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.