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Japan is obviously a "high trust" society, so I feel like this experiment will work. I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust societ

Japan is obviously a "high trust" society, so I feel like this experiment will work. I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society.

deadbabe 1y ago
High trust environments tend to crumble in society when you allow too much immigration. Japan’s xenophobia has worked well in this regard.
- vasco 1y ago
  And a 99.8% conviction rate.
  - HPsquared 1y ago
    Only 33 prisoners per 100k population (cf 541 in the US). Whatever they're doing, it's working. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...
    - yorwba 1y ago
      In 2024, the average US prison sentence was for a duration of 52 months, with over half the total months being for drug trafficking (average 82 months) https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/federal-sentencing-statistics/state-district-circuit/2024/tx24.pdf https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... (page 11). Also in 2024, Japanese prison sentences were mostly between 1 and 3 years, and about two thirds were fully suspended. https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001436547.pdf https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001436547.pdf (page 20). Assuming an average of two years for the third not-fully-suspended, that works out to 8 months of time spent in prison per person handed a prison sentence. That results in about a factor of 7 difference in prison population simply due to the difference in average sentence length. Maybe the US should sentence more people to prison but keep each of them there shorter.
      - rangestransform 1y ago
        The US court system already relies heavily on plea deals to not jam up the courts. Increasing the throughput of the justice system to facilitate your idea would require an order of magnitude investment into more courts, judges, public defenders, prosecutors, etc. I'm all for it, but the incredible cost does have to be considered
        HPsquared 1y ago
        Are plea deals factored into the US conviction rate?
        yorwba 1y ago
        In the PDF I linked above, on page 4, you can see that 97.2% of sentences result from guilty pleas and 2.8% from trials.
  - nazgob 1y ago
    It's a different system, they don't go to court without iron-clad case. Japan does not have a large prison population.
    - henearkr 1y ago
      And they heavily influence (using pressure such as off-the-record interviews, and long detention times during the investigations) the suspect's statements so that it says what they need to make it a crime, even when it isn't. Whatever the suspect may say afterwards, they just have to point out to the signed statement and say "but here you confessed". Source: I have been directly living such occurrence lol. That's what has been coined the "hostage justice" of Japan (referring in particular to the "long detention times during investigations" part above). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage_justice
      - socalgal2 1y ago
        given the stats above, 33 of 100k incarcerated, vs 541 of 100k in the USA. I'm inclined to think that the USA has far more of those types of cases than Japan.
        henearkr 1y ago
        Hmm, the thing is that the hostage justice system does have a deterrent effect. Its net effect is that you absolutely do not want to have anything to do with the police to help solve your problems in the society (true problems, not merely e.g. asking for directions). And then you really want to avoid problems at all. So, you cannot think of them as "friendly useful workers to help solve problems", because they are heavily incentivized and biased to find or invent crimes if you give them the opportunity. Correct me if I'm wrong, but police interviews are recorded in the US? And also, you always have the right to an attorney? (that's not the case in Japan except if you want to stay 20 days incarcerated while waiting for an attorney, all for a tiny minor dismeanor).
        socalgal2 1y ago
- kcyb 1y ago
  Switzerland is a diverse society with lots of immigration and it is also a high-trust society
  - deadbabe 1y ago
    Switzerland is so small, basically a city.
    - antonvs 1y ago
      Switzerland's population would make it one of the biggest cities in the world, more than double the population of Los Angeles, and more than New York City. Neither of which could be counted as high trust.
      - socalgal2 1y ago
        The population of Switzerland is ~9 million. The population of LA metro is around 15 million, and NYC metro aroound 20 million LA "the city" might be less but you can't tell where LA ends and it's other parts begin. It's one giant metropolis. Same with NYC.
        antonvs 1y ago
        You can tell where the city ends very easily. There are well-defined boundaries. Government statistics take that into account. Here's the census page for the city of Los Angeles, which lists a population just under 4 million: https://data.census.gov/profile/Los_Angeles_city,_California?g=160XX00US0644000 https://data.census.gov/profile/Los_Angeles_city,_California...
