Asking someone to watch it - if it's not someone you know well and trust then what good does that do? What if this woman had asked the one in the striped shirt to watch her stuff?

I share my time over Singapore and Japan, and no one ever touches your stuff in both places; not during a bathroom break, not even during a lunch break when people leave their shiny macbooks to keep their seats warm.

This immediately invalidates all the other comments saying that uniformity of behaviour/lack of entrepreneurship is a consequence of this in Japan, since it also works in Singapore where (perceived) entrepreneurship is much higher.

Theft is a problem. It doesn't bring about good things, nor does the lack of it bring about bad things.

Quite the opposite!

No, it doesn't. In Japan, that safety is a product of a culture of uniformity, which invariably results in a lack of entrepreneurship/innovation.

In Singapore, that "safety" is the product of an authoritarian government that severely curtails civil liberties and human rights. Free speech and political freedoms are restricted, chewing gum is banned for non-medical purposes, and the punishment for possessing 500+ grams of pot is a mandatory death sentence. Archaic and barbaric punishments such as caning continue to be practiced. Such an oppressive government is not something we want in the West, regardless of the "benefits."

As Benjamin Franklin said:

> They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

I guess all those famous Japanese brands just some how happened without any entrepreneurship and their products happened without any innovation.

Sorry, I didn't mean for this to be snarky but seriously... Your excuses are BS and don't live up to any scrutiny. It's not an either/or thing.

The Japanese are very skilled at taking what others have done and incrementally improving it. By reverse engineering American cars, they were able to beat the Americans at their own game, producing more reliable, efficient, and defect-free cars. Thanks to the cooperative nature of their society, they avoided the antagonistic relationship between the UAW and the Big 3 American automakers that led to many of the financial problems faced by the Big 3. Similar success was seen in electronics by companies like Sony, allowing them to produce high quality TVs and other high-tech consumer products.

This sort of societal cohesiveness (along with cozy government-industry relations) removed a lot of barriers to the sorts of large and capital-intensive undertakings that are common in manufacturing. But it rarely produces the sorts of game-changing innovations that Silicon Valley, and America in general, is known for. The nature of Japanese society also prevented companies from restructuring and outsourcing their manufacturing to China, which allowed South Korean (and increasingly Chinese) rivals to largely displace them in consumer electronics. There's a reason why Sony's products are so unpopular these days - they're expensive as hell. Even in the automotive industry, Toyota/Honda are starting to get overtaken by the likes of Hyundai and Kia.

> Sorry, I didn't mean for this to be snarky but seriously... Your excuses are BS and don't live up to any scrutiny. It's not an either/or thing.

Actually, the problem is that you have a very shallow understanding of the situation. This isn't the sort of thing you can really comprehend with some weekend blog-reading. The Japanese should be credited for exploiting their post-WW2 alliance with the US to rapidly transform their economy while much of the world dicked around with communism and most of the West was in no better shape than Japan itself after the destruction of WW2. But transient effects stemming from quirks of history, although intriguing, don't disprove the bigger theory.

Generally if someone leaves their laptop to go pick up their order / bathroom I try to keep an eye on it. I assume they'd do the same for me.

I wish I knew who turned it in, so I could've shouted them a pint or whatever.

But at any rate, it is better to shut up and give description to the owner.

If you live in a city where violent crime is not uncommon, don't assume that a thief is a nice person just because you've caught them in the act in a coffee shop.

I've been in places in NYC where I run to the restroom and have left my laptop.

The point you should get from this is that PEOPLE IN YOUR COUNTRY SUCK AND YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED YOU LIVE IN SUCH A SHITTY CULTURE AND THAT YOU TAKE IT FOR GRANTED THAT YOU HAVE TO PROTECT YOUR STUFF BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL STEAL IT.

