Hacker News Reader

Comment by ANewFormation | Hacker News Reader

And so if you went to Saudi Arabia you'd pretend to be down with executing people for apostasy?

Obviously it's an extreme example but many of the norms of a Western mindset would be no less offensive to billions of people in this world.

What bias of moderation exists is that you probably wouldn't migrate to Saudi Arabia unless you were already mostly ok with their values.

And if e.g. economic opportunity drove you there you'd probably keep your opinions to yourself, but it's unlikely your values would fundamentally change.

I will only add - I speak from experience here.

View on HN

> What bias of moderation exists is that you probably wouldn't migrate to Saudi Arabia unless you were already mostly ok with their values... you'd probably keep your opinions to yourself, but it's unlikely your values would fundamentally change.

Then, how do you explain, for example some people who migrates to France from a majority Muslim country and decides all French people are infidels and deserve death? Similarly, I know a lot of people who would curse America, yet still chooses to live in America. They were never mostly OK with the values on their current countries...

You ellipsed out the answer - economic opportunity.

The thing is that both ideas come from the same place. People try to create a save and livable place, but they have different opinions on how to get to that place. Some more right than others, but the fact is that both have their root in the same desires.

At the end of the day, most people just want to be able to live a life, work, have children, some friends, family and health. Most difference come from the way people think they best achieve those goals.

If you grew up in Saudi Arabia raised by a typical family then yeah sure, you probably would be fine with it. Culture of course shapes people and I think it's silly to pretend you could freely swap adults but that doesn't mean that people are fundamentally different.

That's not what he asked you. You answered some other question.

The question that was asked was not to confirm what GP said, it was combative to try to position GP as a bad person. Basically the equivalent of saying “so you’re saying you would be okay killing Jews if you lived in Nazi Germany.”

GP answered to clarify their position and answered the only question that should have been asked, the equivalent of, “if during my childhood I was indoctrinated by the Hitler Youth program, yes I probably would have done this horrible thing and so would you.”

I think you may have misread his post. He was not speaking of being born and raised in an area but his thought experiment was swapping out people explicitly from different cultures, and seeing at what percent the 'host' cultures would change.

He believes people would simply change their values, but I think this is an incorrect assumption, as the example should make obvious.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com