        glimshe 1y ago
        The city of LA is just there for administrative purposes. People who live in "Burbank" or "Pasadena" are seen as living in "Los Angeles" by most people outside the region.
    - coldtea 1y ago
- Havoc 1y ago
  Also depends on type though. I’ve seen honesty boxes work out fine where the immigration consists mostly of professionals.
latexr 1y ago
> I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society. I’d rather we had a way to change low trust societies into high trust.
- Eisenstein 1y ago
  If there are consequences to bad behavior which results in real, felt, shame, then society will self-police to whatever values it holds. However, there can be downsides; for instance a lack of out-of-the-box thinking and individuality.
  - coldtea 1y ago
    >for instance a lack of out-of-the-box thinking and individuality. Overrated. There's close to 0% of it going on in "low trust societies" anyway. It's not like the average social media zombie in the west is anywhere near an "out of the box" thinker...
- sfdlkj3jk342a 1y ago
  After traveling for years, I often wonder how various cultures end up high or low trust. Wealth or financial inequality doesn't seem to be the main driving factor, despite seeming an obvious cause. Racial and ethnic homogeneity doesn't always explain it either. Destruction of traditional culture by things like colonialism seems to be an important factor.
  - shoobiedoo 1y ago
    > Destruction of traditional culture by things like colonialism seems to be an important factor. Were native peoples of North America high trust between tribes before colonialism?
    - sfdlkj3jk342a 1y ago
      I'm not that familiar with them, but my guess would be yes, at least for hunter-gatherers. I would think that bad behavior would get you kicked out of the community and lead to likely death. The larger ancient cities that farmed would be more interesting, especially because today Latin America is one of the lowest trust regions of the world.
jwr 1y ago
I used to buy firewood at National Forest camping sites in the US; there was a box where you dropped the money and then you grabbed a wood bundle. Granted, this was almost 40 years ago, but this type of thing can work, even in less civilized places like the US.
- gentooflux 1y ago
  They leave out more wood than a camper would even think to take because they only need one bundle every day or two. The sort of person who would need to steal a whole season's worth of wood is less likely to have the means to transport it all, and if they're so desperate that they'd go to the trouble then the Christian thing to do would be to let them have it. Gillette razors on the other hand, are expensive to stock for their size, and easy to steal because of their size.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
    I’d wager that outdoorsy people who are out camping in the woods are like a “mini-Japan”. The community has their own set of rules and behaviours that would make an honour system possible. Especially 40 years ago when it would have been more of a monoculture.
portaouflop 1y ago
You can turn it into a high trust society. The mechanisms and procedures to achieve that are fairly well known.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
RataNova 1y ago
The real challenge is figuring out how to build even a fraction of that in lower-trust environments
bombcar 1y ago
We do have a way - "high trust" enclaves inside the low trust society. The modern examples in the USA are things like colleges, community centers, etc. You gatekeeper the area and then everything inside is high-trust and you can get away with things like this. You can also find it in rural areas and some very expensive islands, too.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- socalgal2 1y ago
  In what way are USA colleges high trust. USA colleges have very high petty theft.
- aomix 1y ago
  While driving through upstate New York on a camping trip I found a maple syrup shop run on the honor system. Leave the money in an unlocked box. It was shocking. I bought a gallon.
  - kelipso 1y ago
    I wonder if this is actual high trust or that there are security cameras everywhere.
    - bombcar 1y ago
      If you've been to the rural USA you'd know it's just high-trust (and the middle of nowhere). They're pretty common for low-value things like corn and farm produce; but I've seen syrup and honey, too. There might be a camera but since there's usually no power, it'd have to be some sort of trail/game/deer cam. What would you do with the result besides some vigilante frontier justice? No cop anywhere but daytime children's TV is going to investigate the Case of the Stolen Syrup.
      - sometimes_all 1y ago
        We once went to Florida and saw some open orange farms. We wanted to buy some, but there was nobody in sight - we got very confused until we saw a box which said "$X a bag"; there was a sack of bags nearby. My mind was blown.

