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Culture Is the Mass-Synchronization of Framings
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- rayiner 8mo ago> For an Italian like me, this whole process is nothing short of a miracle. I grew up in a city where metro train boarding during rush hour feels like a prelude to the apocalypse Going Japan reminds me of coming to the U.S. from Bangladesh. It’s so clean, so orderly, so disciplined. I’m in a grumpy mood for weeks when I get back to the U.S. Our major cities are such dumps in comparison to Tokyo or Kyoto.
- righthand 8mo agoAll of our non-major cities are even bigger dumps then. I live in Nyc for 8 years. I didn’t sit around the whole time b-ing and moaning that the city had a trash problem. I got involved in my community and active in the political movements here. When you start making issues visible and get your neighbors vocalizing the issues themselves, a lot more gets done than being in a “grumpy mood” about it indefinitely. The real dumps are the people who complain along the way but make no effort to improve their world. Aka American culture.
- rayiner 8mo ago> I got involved in my community and active in the political movements here. When you start making issues visible and get your neighbors vocalizing the issues themselves But you didn't actually succeed in cleaning up New York, right? So maybe the problem is a culture that prioritizes "making issues visible" and engaging the "community" in "political movements," instead of every parent teaching their child from a young age to pick up after themselves? > All of our non-major cities are even bigger dumps then. Most, but not all. I was shocked to my core when I visited Salt Lake City and Provo. The closest place to Japan in the whole U.S.
- PaulHoule 8mo ago"Making issues visible" can be kinda dangerous in that groups that do that become dependent on those issues continuing. Also they frequently misdiagnose problems: for instance homelessness is seen as a problem of "poverty" and not "management of severe mental illness". It's true technically that the median homeless person is not mentally ill, but the median homeless person is "between apartments" and the intractable cases, the people who are screaming on the street corners and breeding pitbulls that bite people on the Ithaca Commons are a public health problem.
- righthand 8mo ago[flagged]
- socalgal2 8mo agoIs it a culture of "not my problem"? Maybe bad example but, Let's say you spill some food at a fast food place, shopping mall, airport. Do you make an effort to clean it up yourself or are you like "It's someone's job to clean this place therefore I can just leave it for them". Maybe that's too harsh an example but I see locals cleaning the streets in Japan, not government hired street sweepers. I don't know the details if they just did it, or if they registered to volunteer to be responsible for that area, or if there is more to it. And I also don't know if they feel put-out, as in "why am I doing this" vs proud for making the area clean. > provo and salt lake Not sure in what dimension? Plenty of neighborhoods in larger LA, SF, SD, Seattle, are clean.
- kjkjadksj 8mo agoIn socal cleanliness depends on certain factors. Generally the clean areas are clean because someone is formally paid to maintain the property.
- rayiner 8mo agoI think you’re correct that it’s a culture of “someone else will do it.” Also, you can go further and pick up trash that doesn’t belong to you in an effort to keep the space clean for everyone: https://youtu.be/5N2eM7Za9Ss https://youtu.be/5N2eM7Za9Ss. In some cultures, it’s taboo to touch other people’s trash. In many more, it’s considered beneath the social class of people to clean up like that. What amazed me about Provo and SLC was how clean and orderly the busy public spaces are, not just the nicer neighborhoods. There’s clean and orderly rich neighborhoods in every place in the world. Palo Alto pays people to go around and power wash everything. What’s rarer is places where even the busy tourist areas and lower income neighborhoods are clean. What you’ll see often in Tokyo are places that are not nice—worn out buildings, or buildings with mildew on white surfaces because it’s still a hot and humid country—but where the streets are clean and well kept.
- jondwillis 8mo agoWill you provide context around how you got involved and got your neighbors to vocalize? I think there’s a lot of learned helplessness and cynicism that gets in the way of making things better. I know I personally suffer from this and lack the tools, motivation, and follow-through to make an impact.
- righthand 8mo agoI’ll just link you to my reply but getting involved with a group about your specific first-world problem shouldn’t be difficult. For everything else either start a group or join one. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46991515 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46991515 I also protested during BLM and advocated for repealing 50-A amendment that gave criminal police protection from prosecution in NY. And we succeeded at that too!
- deaux 8mo agoUnfortunately your linked comment got flagged, so it might be nice to repeat it here as you can still see it.
- jonahx 8mo ago[flagged]
- snigsnog 8mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- metalman 8mo agoCulture is performance art invented by people at the fringes.
- rayiner 8mo ago“Culture” has layers: https://laureltomin.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/cultural-iceberg-2.jpg https://laureltomin.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02.... Art, food, clothing, etc., are the upper, superficial layers. But what the article is talking about are the deep layers of culture. Rooted in how mothers and fathers socialize their children from an early age.
