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Comment by bryananderson | Hacker News Reader

Something this author gets that most people (of all political stripes) don’t: whether a culture is “better” than another is not even a well-formed question.

We must ask “better at what?” We must define some criteria to measure, and speak in those terms, not in ill-defined terms like “just better”.

The author speaks mostly in terms of specific consequences of different value systems. This is not the same thing as declaring a culture (usually the speaker’s own) to be “better” in some ill-defined way.

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I don't think the author grasps it either, especially when he uses morality as an outcome rather than just another cultural value. Assessing the quality of the outcome requires a cultural perspective itself, and even if from that cultures perspective the outcome is poor, the values that the culture would have to change may be worse.

If my culture does not accept that slavery is acceptable, but is aware that it will be wiped out by the cultures that do allow it, and chooses that fate, my culture is not inferior for doing so from my perspective.

It's pretty easy to objectively measure which cultures are better. In general we can just look at long-term trends in voluntary migration rates by country / state / region (or whatever geographic area aligns with a particular culture). Sure there will be some noise in the data based on natural disasters and legal restrictions but those revealed preferences give a good first approximation.

Except historically migration to the US was driven by free land. And more recently by opportunities for wealth. These might be results of the non-thar culture, but they are confounded by natural resources and people are not clearly expressing a preference for the culture so much as a few correlated material benefits.

People often move not for cultural reasons, but because of resources. An example would be Nepalese migrant workers moving to Saudi Arabia - they aren't doing that for the culture.

Also, voluntary migration rates (the metric that grandparent proposes) are distorted by migration policies.

You are simply picking a measure (immigration) and saying that “being better at my measure that I picked equals being better, period.” What if I threaten all my neighboring countries with nuclear annihilation unless all their citizens move to my country, so that I will be sure to top your list of greatest countries?

Be careful what you optimize for. ;)

That's like saying Facebook is good because everybody uses it.

Or Cocaine. If you try it a few times, you won't ever want to stop using.

Cocaine isn't that addictive, at least not for everyone.

It's more like cocaine is "obviously good" because millions of people around the world use it. I think that's a more apt usage of cocaine in the OP's estimation of popularity === "good."

By that measure, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have the best culture.

If you read the history of Columbus meeting the Arawaks on Hispaniola in his own words and the subsequent annihilation via genocide of the natives, it's hard to accept that the culture of Columbus is better.

Isn't survival, at a minimum, an instrumental value that has to support the objective values of a culture?

Value at surviving, yes. Value at making war, maybe. Value at behaving morally? Not so much.

(And yes, I am aware of how fuzzy the term "morally" is here...)

Hmm, seems North Korea comes out on top..

I don't know about that. Nobody voluntarily migrates to there.

Plenty of pedophiles migrate to Thailand for increased access to child sex trafficking, does that mean they have a superior culture?

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