the cities, the rural areas have few people of an age to be reproducing.
- BitwiseFool 4y agoIt is unfortunate that no one has found a way to replicate or imitate the lifestyle of living on a college campus. I very much miss dormitory style living and the social aspect of it. While I'm happy to have my own living space that is much larger than any dorm room, I miss all the novelty and variety that the dorms brought to my life.
- doix 4y agoNot quite the same, but hostels give me a similar vibe. Sometimes I'll book a private room in a hostel even though it's more expensive than an entire Airbnb apartment. Makes it much easier to have things to do.
- lddemi 4y agoLiving in a medium-sized city can easily provide this type of lifestyle if you want it.
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y agoDorms are pretty unique. A bunch of people same age, going through same experience, in a shared living space. I'd be interested in how this is replicated in a medium-sized city.
- mock-possum 4y agoThere’s an apartment building in my town that works that way - shared bathroom and kitchen and common spaces, with personal bedrooms. My buddy used to live there, it was kind of organized as artist housing, there was a ton of resident art up in the halls and on the grounds - wouldn’t work for me, I need control over my space, but he made the most of it. Helped that it was cheap, and he was a portrait photographer, I think.
- peter303 4y agoThe founder of WeWork was talking about creating this kind of housing- private bedrooms (and mainly bathrooms too), kitchen, living rooms shared. A monthly fee for frequent cleaning of public spaces, because voluntary efforts not so successful. An issue would be maintaining the age segregation of a college. Single adults of all ages may want to move in.
- MuffinFlavored 4y agoWon't they just spend it on video games/electronics related things?
- qikInNdOutReply 4y agoAh, a little light carrotsnack, after which the beatings can continue until working moral improves. A society so hostile, that people withdraw from it completely is surely able to change the situation, without any changes to itself. I think the best idea would be hikikomori villages. As in standalone towns, were the rest of society is forbidden to enter. Allow them to start something fresh, untainted by the old horror.
- ElevenLathe 4y agoWilliam Gibson's /Idoru/ runs with this concept but, somewhat counterproductively in this context, as a virtual version of the old Kowloon Walled City "in" Hong Kong, where hikikomori socialize, strategize about shared goals, wheel and deal, etc.
- Eumenes 4y agoGonna prob go to Roblox money printer
- chillbill 4y agoI don't think it's the lack of money that's stopping them from leaving.
- duxup 4y agoI think it is just intended as an incentive here. Get the ball rolling and see what happens.
- staringback 4y agoNext headline: 1 bedroom apartments increase by $490/mo
- jldugger 4y agoYes but also so much worse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeonse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeonse
- OkayPhysicist 4y agoThat seems significantly preferable to a rent-based system. While you're not investing any assets in your home like you would if you owned it, at least you're not hemorrhaging cash like you do when you're renting.
- inkcapmushroom 4y agoThe disadvantage being that you have to have $300,000 cash upfront to just live.
- jldugger 4y ago> While you're not investing any assets in your home like you would if you owned it, at least you're not hemorrhaging cash like you do when you're renting. Unless you have to borrow money to make the payment. And god forbid they do something like invest it in more real estate, or worse, lose the investment and owe the government tax.
- badpun 4y agoFrom what I understand, hikkikomori usually live with their parents.
- pigtailgirl 4y ago-- hard to say if this will work - i know - visit - people who have not left the house in over a year - they are very genius people who never made - to Samsung or LG or other chaebol - many have gained a lot of weight or are unhappy with appearance - genius and "ugly" - depressed - in Korean culture - not good --
- dj_mc_merlin 4y agoJust curious: why is your comment written like that? TTS?
- zitterbewegung 4y agoHonestly I hope this works . It is very close to universal basic income and the justification for UBI will just become larger and larger. What I feel that we will be in situations where smaller and smaller amounts of people are able to be ridiculously productive .
- peter303 4y agoI wonder how prevalent hikikomori is in the US? It is similar to agoraphobia in US and Europe. One google reference says 2.4%, i.e. similar to Korea number.
- stainablesteel 4y agoi'd like to see subsidies for people to start families screw taking out loans to feed money to the college cartels the equivalent of any bachelors degree is available online, minus lab hours - but you can actually get that if you really want it have people finish with their education by or before ~18 y/o. people who would have earned meritocratic scholarships can instead be subsidized to start a family and have children for the next ~10 years, this would allow more of the best to have more children -> a breeding experiment with a good outcome
- dabluecaboose 4y ago>i'd like to see subsidies for people to start families I remember seeing a proposal to that effect in Texas that was decried as "Handmaid's Tale" or something similarly trite We really do need to incentivize families, or we'll end up like China and Russia with their impending demographic implosions.