- pixl97 8mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_tunnel The human brain is one of the most powerful filtering devices that exists. If you train it not to see something, that something can effectively disappear for you. Families, cults, and even societies quite often work on this premise.
- renato_shira 8mo ago[flagged]
- bwfan123 8mo ago> The basic force behind all culture formation is imitation We are also limited by the linguistic structures we inhabit. And many languages have multiple variants. There is the respectful, obedient "formal" variant used at the workplace and the informal "colloquial" used in other places.
- giraffe_lady 8mo agoThe "strong" sapir-whorf hypothesis, that cognitive and behavioral categories are limited by linguistic ones, is thoroughly discredited. At most they may influence our perceptions, but they do not constrain them. Linguistics is one of the fields where HN consensus goes directly against the scholarly mainstream of the discipline for what I mostly find to be ideological reasons. So hopefully this isn't that and you're just a bit out of date. But there's been a big reevaluation of this in the last twenty years and virtually no contemporary working linguists represent the strong relative view anymore. It simply did not consistently produce useful results and has been abandoned.
- almostkindatech 8mo ago> never stand out or make a fuss I always enjoyed this aspect of being in Tokyo. Similar to rayiner's comment, I'd then get a huge shock on return to Europe. But I was also struck by the flip side of this when reading Murakami's account of the sarin gas attacks (Underground). Everyone was so keen not to make a fuss that trains were sent on their way too soon, poisoning even more people.
- kayo_20211030 8mo ago> And culture is, by and large, random, arbitrary, and self-reinforcing. The best definition of "culture" I've ever found is "how we do things 'round here". It's valid in both the large and in the small. Of course, why and how we converge on those norms is mysterious, and the anthropologists, the psychologists, and etc. can have a go at explaining those parts. I can't.
- unicorn_cowboy 8mo agoYeah, please leave the cultural analysis to anthropologists, sociologists, etc. The engineering-focused materialist way of looking at stuff like this makes my head and heart hurt.
- AndrewKemendo 8mo agoIs your opinion that there is something non-material about Humans?
- unicorn_cowboy 8mo agoMaterialism is not fundamental; consciousness is. This assumes materialism as fundamental.
- AndrewKemendo 8mo ago> Materialism is not fundamental; consciousness is What is your epistemological basis for this claim? Any proof of this? And just for extreme clarity note: at no point have I made a claim yet
- svnt 8mo agoThe human concept of materialism appears to have been produced by historical humans who were also conscious, which at least sets an order. To call this into question is to render logical debate incoherent. Materialism is a theory, not a reality, but its adherents can't tell the difference.
- throw7 8mo agoQueueing culture is hilarious. Indians > Italians (ok, Italians are probably more entertaining), brits (I imagined them trying to bring queueing to indians and gave up... although india does have a semi-line culture in limited ways nowadays). As an american, grocery checkout queueing always angered me.
- jazzpush2 8mo agoQueuing culture is just baseline respect from my POV. Same with not littering, respecting shared (public) resources, etc. Actually quite unbelievable to see it considered hilarious.
- jchanimal 8mo agoCertain workflows prefer non-queueing, for instance the throng empowers the bartender to load balance different groups, delay drinks to over consumers, etc etc. So other cultures can have those workflows in places we might not expect, that is not necessarily a matter of respect. In pub culture, queueing disrespects the bartender.
- jazzpush2 8mo agoYou're conflating efficiency norms with respect norms. Never mind that the core reason for no queues in bars is space efficiency and historical norms, allowing the bartender to select regulars, better paying customers, etc. without being stressed for time. But in any case, your edge-cas applies when someone exists to manage the queue. That's not the case for e.g. elevators, self-checkout lanes, DMV lines, or, I'd argue, that vast majority of queues encountered regularly.
- ajb 8mo agoIt depends. Many places in the UK have a tradition of "virtual queuing" at bars; they don't stand in a line because that would usually block the space, but everyone remembers who was before them. Usually the barkeep remembers as well, but sometimes they ask "who's next" and people defer to those ahead. But load balancing also happens.
- Apocryphon 8mo ago"[T]he Industry feeds off of biomass, like a whale straining krill from the ocean." - L. Bob Rife, Snow Crash
- lokimedes 8mo ago> Are these people human? Yes, more so than everyone else who act like any animal. I can’t help to think of the “human test” in Dune, when we use our minds to override our instinctive urges, it is human behavior.
- ette27 8mo agomy far less eloquent take... you know that voice in the back of your end that amps you up for your first day of a new job, or springs to life when you see someone doing something annoying like cutting in line, or fuels the anxiety in the back of your mind as you lay awake at night? that's just your inner voice, right? well, really, a lot of people share inner voices. everyone has their own spin on it, and some people's inner voices are completely different than anyone else's (maybe schizophrenics? or prophets?), but generally there are shared components. the collective aspects of these shared inner voices, if not culture, are at the very least what creates culture.
