Today's video is brought to you by a donation from Brian. And he didn't give me a specific subject so I'm going to cover the Japanese phenomena known as Hikikomori. These are individuals that stay in their family homes for many years, sometimes decades and they never leave their homes. And more specifically they never leave their bedrooms. Instead their parents leave them food at the door and they sneak out to use the bathroom. They are people seemingly caught up in a perpetual adolescence without end. In a few decades the hikikomori could even outnumber the number of men in the US Prison system. Actually I made that statistic up but the Japanese government estimates that there could be well over half a million to seven hundred people in Japan living hikikomori. Scientists in the country are frantic to figure out what causes men to shut themselves into a tiny room and never interact with anyone. They say it comes from the rejection by lovers or from some sort of childhood trauma. Japanese experts are trying to rationalize a perfectly natural behavior that's often found in the mouse utopia experiments. This is just a side effect of over crowded conditions and an economic and social system where the young people don't have enough social space to make a mark on a society. Did everyone expect the baby boomers to stay in their jobs until they died without any consequences. Today I heard that seventy three percent of Canadians plan to keep working past the age of sixty six. That's three quarters of wrinklies in diapers going to work. Time to buy stock up on depends and poly-dent. But seriously in the mouse utopia experiments, the ones created by John Kalhoun the mice that became reclusive and pulled out of society like the Hikikomori did so because they didn't have the ability to access social space. And today the boomer generation is doing the same thing to the millennial generation they are taking opportunities away from the young and then wondering why they aren't leaving their bedrooms or their mothers basement. I wouldn't be surprised if those guys in their mothers basements aren't a permanent fixture for our society. And in the coming decades they will never leave those basements and get everything delivered to them when their parents die. Perhaps they will just rent the upstairs and continue to pay the bills with
the money they collect from the rent? I know one guy from high school, his parents died and he and his sister still live in the parental house. I ran into him a while later and he was working at the local Costco. He told me came into some real estate. Apparently his parents died and left him the house and he still lives there and is almost forty years old. He seemed happy when he told me but it looked like he was stuck in perpetual adolescence like the Hikikomori. This was in a suburban neighborhood in Toronto.
The Fight to Save Japan’s Young Shut-Ins
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fight...
Experts Stumped by 1M Young Japanese Unable to Go Out
http://www.newser.com/story/201861/ex...
BBC World News - Hikikomori in Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr5y1...
10 pictures paid for and licensed through BigStock.com (In order of appearance)
1. nilayaji - Young samurai women with Japanese sword(Katana) at sunset on the beach
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-54...
2. Zinkevych - Japanese woman with katana
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-81...
3. Elnur - Man with sword and face mask
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-62...
4. Elnur - Businessman with sword on white
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-77...
5. chaoss - Young Japanese Woman With Samurai Sword
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-75...
6. agencyby - Close up of kendoka training with shinai. Concept of Asian martial arts
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-41...
7. Elnur - Businessman with sword isolated on white
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-74...
8. Katalinks - Ninja In Black Mask
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-42...
9. Elnur - Man with sword and face mask
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-63...
10. oorka - Ilustration of ancient japanese scene and samurai silhouettes
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/image-47...
