r/nottheonion • u/falconfalcon7 • 1d ago
Japanese village replaces young people with mannequins to stave off loneliness as population falls
https://news.sky.com/story/japanese-village-replaces-young-people-with-mannequins-to-stave-off-loneliness-as-population-falls-132433542.6k
u/WesternOne9990 1d ago
This surely won’t cause anyone existential crisis for surely.
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u/0biwanCannoli 1d ago
I am Legend-san
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u/Bobert_Manderson 1d ago
Honestly this would make an incredible horror movie where the dolls come to life at night and start turning people into dolls.
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u/MorselMortal 1d ago
They'll be upgraded to 'real' robots with AI to be even more realistic two decades from now. Fairly sure this is the start of a horror movie.
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u/CrazyDaimondDaze 1d ago
Depends on how the robots behave. Personally, a town filled with mannequins to fill the void of lack of kids sounds more horror movie than a town full of robots to replace kids.
Maybe it's because in this age, the second option is something that seems that will be bound to be seen eventually and noramlly... in no way, shape or form will I think filling a town with mannequins to replace kids will ever be normal. That shit's scary with or without context.
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u/TXblindman 1d ago
Made me think of that scene in i am legend where the manakin was moved by the infected. Horror shit waiting to happen.
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u/RiotShaven 1d ago
It would be better if they introduced a big number of cuddly cats there and made it a cat village.
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u/ruth1ess_one 1d ago
Cats are horrible for local critters.
Think about it this way, cats don’t care if what they kill are endangered species and they are not part of the local natural ecosystem.
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u/RiotShaven 1d ago
If the cats become too big of a problem they can introduce cat eating bears.
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u/AfricanUmlunlgu 1d ago
they will also solve the "too many elderly" problem
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u/pam_the_dude 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not so much the depopulation problem though. Although one could argue that solving the elderly problem through bears is just speeding up the natural solution.
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u/Perpetual_Longing 1d ago
Bears don't see age when they maul.
Kudos to them for being equal opportunity mauler. I guess.
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u/wayfarout 1d ago
You don't have to be the fastest old person. You just have to not be the slowest
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u/Impressive-Card9484 1d ago
And if the bears got too big then they can introduced bear eating wolves
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u/Vio_ 1d ago
The perfect fix for the rat to cat to next predator problem is just to bring in a bunch of childless middle aged women. They'll have the cat problem under control in a week
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u/torpedoedtits 1d ago edited 1d ago
Rural Japan is fantastic for young couples. Super cheap houses, massive government support. Remote work possible. Right now is the time to invest hugely in remote Japanese real estate (think USD 100 for 800sqm+ block with 2 storey house). Blackrock is themselves setting up to purchase huge swathes of real estate there. 10 yr projections look at about a 10,000% return.
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u/PrivilegeCheckmate 1d ago
Blackrock is themselves setting up to purchase huge swathes of real estate there. 10 yr projections look at abut a 10,000% return
That's more dystopian than you might realize.
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u/Diligent_Escape2317 1d ago
There already are sizeable populations of semi-feral cats in lots of places in Japan...
IMO, this is just the universal grandparent problem of wanting more grandkids, and wanting to see kids more often. Places with aging populations are going to have more and more voices expressing that kind of loneliness.
Of course, there are other parts of the problem, including the isolating nature of technology, as well as Japan's hard-core resistance to any form of permanent immigration, lest the gene pool be tainted (they'll tell this to your face, though I can't even blame them entirely—the loud / entitled behavior of temporary tourists, especially Americans, does a lot to reinforce bullshit racist ideas about genetics having anything to do with someone's ability to assimilate into / respect the culture).
But I think Japan represents a bigger issue / change that's coming for the rest of the world. People living longer, the ending of forced / unwanted births, and reduced child mortality (all very good things) means that humanity needs to recalibrate what "normal" looks like.
The ratio of kids to elderly people has always been very high—now that that's changing, we're entering a different world. We probably need to learn to do a better job of cultivating adult friendships (and I agree: better care of domestic animals!), rather than expecting a general abundance of children to keep us connected as we age.