- roflyear 4y agoWho is we here?
- dabluecaboose 4y agoWe as in the US, I'm sorry. I was unclear. There are arguments that our large amount of incoming immigration has shielded us from demographic decline, but I don't think it's wise to rely on that forever.
- zvmaz 4y agoI wonder how the government will find out who is eligible to the allowance and who is not.
- rodolphoarruda 4y agoWhich other countries observe this youth reclusiveness?
- Uptrenda 4y agoThis is like trying to give someone a band-aid to stop an arterial bleed... I respect that they're trying but it won't do anything. The hikikomori phenomenon has complex causes: - Untreated mental health problems - Disabilities that undermine or limit social success - Economies with few opportunities for young people - Over-abundance of pressure (disproportionately placed on men): for academic success and career success - Horrible housing market (why work at a crappy job only to lose what few funds you have in rent for a tiny shared apartment? Can you blame these people for not moving out?) - Chronic loneliness (again, worse for men) Most hikikomoris are men and when you never leave the house there's no opportunities to meet people. If you want to have the biggest effect on these people’s lives don't focus on giving them money. Unironically get them partners. No troll, young people’s social skills have declined beyond recognition and IMO as tech people we are partly to blame for this.
- vasco 4y ago> Unironically get them partners So how do you practically do that? Is there a state run harem for the young men you mention to get a partner? Maybe I just lack imagination but money to spend on outside activities seemed like an OK approach. What do you have in mind?
- techdragon 4y agoYou don’t need to be that creative to think of ways to do this without getting into “owed sex” trap. First thing I could think of in sixty seconds: State money can sponsor singles nights with a few free drinks for every person attending courtesy of the government. Pays for responsible security and all the appropriate safety and security. That’s just a minute thinking, I’m sure a few hours or days work could do much better. And it’s infinitely better than just giving them money directly which will likely not drive the sort of interpersonal behaviour changes they hope to sponsor since money can go directly into the things these people are already doing with their time.
- LeanderK 4y agowhile weird at first, I am reminded on the agencies focused on matching people with jobs. It's a bit similar I think! Reminds me a bit of the movie "the lobster"
- hinkley 4y agoA Korean movie was making the rounds at film festivals over a decade ago called Castaway on the Moon. The setup: office drone gets fired, has debts, tries to jump off a bridge. He washes up on a river island, can’t get off, and decides to become a hermit. Somehow befriends a shut-in woman (she can see him from her window with a telephoto lens). This thread reminds me of that movie (might still be on YouTube) and that this has been a known problem for some time.
- ctoth 4y agoI just read this a couple weeks ago, it's called The Real Reason South Koreans Aren't Having Babies. If this article is accurate, I doubt a small subsidy is going to change things. It kind of feels like the gender wars have gotten out of control over there on both sides. Worth a read at least. [0]: The Real Reason South Koreans Aren't Having Babies: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/south-korea-fertility-rate-misogyny-feminism/673435/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/03/south-kore...
- borski 4y agoWe actually tried something similar when I ran Tinfoil - people worked really hard and started getting burnt out because they weren’t “getting away from it” at home. Roughly once a month or two, we would pick a 3-day weekend (we made sure to have a 3-day holiday every month anyway) and would reimburse employees up to $80 for doing something that was “outside their norm.” Could be almost anything, but couldn’t be material (i.e. buying a video game). Nobody was forced to, of course, and if people wanted to stay home they could, but we found that folks were much more willing to get out and try something new if it was on the company dime. Plus, then people would inevitably come back with stories to tell their colleagues, which sort of spiraled into encouraging that behavior in the future. We even ended up with an internal wiki page of ideas of “what to do” with your reimbursement weekends, all of which involved getting out and doing things outside or with other people. Not everyone participated every time, but it was definitely one of our most-beloved benefits.
