Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#261

Post by vkou » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 8:58 PM UTC

MagnumOpus wrote: post #243

vkou wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of your examples further proves my point - nobody can categorize Taiwan as a high-cohesion, high-trust society, despite not having a 1966 moment. The other's not a very close parallel. Korea was under Japanese occupation in that same time period, which was no picnic, but it at least had a functional, centralized government, and at least, was not an active warzone through most of it. (It is more similar to post-wa…

> nobody can categorize Taiwan as a high-cohesion, high-trust society Having done business in both, it is an order of magnitude better than mainland China, both in terms of civil society (helping out strangers, littering, tax dodging etc) and in terms of larger-scale trust issues (prevalence of fraud). Same goes for Korea. (As for Korea not being an active war zone and having a functional centralized government in WW…

> Having done business in both, it is an order of magnitude better than mainland China, both in terms of civil society (helping out strangers, littering, tax dodging etc)

Your personal anecdotal experience does necessarilly agree with the statistics. There's a difference, but not an order of magnitude one.

According to the corruption perception index, Japan is at 73, the US is at 71, Taiwan at 63, Korea is at 57, India is at 41, China is at 39, and the Phillipines are at 37. Neither India, nor the Phillipines had a 1966 moment, if I may point out.

According to trust polling, people in China trust their peers, and businesses more than in most other countries, but I'd assume you would want to dismiss that result.

I can't think of a good objective proxy besides those two. Do you know of one?

> As for Korea not being an active war zone and having a functional centralized government in WW2... the Korean War put paid to that pretty quickly.

The Korean war lasted 3 years, and was largely a proxy conflict, with clearly-defined sides, largely made up of foreign armies.

The Chinese civil war lasted 30, without anyone having a clear understanding of who the enemy was.

It's like saying "The United States had a civil war, and it's now fine!" There's more than an order of magnitude difference in the cultural trauma of a war that lasts a few years, and one that lasts an entire generation.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#262

Post by FriendlyNormie » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 9:35 PM UTC

baddox wrote: post #121

Reedx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We tend to underestimate the effect culture can have. It's also why the Japanese don't litter their cities, despite few garbage bins. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/07/why-japanese-dont-lit...

I wouldn't underestimate the effect of culture, I would just tend to assume that something about Japan has caused its culture, rather than culture itself being a primary cause of attitudes towards lost property. In other words, I wouldn't consider "it's just their culture to respect lost property" a useful explanation.

I suppose you’re being downvoted because you’re seemingly hinting at genes having an effect on one’s behavior rather than just their cosmetic traits.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#263

Post by magduf » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #260

magduf wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I speak Japanese, have spent a lot of time in the country, and have a great admiration for its people, but about the last thing I’d express any admiration for are its politics and media. While the media might not be great, at least the politicians, right-wing as they may be, actually seem to be trying to do things to improve the country, and even pushing some relatively progressive ideas (for instance, they're pushi…

Abe has a good PR team pushing this narrative abroad, but it doesn’t map to the material reality of most women. While female labor force participation rates are up, most women are locked into lower-level positions with bad wages and little hope of advancement. Likewise, women still face a level of misogyny in Japan that is truly unimaginable to most Americans. This has been led in no small part by Abe and the LDP, wh…

>Abe has a good PR team pushing this narrative abroad

>While female labor force participation rates are up, most women are locked into lower-level positions with bad wages and little hope of advancement.

How is that the government's fault? That sounds like a problem at the corporations. In any democratic country, the government only has so much power over the personnel decisions of companies. You can argue they should have more regulation, but how exactly do you force companies to promote more women into the executive ranks without having the government basically take over the corporations (which reeks of authoritarianism)?

>This has been led in no small part by Abe and the LDP, who insist on the enforcement of absolutely regressive social mores.

Examples?

>Most recently, they vehemently opposed women being allowed to keep their own last names upon marriage.

Did they succeed?

As for misogyny and Americans, is Japan trying to ban abortion? They most certainly are in America, and it's quite possible it'll happen to some extent thanks to Trump's SCOTUS appointees.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#264

Post by catalogia » Thu, Jan 16, 2020, 11:40 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #248

catalogia wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Seattle where it rains frequently but lightly, you really don't need an umbrella. But in places where it rains hard , umbrellas become a lot more desirable. A waterproof rain jacket won't help much in a torrential downpour. Maybe with a waterproof wide-brimmed hat as well, but chances are you'll still get drenched without an umbrella. To put some numbers on it for perspective: Seattle is infamous for rain, but onl…

>To put some numbers on it for perspective: Seattle is infamous for rain, but only averages 38 inches of rain per year. I wonder if it has to do with duration vs. intensity. Long periods of drizzle might not be nearly as much total rainfall as short periods of downpour. From what I've seen of the PNW on my few trips there, it seems to drizzle a lot.