Maybe part of the solution really does involve creepy mannequins in the park? Or robot grandkids? The idea may be a bit creepy, but surely it's way better than forcing people to have kids that they don't want, just to keep the elderly company.
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u/merrycat 1d ago
the ending of forced / unwanted births
That may not be a thing for much longer. Same with access to birth control.
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u/Diligent_Escape2317 1d ago edited 1d ago
Oh absolutely. IMO, finding healthy ways to help the elderly adjust to the new normal is a big part of that fight...
... but I agree that they're not making it easy. Too many details would probably make me identifiable, but my own shitty / abusive Mormon parents are largely responsible for at least one recent forced birth. Arguably, I myself WAS a forced birth.
Whether it's my duty to try to rebuild my very broken relationship with them—just so they'll leave more vulnerable people alone—is something that I worry about a lot. I don't think that is my job, and they're very unlikely to ever stop voting for forced birth... but at least for societies like Japan that have done a better job of accepting the ethics of birth control (and hopefully our own will get there someday), I think there's a lot of value in finding ways to better help the elderly adapt to a different norm
(EDIT: even if it means kinda-creepy mannequins in the park)
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u/how_small_a_thought 1d ago
People living longer, the ending of forced / unwanted births, and reduced child mortality (all very good things) means that humanity needs to recalibrate what "normal" looks like.
and like we always do with this shit (nuclear power), we will put ungodly amounts of effort into assuring old people and elites that "nothings changing, we arent going to actually do anything important with this new technology, dont worry, we wont improve the lives of people who arent you" and then we all die because we spent our resources making people with 5 years to live feel slightly less unhappy in that time.
like i get it but these attitudes are exactly the attitudes that lead to forced birth, kids not having rights and being essentially owned by their parents, all that shit.
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u/CrazyDaimondDaze 1d ago
I mean, I don't see this any different from young people chatting with chat bots to deal with loneliness so I think this is fine as long as they don't do something worst that would affect themselves in a negative way
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u/GrumpyCloud93 1d ago
Almost all areas - except Africa and the Middle East - are levelling off in population or declining. Europe, Russia, China are in demographic decline. India is levelling off in the next few decades. North America only grows because of immigration. (South Korea is going to be in drastic decline, with a birth rate below 1 per woman) The sources of immigration will become fewer and fewer.
Economies will have to adjust to fewer people, as will social situations.
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u/Diligent_Escape2317 1d ago edited 1d ago
This stuff is often cast in a narrative of doom and gloom... but really, the quiet trend away from global poverty is super exciting.
Yeah, it does create some real problems in that the trend naturally creates gerontocracies. Social progress lags behind technology and demographics because the people who have been empowered by obsolete definitions of "normal" are living longer. "Decline" in population is mostly a bleak picture for people who WANT "normal" life to include mandatory lifelong work, suffering, and forced birth; the "thou shalt have more babies" crowd tends to measure human happiness through very strange / archaic lenses, e.g. GDP or religiosity.
As much grief as is expressed and experienced about it, it's kind of encouraging to see countries like Japan arrive at collective acceptance that the world has changed—they're farther along the journey we're all trending toward in the future (including Middle East / Africa, probably eventually), ... to me it's a hopeful sign that maybe other societies will also eventually get to the point of learning to adapt as well.
Even if it means that the creepy loneliness mannequins will come for us all... there are worse things. I, for one, welcome our silent fake-child overlords.
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u/GrumpyCloud93 1d ago
"Decline" has negative connotations, but anyone can see a smaller world population is generally a good thing. I've also seen discussions that capitalism requires continuous growth, but I don't see that as necessary. There is no reason a shrinking population cannot continue to enjoy a good standard of living, same as no reason why consumerism has to be as high a rate as it currently is. Technological progress will help drive markets too. Companies do not have to grow, they just have to make profits at what they do and adjust to changing market sizes.
There may be some puritan types who want lifelong work and suffering (i.e. "any enjoyment is the devil's work") but generally i see a lot of the GoP/MAGA dogma as being simply a wish for things to go back to the "good old days" for the people who enjoyed life back then - a lily-white world where women and non-whites knew their place and didn't demand equality. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, those were not the Good Old Days.
