
It's important that cultures disappear - baristaGeek
http://bgblog.quora.com/What-Important-Truth-Do-Very-Few-People-Agree-With-You-On-Its-Important-That-Cultures-Disappear?share=1
======
Ar-Curunir
I'd rather live in a inefficient but non-homogenized world than one where
everyone has the same viewpoint on most things but things are done
efficiently.

To me the situation proposed in the article sounds like something out of a
dystopian novel.

Furthermore, how would you pick one culture to standardize upon? English is
only the de facto language of the world because of forced colonialization by
the British, and USD is the de facto currency of international transactions
only because of the excessive economic and military power that the US wields.

~~~
humanrebar
> excessive economic and military power that the US wields.

What makes it excessive? How much economic and military power is proper?

~~~
cryptoz
(Not the person you're replying to, but I'll add a quick note about the
military part):

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_e...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures)

I think that having a military 2x as big as the next biggest is a sufficient
definition for 'excessive'. And here, it's a lot more than 2x.

~~~
humanrebar
One counter is that the current (relative) global stability benefits from a
pax americana. A related argument is that the Soviet Union collapsed (at least
as early as it did) due to its attempt to keep up with American spending on
science, technology, and military. But...

A better point is that it's inconsistent to state this:

> how would you pick one culture to standardize upon?

...and then criticize America for not conforming to a standard about the
proper level of military and economic power.

------
_glass
As an MA student of intercultural management I have to disagree on several
points. In general this text is what cultural scientists call ethno-centric,
assuming a priority of one culture over another. But culture is just one
solution to a solution space, that is made pushed into the unconscious,
through unlearning. It's a bit rough to summarize several papers on this
topic, e.g. there are several definitions for cultures, but this one fits the
text. These solutions can be mediated and made to create synergies. So instead
of proclaiming one global culture, it's better to see the different cultures
as they are and mediate in the 3rd space where two or more cultures meet. To
be a bit meta about the aspect of national culture (which is really just one
aspect) as an American I would have sandwiched the answer with two
compliments, but as a German I just put it frankly, and the intercultural
competence let's me declare this meta-remark.

~~~
abandonliberty
I agree that there is no 'superior' culture, yet standardization can result in
superior overall outcomes even if point outcomes may not be optimal.
Programming, construction, and manufacturing standardization are all founded
on that principle.

Based on your education I'm hoping you can share your insight. I have observed
that some homogeneous cultures such as Taiwan, Japan, and the Mexican Yucatan
have a much higher degree of social cohesiveness and responsibility than areas
with mixed cultures. Is there evidence that their homogeneity and breakdown of
in/out groups plays a role?

------
im3w1l
People have commented that English is just the international language because
of forced colonialization and economic dominance.

As someone whose native language is not English, I am very happy that English
has become the standard language. Not because English is particularly good,
but because it is A standard.

~~~
kazinator
Indeed, for instance, someone Japanese doing business in Korea can use English
and be understood. Whether that came about due to colonization or dominance is
irrelevant, because neither side is pushing English culture on the other in
that scenario any more. In fact it gives them a kind of neutrality; I don't
ask you to learn Korean, don't make me speak Japanese, let's use English; we
can both use that elsewhere. I'm meeting some people from Thailand later;
you're going to India tomorrow, ...

This English use in meetings nobody is a native speaker, taking place in a
non-English-speaking country, is a remarkable phenomenon when you think about
it.

------
dhekir
_We have pretty much agreed upon the English language._

Most people did not agree on it, but were pushed towards it due to economic
dominance. Non-native speakers may still resent their disadvantage and would
not call it an "agreement".

~~~
humanrebar
> but were pushed towards it due to economic dominance

Or perhaps English is good at some things that are especially useful these
days? This was posted on HN a while back:

[http://garrett.damore.org/2014/10/your-language-
sucks.html](http://garrett.damore.org/2014/10/your-language-sucks.html)

...the author proposes that certain languages are easier to represent
electronically. I'd certainly like to see more thought and investigation along
these lines.

I think ascribing the entire thing to coercion is premature. Do you have any
corroborating evidence for that position?

