Comment by loxs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by loxs | Hacker News Reader

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Well, we are going deep down the rabbit hole now :). Please excuse me if I say lots of stupid things.

How far apart are Louisiana and California? How far apart are Romania and Bulgaria? Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level), the same currency and the same "american" culture. Neither of these is true for BG and RO. And we are neighbours, mind that. As an added "benefit", we have separate electronic payment providers (+ most of the American ones). We use Visa and PayPal when we need to pay between countries. Until recently we didn't even have a common banking accounts system. Now we have IBAN and it's a lot better. We also don't have a common postal office. If I send a parcel from one neighbouring town of BG, to a town across Danube, it becomes an international delivery, and 5 years ago used to have to pass through the customs office.

As someone else mentioned, it's much better to sell from Romania (and Bulgaria for that matter) directly to the USA, instead of trying to enter the neighbour market.

And now surprise, we are always considered about the same thing by EU officials. We were accepted to the EU together, we must join the Schengen area together, we must adopt the Euro together... It's crazy :).

So, no, if we cave to compare to CA and LA, nope, they are a lot more similar.

Your ignorance of the respective areas is showing. It's hard to talk about a common culture between California and Louisiana when neither California nor Louisiana has a common internal culture.

In Louisiana, spend some time in Houma, and then some time in Shreveport. Louisiana has a Cajun-dominated region and a region that's very much part of the Old South, and they're not much alike.

In California, spend some time in Berkeley, and then some time in Redding, and then some time in El Centro. California has a relatively liberal coastal culture, a libertarian culture in its interior, and an almost exclusively Hispanic culture in portions of its south.

I'll gladly agree that Europe is gloriously diverse, but you really should stop underestimating American cultural diversity.

And you can make the exact same comments about any country in Europe.

And I think this is where this all leads - at some level all generalizations fail. All the way down to the individual level. Generalizing about my cube-mate fails: he hated Mexican food, till the new waitress started at our Mexican lunch spot. So now he hates all Mexican food minus that 1 restaurant.

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This example is actually 10 years old, it but leapt to mind.

Easy, tiger. European countries have diversity like this too. In many places going one valley over will give you different dialects or languages, ethnic heritage, cultural oddities, etc.

Of course they do. I wasn't suggesting the contrary.

You were implying that CA and LA have more varied internal culture than do Bulgaria and Romania, else you wouldn't have made the comparison - it would have been redundant to what loxs had said.

That's what you inferred. gyardly says nothing about the internal culture of Bulgaria and Romania.

Nope, it's implied, due to the last phrase of my comment above. It may not have been consciously intended, but it is an implication of making that statement in the first place.

Thats what youve taken from his post. not what was implied.

He wasn't talking about culture, all his examples are commercial.

Umm, there is very little American cultural diversity. Slight differences in lifestyle don't make for cultural diversity. At least not in comparison to the various countries of Europe.

I'm Russian and will argue that most of the eastern Europe has very similar culture. Just because you rotate your head to say yes and nod to say no, does not make it vastly culturally different. The culture curtain ends somewhere around Czech Republic. Yes, I am even willing to say Ukraine is about 99% culturally similar, and that should stand for something since many know how much Russians despise being associated with Ukraine.

I am Ukrainian and I disagree with you strongly, mainly because of your out-of-blueish 99%. Traditional culture is very different. As for an urban one, while Eastern and Southern regions are similar in very aspects to Russia indeed, they are not what we mean by Ukrainian culture at all.

>Ukraine is about 99% culturally similar

That's very ignorant. It's exactly the same as saying that Germany and Austria are 99% culturally similar.

While I am not a researcher by any means into cultural history, I have lived 20 years in Russia, 3 years in Ukraine. I also have a deep Polish background. The differences in the cultures between these 3 is relatively minor.