- sublinear 8mo agoI wouldn't call those impulses an "inner voice". I'd call them learned behaviors beaten into people, and if anything we're thankfully finally seeing less of that. If there's anything that immediately identifies someone as inexperienced and untrustworthy it's that impulsive behavior and over-reliance on "culture" instead of their own independent mind.
- GregDavidson 8mo agoCulture is huge nested networks of memes[1] which reinforce themselves and evolve via natural selection. Their substrate is our brains. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memetics
- adolph 8mo agoAre those terms substantially different from the article's claims? THe wikipedia definition of meme is "memes: ideas, behaviors, beliefs, and expressions." The author discusses frames and mental models as a topic [0]. "[A] framing is a choice of boundaries" and "A model is an analogy. It is a simplified simulation of something else." These seem to map to meme-concepts ideas and beliefs respectively and loosely. ("Frame" is probably a meta-meme or ontology that expands or contracts what memes can exist at all or what can be discerned at all.) 0. https://aethermug.com/posts/a-framing-and-model-about-framings-and-models https://aethermug.com/posts/a-framing-and-model-about-framin...
- ux266478 8mo ago> sarcasm is simply not a thing in Japan, and people aren't (I'm tempted to say can't be) sarcastic. It doesn't occur to them to be it. Japanese culture absolutely has sarcasm, it simply manifests in an unfamiliar way. Homegoroshi (killing-compliment) and using a flagrantly inappropriate politeness register are some of the most common forms. Sarcasm, and more broadly humor, are highly contingent on culture and language but they're also cultural universals. They're just usually not that recognizable without familiarity with the culture and strong social skills.
- gsf_emergency_6 8mo agoThat sounds more like irony than sarcasm But maybe that's my English-media tainted view of sarcasm as something quite unfunny (and also socially .. deficient?) Different take from mine here tho :) https://www.thescop.com/archive/2011/09/irony-vs-sarcasm https://www.thescop.com/archive/2011/09/irony-vs-sarcasm >Sarcasm happens when the observed irony does not extend to the speaker.
- ux266478 8mo ago> That sounds more like irony than sarcasm I only mentioned forms. They're sarcasm because they're explicit mockery. I've read plenty of foreigners in Japan who comment on how it's weird they won't get praise from their boss in certain contexts where they expect it. This is a shadow of the killing-complement. Praise isn't issued because in that context a Japanese person would get the same sense that you would if your boss said "Good job!" in a baby voice. > sarcasm as something quite unfunny (and also socially .. deficient?) Probably because it's insulting someone to their face without just outright insulting them, often with the desire to cause offense (but varies in degree depending on your relationship with the person and the general situation). It's the same thing here and there, up to and including making everybody else in the room uncomfortable. It's simply manifested in a different shape.
- skolskoly 8mo ago>Sarcasm happens when the observed irony does not extend to the speaker. This seems... dead wrong. In the examples in the article, both comic frames function as sarcasm, because everyone involved has no illusion that anyone is going to die if they don't see the film. The irony is entirely in the speaker's statement, which everyone knows to be false, including them. People treat 'ironic insults' as sarcasm, but this only works amongst good friends who have the shared context necessary to understand the falsity of the insult. But, then socially incompetent see this and attempt it, and fail to achieve the sarcastic humour. Which is probably why people conflate sarcasm with... failed sarcasm, frankly.
- kokken 8mo agoThe reason why people form two lines to board the Marunouchi line in Ikebukuro is not because they prioritize seating, or going as soon as possible. The true reason is that the line forks into two lines later on, with the final station being either Honancho or Ogikubo. The second line that form is just for the people whose destination would not be served by the incoming train.
- MarkusQ 8mo agoWould be interested in a source for this claim, but it from the map it at least looks reasonable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marunouchi_Line#/media/File:TokyoMetroMarunouchi.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marunouchi_Line#/media/File:To...
- cwmoore 8mo agoIf you say so. I don't have to disagree.
- coldtea 8mo ago>Of course, I know that there is nothing innate in the miraculous "Japanese Way" because expats living here quickly adapt to the same behaviors. That just proves it's not genetic/innate (which nobody seriously doubted). But it is a unique developed trait of a culture. The expacts merely "adapted" to it. The Japanese culture on the other hand, developed it (and thus gave this specific thing to adapt to).
- assaddayinh 8mo agoCulture is a ritualized enslavement of the sexual other into a contract upholding institution. This institution may progress and diversify in time, forming a meta family aka a high trust society given economic circumstances. Not all cultures can form these contractcults and if you cant you are screwed in a world of large powers and nuclear proliferation.
- spacebacon 8mo agoSemiotics is in your near future