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TatsuGero23 wrote:

DomFortress wrote:

But when their job as AKB48 sacrificed their personal lives in order to sustain an entertainment industry, I can't help but to feel sorry for them. And it's because I became an amateur social scientist due to my passion for social works, that allowed me to understand how and why I felt this way about them.

Then my problem comes from that your drawing way to definite of a conclusion of pity for them without learning more about them in terms of its organization and operations; leaning more towards an opinion then a subpar sociologic analysis. To jump to the point of pity when its only seems to be based on this one international press interview, and probably mounds of TV and movie stereotypes and impressions collected passively throughout life, is definitely flawed and poor science in general. Even on an amatuer level.

Truthiness (basically that gut feeling of what's true or not developed through a mix of experience, facts, and personal morales) works from an opinionated, or argument/counter argument stance, but it has no place in science or scientific studies (at least not in its truest form); whether professional, amatuer, or casual. It's fine to be passionate about this, but you have to remember to approach from an unbiase point of view or you risk effecting the results of your study or analysis and to avoid such foregone personal stances of pity, thrill, admiration or whatever when analyzing or explaining one's idea or thesis. You also better not be approaching things with the "If you can't prove it, it must not exist" mindset people tend to develop after a few weeks of high school science. That's flawed science and a horrible mindset to have when dealing with such a varying subject structure like psychology or studies of the society and humanity.

It's so typical for people to base on something out of content, while not able to understand the rest. Thereby claiming "If you can't prove it, it must not exist".

I understand the entertainment industry far greater than you can imagine, when I actually have one family relative who's a senior member of production team of Taiwanese radio industry, another in the underground, indie, and folk music industry, one's a novelist, and another in the Japanese media publishing industry. I've also came across inspiring singers and actors through my dealings with my local community. And that's how I came to know exactly what's like in an idol group, when one of my closest friend back in high school couldn't stand being handled as just another image product.

Observational science is just what it is, you base your observations on the data that you collected. So what's to say that when you're observing people's thoughts and feelings, and in order for you to understand these sensory data you need to rely on your own experiences and empathy. After all, people are individuals when they have their own original thoughts and feelings, they are not objects and statistics. I felt nothing towards AKB48 just by me not knowing who they are as individuals of a group. But now that I've read their own thoughts and feelings regarding their group, I feel sorry for them because I understand what they're talking about with their thoughts and feelings responding to my experiences and empathy.

And finally, don't get pity mixed up with feeling sorry. When "pity makes suffering contagious", and I don't pity them when I know I'm better than that. In a sense that I know what I want to do, while they don't even know that for themselves.

DomFortress: Alright I'll conside to that in part. I wanna expand on this but I'll just PM you instead cause its getting kind of dumb discussing scientific structures and approaches in a topic for a J-Pop group. I'll get back to you later.