
A Woman Who Makes Prosthetic Pinkies for Ex-Yakuza Members - mhb
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-woman-who-makes-prosthetic-pinkies-for-ex-yakuza-members
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mmcconnell1618
From the article: 45% of members have at least one part of a digit amputated.
Those are probably not stats they tell you on recruitment day!

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dclowd9901
It also seems a bit of a defeating cycle. If you lose part of your pinky, you
are, almost by definition, less effective than you were before (with the
exception of maybe running), thus leading you to make more mistakes.

I get tradition, but you have to wonder if 45% of your people are operating at
99% of their capability, that's quite a bit of lost manpower.

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GSimon
That's one way to look at it. You could also see it as 45% of your workforce
has now a much greater difficulty finding a normal job because of this now
visible gang affiliation. Those 45% have less options to make a traditional
living which increases their reliance on the Yakuza.

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justinclift
That lady would certainly have a lot of interesting people owing her favours.
;)

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jorgecurio
so most of these pinkies are cut by the yakuza members by themselves after
some offense. Like one guy got drunk driving his boss's car alone and crashed
it.

Considering how much the Yakuza pulls in (billions), I'd thought they could
write it off as a business expense. But nope, the young Yakuza employee had to
cut off his finger and exit the company. No severance or pensions or benefits.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmp8_PAej3c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmp8_PAej3c)

I think that in some ways this is actually very effective because instead of
killing your underlings for fucking up or offending you, you have them
mutilate a part of them but little at a time to not ruin their productivity or
affect their job. Which explains why ex-Yakuzas have different digit count...

And let's face it their industry is largely underground with no enforcement
from the government due to being declared illegal. Nobody would do their jobs
seriously if there wasn't some kind of morbid air of fear in the work
atmosphere. Your underlings wouldn't take your orders etc. Killing them is
tough because recruitment is much tougher in Japan, unlike America where gangs
thrive. Young people in Japan are starting their own gangs now and don't like
the rigid culture of the Yakuza.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_ICAAFoiM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw_ICAAFoiM)

Imagine if your startup made a policy that you had to pay $1000 in cash each
time you made a mistake, how scary is that?

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hguant
The interesting thing about the yakuza is that, in Japan, they're not actually
illegal. The activities they partake in are, but actually being a yakuza
member isn't a crime.

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jorgecurio
they are cracking down on it now I think with the equivalent of RICO act
making it easier for police to search yakuzas...but face it, Japanese police
are more on the quirky side and yakuzas seem to not take them seriously and
harassing them.

[http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/japanese-robocop-
tra...](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/japanese-robocop-train-bosses-
recruit-3181592)

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kazinator
How are pinkies not "regular prosthetics"? Yakuza ex-members are just humans.

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jefurii
These might be good for Emacs users too.

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pvaldes
Nah, I'm naturally growing an extra pinky for pinky-mode.

Hum, that makes me think about some interesting ideas. Would be needed a
frodo-mode in emacs for disabled people? Can you still be efficient with a
computer with a fake finger?

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fennecfoxen
Real emacs power-users can also consider _foot-pedals_.

(No, I'm not joking.)