Yes, that's precisely the case. Seattle is perceived as very rainy because it's very often rainy. But rarely does it rain hard. Usually it drizzles so light it won't even mess up your hair.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#265

Post by disbshdns » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

cosmodisk wrote: post #230

disbshdns wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find ppl who wear rain jackets smell (and look goofy)

Do they smell like rain?

No, BO. Anyway a astringent acidic smell. Like lactic acid.

I have a sensitive nose, and my office mate bikes into work 7 mi through hills in any type of weather. Good for him.

But, if he had to wear his rain coat, he smells. Even after he showers and keeps his gear in the lockers.

It’s nauseating.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#266

Post by viburnum » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 5:32 AM UTC

magduf wrote: post #255

viburnum wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the police boxes. When I was in Japan the officers helped me a lot with directions and reading maps.

That's totally different from America, where police will get pissed and yell at you to get lost if you ask them for directions. (Speaking from personal experience)

I know! I didn’t even have to ask for help in Japan. I think seeing a tourist holding a map is all they need to spring into action. Gotta keep those tourists out of trouble.

I like how police officers in other countries look like normal humans and not stormtroopers. Makes me feel safe.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#267

Post by washadjeffmad » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 1:10 PM UTC

drdeadringer wrote: post #31

duxup wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a good blog post about a guy living in Japan. Here he was in this clean and crime free place, but his bicycle kept getting trashed overnight. Just his bike parked in a sea of other bikes. He thought it was because he was a foreigner, but finally after he reported it to the police numerous times someone explained the phrase "The nail that sticks out gets knocked down." and pointed out the bikes he was buying…

> "The nail that sticks out gets knocked down." Ever since I first heard this I've kept both this phrase and the phrase "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" in mind at the same time. Basically, both sides of this coin together ask you "should you speak up?" type of thing; substitute "speak up" with whatever the given situation is.

I typically follow that with a warning that the wheel that squeaks too much or too loudly gets replaced. A personal lesson on appeasement or the value of conformity, I suppose.

And in Japanese there are a plenitude of idioms about not standing out. The high post gets hammered down, the tall flower gets pruned, and the speeding car gets stopped are others I've encountered.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#268

Post by FriendlyNormie » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 1:51 PM UTC

zuminator wrote: post #155

TomMarius wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the address I saw that the owner lived in my neighborhood Probably went on his foot

Since they sent me a Xmas card, I reciprocated in kind, also enclosing the gift card with a note apologizing but asking that they give it to a needy person at their church during the holiday season. (They had also sent me an invitation to attend services.) So no additional postage needed.

You could have just given it to a needy person yourself.

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#269

Post by FriendlyNormie » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #59

zebnyc wrote: post #27

Honest question: Do folks feel warm fuzzies when they do something "good / +ve"? Frankly unless I went out of my way to do something significant, I don't feel anything. Asking as there might be some of that going on here. For e.g., around Christmas here in SF, I was a at a shopping mall parking lot waiting for my wife to return. I noticed a man counting a few bills of cash. He counted and then turned to head to his c…

Likely a few dollars means nothing to you so the act of pointing the nearly lost dollars is a similar small task (not withstanding the possibility the act could have a profound effect on the recipient depending on their situation). When I was younger and we were struggling hard, we found a wallet in a store loaded with green bills. That money would have had immediate, real, positive impact for us, like gas money and…

Why did you give the wallet to a random person you had no reason to trust when you could have looked at the address on the ID in the wallet and taken it there yourself?

Re: Why Japan is so successful at returning lost property

#270

Post by banmeagaindan2 » Fri, Jan 17, 2020, 4:10 PM UTC

spats1990 wrote: post #228

rsmckinney wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s more to do with the purity of their culture resulting from low immigration which fosters a high level of mutual trust. Invariably immigration corrupts the hosting nation’s culture with trust absorbing the initial impact.

"purity" is an odd word choice there when "homogeneity" or perhaps more neutrally "uniformity" are equally accurate. more broadly, when i see/hear this line deployed by westerners in regard to certain east asian countries, I always wonder if such westerners think such statements are generalisable to other nations, or if they have considered whether other specific cultural factors than uniformity are in play and causi…

> It's my view that, other factors disregarded, having fewer cultural/ethnic outgroups does not magically result in higher levels of mutual trust in a society.

This is a classic scissor statement to use SlateStarCodex lingo.