Theme: Ethnoculture

The difference between educated Ukrainians and Americans is limited to the awareness of political corruption, the experience of the trustworthiness of others, and the competence of middle and upper management. This leads entrepreneurs in the Ukraine to ‘think small’ because it requires a smaller network of trust. It leads americans to ‘think big’ because they can rely on large networks of trust.

Just as say, americans think brits are obsessed with procedure (the movie Brazil is more documentary than fiction), and procedure is a method of not-caring about the interests and incentives of others, and limiting the sphere of one’s concerns, Ukrainians have this low-trust, cash-economy, where they are obsessed with small transactions.

We forget that all of this western ‘magic’ works because we were raised with the Oath in one way or another, and our ‘priesthood’ of judges protects that oath.

We forget that that oath arises from membership in the militia (warriors, men), we take upon ascension in to manhood.

There is no commitment higher than this oath.

That is the secret to the western rates of progress in each era.

We simply ‘calculate’ faster than other groups.

BRITISH/AMERICAN/GERMAN CULTURAL RULES

Left the video on, and ended up listening to Brits debate policy all night, and it is very clear that there is a difference between the moral structure of British argument and the LEGAL structure of american argument. In my dreams I kept arguing with people about the use of nonsense words. There is also a very great difference between the British fascination with procedure and moral righteousness defending it, and american fascination with law, and punishment for transgressions. Again, this illustrates the great difference between British abstract moral, American articulate legal, and German duty/empirical Cultures. A procedural person always seeks a process even though people do not follow those processes they follow rational incentives. An american seeks to understand incentives so that we produce the right rewards and punishments. Germans TRAIN YOU UNEQUIVOCALLY to know your duty and practice it, and to be intolerant of those who don’t.

I won’t get into what jewish philosophy says, but it is translatable to “Whatever you can get someone else to agree to – damn the consequences or externalities.”