Agreed. I'm American and spent three months this year full-time travelling the US by car. I did a complete circumnavigation, with a side-trip to Toronto thrown in. It was clear to me that, despite some small regional differences such as accent and general political inclinations, the country is remarkably homogenous. In the States we're far more "informed" - that is to say infected - by the nation-wide "news" media than by regional cultural memory. Texas remembers the Alamo, Vermont remembers Ethan Allen, the Pacific Northwest remembers Lewis and Clark, all in some fairly vague way. But nationally, everybody remembers <insert low-brow TV program name here> from last night and that's something to talk about!

> I'll gladly agree that Europe is gloriously diverse, but you really should stop underestimating American cultural diversity.

Same differences exist in Europe in particular countries. Mountainers in Poland have different culture from Silesians, or Kashubi. Kashubi have different language, too. And Poland is one of the least diverse countries in Europe thanks to Stalin forced expulsions.

Switzerland has smaller population than New York City, and still have 3 official languages (or 4, depending on how you count). And there are countries in western Europe that have serious separatist movements. More serious than Texas.

People all over the world watch Hollywood movies, so we know at least something about cultural diversity of USA. People in USA don't know anything about smaller countries in Europe, so they assume it's all the same. Availability heuristic.

I think that it makes it more probable for people in USA to underestimate Europe diversity than the other way around.

I find it odd that in an article about dispelling generalizations, the discussion seems to require a lot of generalization to make the point?

Namely, look at the following:

People in USA don't know anything about smaller countries in Europe, so they assume it's all the same. Availability heuristic.

Not all people in the USA have the same upbringing, world view, or experiences - just all not all people in the EU, Eurozone, or continent of Europe do. All of the hand-waving in the world won't change the fact the people are incredibly diverse in nearly all geographic or national units. You say it's impossible for a nation of 300+ million people whose heritage come from nearly every nation state to have diversity at a level anywhere near a population of 8 million people?

I'm sorry, but this generalization doesn't hold water, and does disservice to any point you are trying to make. When you back it up with People all over the world watch Hollywood movies, so we know at least something about cultural diversity of USA. that makes your point even weaker. "Urban Cowboy" will teach you nothing at all about the strong Chinese and Vietnamese cultures in Harris county, it won't touch at all on the wide diversity of languages and social norms that can change on a block-by-block basis here. "Love and a .45" will not teach you anything about how the culture in the Texas hill country is largely shaped by a blend of European (German and Polish primarily) and Mexican traditions.

No one is denigrating the cultural diversity here but the people claiming there is no cultural diversity in the US. You can tell me you know everything you really need to know about our culture, but then seem to miss the extreme differences in culture, or in some cases by others here, hand-wave away any difference entirely. To say that Southern Louisiana has the same "culture" as Northern California would be considered laughable by those having spent any reasonable time in the two regions. A more in-depth study rather than a few Hollywood movies would help modulate your position.

BTW, just to point out a common and incorrect generalization you made in this very comment:

"Yet, the two USA states share the same language (at least on official level)"

No, they don't.

At the federal level, there is no official language.

At the state level, English is an official language of California, however it is not an official language of Louisiana.

See the table at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement

I guess things may be more different than you think, eh?

From Wikipedia:

"According to the 2000 census, among persons five years old and older,[78] 90.8% of Louisiana residents speak only English (99% total speak English)."

Ok, it might not be "official". Only "de facto".

It's less now in 2010, if i'm reading the 2010 census files right.

Also, for California, the number is only 58%. "As of 2005, 58% of California residents age five and older spoke English as a first language at home".

So they are still very different.

They're similar in quantifiable traits (language, currency, same federal government). Culture, how individuals (often businesses) interact are much different.

The south as a whole is much different than the west coast, and somewhat the midwest.

Thank you for this. I was referring exactly to quantifiable traits.

but even comparing quite different states in the US they are more similar than the extremes of the EU you get in practice - arguably the expansion was botched and a lot of entrants came in before they had converged.

The do all have different legal environments.

Surface similarities are a poor measure of homogeneity.

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