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Comment by yarou | Hacker News Reader

I actually don't find this story all too surprising. What really irked me was the piece on how Japan commodified various aspects of a relationship (i.e. "cuddle cafes"[0], those bar/club places where people pay top dollar to tell their problems to complete strangers). Maybe this is the logical "next step" of human relationships; however, such a conclusion is thoroughly disheartening.

[0]http://www.vice.com/the-vice-guide-to-travel/the-japanese-lo...

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> where people pay top dollar to tell their problems to complete strangers

In a way that is what often happens in therapy too. (Of course therapists tend to have training)

And, well, in a lot of cases psychological training is absolutely needed!

> places where people pay top dollar to tell their problems to complete strangers

Isn't this what bartenders are for?

> Maybe this is the logical "next step" of human relationships

It might be a logical one, but it's not one we ought to aim for. There's a weak, but building movement going on trying to push us in a different direction. See stuff like Jeremy Rifkin's RSA talk or Enrique Peñalosa's TED talk. I'm sorry about the vagueness, but I'm having trouble coming up with a way to summarize it usefully. =/

It might be a logical one, but it's not one we ought to aim for

I'm also not convinced, for reasons related to Coase's "The Nature of the Firm" that I describe in more detail here: http://jseliger.wordpress.com/2012/08/25/an-economic-model-o... . The short version is that people reap efficiency gains from not having to negotiate every interaction, which probably points to ongoing couple / small group formation.

I think fundamentally, people are growing more lonely as we shift from the purely physical realm into the abstract world of the web. You have startups like Grouper trying to solve loneliness, but in reality they may even be exacerbating it. We all get a little lonely sometimes, and I don't think there's a viable substitute to physically meeting someone. Barring a fundamental change in our brain chemistry.

Which is why I reference movements like the one Peñalosa is part of. (I don't have enough easy references.) It isn't something that can be well-answered by startups. Profit motive defines the shift from the purely physical realm into the abstract world. That's what money is: it abstracts trust and makes it less necessary. It makes us more efficient for the price of less effort spent on trust.

The answer isn't to remove money but rather to provide money-less connection points. Create debts that aren't monetary but personal and non-transferable. Talk to people for no better reason than to get to know them. Find out what makes them tick and what would make them happy. That kind of thing. It's... complex.

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