After living in a country with very little violence, a country where you don't have to pull your car radio out of your car, where you don't have worry about what alleys you walk down, a country where if you leave your bags or wallet on a train you'll get them back, I was very ashamed of my own country, the USA, where I used to think I was safe but in reality I'd just learned to avoid the ever present danger rather than do something to fix it.

Now comes all the replies telling me how much Japan sucks in other ways. That's not the point.

Arguably, the attitude that this is senseless -- that, IOW, people have no responsibility for the qualities of the broader society -- is part of the problem.

If the thief can be said to be a victim of circumstance and therefore not responsible for their actions, then the same can be said even more strongly of their victims.

That shouldn't be common sense. It's shameful that we think it is.

He can't, fairly, so no conclusion can rest upon this premise.

You're assuming the first interpretation, but one could, through application of the principle of charity, assume the second interpretation.

Gosh I hate when this happens. An American goes overseas, and suddenly thinks they've discovered nirvana and that everyone back home is now inferior. There's gotta be a name for this syndrome.

Every culture has good stuff and bad stuff. There's no need to scream in all caps about the USA because people in a major city center recommend one doesn't leave $3k worth of gear unattended in a busy coffee shop.

The response to "I left my stuff out and it got stolen" shouldn't be "Oh, you shouldn't have left your stuff out". It should be "we should catch that criminal and find a way to make it so it's safe to leave your stuff out".

And I didn't say Japan or Singapore were nirvana. Only that one part of them points out things we take for granted shouldn't be taken for granted.

If a coffee shop is so busy that you won't have a place when you get back then take a break and come back when things are quieter. Or pay for a coworking space.

(I remember trying to get a table with friends at Blue Bottle years ago... each one was occupied by a loner staring at a laptop, nursing a coffee, and ignoring everything else. It was sad.)

Most studies have found that most of the time that people believe a drug was added to their drink, the only drug they actually consumed was alcohol. Alcohol is by a long run the most common date rape drug; it is far more likely that your attacker will trick you into drinking more than you realize.

So if somebody is buying you unfamiliar cocktails, merely guarding your drink against adulterants can leave you vulnerable to the cocktails containing far more alcohol than you are aware.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug#Alcohol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_rape_drug#Media_coverage_a...

It's also not unheard of for same-sex drug- or alcohol-based assaults to occur.

Then, I lived in Tokyo for a few years. People leave belongings unattended in coffee shops and restaurants all the time. It's a common occurrence to see someone put down their belongings at a table, leave them there, then go order food or drinks where their belongings are out of sight.

Sure, there is still theft in Japan. But it was a really eye opening and nice experience to see that there are places where distrust of others in this context isn't the default state.

It's not weird at all, in my opinion, because it's just so TRUE. There ARE weird people out there that simply want everything that you have and will take it all when they get the opportunity. Not to mention the people who are stealing because they really need the money, and people with Alzheimer's who can't help stealing things.

I've never had a flat tire in my life, but I'm still driving with a spare tire in the trunk.

And when they do happen, they'll be very loud and publicized. That's probably what we see more often than first-person cases.

The bike cost $30. If I get one stolen every 10 years, I figure I'm paying $3 / year for the convenience of not having to bother with locking or carrying a key.

You'll also hardly have a problem in the states barring some high crime areas.

Sweden also used to be like that, but it's been changing over there.

Unfortunately most places are not like this. From developing countries (especially Brazil) to major touristy cities in Europe. :-/

No, they're not. The social uniformity and equality in Japan that makes Tokyo surprisingly safe for its size is also responsible for the lack of entrepreneurship and innovation in Japan.

> Why can't we build a society where we have the former and not the latter?

If you want some young people to succeed spectacularly, then you also have to allow some (a lot) of young people to fail spectacularly. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

How does the second statement follow logically from the first? How does putting a floor under the bottom of humanity automatically put a ceiling over the top?

Note, I don't believe this is deterministic at the individual level. People choose to do crime or to think differently. Nevertheless, at the level of society, the law of large numbers applies.