Japan is obviously a "high trust" society, so I feel like this experiment will work. I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society.

deadbabe 1y ago

High trust environments tend to crumble in society when you allow too much immigration. Japan’s xenophobia has worked well in this regard.

vasco 1y ago
And a 99.8% conviction rate.
- HPsquared 1y ago
  Only 33 prisoners per 100k population (cf 541 in the US). Whatever they're doing, it's working. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarce...
  - yorwba 1y ago
    In 2024, the average US prison sentence was for a duration of 52 months, with over half the total months being for drug trafficking (average 82 months) https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/federal-sentencing-statistics/state-district-circuit/2024/tx24.pdf https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu... (page 11). Also in 2024, Japanese prison sentences were mostly between 1 and 3 years, and about two thirds were fully suspended. https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001436547.pdf https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001436547.pdf (page 20). Assuming an average of two years for the third not-fully-suspended, that works out to 8 months of time spent in prison per person handed a prison sentence. That results in about a factor of 7 difference in prison population simply due to the difference in average sentence length. Maybe the US should sentence more people to prison but keep each of them there shorter.
    - rangestransform 1y ago
      The US court system already relies heavily on plea deals to not jam up the courts. Increasing the throughput of the justice system to facilitate your idea would require an order of magnitude investment into more courts, judges, public defenders, prosecutors, etc. I'm all for it, but the incredible cost does have to be considered
      - HPsquared 1y ago
        Are plea deals factored into the US conviction rate?
        yorwba 1y ago
        In the PDF I linked above, on page 4, you can see that 97.2% of sentences result from guilty pleas and 2.8% from trials.
- nazgob 1y ago
  It's a different system, they don't go to court without iron-clad case. Japan does not have a large prison population.
  - henearkr 1y ago
    And they heavily influence (using pressure such as off-the-record interviews, and long detention times during the investigations) the suspect's statements so that it says what they need to make it a crime, even when it isn't. Whatever the suspect may say afterwards, they just have to point out to the signed statement and say "but here you confessed". Source: I have been directly living such occurrence lol. That's what has been coined the "hostage justice" of Japan (referring in particular to the "long detention times during investigations" part above). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostage_justice
    - socalgal2 1y ago
      given the stats above, 33 of 100k incarcerated, vs 541 of 100k in the USA. I'm inclined to think that the USA has far more of those types of cases than Japan.
      - henearkr 1y ago
        Hmm, the thing is that the hostage justice system does have a deterrent effect. Its net effect is that you absolutely do not want to have anything to do with the police to help solve your problems in the society (true problems, not merely e.g. asking for directions). And then you really want to avoid problems at all. So, you cannot think of them as "friendly useful workers to help solve problems", because they are heavily incentivized and biased to find or invent crimes if you give them the opportunity. Correct me if I'm wrong, but police interviews are recorded in the US? And also, you always have the right to an attorney? (that's not the case in Japan except if you want to stay 20 days incarcerated while waiting for an attorney, all for a tiny minor dismeanor).
        socalgal2 1y ago
kcyb 1y ago
Switzerland is a diverse society with lots of immigration and it is also a high-trust society
- deadbabe 1y ago
  Switzerland is so small, basically a city.
  - antonvs 1y ago
    Switzerland's population would make it one of the biggest cities in the world, more than double the population of Los Angeles, and more than New York City. Neither of which could be counted as high trust.
    - socalgal2 1y ago
      The population of Switzerland is ~9 million. The population of LA metro is around 15 million, and NYC metro aroound 20 million LA "the city" might be less but you can't tell where LA ends and it's other parts begin. It's one giant metropolis. Same with NYC.
      - antonvs 1y ago
        You can tell where the city ends very easily. There are well-defined boundaries. Government statistics take that into account. Here's the census page for the city of Los Angeles, which lists a population just under 4 million: https://data.census.gov/profile/Los_Angeles_city,_California?g=160XX00US0644000 https://data.census.gov/profile/Los_Angeles_city,_California...
      - glimshe 1y ago
        The city of LA is just there for administrative purposes. People who live in "Burbank" or "Pasadena" are seen as living in "Los Angeles" by most people outside the region.
  - coldtea 1y ago
Havoc 1y ago
Also depends on type though. I’ve seen honesty boxes work out fine where the immigration consists mostly of professionals.

latexr 1y ago

> I wish we had a way to make this sort of system work in a low trust society. I’d rather we had a way to change low trust societies into high trust.

