Hood life
Robin Hood has come to Japan; but don't worry- he's working on a strictly opt in basis.
HoodLife (Fuudo Seikatsu) is a new phone application targeting the super rich, a demographic studies have shown to have a burning desire to help their less fortunate compatriots, but whose distrust of existing charity organizations is legendary.
The application links an individual's phone number to their bank account, and automatically gives a set amount (1000￥ ($10) upwards) to people they pass in the streets whose accounts are below a certain threshold. The application scans a 200 meter radius, uses the phone numbers of strangers to send encoded requests to banks, and makes the automatic transactions to the people whose accounts are below the selected threshold. Instead of draining the donors account, the application automatically stops paying out after a certain monthly limit is reached.
Japan is the perfect place for this to work. A trust culture, high levels of technology (even the poor at least have a basic mobile and one's phone number is linked to most personal info, including bank details) and a surprisingly co-operative banking system render the application deeply convenient.
Kenji Fukushima, original designer of the now highly lucrative application says the appeal is based on what he calls "intimate activism".
"You help an organization helping the poor and you never know who benefits. You use this and you know, every person you help is someone you have passed on the street. They are more than numbers: they are real people."
Family man Taro Fukuda has been out of work for over three months. He describes his surprise at coming home from job hunting to find an additional 10,000 yen (around 100 dollars) in his account.
"I rang the bank as I was afraid there was a mistake. However, they quickly explained to me what had happened.
'The money was a great help, but much better was finding out there was somebody out there who cared for my suffering. That has given me strength and resilience to carry on."
The application is tentatively scheduled for some kind of Western release in 2018.
That's fairly amazing.
But then again, so is the Japanese sense of social solidarity. I'm not sure I see it flying over here.
Also, it would be really, REALLY easy to set up an empty bank account, while allowing all your earnings to go into another one entirely.
A friend of mine is living out in Japan as a translator. I'll have to pass this on to her.
Japan has a lot of fairly huge social problems (chief one driving her crazy; massive, obvious and open racism and sexism), but it must be said that greed isn't one of them.
Sorry, I was a bit of a jackass by not making it more obvious; I wrote the article (meant to ad a disclaimer). I was just playing with some ideas.
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on September 15, 2011, 02:13:31 PM
A friend of mine is living out in Japan as a translator. I'll have to pass this on to her.
Japan has a lot of fairly huge social problems (chief one driving her crazy; massive, obvious and open racism and sexism), but it must be said that greed isn't one of them.
I never felt like I was a target of racism.
But for women, yeah, not an easy place to be. Also, that might tie into the race thing; the attitude is that foreign women are great for a bit of fun, before you buckle down and get a sensible Japanese wife.
:argh!:
Now you need get someone to code it.
Quote from: Placid Dingo on September 15, 2011, 02:50:45 PM
But for women, yeah, not an easy place to be. Also, that might tie into the race thing; the attitude is that foreign women are great for a bit of fun, before you buckle down and get a sensible Japanese wife.
Here, women use Italian men that way. :lulz:
also :argh!:
She works as a freelance translator in a large business park, and she constantly has people discussing her in racist terms (can't remember the exact words used; but the equivalent of 'stupid dumb white girl') on the assumption that she can't understand them. She got a bit more respect when she didn't flee during the nuclear disaster, but that has now worn off, apparently.
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on September 15, 2011, 02:53:11 PM
also :argh!:
She works as a freelance translator in a large business park, and she constantly has people discussing her in racist terms (can't remember the exact words used; but the equivalent of 'stupid dumb white girl') on the assumption that she can't understand them. She got a bit more respect when she didn't flee during the nuclear disaster, but that has now worn off, apparently.
Possibly this is gaijin; there's massive debate about the term; I use it myself but other people are super offended.
That said if she's a translate her language level would be way above mine.
Quote from: Cain on September 15, 2011, 02:50:46 PM
:argh!:
Now you need get someone to code it.
That would be very cool.
As I exaggerated Japan's technology though, any form of this ap would actually require the poorest people in Japan to have smart phones.
Yeah, I remember it isn't gaijin... because that is essentially the only way to say 'foreigner' (and that is my complete recollection of everything I've been told about Japanese).
I'll try and remember to ask her if you are curious. :p
Quote from: Demolition_Squid on September 15, 2011, 02:58:38 PM
Yeah, I remember it isn't gaijin... because that is essentially the only way to say 'foreigner' (and that is my complete recollection of everything I've been told about Japanese).
I'll try and remember to ask her if you are curious. :p
Thanks, I am.
:ragemirth:
This is great even if I don't see what shenanigans it's going to be used for.
Just spitting it out of my brain basically.
Though if anyone's doing the Adam Weishaupt thing or similar, it's all yours.
Quote from: Doktor Howl on September 15, 2011, 02:51:32 PM
Quote from: Placid Dingo on September 15, 2011, 02:50:45 PM
But for women, yeah, not an easy place to be. Also, that might tie into the race thing; the attitude is that foreign women are great for a bit of fun, before you buckle down and get a sensible Japanese wife.
Here, women use Italian men that way. :lulz:
I'm not allowed to marry an Italian or any other man of a Romance/Latin persuasion ever again, ya know. My Irish mother forbids it.
-Suu
Oarstroker is half Italian and half Swedish. Fortunately Sweden makes the good kind of porn. See what porn Japan makes?
(http://i.imgur.com/LsBmC.jpg)
Read this, then the next image I saw was this:
(http://i.imgur.com/Eay7O.jpg)
you crazy cresser you
:mittens: to the piece, I like it.. it forces us to visualize that kind of radical altruism, however impossible it may be ... which in itself leads to some interesting questions
That was a really good piece.
Thanks, Nigel, Cram.
The thing is, I really don't know just how impossible this really is. I get the feeling in five years, something along these lines should be totally possible.
you think so?
I think that it doesn't present a good enough reward for the donor.
People give to charities because they like that warm tingle. They are helping out some starving kids somewhere. Or some cause they think is critical to fix the world.
Here, you don't actually make the choice to donate to the person in question, so you won't feel too much responsibility for that decision, hence less warm tingle
furthermore, the recipient might not be the most deserving person. I mean, imagine if you hear the little chirp which means you just donated ten bucks to somebody, and on the corner ahead of you, some tweaker or crack head is holding a blackberry and is dancing in the street. I think most rich people would probably turn off the app at that point.
But that's where the cultural difference issue comes into play. Obviously Japan is probably the best place to do this...but America? Fuck no. First you would have to convince the rich to even part with $10 if they bitch about paying taxes, and the odds of it going to some sort of a crackhead, or worse, a con artist, are much greater.