- whalesalad 4y agofast forward 3-4 months after stuffing that under the mattress and that is a top-tier GPU lol
- sashank_1509 4y agoReading the article, and the top comments here on HN it feels like an incredible myopia people have against obvious solutions that are staring them in the face. Here’s my solution to solve social isolation, that will never be implemented in South Korea or in the current Zeitgist but will definitely work and possibly future generations will lay in shock that we did not do this (In fact we active prevented this): Create a brotherhood organization, force every male who’s not gainfully employed to join that organization. If they don’t join they go to jail. The fact that no one even suggests some solution in this form shows to me the irrational bias against forcing people to do stuff. Sometimes people of their own volition make bad decisions, this might be mental health or a host of other reasons. Sometimes the solution to the problem if the very thing those people are desperately avoiding and at those times, as someone who knows better, you force them to do what they don’t want and they will be happier for it. I will be the first to admit, this solution won’t work for everyone. There is small percentage (probably as small as 0.1%) who actually don’t need constant social contact and are isolating for other reasons. They might also be geniuses (Gregory Perelman comes to mind). The rest crave social contact, probably need it much more than the average human, and they’re just not getting it because they’ve fallen into a hole and taking small steps to dig yourself out gives huge amounts of negative feedback that they would rather not try. In such a case a higher authority like the government should just force them out of their hole and they’ll thank you for it. The crazy thing is a hundred years ago, this was known everywhere. People were basically not allowed to be alone. In primitive Europe, (around 1600-1700s), if a man was seen idle he was put to work under the law. Every man till around 1900s was forced to be a part of multiple social structures, from your guild, to church, to family, to neighbour hood communities and it was often illegal to not be a part of these structures nor was it clear why one would choose to not be in these structures. Sometimes these structures were enforced by law (such as guilds) and sometimes with social pressure (such as church), but all these structures forced men to have regular contact in multiple forms, multiple times a day. Since late 1950s, most of these structures across the world have vanished and people have suffered with modern afflictions that were very rare in the past. The solutions are still the same, and giving people money, incentivizing sex etc is a bandaid not a long term solution.
- soared 4y ago
- iamnotsure 4y agoWhen human population planning works too well.
- omoikane 4y agoIt's interesting how "hikikomori" got into common English usage, and now this Japanese word is being used to describe South Korean youths. I would have expected Koreans to have their own word for this condition.
- akiselev 4y agoIt's a wonderful peak into how languages might have evolved in the past. One day a bard is passing through some village or other and, having recently traveled to the far east, tells stories of the reclusive hikikomori of Japan. A young fella at the tavern hears the stories and is inspired to grow up to be a bard himself so he too can travel to the far east. But! He goes a little too far south and - mistaking the Yellow Sea for the Sea of Japan - swims across to the Korean peninsula bringing an invasive new word in his pocket.
- seoulmetro 4y agoObviously they do as it is just as common in South Korea as Japan. I have never heard of the word hikikomoro before. It's definitely not in common English usage at all. Otaku is what I hear in Korea. Recluse is English.
- httpz 4y agoOnce in a while I'll see news from Korea get blown out of proportion and make it to the front page of HN when the same topic didn't even make it to the front page of Korean news. This article made it sound like the government will just start paying loners so I had to look up some Korean sources. Apparently, S.Korean government already has a program to financially help "at-risk youths" from households below median income and either not in school or have frequent trouble with the law. The news is now saying they'll include reclusive youths in the program. The article doesn't really say the criteria to qualify but it's not like the government will handout allowances to millions of loners like the title makes it seem.
- distant_hat 4y agoA lot of people pooh poohing seem to think that the solution is all or nothing. All conditions have a spectrum, and maybe this would be pointless for people deep on the spectrum, it might be enough to push people on the edge to go out and socialize a bit. It will not turn them into the life of the party but maybe just give some of them a bit more social. Whether the price point is correct, or there is enough ROI on the money put in will have to be seen, but there is nothing 'obvious' that it would fail.
- tatrajim 4y agoMaybe some sort of required social service (beyond the required military), especially in the SK countryside where it is badly needed? Only anecdotal, but I went from massively introverted to a more-or-less well adjusted social adult after three years in the peace corps (coincidentally in South Korea). My work in a rural health center required me daily to interact with dozens of people who needed me in a language I was struggling to learn. In the process, I grew to enjoy socializing for the first time and have benefitted from the experience ever since.
- phendrenad2 4y agoSo they're going to help them leave the house... by paying them $490/month as long as they stay indoors. Interesting. Now, I agree with other commenters that these recluses are probably suffering economic hardship and can't afford to flit about the city like a HBO sitcom. So I think that this welfare initiative is probably going to be a great benefit to them... but measuring how many of them leave the house is probably a bad metric, and they'll probably shut this program down once they see that the recluses remained reclusive. Oh well.
- rasz 4y agoBad setup, people will take money and do nothing. Would work much better if they paid young single women to visit and talk to hikikomori. Japan Rental Sisters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9IRmUEsz6g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9IRmUEsz6g $900/month for weekly 1hour visits.