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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   37989 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023

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That may be true, but it's the path we're on if we can't reduce urban crime rates any other way. People can only tolerate so much violence before they demand an authoritarian leader clean up the streets, as has been happening in El Salvador.

It's clearly not the only path, since East Asian cities have all the amenities of a first world country without any of the street crime. The real question is how. Many are in countries generally considered democracies, so authoritarianism does not seem strictly necessary. If the answer is culture, then maybe we ought to start teaching the Analects to schoolchildren. If the answer is how their police forces operate, then maybe we ought to copy that. If the answer is strictly HBD, then I suppose we're shit out of luck unless we want to go full great replacement in our immigration policy.

Public order is strictly enforced, both by social norm and by state force. People in authority are abundant and there's much more of a culture of catching the small stuff. For example in Japan, there is a station attendant at every fare turnstile set. 95% of the time they are there to help with ticket issues and logistics (the trains are needlessly bureaucratic). But if you tried to fare jump they would totally shout at you and make a scene and likely detain you til the cops came.

You focus on occasion of order enforced by authority actually present, but there even when the natives are left unsupervised, they do not act as Americans do.

This is shown by isolated and unguarded vending machines: only a high trust society can rely that people won't smash and loot them, which is why they are common in Japan and are by Japanese considered a sign of a safe country. There absense in the US can considered indicative of larger social dysfunction.

There absense in the US can considered indicative of larger social dysfunction.

Uh.. they are not absent in the united states at all. Definitely not as prevalent as in Japan but they're really not a rare sight. My understanding is that it's less crime that makes the states have less of them and more cultural.

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