EDIT: After writing this, it occurs to me that British colonialism was
coercive in many (most?) aspects. That being said, English has been growing as
a lingua franca (hah!) since the British empire has waned, so we need a
mechanism more complex than coercion to explain the growing popularity of
English.

~~~
superuser2
It's probably relevant that early/dominant character encoding schemes were
largely created by English speakers. Of course English is easier to represent.

I'd be interested to see what advantages other languages pose. I wouldn't be
surprised if there are foreign natural languages that are much easier to parse
for meaning programmatically than English (i.e. languages where conjugation
and word endings provide explicit information that must otherwise be inferred
from context/knowledge of the world that it's much harder for a computer to
acquire.)

~~~
humanrebar
Those are fair points.

The above article seems to be claiming some objective things make English
easier to represent, like the number of characters that can be represented by
one byte and the way characters are combined into words (English is character
sequences all the way down).

Now, as far as causality, it's also interesting that certain standardizations
and simplifications happened in the English language over the past several
centuries since the printing press was invented, so it might not be as much of
a happy coincidence as it appears to be at first blush.

It's also worth pointing out that mechanized language preceeded computerized
language by thousands of years, and Europeans weren't the first to the printed
language game.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing_in_East_Asi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing_in_East_Asia)

...but the print revolution is generally attributed to Gutenberg, who
certainly came much later. Why didn't the revolution happen in Asia? Why
didn't Asian languages adapt to this new technology faster? Are the reasons
for history all technical (Asian languages have technical debt from previous
decisions) or can some aspect of Western culture be responsible as well, at
least partially?

~~~
superuser2
We already see Chinese being simplified to make it feasible to type on a
keyboard/mobile phone. Interesting times.

I wonder if that's the same thing that happened with English and the press,
just much later in history (probably related to China not industrializing
until later in history.)

------
jorjordandan
Obviously, the point of this essay is that it is supposed to be easy to
disagree with. But I feel obligated to take the bait for some reason..

The idea of a single global culture is a pretty dark path, historically
speaking. It is a utopian concept that assumes there is a path that can be
followed in order to pursue a more perfect mankind. It stems from the belief
that ambiguity and difference are negative forces, to be eliminated instead of
embraced.

I think the argument is that the darker historical paths were 'simulation'
where 'emulation' would be a better model. The difference (from what I could
tell) being that the underlying mechanism of cultural change are copied,
instead of just the effects. It could be argued that this is already taking
place - the massive reach of the internet is expanding so that more people are
being influenced by the same information streams. Internet culture makes the
assumption, predictably, that internet culture is good/best. But what if that
isn't true? What about those who don't fit into the 'internet' cultural norms?

The author talks of of making subjective judgements about the optimal
performance of certain cultures. That's a bit problematic. What about the
cultures that are not "optimal performers"? What is optimal? Those who work
the most hours? Those who laugh the most? Those who have the least number of
fistfights? Those with the greatest GDP?

------
baristaGeek
Many of you have probably read, or at least heard about, Peter Thiel's Zero to
One. A core concept of this book is asking your self: "What important truth do
very few people agree with you on?", I recently answered the question in
Quora, and decided I'm going to write an essay for each truth I mentioned.
Here's the first part of the trilogy.

~~~
phaemon
Unsurprisingly, I think you're wrong!

An unspoken assumption in your essay seems to be that people can only have one
cultural identity, which is plainly incorrect.

There is also no definition given of what it means for a culture to 'die'.
I'll offer that it's when there's nobody left who follows any of that
particular culture's elements. And it's when we break it down by element, that
I really think your argument doesn't hold together.

Take language for example. Clearly it's a central part of cultural identity,
whether used for inclusiveness or as a shibboleth. What you're basically
saying is that it's important that I stop speaking a particular language. Why?
Being able to speak a language other than English gives me a broader
understanding of language generally, and _improves_ my English. Why should it
be important for me to stop?

Or take another fundamental of culture: music. I listen to Scottish music and
sing Gaelic songs. Why is it important for me to stop doing this? More
generally, what exactly is the One True Music that we should all be listening
to, to the exclusion of all others?

