Japanese companies have been great at other things like manufacturing and decent at stuff like software. What gives when it comes to nuclear plant operation?
Just a few examples that I recall this past year or two include faking emissions tests for vehicles, faking steel quality tests, faking GDP by counting construction costs up to four times, and faking about 99% of clams from Kumamoto and local fishermen were apparently aware of this for decades. All of these issues went on for several years. Corruption at all levels has been revealed lately, and when you stack this up, all these things passed of as “good enough. Nobody will know” can end up in total disasters when quality matters.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/japan-revoke-hino...
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44763905.amp
https://www.asahi.com/sp/ajw/articles/14769587
Japanese workers, for instance, like to make changes to their workstations to improve their performance (for instance, complete the job more quickly.) In a normal workplace that's a great idea, but when you are working with solutions of fissionable elements there are many details you need to control to prevent a criticality accident, and they evaded those controls.
I hear people saying the hot coffee lawsuit should have been thrown out , and to me that's just crazy that anyone would want to allow safety standards to go on ignored to that level.
Outside of safety related stuff our laws are a bit messed up, but I do appreciate the fact that we make an effort to keep people safe.
Lots of these people don't realize factual details of the case. I was one such person. But the details are convincing.
NSFL/Gore Warning: https://www.deshawlaw.com/blog/the-real-facts-of-the-mcdonal...
I think it's a matter of taking personal responsibility rather than finding someone to blame when you make a mistake.
If a steak house brings you a super hot plate they warn you profusely. McDonald’s didn’t do that here. I for one would never expect coffee handed through a drive through window to be so hot I am at risk of second and third degree burns. That’s crazy.
Accidents happen in unexpected ways.
If you drop a glass in a restaurant and cut yourself on a shard, is the restaurant to blame? After all, they could have served your drink in a plastic cup instead.
Hearing some of the responses to my post, I suspect there may be a slight cultural difference in expectations. Being from the UK, I wouldn’t find it remotely surprising to be handed a boiling hot liquid.
Like, any number of news where someone poured boiling water on their cheating husband is just behind stupid and just shows an absolute lack of understanding of basic reality. I’m sure they didn’t intend that much damage, but they are just dangerously stupid at that point.
Nsfl/gore warning: https://www.deshawlaw.com/blog/the-real-facts-of-the-mcdonal...
I can guarantee you that if McDonald's or Starbucks or what have you served coffee at the proper 135F-150F instead of "literally boiling" the percentage of customers complaining about it would have enough zeroes on the left-hand side for Japan to have another go at bombing Pearl Harbor.
To put a cup of practically boiling water between your legs is utterly absurd. The companies actions are irrelevant, they did something silly and only have themselves to blame.
That doesn't mean it's actually served at that temperature, for the same reason that me baking a pizza at 200C in my oven doesn't mean it's actually 200C when served. Serving temperatures are typically far lower than cooking/brewing temperatures - in the case of tea or coffee, typically below 80C - unless, of course, it's McDonald's or Starbucks overcooking the bejeezus out of their beverages for the sake of cheapness and consistency.
There are standards people are expected to follow, so we know what to expect in most situations.
Some tendency of placing elderly people in important roles simply based on respect and not knowledge sounds like a plausible explanation, especially when one, high-enough people can wreak absolute havoc in a very top-down control flow.
But I’m talking out of my ass here, don’t take anything seriously.
I spent a year living in Europe and was surprised at how much worse nutrition labels were in Europe at the time. In Dresden, Germany they still had cigarette vending machines all over town and frequently had a candy vending machine mounted next to the cigarette machines to get the little ones started.
The US has been reluctant to license MOX fabrication plants in the US because of the fear of the the danger of plutonium dust poses to workers. France has been confident that it has it under control. It is a subject that people have talked about for a long time without a lot of data, but a relatively recent study shows the dangers are real
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28520643/
even if they aren't catastrophic like they were at the vermiculite mine in Libby, MT.
When was that? There is compulsory information about ingredients (sorted by percentage, so you readily see when "sugar" is on the very top), France has "nutriscore" which is a A-E scale of nutritional value.
There are strict rules on naming (for instance "100% juice" means that the jucie directly comes from pressed fruit (concentrates are forbidden) and that nothing else can be added).
Attitude? Maybe. In reality? Often not.
No idea why you think nutrition labels are worse and how they factor in "health and safety" when corn syrup is everywhere in the food in the States and 42% of population is obese.
On the other end of the spectrum you have underinvestment in critical infrastructure. For example, dams: https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-an-era-of-extreme-weather-...
There are very few (developed) countries which are as lax about health and safety as the US.
In other words if a country has a higher drinking age, better education, and more labels then that country cares more about safety.
I think that the actions of the population are a better example.
Maybe you mean is "the US government is more concerned about safety " but that could be because the population doesn't care.
To be fair, Germany has a higher rate of people who smoke (around 23% vs 12%)
We have those in the US, too. Granted, they're usually confined to bars, but there's no shortage of bars in the average American town.