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Comment by eBombzor | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotal but can confirm that my Asian dad smokes a pack a day, with the window open, and it pretty much permeates the apartment, and we've all had issues with lung health. There's no doubt in my mind this is a huge factor.

Sidenote but I haven't missed my father since I left home. Traditional old Asian men are possibly the worst humans ever.

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> Traditional old Asian men are possibly the worst humans ever.

That's, uh, quite a strong statement. What makes them worse than all the other humans?

I'm assuming they are referring to "traditional old Asian culture" aka the combination of old patriarchal/sexist beliefs, a toxic workplace/exploitation culture, society-over-individual attitudes, and that topped up with a healthy dose of racism to xenophobia (depending on the country).

I mean, some of this is rich to talk about given I'm European and most Western countries share a lot of these traits, but from what I hear(d) from friends from Asia, it's the "the needs of the society/family are more important than those of the individual" that they find the worst compared to the very individualist attitudes of Western countries.

Are "society-over-individual values" really such an obviously bad thing?

"Society" in this context can also mean "a tiny number of primarily self-interested individuals". That tends to be evident when the most powerful or influential people also happen to be strict authoritarians.

Already had that copied to quote it now to see you already did that.

I think this item stands out in the enumeration and I honestly question if social behaviour over individualism is a bad thing.

East Asian wars tend to be drastically more deadly than the wars of any other group. The Three Kingdoms War wiped China's population to 30% of what it once was, and had half the deaths of WWII in a world with two hundred million people instead of billions.

Oh, absolutely, and it can be seen for example in suicide rates [1], or the weird state of Japanese criminal justice where prosecutors will only go for nailed-shut cases so that they don't "lose face" (while society as a whole suffers) [2], not to mention the entire issue surrounding "forced confessions".

[1] https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Asia-Insight/Youth-suicide...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_Jap...

yes of course, the enlightened Americans are so much better at handling crime. pointing at western justice systems to say that western values are superior - this must be satire?

This seems like an uncharitable reading. I don't think there was a comparison made.

Any justice system with a very high conviction rate is either unjust or extremely selective. The American federal government is also extremely selective in prosecution, and for the same reason. Losing makes the prosecutor look bad.

By definition, negative side effects that can be cherry-picked are more numerous and pronunced in an Individualist society, as the very point of Collectivism is to steer the crowds away from trouble, while Individualism tolerates a wider range of individual tragedies for the potential upside.

Your examples were not well chosen anyway, as their relation to collectivism seems dubious, and US prosecutors also have high conviction rates without trial through threat of big punishment.

Individualism in western countries varies quite a bit. In cross-country scores, Spain has numbers far closer to the middle east than to the US, and then Peru is closer to China than to Spain!

So your invdidualism argument is only strong if by western, you mean the anglosphere, the Netherlands and Belgium.

This is indeed surprising. What's the source?

Even within China, the north (wheat-growing culture) is noticeably more individualistic than the south (rice-growing culture). The south is also significantly more traditional.

Japan and Korea, despite being in North-East Asia, are rice-growing, due to their oceanic climate. Culturally they are also closer to Southern China.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44770-w

One interesting result of the study is the culture change within one generation.

A shallow and superficial comment in a subthread that took the wrong turn. Casually applying nasty labels in an act of self-loathing from a fellow German. Oh no, our toxic workplaces, truly funny. Our beloved individualism that has little regard for society as a whole left, consequences of that showing up more and more, how dare the old asian guy hold on to the old ways. "Xenophobia" in the face of mass immigration that is handled terribly etc.

Actually take your criteria and apply them fairly to some of the other cultures around the world. And let the old guy smoke (outside). He is not the worst human ever, that's for sure.

> "the needs of the society/family are more important than those of the individual"

That's Spock from The Wrath of Khan, right?

I remember when I was a kid one of my friends telling me he hated his parents. How old are you in the 8th grade? 13, 14? That's how old we were. I'm sure I didn't say anything - what could I say? - but it seemed totally incomprehensible to me. It would be as if he had said he hated himself. How could you?

My parents aren't saints. They're no less human then I am. Like my wife and my kid they're people that are so easy to forgive. It's so easy to rationalize away anything they do. It's just tiny bit easier to forgive myself then them and I don't see how it could be otherwise.

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