I think I'll leave it there, lest this turn into a massive rant ;-)

~~~
jdmichal
To support your point, I learned as much if not more English grammar during my
several semesters of German in college than throughout most of my prior
schooling.

------
schoen
An interesting counterpoint to this which is less radical but still
potentially quite controversial is Kwame Anthony Appiah's view in his book
_Cosmopolitanism_ (which I'm reading right now): it's important that cultures
_get contaminated_ (by other cultures), and it's important that cultures
_change_.

Edit: here's a version of his argument from that book which he published in
the New York Times in 2006.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/magazine/01cosmopolitan.ht...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/01/magazine/01cosmopolitan.html?pagewanted=print)

------
kazinator
Yeah, we will have better human welfare if we become a huge homogenized mass.
The evidence of better human welfare will be, why better economic output.
Because that's what welfare means: all the cogs meshing together and cranking
it out.

Out of this homogenized mass will emerge innovation, supposedly. I suppose it
will have to, just to beat the stupefying boredom. Of course, it will be
frowned upon. "Just what the heck do you think you're doing there with that
innovation of yours? You wouldn't happen to be trying to start a new kind of
geographically-identifiable behavior around your invention? Dare I say...
_culture_? You know that is forbidden!"

By the way, English is the most spoken language? Not really; it's probably the
most badly abused language, for the purposes of global trade. You have to look
at other measures, like for how many is it their mother language. In how many
places is new English-language literature being produced (not only business
documents like purchase orders). A halfway meaningful count might be: how many
moms sing English lullabies to their children.

You know, in most places, people guard their language and culture very
jealously. The use of another language by a few people who have jobs with
international ties doesn't constitute any evidence that their region is
converting to another culture.

------
tjradcliffe
Cultural homogeneity is anti-Bayesian.

According to the Gospel of Bayes, evidence can only be used to update pre-
existing beliefs. If we consider any individual issue, no matter what beliefs
we start with, sufficient evidence will move all of us toward a similar
endpoint. So for example as infants we likely start with some pretty weird
hypothetical ideas, and by a roughly Bayesian process move toward common
notions like object permanence.

Since it is provable that Bayesian updating is the only way of knowing that is
consistent, there is no magic short-cut to optimal answers, which means that a
population with diverse starting points is in general going to have a few
members that reach optimality fairly promptly while the rest of us are still
flailing around.

If we view cultures as systems for solving problems, this implies that
cultural diversity will tend to get us to better solutions to those problems
sooner than homogeneity. Nor will the same culture always be the fastest to
currently optimal solution: the recent upsurge in interest in Buddhist
psychology is an example of a culture that achieved a pretty good
understanding of the mind quite a long time ago.

By giving us a framework in which to understand the value of cultural
diversity--including linguistic diversity--while at the same time placing the
universality of Bayes' Rule at the centre of the knowing subject's experience,
Bayesianism allows us to resolve the tension in Enlightenment humanism between
a) valuing the unique and diverse forms of human expression, culture,
language, etc and b) insisting there are universal principles that unite all
humanity.

~~~
humanrebar
And Bayesian is a form of ethnocentrism... one that presumes that materialism
and induction are superior, or at least inevitable, paths to knowledge and
truth.

Bayesian thought also presumes clear criteria for comparing outcomes, or at
least suitable heuristics that meet the same ends. Real life is much more
complex and every individual, at least to some degree, is responsible for
judging right from wrong, determining efficient from inefficient, and even
applying meaning to continuous reality (as opposed to discrete experiments).

> ...Bayesianism allows us to resolve the tension in Enlightenment humanism...

Sure. Again, if you assume a materialist philosophy. But there are
philosophies that are inherently at odds with that worldview, including
philosophies that are inherently incompatible with the form of Bayesianism
you're describing here. So maybe there's _a_ Gordian knot that has been cut
here, but it's not _the only_ Gordian knot by any means.

------
phkahler
It's always a bummer when someone offers a counterexample to his own point.
Here we see: >> I recently wrote an essay: What India can Teach to the World
and it basically explains how certain elements from the indian culture could
improove any individual in the world.

While he holds up 3 other cultures as being closest to optimum without
explanation, he also suggests that they could benefit from elements of
another. This naturally leads to a more evolutionary way where differentiation
allows exploration of many elements which can then be adopted by others once
they're identified as "good" whatever that means.

------
dlwj
I think Robert Pirsig's concepts of Static Quality and Dynamic quality are a
more useful model to view culture.

The world that is advocated here is pure dynamic quality, with nothing to
latch onto and preserve static quality.

"Goodness" and "Badness" only exist in retrospect, diversity is needed for
survival. Global optimal state doesn't exists.

When people strive for global optimal state, most of the time they are
actually looking to create a more legible system. That is, a mechanical system
over an organic one. But just because you understand more about how a system
works doesn't make it "better".

------
JamilD
When we arrive at one homogeneous culture, who do we emulate to improve
ourselves? How can we be sure that of two competing ideas, one is better?

Competition and contrast between cultures is what enables us to improve. The
world wants to copy Silicon Valley, but during its inception it was (and to
some extent, it still is) a highly iconoclastic culture.