Eisenstein 1y ago
If there are consequences to bad behavior which results in real, felt, shame, then society will self-police to whatever values it holds. However, there can be downsides; for instance a lack of out-of-the-box thinking and individuality.
- coldtea 1y ago
  >for instance a lack of out-of-the-box thinking and individuality. Overrated. There's close to 0% of it going on in "low trust societies" anyway. It's not like the average social media zombie in the west is anywhere near an "out of the box" thinker...
sfdlkj3jk342a 1y ago
After traveling for years, I often wonder how various cultures end up high or low trust. Wealth or financial inequality doesn't seem to be the main driving factor, despite seeming an obvious cause. Racial and ethnic homogeneity doesn't always explain it either. Destruction of traditional culture by things like colonialism seems to be an important factor.
- shoobiedoo 1y ago
  > Destruction of traditional culture by things like colonialism seems to be an important factor. Were native peoples of North America high trust between tribes before colonialism?
  - sfdlkj3jk342a 1y ago
    I'm not that familiar with them, but my guess would be yes, at least for hunter-gatherers. I would think that bad behavior would get you kicked out of the community and lead to likely death. The larger ancient cities that farmed would be more interesting, especially because today Latin America is one of the lowest trust regions of the world.

jwr 1y ago

I used to buy firewood at National Forest camping sites in the US; there was a box where you dropped the money and then you grabbed a wood bundle. Granted, this was almost 40 years ago, but this type of thing can work, even in less civilized places like the US.

gentooflux 1y ago
They leave out more wood than a camper would even think to take because they only need one bundle every day or two. The sort of person who would need to steal a whole season's worth of wood is less likely to have the means to transport it all, and if they're so desperate that they'd go to the trouble then the Christian thing to do would be to let them have it. Gillette razors on the other hand, are expensive to stock for their size, and easy to steal because of their size.
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
  I’d wager that outdoorsy people who are out camping in the woods are like a “mini-Japan”. The community has their own set of rules and behaviours that would make an honour system possible. Especially 40 years ago when it would have been more of a monoculture.

portaouflop 1y ago

You can turn it into a high trust society. The mechanisms and procedures to achieve that are fairly well known.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

RataNova 1y ago

The real challenge is figuring out how to build even a fraction of that in lower-trust environments

bombcar 1y ago

We do have a way - "high trust" enclaves inside the low trust society. The modern examples in the USA are things like colleges, community centers, etc. You gatekeeper the area and then everything inside is high-trust and you can get away with things like this. You can also find it in rural areas and some very expensive islands, too.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
socalgal2 1y ago
In what way are USA colleges high trust. USA colleges have very high petty theft.
aomix 1y ago
While driving through upstate New York on a camping trip I found a maple syrup shop run on the honor system. Leave the money in an unlocked box. It was shocking. I bought a gallon.
- kelipso 1y ago
  I wonder if this is actual high trust or that there are security cameras everywhere.
  - bombcar 1y ago
    If you've been to the rural USA you'd know it's just high-trust (and the middle of nowhere). They're pretty common for low-value things like corn and farm produce; but I've seen syrup and honey, too. There might be a camera but since there's usually no power, it'd have to be some sort of trail/game/deer cam. What would you do with the result besides some vigilante frontier justice? No cop anywhere but daytime children's TV is going to investigate the Case of the Stolen Syrup.
    - sometimes_all 1y ago
      We once went to Florida and saw some open orange farms. We wanted to buy some, but there was nobody in sight - we got very confused until we saw a box which said "$X a bag"; there was a sack of bags nearby. My mind was blown.