almost in that same creepy way you see in Japanese horror movies

@jwray

*facepalm*

You realize the link you just posted is titled "IQ dominates socioeconomic background data for white men" (my emphasis).

Sure, there is a correlation between IQ and crime and it is hotly contested to what that actually means.

To some, that means only dumb criminals actually get caught (meaning we don't know the true average IQ of criminals because the smart ones get away with it).

To others, it reflects the socioeconomic status of the people most likely to commit crimes (i.e. likely grew up poor in a neighborhood without strong educational opportunities and therefore does not share the cultural values that IQ tests inherently load into the questions and furthermore the test-taker may be openly hostile to standardized test-taking).

To still others it reflects the RESULTS of crime (i.e. leading a criminal lifestyle makes it more likely that you are going to suffer traumatic physical injuries to the head that literally make you dumber).

The 7-8 point difference you quoted is not nearly enough to make a difference on the crime rates. 100 IQ is the normally distributed mean and Japanese people on average, score around 106. For reference, a standard deviation on the IQ test is 15 points, meaning that for all intents and purposes Japanese people are still roughly in the same ballpark as Americans with their 98-point average.

And literally the first Google search result when I looked up Japanese IQ scores was this one, explaining how national average IQ scores correlate with the per capita income and national rates of economic development.

In other words, economic factors correlate with IQ, which correlates with negatively with crime, which seems to further reinforce the idea that socioeconomic forces are a key factor in criminal behavior.

Look, we're getting really far afield of what the video is about. I think it is a no-brainer that few gun crimes are committed in Japan because guns are so heavily regulated. We do have stabbings, in fact we have mass stabbings (which is something you don't see so often in the U.S.). The thing we both agree on is that it is impossible for the U.S. to replicate these crime statistic results, whether that be for cultural reasons or whatever other cause you want to throw out there.

@SDGundamX you're confusing psychopathy with insanity. Lots of psychopaths are perfectly sane. Being a psychopath vastly increases the likelihood of committing murder. And it's heritable. And it's a continuum. But it's rare enough to be a relatively minor cause of murder rates. In place of "genes for psychopathy" I should have said "genes for anything that predisposes one to commit murder".

First degree murder is less than 10% of all murder. Most murders are spur of the moment. Having a higher IQ correlates with doing better on the marshmellow test and having greater impulse control to avoid spur of the moment destructive behavior. IQ is a vastly better predictor of criminality than parental SES ( http://akarlin.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/bell-curve-crime-iq.jpg ) Japanese have 7 points higher average IQ than the US. IQ is >50% heritable.

Uhhh... you are aware of the atrocities Japanese soldiers committed less than a century ago during WWII, right? And I think you're confusing psychopaths (who may or may not be violent) with those suffering from a psychosis (a complete mental break with reality).

Either way, mental illness is a huge problem in Japan and in fact treatment of mental illness is one area where their socialized medicine is sorely lacking behind other countries.

I don't know of any credible studies that say that mental illness rates are lower in Japan than in other developed countries, but I do know that the overwhelming majority of crimes in pretty much any country are actually committed by people who are legally sane.

So, despite what you may believe, "genetic" predisposition is an unlikely factor in explaining Japan's crime rate. Besides which, criminologists agree that whatever role genetics plays in people becoming criminals it isn't nearly the most important factor and is dwarfed by environmental factors (see this for a scholarly article on the topic and <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29760212>this for a popular news article).

You're trying to paint this as two equal parts of the recipe for crime when in reality it's more like "add two cups of environmental and a dash of genetics/personality/whatever."

Crime does happen here. The kinds of stuff I hear about on a daily basis in the news: crimes of desperation (homeless guy stealing to survive), thrill-seeking crimes (stealing a bike because you're young and stupid and the chances of getting caught are pretty low), crimes of passion (i.e. domestic violence, drunken bar fights, etc.), organized crime (i.e. yakuza), and the big one--sexual assault.

Sexual assault is so prevalent in Japan that there are actual signs warning women of areas where they are likely to be groped or have men expose themselves. There are train cars for women only so they don't have to get groped on the way to work or school. I mean, how fucked up is that?

