This is racism and it’s not allowed on HN.
It is about culture, which is a real thing.
Racism would mean there are races in humankind, which is mostly found to be untrue.
In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
181–190 of 381 posts
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#182For anyone interested in this type of cultural difference, I would strongly recommend Erin Meyer's "The Culture Map" ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01KSXNFJQ ), which presents and argues for a series of scales that create a heuristic useful for comparing (not judging!) different cultures. The goal is to realize and understand the differences so that you can anticipate and cope despite culture gaps. I've read it myself,…
+1 for The Culture Map. I would recommend for both old timers and new comers to multi-national/ multi-cultural workplaces.
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#183"My impression as to your cheap labour was soon disillusioned when I saw your people at work. No doubt they are lowly paid, but the return is equally so; to see your men at work made me feel that you are a very satisfied and easy-going race who reckon time is no object. When I spoke to some managers they informed me that it was impossible to change the habits of a national heritage." This excerpt appears in Ha-Joon C…
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Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it is done with malice, it's the dumbest, waste of malice evil project ever because nobody really benefits. It is not done with malice. The IMF/WB believe that nations that have basic infrastructure, basic forms of democracy, low corruption and relatively open markets ... will be successfull. This is neither malicious nor entirely naive. It's pragmatically naive when you consider the leader of some nation may take…
Dogmas and ideologies of large organizations are almost as dangerous as their malice. Many of EU & IMF bureaucrats genuinely believed that they were helping the Greek economy recover while they were actually engaged in destroying it.
Yes, I agree with that, however, their dogma is reasonable.
And no the Greeks destroyed their own economy though systematic hard and soft corruption, knowingly hiding irregularities, unwillingness to make any necessary reforms, etc. etc..
The IMF's 'dogma' operates under the assumption that there are conscientious, reasonable and rational actors on the other side of the loan.
One might argue that it is this assumption that needs to be revisited ... though what some lament as 'austerity' (required by lenders) to others simply is 'being responsible with the massive loan we are about to take'.
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Western problem” yikes. To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. If you were to use this tableau to jump into an argument against societies that are captilistic and encourage the chasing of material wealth over the informal, beautiful moments that make humanity interesting you would have a much stronger case. I think we would all benefit…
> To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. Well, there is a problem with western culture in this area -- it can never be content, and its eating away the planet. It's own visionaries and thought leaders imagined a society of leisure and 3 hour workdays and such, but we have many times the efficiency per hour of previous ages, and people a…
I hope we can finally make some new expansion going on with all that productivity.
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Western problem” yikes. To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. If you were to use this tableau to jump into an argument against societies that are captilistic and encourage the chasing of material wealth over the informal, beautiful moments that make humanity interesting you would have a much stronger case. I think we would all benefit…
>Economic success requires efficiency in all aspects of a business. A lack of punctuality that permeates a society to the point that it effects business strategy is problematic. punctuality doesn't necessarily means efficiency. Punctuality itself comes at a cost. Somewhat similar to low latency. Your argument reminds about those Scrum proponents who tout that decreasing the latency and increasing synchronicity - what…
Punctuality is a foundation of respect for other people's time.
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#187The article focuses in Brazil where indeed this is normal in Latin America. There are pattern variations but punctuality is not the norm. That said, doing business people adapt and are more formal. As a Latin American business owner I expect perfect punctuality but accept excuses if I am notified before the event.
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
To point #1. That happens still to today. It is a matter of education and resources. Unfortunately, both are low in Brazil. To point #2. Any guest in Brazil will be treated differently during their visit. https://jornalistaheitormenezes.blogspot.com/2015/11/o-carna... has some interesting historical context about Feynman's trips to Brazil.
As to 1, no, it's neither 'education' nor 'lack of resources' really. It's a matter of conscientiousness and responsibility. Even if there were no signs immediately available, nobody with an ounce of decency would leave a large hole unmarked. Signs are not expensive, if they're not available it's because of a lack of intelligent and responsible acting somewhere else in in the value chain. As for #2, it's still a lack…
It's true that not putting up road signs doesn't tie clearly to education and resources.
It's also true that societal education and resources over time correlates strongly with putting up road signs, as the Japan anecdote suggests.
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whilst there may not be a perfect correlation between punctuality and efficiency, I'd suggest that it seems likely punctuality in business is more likely to be efficient than not. For example if you have 10 people attending a meeting and all must wait till they are present before starting (a very common occurrance) having all 10 people turn up promptly is more efficient than having 1-9 people waiting for the remainde…
Even more efficient is: starting the meeting anyway; publishing minutes so people can choose to attend or not; inviting fewer attendees; not having meetings about things which can be resolved by the teams talking directly to each other in their day-to-day work.
Yeah, it's a mistake to think that a meeting is always the most efficient way of doing things. Every meeting held costs the company thousands of dollars as people are not able to do other things during it, and so many companies just don't even think twice about adding anyone and everyone and don't think of how much it's costing them in productivity lost to other things because they just always assume that meetings are the best way to get things done.
I think it would be better if meetings were seen as the expensive beasts they are and only the bare minimum of people that can attend it, should attend it, and it should be considered (especially with routine meetings) whether or not the meetings even need to be held in the first place.
Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Western problem” yikes. To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. If you were to use this tableau to jump into an argument against societies that are captilistic and encourage the chasing of material wealth over the informal, beautiful moments that make humanity interesting you would have a much stronger case. I think we would all benefit…
> To write off the economic successes of the west under the guise of “problem” with western culture is deeply problematic. Well, there is a problem with western culture in this area -- it can never be content, and its eating away the planet. It's own visionaries and thought leaders imagined a society of leisure and 3 hour workdays and such, but we have many times the efficiency per hour of previous ages, and people a…
If you put the price on the free time (as e.g. opportunity cost, or cost of saving resources), you can see leisure as a form of consumption.
The problem of many Western societies is that the cost of leisure is too damn high for many.
This is partly because the efficiency of work (its value for advancing a business project) is non-linear with time spent. Someone spending 100 hours a week maybe pretty inefficient due to overwork and thus lower (even negative) quality of things done. Someone spending 10 hours a week could be also inefficient because the project moves faster (when everyone else around works 40 hours), or the competition moves faster. So there is a range of maximum efficiency, which is hopefully far from 100 h/week, but also likely far from 10 h/week.
"Gig economy" can help: you work hard 2-4 months for a high rate, then coast 4-6 months at a nice place with low cost of living. The problem, of course, is that you must have saved a pretty thick cushion of assets for the case when a new gig is not coming when you planned.