In our previous episode, we made what may sound like a bold claim.

We said that a lot of good ideas and policies that work elsewhere in the world can't work

in the US because our culture is just different.

Not necessarily better or worse, but very different.

That was our hypothesis, at least, and we did find a number of learned people who had

data to back up the hypothesis.

The people that came to New York early on, and they were from also to different cultural

backgrounds, and that's helped produce the looseness that exists to this day.

The Americans and Westerners more generally are psychologically unusual from a global perspective.

In societies that are tighter, people are willing to call out rule violators.

Here in the US, it's actually a rule violation to call out people who are violating norms.

You want to be the same self, regardless of who you're talking to or what context you're

in.

In the US, they don't think it's a smart idea to be consistent.

Some of the measurable differences were a bit odd.

Apparently, over 50% of cats and dogs in the US are obese.

The focus of that episode was American culture, and how are we defining culture?

None of it is intentional.

It is what we got fed with our mother's milk and the porridge that our dad gave us.

It's one of the main guests in today's episode.

My name is Gert Jom Hofstad.

I'm a professor of artificial sociality at Vacheningen University in the Netherlands.

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