No, it is not!

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!

There is indeed no theft in a dictatorship.

> 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.

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.

Yep, Japan has no innovation and no entrepreneurship :rolleyes:

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.

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

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.

Except my old mailman who grew up in San Francisco in the late 40s told me that nobody in his multistory apartment building when he was a kid ever locked their doors even if they went out of town. I'm not sure what the difference is but it's not authoritarianism.

In my experience (Australia) the protocol has been to leave your stuff at the table. I've seen people leave their stuff for an hour or more sometimes (though it seems a bit rude to use up an otherwise unused table for so long).

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.

Tangentially, when I visited Melbourne a few years ago, I left my backpack, with my laptop, phone, and accessories on the tram on a Saturday morning. When the lost & found office opened Monday morning, the bag had been turned in, complete and intact.

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

London has lost thus element of civil society

I figure chances that a random person who you ask is going to be much less likely to have bad intentions than a person who offers to you to watch your stuff.

The second best alternative is to leave non important stuff (your coat or some cloth for instance, depending how you value it) and take away the valuable stuff.

Or if your laptop has a security slot then bring a portable kensington lock.

This is what I do. I've personally witnessed a laptop being stolen from a cafe in SF, but only from the very front very close to the door, and the guy had walked to the back to go to the bathroom.

I didn't actually see the guy run out. I'm usually buried in the back heads-down focused, as Bezos would say. But I heard some screaming, turned around, and a woman actually ran after the guy (not her computer!) for four blocks. Finally the guy dropped the computer and she picked it up and showed up 5 minutes later miraculously with his computer. The guy whose computer it was only then came out of the bathroom not knowing his MacBook Air had been stolen!

why didn't you do anything to stop this?

Is a stranger's laptop worth getting your face smashed for? Or stabbed? It doesn't sound like anybody's physical well being was threatened, so why risk your own?

Maybe you could take a picture then tell them, if anything happens to me in the next 5 years, this picture will be sent to the police.

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

I highly doubt that a person stealing laptops from Starbucks is going to stab you.

Because violent street thieves are unable to walk into a coffee shop?

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.

Have you been to San Francisco? I don't know the rate of stabbings, but I have seen plenty of violently unstable people here that I wouldn't want to provoke.

I agree that it's quite inexplicable why a woman who didn't know the owner of the laptop ran after the thief who was at least a third bigger than she was.

Why was the thief at least a third bigger than the woman?

I didn't actually see him, but he was a grown man by all accounts, and the woman was on the smaller side. So she was something like 120 lbs. max and he was at least 180 lbs.+

It's so weird when people look out for each other. It's like they're actually decent human beings or something!

Interesting. In addition to victim blaming, it appears that all bystanders are also being blamed.

Yep, better to lose your seat that your MacBook Air...

If you saw a sign that said "4k surveillance video on premises" would you feel secure? At some point the fuzzy video quality will be good enough that people are really going to have to find another line of crime.

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

Obviously, you're going to have a lower risk of theft if you take everything with you to the restroom. But there are places I've lived where I am fairly confident I could leave my laptop unprotected in a coffee shop once a day for my entire life without it ever being stolen.

If the coffee shop isn't busy I sometimes take my laptop with me and leave all the other stuff. This is in a place kinda like Peoria though. If I was in SF I'd probably pack up everything.

The protocol in Japan is to leave your stuff at the table and go take your dump. In fact, it's protocol that when you enter a coffeeshop (starbucks, mc donalds, etc.), first find out if there is a free seat. It could be on the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd floor. Leave your stuff there to claim the seat. Then go back to the 1st floor counter, order and get your drinks/food, wait to receive them, walk back to your stuff.

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.

Your comment has plenty of interesting content, but telling people that they should be ashamed to live somewhere where other people commit crimes is completely senseless. Those people have done nothing wrong, they have nothing to be ashamed of.

> Your comment has plenty of interesting content, but telling people that they should be ashamed to live somewhere where other people commit crimes is completely senseless.

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.

Realistically, somebody who is the victim of petty theft is not responsible for the circumstances that led somebody to become a thief. Expecting people who were robbed to feel ashamed that they were robbed is absurd. They are a victim. Not to mention that most people do not have the resources to relocate themselves to a country with less crime. Greggman expecting these people to feel ashamed that they have been unable to flee their country is worse than absurd; it is patently offensive.

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.

My response wasn't to the victim. It was to the commenter that basically suggested it should be common sense the victim shouldn't have left his stuff out.

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

> If the thief can be said to be a victim of circumstance and therefore not responsible for their actions

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

There are actually two similar but distinct interpretations of "ashamed" and "embarrassed." One implies that there is direct personal responsibility involved, as in "you deliberately lied to me, so you should be ashamed of yourself." The other is essentially the opposite of feeling pride, and doesn't imply any personal responsibility, as in "I'm ashamed that my school would make such bad decisions."

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

Yes, you are SO enlightened.

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.

IMO there is. Because we put up with it. We take for granted that "of course leaving $3k of stuff at a busy coffee shop it's going to get stolen". That's the problem. That we accept it. There's a whole set of rules we've learned to work around these problems. We think they're common sense. That is until we experience places that point out they aren't common sense. Rather they're just a way of letting us not actually deal with the problem.

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.

In some cases, going to the bathroom with your stuff is almost like leaving your place vacant for any one else to take. In crowded cafés, this may not be optimal. I wonder if cafés provide customers with pamphlets to put on the table saying `Occupied` while they are gone to the bathroom with their stuff would be helpful.

It's like leaving your place vacant because you ARE leaving your place vacant. That's a good thing.

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.)

At least in US bars, you can leave your glass on the bar with a napkin over the top to indicate that the seat is taken and the drink should not be tossed. I don't know if cafe patrons might honor this convention?

Depending on your gender and/or the bar's orientation, or other factors, this may not be entirely safe either. Drugged drinks are not unheard of.

These warnings should be given with some care, because they can create a false sense of security.

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...

I wasn't aware that date rape drugs could tell the gender of the drinker.

Date-rape drugs are likely more often delivered to women than men. It's not the drugs, but the drugger, who is doing the discrimination.

Date-rape drugs are likely more often delivered to women than men. It's not the drugs, but the drugger, who is doing the discrimination.

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

Presumably the cup is empty? And it's just a marker?

I've seen this done with non-empty drinks, so no, not always.

I do this with coasters. However I have been told that in some areas, a coaster on top of your glass means the opposite, signalling to the bartender that you are done with your drink.

In a way, it also helps turnover of tables - it's a soft way of ensuring new customers can get seats and the people who got there first don't stay all day (short of an explicit X hour limit)

If the café is that crowded, is it actually a problem if people working on laptops lose their spot if they take a bathroom break?