6 ms·
In contrast, see “Why Russians never smile”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27317859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27317859
by Cockbrand 10mo ago
In contrast, see “Why Russians never smile”: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27317859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27317859
- anal_reactor 10mo agoOn a tangent - I've moved abroad to work in a multinational corporation, and I noticed that similar cultures cluster together. I spend most of my time with other Eastern Europeans.
- snthd 10mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-segregation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-segregation
- abc123abc123 10mo ago[flagged]
- nephihaha 10mo agoI believe part of the endgoal is to create a fairly homogenous global culture. If you listen to radio stations across the world, many play the same rotten manufactured pop songs... Hollywood and Google/Wikipedia complete the Coca Colonisation.
- Scarblac 10mo agoThere is no person with enough agency to have that kind of thing as an end goal. It's effect of a lot of other things, mostly US dominance and globalisation.
- potato3732842 10mo agoYou don't need a person. It's just a result of the systems we've set up and how they incentives everyone with any agency to act when they do get to use that agency.
- stickfigure 10mo agoSpecifically, it's Metcalfe's Law.
- nephihaha 10mo agoThere are plenty. Hollywood has massive dominance in the international film industry as does the American music industry. The USA has spent a lot of time and money promoting its culture. It is partly a consequence of the Cold War. But the endgoal is to produce a homogenised world culture. You can see this being pushed by groups such as FIFA and Global Citizen (the name isn't even subtle) in the last few weeks with the lead up to the World Cup, and the repeated use of platitudes like "we are one" and "unite for our future".
- anticodon 10mo ago[flagged]
- jaapz 10mo agoLGBT propaganda... Funny how people who have been gobbling up propaganda about something, always think "the other side" is the one producing the actual propaganda And yes, i see the irony of this statement But some dudes kissing in a movie is not propaganda
- drdeca 10mo agoIsn’t whether or not something is propaganda determined by the intent of those producing or distributing it? If the intent of someone including two men kissing in a movie is to promote approval of homosexual relationships, OR is to promote the idea that men kissing doesn’t imply homosexuality, then that’s propoganda, but if the intent is just “the movie sells better if there’s a scene pandering to yaoi fangirls”, or “the screenwriter found something that happened with two guys they know to be compelling”, then it isn’t propaganda, right?
- jaapz 10mo agoYou're probably right, but my main point was that it's funny that people who have been spoon fed propaganda about something always think the opposite of what they now believe is the actual propaganda Honestly, pretty impressive by the russian government how they are able to do that Then again, in many cultures (even in more tolerant ones like here in the netherlands) there's always somewhere a latent hatred and/or disgust towards LGBT. So maybe it's nit that hard to bring that back to the surface after all
- potato3732842 10mo agoThe more peaky the bell curve the more money you can make by targeting your product (or extractive tax policy) at the middle of that curve. McDonalds, Hollywood, etc, etc. would love nothing more than to have nearly everyone consume one class of products and the bureaucrats and academics who know best would love nothing more than to have simple rules that can apply to nearly everyone.
- nephihaha 10mo agoMore or less... I used to have the Radio Garden app where I could listen to stations across the world until bureaucracy intervened. It was an eyeopener (earopener?) to hear most stations in South America, Asia and Australia playing the same crappy pop songs. Not even very good ones either. Some stations played local music as well which was of far more interest to me than hearing more or less the same pap.
- throw-the-towel 10mo agoInteresting -- that doesn't match my experience with South America at all! Everywhere you go, the venues mainly play local music, except maybe in Chile.
- FabHK 10mo agoWhile you might have a few global super stars (Lady Gaga, Black Pink, ...) everywhere, the average pop radio station in the USA, Russia, China will be very different from each other.
- Scarblac 10mo agoMass immigration has always happened over the millennia. Sometimes peoples are replaced, sometimes they end up mostly merged after a few generations. I don't think it's something that can be prevented or encouraged, it's too many people trying to improve their lives to control it. Especially in a time when we're making most of the tropics uninhabitable with climate change.
- rfrey 10mo agoWhat does "forced" mean in this context?
- EliRivers 10mo agoForcing people to move to another country en masse sounds like the failures wouldn't be caused by a culture clash so much as more fundamental issues around being forced to move to another country.
- oytis 10mo agoYeah, that's the point - you shouldn't really smile, it's about relaxing your mouth
- dnemmers 10mo agoUnfortunately, the URL referenced in the link does not point to the original article. Here is what I assume was referenced: https://chicagomaroon.com/5454/viewpoints/op-ed/why-russians-do-not-smile/ https://chicagomaroon.com/5454/viewpoints/op-ed/why-russians...
- Cockbrand 10mo agoThank you for that, I only dug out the HN discussion, having read the article back when it was on the front page. Weird that the link changed like that!
- dnemmers 10mo agoNot a problem! It took an embarrassing long time reading through the article, waiting for the pivot to ‘Russian Smiling’, only to realize by almost the very end, that clearly, I had been hoodwinked. Linking the proper article after this endeavor seemed appropriate to save others the same grief.