It's tempting to hold ones own N=1 for the generic case, but off course that can never be true. I have found that variability within countries is higher than b

It's tempting to hold ones own N=1 for the generic case, but off course that can never be true. I have found that variability within countries is higher than between (Western) countries. Which does not mean there are no mean differences, but with a limited sampling size you can get a very wrong impression. Same reason you cannot possibly judge your own country BTW: you can't pass for an outsider, and you will have that almost innate shared set of references.