What's the alternative?[0]

Remember that burning desire to spend time with random elderly people when you were 14?

Yeah, neither do I.

[0]I actually know of one, since I'm Russian.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timur_and_His_Squad

The problem I see with that is it's artificial.

Again, remember that burning desire to spend time with random elderly people when you were 14?

People did it to essentially earn social points and feel good about themselves, when you're a child - to get adults to praise you in exchange for some liberties, like breaking a curfew a bit.

My point is, I don't think Capitalism is the problem here.

I don't have that much trouble believing boy scouts could have been the American "Timur and his squad" in 1940.

You read that entire article and this is what you took away?

The situation is far more complex than that. Japan is facing a very real crisis, and the causes are not limited to its adoption of capitalism following WWII.

We're encouraged in capitalism to spend our limited time developing networks and connections with people who can benefit us financially or career wise. A true capitalistic value system considers it a waste of time to pursue relationships with simply interesting people with mostly non-capitalizable quality's like good sense of humor, compassion, storytelling...etc. reply.

You get what you value.

And keeping in mind that both the USA and Japan have hybrid economic systems rather than pure capitalism implementations, you must be talking about an abstract concept rather than a real-world system.

Regardless, the article was not about the effects of capitalism, but rather about desocialization and abandonment of the elderly population in one class of Japan. This is not caused by capitalism alone, though capitalistic systems played a part.

That's not capitalism unless the people making emotional investments are doing so strictly for monetary gain, which doesn't appear to be supported by the article.

We're encouraged in capitalism to spend our limited time developing networks and connections with people who can benefit us financially or career wise. A true capitalistic value system considers it a waste of time to pursue relationships with simply interesting people with mostly non-capitalizable quality's like good sense of humor, compassion, storytelling...etc. reply.

The point of the article is that no one is making emotional investments in these people.

But we don't live in a "true" capitalistic value system, and most people don't approach their relationships in the game-theoretic way you're describing. So while you're correct about the point of the article, I think you're overstating the influence of capitalist ideology in the general case of human relationships.

Also, pasting the same comment in the thread several times makes it seem as if you don't actually care to respond to what other posters are saying, you just want to spam your thoughts.

Have you ever spoken to somebody who actually lived under a different system? You will not like what they tell you.

I love capitalism. Unregulated capitalism like in America is a dystopic nightmare for many people.

American capitalism is regulated. Not as regulated as other capitalist systems, but calling it "unregulated" is simply incorrect.

And capitalism in Japan isn't the same flavor of capitalism in the US, and wouldn't necessarily have the same societal weight in context.

Maybe the Northern European approaches are a little kinder to the human condition?

It's been that way since forever, regardless capitalism or not.

I can't believe that. Elders and their wisdom used to be highly valued in Japan pre-capitalism.

Is this really unique to capitalism?

> People spend time with people who provide the most value to their lives.

Wow, people are brutal when they are given free will! Looks like this "free will" is a brutal, evil thing.

Yes, that's one of the central moral questions which Christian and other thinkers have wrestled with over the centuries.

Thankfully, now we can blame all those evils on "capitalism" instead.

We blame it for the weather; why not everything else as well?

We're encouraged in capitalism to spend our limited time developing networks and connections with people who can benefit us financially or career wise.

A true capitalistic value system considers it a waste of time to pursue relationships with simply interesting people with mostly non-capitalizable quality's like good sense of humor, compassion, storytelling...etc.

> true capitalistic value system

Only exists for capitalistic entities, like companies. There's no "capitalistic value system" for a human - capitalist society gives you freedom to decide what your value system is on your own.