So it isn't all rainbows and unicorns over here. Crime happens, and unfortunately is much more likely to happen to you if you're a woman. Still, even accounting for that the crime rates here are ridiculously low, for the reasons I stated above.

Sorry, that's pretty culturally-ignorant thinking right there.

Japanese people are not "meek" or "inhibited" any more so than Americans are. There are different cultural rules about self-expression but there are most certainly loud, aggressive, and flamboyant people here. They just express themselves in different ways than your typically loud, aggressive, and flamboyant American would.

You might think socioeconomic factors were a reason for the lack of crime, but you'd be wrong there too. Japan has a higher poverty rate and lower median income than the U.S.

The low crime rates here can much better be attributed to cultural factors. Every Japanese person is raised with the belief that it is shameful cause problems to the people around them, whether that be family, schoolmates, or co-workers. Getting arrested is about the most shameful thing you could do here. Just being suspected of a crime will likely get you fired from your job, before you are even tried.

And let's not forget the role the justice system here plays. If you get arrested you are almost 100% going to get convicted because the odds are massively stacked against you in the court system. You are basically guilty until proven innocent. Read this for more info about it.

And people here know this. They also know that Japanese prison is hellish. You won't be raped or assaulted there like in the U.S. but you will know exactly what is like to have all of your freedom stripped completely away.

You add to all of this the low unemployment rate of Japan, the high regulation of all weapons (including knives), a robust social system for helping the unemployed (although unfortunately lately a lot of people seem to be falling through the cracks), a nationalized health insurance plan (I pay a $1 co-pay to take my daughter to the doctor and all prescribed medicines are free), a strong social stigma against drug use, and the ability as an island nation to strictly police the borders to prevent the influx of illegal goods (i.e. drugs/guns) and you get the low crime rates in Japan.

tl;dr

There is little incentive to commit crime in Japan because the both social and legal repercussions are extremely severe, and there is little need to resort to crime to survive (plentiful jobs and robust social security). Likewise the opportunity to commit crime is lessened because of the strict regulation of weapons, drugs, and borders.

EDIT: I will say that on more than one occasion I've thought that a career criminal in the U.S. who suddenly found himself in Japan would feel like a kid in a candy store. Because of the lack of crime, people here don't take precautions against it--some people leave doors and windows unlocked when leaving the house, you'll see laptops or iPads left in cars in plain view, and people carry ridiculous amounts of cash on them (I'm talking like on the order of $1000 or more in some cases). On the one hand it can be reassuring but on the other hand I seriously worry about these people when they travel overseas.

Even the non-firearm homicide rate in the US is 5 times that of Japan. Japanese gun control can't take credit for all that. Personality is more than 50% heritable, and by extension, so is violent behavior. (Case in point: the vegas killer's father was on the FBI most wanted list). Personalitywise, Japanese tend to be relatively meek and inhibited. Even if every one of them owned a gun, their murder rate would probably still be a fraction of the US murder rate.

"And if you prefer one or the other, I can adapt. Humans are good at that. ;-) "

No, they're not. Or did you miss the part where some of the smartest people on the planet crashed millions of dollars into another planet? People are TERRIBLE at these kinds of things. One conversion? Fine. Ten conversions? No problem. Hundreds, thousands or millions of conversions? The probability of error tends to 100%.

It would definitely be more efficient if everyone used one common language (especially for cross cultural endeavours such as business and engineering). In fact, that kinda happens by default and that language tends to be English.

However, there are practicalities in play. First up, there aren't just two languages, there are hundreds, and there is a broad split in the number of speakers of each language. Whereas in metric v imperal, the US is the ONLY country in the developed world that hangs onto imperial.

Second, learning a new language is an order of magnitude more work than changing to using metric.

I'm speaking from experience here; in the course of my life, I've studied Irish, French, German, Spanish and Japanese, and I am in no way close to fluent in any of them

On the other hand, when I left Ireland, it was officially metric but imperial was still common (distances were in KM, speed limits in miles, people used imperial weights for humans, metric for food). When I moved to NZ, everything is metric, and honestly, relearning happens without effort. Once you immerse yourself, you eventually just start thinking in the new system.


