Forum - View topic

NEWS: 17 Hit or Stabbed, 7 Confirmed Dead in Tokyo's Akihabara

While you may have been registered here long enough you obviously haven't been active in the forums long enough my dear Katrak. This is hardly the first time Porcupine has posted something like this before. He's about one step away from being a sociopath himself.

Having said that, I should like to point out that, in instances of impersonal catastrophe (that is: fires, earthquakes, floods, and other natural disasters), the incidence of heroism is statistically much higher than that of cowardice. It surprised me to learn this, but it would appear to be a fact.

Here, those who can't speak English can get nervous, embarrassed, agitated, or even a little bit panicked, their reactions are never on par with those of Japanese.

He asked the clerk about "microwave oven" in English, and the clerk jumped backwards, with his back against the wall, as if he had just witnessed an extraterrestrial being on Earth. And similar incidents happen quite often.

Argue the facts, not the person presenting them, please.

As for generalizations about what bystanders will or will not do in a violent crime situation -- please give that up.

Wow, I never thought anyone would accuse dormcat of trolling. The thing is, everything he said is valid. Bystander mentality in Japan is much, MUCH different in Japan than anywhere else in the world. In Eastern Europe, this man might have been mobbed by the bystanders. In America, there's a chance that someone would have jumped in to help stop the assailant. I cannot imagine either of those scenes happening in Japan. I imagine everyone stopping, exactly where they were, to watch the scene unfold, paralyzed by their inability to do something. "Shikataganai!" "It couldn't be helped!" No, Michael_Arnold, what dormcat says is not ridiculous and is completely relevant, as cultural attitudes are directly revealed in stressful situations such as this.

Michael_Arnold wrote:

You're not going to find any explanations for this tragedy if you keep clinging to stereotypes...

Au Contraire. Please learn the difference between "stereotype" and "generalization". Stereotypes are made with little knowledge; generalizations are made after research. And it is in these generalizations, which reveal culture-wide attitudes, that you will find an explanation of this crime, if there is one to be had.

I feel the need to give an example. Take suicide. As most anime fans know, suicide used to be a form of regaining lost honor for your family. Those who took their own lives were held in high regard, as they bravely met their fate. At the same time in the West, suicide was seen as a coward's way out. Someone just wanted to run away. The corpses of the dead were beheaded, and superstition held that the suicidal person would receive certain punishments in the afterlife. Now, argue with me all you want, but when you see that Japan still has the highest suicide rate in the world, I will look back at cultural mindsets that have been carried by people over centuries. This is a generalization (after all, not every businessman who looses his livelihood jumps in front of a train), but it is still very real.

Tornado: Actually, crime in America went up in the 60s and 70s, and peaked in the 80s, before declining in the 90s.

GATSU wrote:

Tornado: Actually, crime in America went up in the 60s and 70s, and peaked in the 80s, before declining in the 90s.

I know. But it wasn't that common during the 1960s and 70s.

TornadoTatsumaki wrote:

GATSU wrote: Tornado: Actually, crime in America went up in the 60s and 70s, and peaked in the 80s, before declining in the 90s. I know. But it wasn't that common during the 1960s and 70s.

First off this is OT. Second crime before the 80's was rare? Are you freaking kidding me? Do lynchings, rape of black women and race crimes suddenly not count? Are those perpetrators exempt from laws all of a sudden? And that's just one particular subject. As a criminal justice major I can assure you your statement is completely false. I won't deny crime has increased in percentages since then but part of that is also due to an increase in population. As there are far more people here then 20, 30, or 40 years ago there will of course be more crime. Now even factoring that in statistically I won't deny the rate of crimes have gone up. There's also an increase in technology and killing is far easier now. Plus as technology increases and as society advances there are more crimes themselves that can be perpetrated now. I mean 20 some odd years ago there was no real identity theft, electronic theft, or any of the new cyber crimes that have arisen as technology has progressed. I could go on and on and on with countless Statistics and examples of reference but that would be going even further OT and believe it or not I don't feel like being yelled at for once here. Suffice to say you're way off the mark on many levels with your assumption that crime was rare before the 80's.

I did not say it was rare back then I said it wasn't as common as it is today. After all, why did people sleep with thier doors unlocked?

Think about it! Before the 1980s, crime used to be pretty rare here in America, people kept thier doors unlocked at night,opened hier windows, and women even carelessly walked alone!