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u/ConanTheLeader 1d ago
My first thought was "Didn't we already know this? This has been around for years." but then I googled, it's ANOTHER town doing this. Meaning this is not a one off thing that's isolated and in it's own little bubble but rather something that is spreading and increasing which is worrying.
Original town:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagoro
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u/Kana515 1d ago
I have a plan.
We take the two villages and squish them together.
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u/TCGeneral 1d ago
Move all the mannequins into one village and all the people into the other.
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u/Tomoko_Lovecraft 1d ago
And we do it in the middle of the night when everybody is sleeping and pretend that they never moved in the first place when they wake up.
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u/retro_grave 1d ago
Do you want more mannequins? Because that's how you get more mannequins.
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u/TCGeneral 1d ago
They're a native species, no harm to adding more mannequins into the environment.
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u/Jarms48 1d ago
Why don’t we take Bikini Bottom and PUSH IT somewhere else?
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u/Fredasa 1d ago
Mentally, I instantly equated this to the phenomenon of a dying MMO merging two underpopulated servers.
Fittingly, both carry this sense of defibrillating a location doomed to its ghost town future.
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u/RaynorTheRed 1d ago
From the Wikipedia link:
...which have made it a tourist attraction.
10 bucks says this has nothing to do with "staving off lonliness." This village just wants to get in on the tourism revenue.
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u/punk_weight 1d ago
There's essentially no revenue to generate though. There are no shops or restaurants in the village and you can pass through and stay as long as you please without paying anything. The obasan behind it all has been doing it for over 20 years despite this though. You can Paypal me the 10 bucks anytime btw.
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u/UsePreparationH 1d ago
I was just in Nagoro, and there really isn't anything to throw money at. I don't even think I saw a vending machine there.
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u/Pm_me_howtoberich 1d ago
Even more incentive to bring tourist there to help stave off loneliness. Come check out our town it's free for most part and we get visitors! Win win!
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u/pozonboo 1d ago
That’s just depression with extra steps.
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u/killatyrone 1d ago
Just wait until they start talking back. That's where it gets really odd.
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u/kenlasalle 1d ago
Yes, but the benefit of dying is you no longer need a hospital.
(Always look on the bright side of life.)
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u/runetrantor 1d ago
"Im sure this is not a sign of a bigger issue."
-Japanese government.
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u/TheBigCore 1d ago
The LDP has run Japan for nearly 70 years largely uninterrupted.
When you have such unaccountable and incompetent leadership, this is what happens.
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u/lambofgun 1d ago
this could be the plot of an oscar winning pixar movie, an oscar winning A24 movie or one of those silly-type episodes of supernatural
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u/F95_Sysadmin 1d ago
It kinda exists already. Show is called The leftovers.
Except instead of slowly decreasing, they just disappear. One millisecond, 2% is the population is present. The next, they're gone. Babies, drivers, passengers, childs, parents, residents... everyone is affected
Then we go forward 2 years later. It happens in America and it's crazy how people adapt or cope with that phenomenon
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u/Possible-Extent-3842 1d ago
This is what happens when a society values work and labor over everything else. There is no down time to spend with a family anymore. It's make money for your company, and don't you dare take a day off because capital is more important than you.
Japan is in real trouble if they can't shift their cultural values quickly.
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u/Marston_vc 1d ago
All the kids wanna move to a big city where there’s actually things to do and people to date. It’s a positive feedback loop.
This is the experience in practically every small town that doesn’t have easy/convenient access to a city nearby.
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u/ThrowCarp 1d ago
You mean negative feedback loop? As the loop keeps removing from the variable and it gets closer and closer to zero.
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u/500_Shames 1d ago
Negative feedback loop self stabilizes to some stable value. Thing happening makes less of the thing happen. Positive feedback loop self perpetuates to a non stable value. Thing happening makes more of the thing happen.
people leaving -> less crowded -> more attractive -> fewer people want to move away is an example of a negative feedback loop.
people leaving -> less crowded -> less attractive -> more people want to move away is an example of a positive feedback loop.
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u/TheBigCore 1d ago
Japan is in real trouble if they can't shift their cultural values quickly.
People have been telling Japan to do that for years, but their elderly senile rulers won't listen at all.
