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Comment by franciscop | Hacker News Reader

I have been in Japan for about 1 year and here it's taken to the extreme.

Japanese people leave the bags and phones unattended on the table to reserve the seat while going to the other floor of the starbucks to order. Being from Spain, this is crazy. But it does encourage better behaviour and positive thinking.

There was a theory about broken windows, so I assume the opposite also happens: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory

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Robert Putnam's research on trust and diversity:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Putnam#Diversity_and...

Japan's backward immigration policies may change:

http://www.japantoday.com/category/kuchikomi/view/ready-or-n...

Migration isn't THAT bad. They aren't out to get you. It's a bit paperwork intensive though for sure. We do a lot of business in japan so we just incorporated a subsidiary there. Email's in profile if you're curious.

There is nothing really backward about Japan s emigration policies unless you think they should be letting just anyone in.

That's actually 1 of my favorite parts of living in Tokyo.

It makes me think of how many things have been ruined because of "the 1 event that ruined it for everyone else"

A lot of things are more relaxed because people actually DO follow the rules. It's kinda nice after being in SF for a long time...

I was amazed when seeing the same thing in Tokyo. One of our group left their camera on a bench outside of a site we were seeing. It was at least a half hour or more before we realized it, and the camera was still sitting right where the person left it.

Yep, saw that too in Japan. People leaving their cell phones to "reserve" a table, and going to get something to eat. I couldn't believe my eyes. Also, bikes unchained everywhere. Even electric ones.

Bikes get stolen fairly often though, even in Japan. The police is going around these days to warn about unsecured bikes.

This reminds me of a strange crime spree that occurred when I was in college in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One winter, car batteries began to be stolen, soon many of my friends (I did't own a car) had to chain the hoods of their cars. Apparently, the victims, upon discovering that their car was missing a battery would become the next generation of thieves stealing batteries to fix their own stranded vehicle. I suppose bikes are a bit that way, whereas phones are not; it doesn't make a lot of sense to steal a phone because yours has been stolen, even to someone with questionable morals, because you can't simply pick it up and start to use it. Bikes and batteries on the other hand are easy to steal and use to replace your own bike or battery stolen only a hour ago.

The social consequences of committing a crime are enormous in Japan, and very long-term (like, the rest of your live). It makes answering the "Have you ever been convicted of a felony" section in the US look like a happy joke. That's part of it. The other is that most Japanese people would be really horrified at the idea of stealing someone's stuff, left that way. Finally, no bystander effect there, not for a crime like that.

I think it's more pragmatic. What are you going to do with a stolen phone in a country where everyone already has the exact phone that they want? Bag snatching (ひったくり) used to be a regular enough occurrence that most people would know a friend it had happened to, but the occurrence of that has dropped too (90% since the year 2000 in Osaka [0]).

I would attribute the drop to the fact that most things people carry around now simply aren't worth stealing. Why risk jail over things that you can only flip for a few hundred bucks at most? There is almost no poor underclass here who would do that to survive, a side effect of Japan not being a desirable place for poor people to immigrate to.

[0] https://www.police.pref.osaka.jp/05bouhan/gaitohanzai/pdf/hi...

Heisei 12 = 2000 Heisei 26 = 2014

That's a good point, but it definitely relates to what I'm saying as well; you're just describing the benefit side of the cost:benefit analysis any criminal has to do. A lot of the cost in Japan, even for the pettiest of crimes, is that you either have to absolutely get away with it, or be branded a criminal.

All of what you said applies too, and it's all connected to the tighter community-oriented culture. There is after all, nothing impractical about choosing not to commit a petty crime, when as you say the benefit is minor and the risks are enormous.

I think you dont really understand the culture in Japan. There is no calculation going on. Stealing would not even cross 99.99% peoples mind in the first place.

I understand that, and am pointing out some of the conditioning behind that.

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