Comment by yk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yk | Hacker News Reader

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On the US and Japan, Japan did industrialize first, prior to WWII, and adopted some aspects of western culture afterwards. Similar the US did become independent first and then largely developed what is nowadays called western culture. Both actually used force instead of submitting.

My understanding of China is more limited, but it seems they will become a developed nation first before adopting things like representative democracy, human rights etc.

> He links to a citation in the sentence after your quote.[1]

Indeed I overlooked that link, so I should have chosen a different claim that needs a good argument. ( The claim that education became more rigid as a general trend in history seems dubious for example.) However, looking very quickly through the paper, it does not seem to claim that culture as most important factor is well understood, instead he seems to build an argument that local factors are very important and suggests that culture may be the most important local factor.

> Japan did industrialize first, prior to WWII, and adopted some aspects of western culture afterwards.

Except for voting and human rights, Japan adopted all the things I listed before WWII. The Meiji era was full of westernization.

I don't think people realize just how insanely dysfunctional other cultures can be. Plenty of poor countries lack concepts we consider basic. Take Haiti, for example. I'll quote a couple paragraphs from a doctor who volunteered there after the earthquake[1]:

> It has proven hard for me to appreciate exactly how confused the Haitians are about some things. Gail, our program director, explained that she has a lot of trouble with her Haitian office staff because they don't understand the concept of sorting numerically. Not just "they don't want to do it" or "it never occurred to them", but after months and months of attempted explanation they don't understand that sorting alphabetically or numerically is even a thing. Not only has this messed up her office work, but it makes dealing with the Haitian bureaucracy - harrowing at the best of times - positively unbearable.

> Gail told the story of the time she asked a city office for some paperwork regarding Doctors Without Borders. The local official took out a drawer full of paperwork and looked through every single paper individually to see if it was the one she wanted. Then he started looking for the next drawer. After five hours, the official finally said that the paper wasn't in his office.

I hope that gives an idea of the culture gains Robin Hanson is talking about. Such concepts only seem obvious to us because we were raised in a culture that already had them.

1. http://squid314.livejournal.com/297579.html

Unfourtunatly I don't have much time at the moment, so just a too brief answer; if you view culture as broad enough to encompass the example, then I agree. I would view the lack of alphabetical sorting as more akin to a lack of technology, rather than as a feature of culture.

> Similar the US did become independent first and then largely developed what is nowadays called western culture.

I stopped reading here. The US developed its own culture, it did not largely develop 'western' culture, though it is very influential.

Well, I did expand the claim several times when writing the comment. The thing is, if you look at the world of the 1780ies, then there is only one democracy ( for comparison, France is still an absolute monarchy, Britain has some democratic elements but is mostly a monarchy). So it is probably some hyperbole and certainly glosses over all details, especially that cultures are interconnected, I think it is not a too strong statement.

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