Finally, metric is just a better system for everything. There isn't a single scenario where imperial is a more useful measurement.

Come on America, join us. It's awesome and you don't really want to use "English" units, do you? Did you fight a war to get rid of them? What would George Washington say!? It's unamerican, I tells ya!

I don't think it's that unusual to describe drinks by their origin. Cuban rum for instance is very much a thing, as is American Whiskey vs Scotch Whisky vs Irish Whiskey (or the highly regarded Japanese).

I wouldn't know one way or the other for the Thanksgiving vid. Scalloped potatoes are a thing here though I had some last night.

No observable turkeys in Japan. Turkeys in Japanese anime however, is EVERYWHERE.

It was definitely dumbed down thematically though, especially from 1st/2nd GiG. While they were pretty pretentious (e.g. 'second order simulacra'), at least they were full of things to think about. The whole 'give consent' theme was as far as I can tell introduced in the adaptation and immensely cringe inducing.

What also irritated me is how they created a weird mish mash of the seperate Ghost in the Shell stories for no good reason. Why did they have to combine the 2nd GiG antagonist with the original movie's key plot scenes? It was just strange and unnecessary.

I don't at all mind the westernisation / white lead. Felt that controversy was nonsense. It's a Hollywood adaptation, why even bother remaking it if you're not going to have a new take on it or adapt it to be more familiar to local (American / English) audiences?

Same thing with the Netflix Death Note adapation. No idea if it will actually be any good but couldn't care less that they moved the location to the US and made the lead characters white. There are already multiple Japanese live action Death Note movies with Japanese leads. What's the point in another?

Good quality Japanese blades are carbon steel, with no concessions to stainlessness at all. In a humid environment (my cellar, for example) carbon steel can grow that much rust in a week, easy.

Waaaaah?

This video gets so many things wrong it is truly cringe-worthy.

The country has been covered by vending machines since the 1960s--long before there were problems with an aging population and birthrates. The primary reason for vending machines being installed everywhere is, surprise, convenience! Who wants to go to the store and stand in line to buy a drink when you can just go downstairs from your apartment and grab one from outside your front door?

Another thing to consider is that Japan late at night basically completely shuts down--even in major cities like Tokyo the trains stop running around 1AM or so and won't start again until 5AM. Nowadays their are 24-hour convenient stores on practically every other urban street corner but back when vending machines first started getting installed nothing was open late besides bars. If you caught the last train home from work and wanted to buy a coke or something on your walk back from the station you were SOL. Vending machines helped solve that problem.

Which brings us to another point--VERY few Japanese people in urban areas commute by car. Mass transit is fast and efficient and a huge number of people just walk/bike everywhere. Since there is so much foot traffic vending machines make total sense, especially in the summer when temperatures are going to rise into the mid-90s (30+ degrees Celsius) with high humidity and people who are walking/biking are going to get thirsty pretty damn quick.

Another thing he gets wrong is that retailers are not the ones primarily profiting off of vending machines: land owners are. Either they purchase and stock the machines themselves (thereby keeping all the profits) or they make a contract with the retail company in which the company stocks and services the machine but compensates the landowner for use of the space.

Oh, almost forgot something not mentioned in the video--the low crime rates. Another reason for the proliferation of vending machines is that whoever puts them out can be reasonably sure they won't be damaged, defaced, or robbed.

Finally, while he is right that credit cards are not as big here as in, say, the U.S., e-money is huge. And all of the newer vending machines produced in the last few years will take either cash or e-money, such as Suica or Pasmo cards.

By the way, all of this information that I've posted here is available from a simple Google search and there have actually been several articles written on vending machines in Japan over the last couple of years. It's like this guy just came over here and tried to guess why there were so many vending machines around....

Your video, Japanese Sunrise Dovetail Joint, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Your video, Japanese Street Food: Takosen, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Crazy a$$ Japanese.