We can not engineer an ideal society by picking and choosing aspects of
different cultures, homogenizing them, and implementing it globally. It will
be imperfect -- and we will have no way to improve.

------
pavelrub
The underlying assumption of this entire post is that "economic, innovation
and productivity performance" is the most important thing in the world. Yet
this "belief" in itself is nothing but a product of the culture the author
lives in. There is nothing universal about it, nor is there any real reason to
agree with it. Personally I couldn't care less about "efficiency" if it means
things that I consider beautiful - such as the diversity in the world - has to
go away.

------
binarymax
Cultural differentiation is not only a basis for art, creativity and
innovation, it is also absolutely necessary for adaptability and survival.
Over-Specialization and uniformity will have many negative consequences.

------
lukev

      In order for humanity to truly achieve an optimal culture [...]"
    

You lost me here. Optimal by what metric? And making value judgements about
cultures strikes me as a risky, risky business...

------
narag
What I would like to see disappear is the belief that traditions, languages
and customs have an intrinsic value and must be preserved. Some languages are
only spoken by one person: let them die already. Is your terrible local
folklore and music being forgotten? Great!

Edit: It was humbling how Asimov put it in the Foundation saga. In just a few
thousands years, memory of _Earth_ had been lost.

------
gpvos
He's probably right that, in order to have world peace, the world must become
boring.

------
NhanH
This is a amazingly US-centric essay, and sadly, one that lacks much substance
(for the type of claims it's making). There wasn't anything to back up the
claim, except the one example on calendar (which pretty much is NOT culture).

Firstly, a quick fact-checking: depends on how you do your survey, English
_might not_ be the most used spoken language in the world, and in some cases,
not even close. There are somewhere potentially around 1-1.2 billions Mandarin
speakers. And if I'm not mistaken, there are around 800-1billions English
speakers in the world.

I'd also like to note that your main thesis is a hypothesis at best, and
definitely not an "important truth". Not yet, as of today anyway.

Culture existed for a reason. It was not entirely historical accident that the
Eastern and Western culture was different (I believe it's partly due to the
farming method at the start of agriculture). With that in mind, it's only
possible to have a mono culture if the living situation everywhere on Earth is
the same. And until we can actually do terraforming, I don't see it happening.
(After terraforming? I'd rather not guess). Remember the picture of the
worldmap that note half of the world is living in a circle [0]? Even something
as simple as most of South-East Asia living in cities would make a drastic
different culture than sub-urban America.

I've been thinking about culture and social norms, my conclusion was that they
exist as a way to make dealing with other human easier: we human if left alone
all have different preferences in too many things. And if as a group, everyone
has to guess how everyone else want things to be done, it just take too much
effort. That's also why I think when the group is small enough, or if it's a
1-on-1 situation, social norms don't mean much.

Since human ourselves is extremely unlikely to suddenly become homogeneous
(5000 years from now, if we a group of human randomly, half of them will
probably still put the toilet paper roll differently than the other half),
it's more likely that there will be even more culture than the past, not less.
If once culture were limited by physical distance, that won't be an issue in
the future.

It's more likely than not I'm similar to thinking and belief of other HN-ers
than my fellow countrymen - and likewise for other HN-ers.

Finally, efficiency isn't the only goal to be optimized for human/ society.
I'm not even sure if that's the main goal or not. Likewise for happiness -
we're not all utilitarian, are we?

[0]: [http://io9.com/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-population-
lives...](http://io9.com/more-than-half-of-the-worlds-population-lives-
inside-t-493103044)

~~~
tokenadult
Mandarin (a language I speak) does not have as many speakers as you guess.[1]
We can be absolutely sure that the number of people in the world conversant in
Mandarin is strictly less than the current population of China by hundreds of
millions of individuals.

[1]
[http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838...](http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838.htm)

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-
china-23975037](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-23975037)

~~~
NhanH
China is a huge country though. At 1.3 billions population, 70% is a solid 900
millions speakers, add in a bit out of country and it's not inconceivable for
the number to reach a billion or more.

Either way, it's just a technical details that doesn't affect much of my
original point: I don't believe it's a clear cut case of "We have pretty much
agreed upon the English language". In EU and of course US, that claim might
hold some water. But when it comes to the rest of the world ... that seems far
from being settled (And I don't know what's the situation in Africa, or South
America is).

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
Eine Welt Eine Sprache Eine Kulture