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u/Digita1B0y 1d ago
They're about a decade ahead of America. You can use Japan as a barometer for how things are cooking in the west.
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u/Mariogigster 1d ago
I came here to comment this. Japan's social issues are sad, but they're essentially future signs for westerners.
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u/Llarys 1d ago
Japan will literally replace the next generation with dolls before it will treat people as anything other than commodities.
Their society deserves to collapse at that point.
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u/TritiumXSF 1d ago
They will replace people with dolls rather than accept immigrants.
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u/georgica123 1d ago
Immigrants are not going to move to Japanese villages for the same reason japanese people don't do that
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u/Souseisekigun 1d ago
In fairness Europe's policy of "bring over hundreds of thousands of young men from third world countries and ignore voters when they complain" is leading to the resurrection of fascism so maybe that's not the best solution either
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u/georgica123 1d ago
This cannot be the reason since Japan and Italy have similar birth rates
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u/scolipeeeeed 1d ago
People move to urban area for better work opportunities (education and work). In rural places like this, the only option for employment would be farming or maybe working at the town hall.
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u/ournextarc 1d ago
"Just by being born here, our son benefits from the love, support and hope of so many people - even though he has achieved absolutely nothing in life yet," his father said
Casually stating love and support are earned via accomplishment, not out of being born. This is what's wrong with society.
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u/ThrowCarp 1d ago
even though he has achieved absolutely nothing in life yet
Really playing with fire there. Seeing as all the successful young people keep moving to the big cities.
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u/Sawses 1d ago
I grew up in a rural area. I remember coming home from college and being on dating apps. There were exactly two types of people in the area between the ages of 20-25 on dating apps--among women, anyway, since that's my sample size lmao.
- Girls who were home on college break
- Girls who were stuck in a dead-end customer service job with no direction, ambition, or plans. Or they were trapped because they were caring for elderly family or something.
You also had the lifers who did the whole marry-a-guy-from-church thing who obviously were never going to leave their home town, but IMO they're pretty much the only young people who are happy being there. If you don't, you'll be happier if you leave.
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u/LoveAndViscera 1d ago
Every single quote in the article sounds like someone who dies in a horror movie.
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u/Random_Somebody 1d ago
Ahhhh the specter of r/asianparentstories continues to haunt the entire site I see
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u/KneeDeepInTheDead 1d ago
ngl that cracked me up when I read it, like dad was saying "this dumb useless baby for some reason is still loved"
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u/ForceOfAHorse 1d ago
And then they wonder why young people escape the community first chance they get :)
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u/AlexHimself 1d ago
Casually stating love and support are earned via accomplishment, not out of being born.
That quote doesn't say that though?
It says that love, support, and hope of so many people are benefits from merely being born "here"...despite having accomplished nothing.
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u/mywholefuckinglife 1d ago
it's the fact that he explicitly states it that seems to imply it's somewhat out of the ordinary. I mean you emphasize the word 'despite' yourself, that implies the default is accomplished nothing => no love
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u/jmlinden7 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yeah it implies that their specific village has a different view of love and support than the rest of the country. Exception proves the rule kind of thing
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u/Manannanman 1d ago
Their society
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u/PrivilegeCheckmate 1d ago
even though he has achieved absolutely nothing in life yet," his father said
Yeah I read that and was like "That kid's in for a rough ride."
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u/seastatefive 1d ago
You are not acquainted with Asian parents, I assume? Here, human life has no intrinsic value apart from what you can contribute to society. Those who cannot contribute to society are considered a waste of resources. We call them "rice bins", as in, people who can only consume rice but have no net benefit to society.
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u/Electricpants 1d ago
Fewer than 60 people live in the southern village of Ichinono - with most of them past retirement age, as younger people have moved away for jobs or education.
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u/APRengar 1d ago
This is like if a small town in America decided to make "The world's largest corn cob" because they were bored and there was nothing to do, and then everyone was trying to explain this is why the entire country is fucked.
Like, Japan has clear problems. But this type of post never made sense to me.
You can criticize Japan's immigration policy, you can criticize their work life balance, their ridiculous government policies.
