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No looting in Japan: An interesting take

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by wicked, Mar 14, 2011.

  1. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Safes full of money are being found by the hundreds... and turned into the police. Police don't have room for all the safes.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110411/ap_on_bi_ge/as_japan_earthquake_lost_money

    But when comparing to americans, lets look at 70 year old war crimes. Makes sense.
     
  2. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member


    When you make broad-brush characterizations, such as that, it is perfectly reasonable to point out that they are HUMAN -- their history has demonstrated both good and bad traits -- just as all groups have good and bad (human attritibutes) in them and have demonstrated both good and bad.

    But if you want to insist that the Japanese have "more character and integrity than Americans as a whole," and then write everyone off who demonstrates that is narrowminded with a flip "makes sense," no one is going to change your mind.

    No one has to go back to the rape of Nanking to prove you wrong, by the way. We are now learning that Japan's nuclear industry has been scandal-ridden, for example, and a lot has been hidden from the public. We know that Nomura Securities (largest investment bank) had a nasty scandal in which the president of the company was nabbed for corporate extortion and a dozen and a half others went to jail. We know that Japan's version of Gordon Gekko, Yoshiaki Murakami, spebnt two years in jail for an insider-trading conviction.

    Want me to go on? Or should we just go with the "more character and integrity" broad brush that ignores the fact that they are human just like everyone else?
     
  3. doctorquant

    doctorquant Well-Known Member

    Re: lowering prices of certain necessities in times of crisis. There's a legitimate argument that can be made that doing such is actually counterproductive, in that these necessities will not be routed toward their most important (i.e., valuable) use.

    Re: the lack of looting. I think there's a real danger of us (i.e., outsiders) seeing only what's going on on the surface and therefore misinterpreting what's really happening. I think we might also see a given episode and over-generalize that because it conforms with what we "know" about the Japanese (or how they're different from us).
     
  4. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    You can go on all you want. The thought of Americans bringing safes full of money to the police station is ludicrous.

    When floods hit Katrina, here is what happened.
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9131493/ns/us_news-katrina_the_long_road_back/

    When floods hit Japan, this supermarket owner gave all his food for free. And citizens brought their own food to share with others.
    http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/03/japan.tsunami.captain/index.html
     
  5. TrooperBari

    TrooperBari Well-Known Member

    Don't forget the fact that Shintaro Ishihara somehow keeps getting elected.
     
  6. waterytart

    waterytart Active Member

    If I found a safe full of money, I would take it to the police. I believe the same is true of the great majority of my friends and family.

    I'm starting to wonder what kind of circles you run in, poin.
     
  7. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    You might have heard I run with a dangerous crowd. We ain't too pretty, we ain't too proud.
     
  8. waterytart

    waterytart Active Member

    That made me laugh.
     
  9. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    Yes, the Japanese have so much more character than Americans. It's why there's no organized crime syndicates over there. And why there are not five or six magazines that celebrate the lives of their gangsters.
     
  10. amraeder

    amraeder Well-Known Member

    A bit too loud?
     
  11. waterytart

    waterytart Active Member

    Well played.
     
  12. Stoney

    Stoney Well-Known Member

    So were you never taught the inherent flaws of anecdotal evidence? You can go on all day reciting individual examples of Japanese committing crimes, but you still haven't cited a single thing that remotely discredits Poindexter's statement about the relative character of the people "as a whole." To the contrary, the cumulative and per capita evidence seems to overwhelmingly support his statement. For example, once again from the earlier link:

    Robbery/Violent Theft per 100,000: United States 169.02
    Japan 2.71

    Murders per 100,000: United States 6.32
    Japan 0.58

    Rapes per 100,000: United States 34.20
    Japan 1.48

    Serious Assault per 100,000: United States 357.94
    Japan 15.4


    Yep, I bet you could find some hideous individual tales of depravity in that 0.58 murder rate, but the number of such tales wouldn't scratch the surface of what you'd find here.
     
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