Sorta related:
Honesty Boxes in Scotland (2024) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44824684 - Aug 2025 (59 comments)
Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
31–40 of 108 posts
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
And a 99.8% conviction rate.
It's a different system, they don't go to court without iron-clad case. Japan does not have a large prison population.
And they heavily influence (using pressure such as off-the-record interviews, and long detention times during the investigations) the suspect's statements so that it says what they need to make it a crime, even when it isn't.
Whatever the suspect may say afterwards, they just have to point out to the signed statement and say "but here you confessed".
Source: I have been directly living such occurrence lol.
That's what has been coined the "hostage justice" of Japan (referring in particular to the "long detention times during investigations" part above).
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#33Japan is obviously a "high trust" society, so I feel like this experiment will work. I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society.
High trust environments tend to crumble in society when you allow too much immigration. Japan’s xenophobia has worked well in this regard.
Also depends on type though. I’ve seen honesty boxes work out fine where the immigration consists mostly of professionals.
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#34What the article doesn't mention but the store's website https://tot-go12.com/ does is that you need to pass through facial recognition to enter the store and there are multiple cameras tracking whether you try to leave without paying. (Maybe like Amazon Checkout where there's humans continuously monitoring the video feed.)
"High trust society" or not, you need some minimum level of security to avoid becoming a honeypot for all the less-trustworthy individuals that exist in any society. Maybe the highest trust here is in the police actually showing up and doing something about it when they report a theft.
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
High trust environments tend to crumble in society when you allow too much immigration. Japan’s xenophobia has worked well in this regard.
Switzerland is a diverse society with lots of immigration and it is also a high-trust society
Switzerland is so small, basically a city.
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#36Even shops with security guards dont work in the UK at the moment. It's a shame this could never be a thing here.
As a counter point, when I came to UK, it was super weird to see self checkout machines. Where I am from (Pakistan), I can't imagine anything like that. Although watched a video recently where in a rural area a guy left a cart of fruits on the side of road for people to buy the fruits and pay by themselves, at the end of the day cash was just little bit less than total amount.
These machines in UK felt like I was being trusted to pick items myself, and pay myself and I shouldn't break that trust.
Ironically I don't see these self checkout machines in Indian/Turkish/Kurdish etc super stores. In-fact, those stores trust there customers even less, they would ask you to leave your bags/trolleys at the door.
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#37What the article doesn't mention but the store's website https://tot-go12.com/ does is that you need to pass through facial recognition to enter the store and there are multiple cameras tracking whether you try to leave without paying. (Maybe like Amazon Checkout where there's humans continuously monitoring the video feed.) "High trust society" or not, you need some minimum level of security to avoid becoming a honey…
> the police actually showing up and doing something about it when they report a theft.
That and this whole concept can only happen in places with low criminality. In Thailand I occasionally find small shops that have a CCTV and that's it (but the total value of goods on display likely does not exceed $100)
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#38[dead]
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#39Japan is obviously a "high trust" society, so I feel like this experiment will work. I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society.
> I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society. I’d rather we had a way to change low trust societies into high trust.
If there are consequences to bad behavior which results in real, felt, shame, then society will self-police to whatever values it holds. However, there can be downsides; for instance a lack of out-of-the-box thinking and individuality.
Re: Tokyo has an unmanned, honor-system electronics and appliance shop
#40Japan is obviously a "high trust" society, so I feel like this experiment will work. I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society.
> I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society. I’d rather we had a way to change low trust societies into high trust.
After traveling for years, I often wonder how various cultures end up high or low trust. Wealth or financial inequality doesn't seem to be the main driving factor, despite seeming an obvious cause. Racial and ethnic homogeneity doesn't always explain it either.
Destruction of traditional culture by things like colonialism seems to be an important factor.