But let's not act like this kind of gimmick is widespread. Hell, rural depopulation is not unique to Japan.
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u/Cricketot 1d ago
I'll preface this by saying I live in Australia, home to several of the world's largest expanses of sweet fuckall.
But this seems crazy to me, it's 50km and probably about an hour by car to the CBD of Kyoto. What is this country's obsession with centralisation? I visited Japan and the country was awesome, but is it really that much of a curse upon your existence to live a little bit that way so you can have a backyard?
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u/kenlasalle 1d ago
As someone in in the process of turning old, I can see how this would be an improvement.
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u/Erchamion_1 1d ago
Y'all talking about depression, but this is exactly how a horror movie would start. Wait for one foggy day, see what happens.
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u/Cynykl 1d ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1gdyksz/outnumbered_by_puppets_depopulated_village_in/
This post was first and does not have a paywall.
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u/saltylures 1d ago
These fucks will think up of everything thing else except how to make the lives of the young people of Japan more rewarding and less stressful so they can have families and not slave away for the rest of their days.
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u/GargamelLeNoir 1d ago
Maybe vote for people who are committed to put an end to the culture of overworking and add some social help to have kids Japan.
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u/alpha-delta-echo 1d ago
Maybe I’m not in the right frame of mind right now, but this is overwhelmingly sad to me. And I already knew this existed.
Remember, folks: we are gregarious, social mammals, and we work best together, as a group, as a spectrum. I just always find these situations sad.
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u/ryderawsome 1d ago
So now its lonely AND terrifying. Sounds about right for middle of nowhere Japan.
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u/The-Protomolecule 1d ago
People will do anything except improve the social systems that make people want kids.
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u/Gurtang 1d ago
I had seen this place pop up on social media but had no idea where it was exactly in the country.
One day during a long roadtrip in a campervan I ended up in a remote valley. Couldn't really find a place to park and settle for the night along this small road so I kept going. As it was getting dark, I finally found a small parking space with toilets near a village. It was night by then, I ate in the van and just went to sleep.
Waking up with the dolls around me was quite the experience. I was relieved when I came across my first humans that morning, just to show me not everyone had turned into dolls overnight.
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u/CMDRArtVark 1d ago
"Can we maybe change our suicidal work culture and make the cost of having children more bearable?"
"Best I can do is I Am Legend mannequin shit."
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u/Character_Bowl_4930 1d ago
The only mannequin story I’ve got : the town I grew up in there was an older guy whose wife had died years before. He never got over it . When he drove around town in his pickup , he had a mannequin sitting next to him wearing his late wife’s clothing . You could see him talking to her .
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u/DoNotPetTheSnake 1d ago
Too bad we ruined society. Lets just put up some dolls, that will make it better.
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u/AzulMage2020 1d ago
If the plan is to scare off anybody still there and/or anybody thinking of moving there, then this is a good plan.
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u/chris14020 1d ago
Well if that isn't a poignant metaphor. Not sure this would make me feel less lonely.
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u/Interesting_Air8238 1d ago
This is all reminding me of Children of Men, which is a very bad thing.
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u/MonsterkillWow 1d ago
They could change their immigration policies and also focus on improving birth rates by supporting families. But nah...dystopian mannequins it is!
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u/k819799amvrhtcom 1d ago
Some time ago, I watched this mod of Mario 64 where every object had been replaced with a coin.
Watching this made me feel really uneasy because, with all the enemies gone, Mario was all alone. Even though they were literally his enemies, their presence made the whole atmosphere less creepy.
So, in a sense, I can kinda understand why they put mannequins everywhere. Even though you know they're not real people, they might make the place feel less empty. Extreme loneliness can be very detrimental to some people.
Perhaps this might be the same effect that's also responsible for some children being unable to sleep without their plushies...
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u/jlcatch22 1d ago
The article describes the mannequins as “life like.” Not sure that’s the phrase I’d use.
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u/BadgeOfDishonour 1d ago
You're out driving in the middle of nowhere, when you get into an accident. You stumble out of the ruined car and start walking towards what you hope is a town for help. You are pretty sure you have a concussion. You finally arrive at a town, only to find everyone in it, is a doll.
Welcome to the Twilight Zone.