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Very easy to shoot this idiot down. When I lived in my old apartment in Osaka, I had a washlets toilet, when I lived in Kyoto, I didn’t. The difference is price. I paid around $600
a month for a high turnover 150 sq. ft apt. in Osaka - I paid $560 for a low turnover 300 sq. ft apt. in Kyoto.

A toilet costs maybe around $150-$250 with maybe $5 in toilet paper a month to use. A washlet set costs AT LEAST $500 with about $10 a month in electricity/water costs to use. It’s basic economics that Americans would have no demand for a more expensive toilet with no real additional benefits other than a warm toilet seat and a squirting water nozzle? In fact, Americans are actually smarter because they use lower-tech, more affordable products. There also is a device in Japan present in many department stores toilets that makes the sound of a toilet flushing so that you can cover the sound of you pooping without wasting water. That would seem stupid to an American, with a clear reason.

The train comparison also is stupid. I lived in Japan for five years and never drove. Driving in Japan is a luxury every except rural areas. Japan is also about the size of California with almost three times the population. Americans choose car travel because America is farther spread out, Americans find the freedom of it attractive, and it’s more affordable to use a car than construct huge grids of train tracks throughout the nation, causing both eminent domain and environmental problems for a questionable end.

Economics rules everything - people that ignore the realities of economics look like fools upon close inspection of economic facts.