One of the interesting conclusions one can draw from studies of physics and biology is that it's highly likely that "choice" is really a very complex chemical process, rather than some independent act that a unified person entity performs in complete isolation from their brain and body.

Assuming for the sake of argument that this is completely true, I think we can make significant progress in improving people's ability to "choose" by approaching the problem of detrimental or criminal choices from a biological and physical perspective -- that is, to use a rational, scientific approach to influencing brains and bodies as highly complex, sentient physical objects, rather than a moral, philosophical approach to distributing punishment and reward.

I see this as a false dichotomy. It's the old mind/body duality again. Your assertion about chemicals is not wrong, but you'll run into trouble if you act as if it negates the subjective perspective.

The distribution is already highly skewed anyway.

There is no fiscally responsible or sustainable way to do the former without doing the latter as well.

Because by asking you, they are trusting you. By not asking anyone, they have to trust every single person around.

I was pretty shocked when a co-working survey asked if you felt you could leave a smartphone or laptop alone. Where I'm at, you can leave these alone without fear—it hadn't occurred to me that it is a serious problem (which obviously it is and always has been)

In my area, you can leave a Retina MacBook Pro out and not expect it gone. (If you work for a company where your laptop has serious data, then of course that stuff should be on lockdown. Most people I know with stuff like that have it locked away in secure cabinets, etc and don't leave it out.)

Anyhoo, yeah students can leave a MacBook Pro Retina, walk away for coffee or to use the restroom and then come back to it. The probability of it being stolen exists, but it is tiny. (Also the culture is such that if someone took something, it wouldn't be a surprise for others to be like, "Hey! What are you doing?!" )

Then they showed a white female actress doing the same exact thing. A couple people asked her what she was doing. She said to one person "I'm stealing the bike." They offered to help her.

And of course, being a TV show, there is no systematic statistical analysis.

Now, TBH even with more rigorous protocol I suspect the conclusions drawn would be similar, but as it stands, this "experiment" is not altogether useful.

I felt 70% of the reason why the Hispanic guy was confronted by people was because he was a much smaller than the white guy.

Had it been similarly sized black guy, nobody would've dared scolding him.

It's socially unacceptable to be racist, but we think being 'sizist' is ok.

Of course I know that doesn't mean someone won't drop in, swipe something and run out, so I still occasionally will take my laptop with me and leave my (otherwise worthless) backpack on the chair and coffee on the table. But if I see a few familiar faces nearby I don't feel too bad about leaving the laptop on the table for a couple of minutes. Of course, I'm rocking a 4 year old off-brand PC... not exactly a desirable item. A high-end machine or anything Apple and I might handle it differently just because of the value.

The cell phone is another matter, as I feel like those are a much easier and somewhat more desirable item for thieves. I don't even leave that on the table while I'm sitting there, it stays in my pocket at all times unless I'm talking.

But when I was in London, I was being constantly nudged by people to move my belongings, secure them better, etc. I remember being in a pub and my bag (which contained my laptop) was just resting right next to my chair on the floor. A woman who where there came up and said, "You'd best move that unless you want it to get nicked." This was in Soho, so it's not like I was out in the boonies, either.

I've lived in SF and Chicago, but I'd never be that careful here.

So, perhaps London has more petty thefts than the typical American is used to? I dunno, but everyone around me — friends and strangers alike — seemed to be orders of magnitude more conscious about it than I was, and I consider myself pretty conscious.

I prefer to not live in an environment of fear, even in NYC. Statistically speaking, it's very unlikely that anything will be stolen, especially since I usually ask someone to keep an eye on it.

Also, my insurance would cover theft——in many cases, renter's insurance or your credit card will.

But what if they have no tissues at hand? Using a smartphone is also fine, because there is so little crime: http://www.mrbrown.com/.a/6a00d83451b52369e2019aff6d022f970b...

In retrospect, that was a little silly.