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In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

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Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#231

Post by coldtea »

ff317 wrote: post #220
laughingman2 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, this is why extending scope of democracy (workplace democracy, more decentralization, liquid democracy, direct democracy etc) is important, intellectual/political/economic/corporate elites with power however much "enlightened" they are , without having skin in the game lead to disastrous policies. One person, One vote is the least flawed way to gather signal from actual people who have skin in the game.

Direct democracy is still pretty awful though, especially for anyone who falls into any kind of true numerical minority category: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority .

>Direct democracy is still pretty awful though, especially for anyone who falls into any kind of true numerical minority category

That's a generalization its opponents make, but it isn't true.

In most places where it was practiced (ancient Athens, short-lived anarchist areas in Spain, egalitarian communities, etc.) it was shown to be more benevolent and inclusive to "true numerical minorities" than most representative democracies. Heck, the US had segregation in practice up to the 70s, with blacks being a 20% or so of the population (and more in some areas), and gays were persecuted throwout Europe representative democracy or not.

Even more, the most horrid persecutions of minorities have happened under elected representatives (like Hitler), or authoritarian regimes (e.g. Stalin), as opposed to any "direct democracy".

It's indicative that the arguments in the lemma ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority ) are contrived though experiments and not historical examples.

There's no "tyranny of the majority" that's inherent in direct democracy, any more so than it is in representative "democracy". The tyranny lies in an orthogonal axis (namely: the prevalent passions and ideologies of the era), and can be applied regardless of direct or representative democracy.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#232

Post by Retric »

cm2012 wrote: post #195
iKevinShah wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is a matter of education and resources" Education? Sure, but resources are in no way low in Brazil unless you mean very specific resource(s).

GDP per capita is $8600 compared to USA $57000. It's all relative.

It’s closer to 15,000 in terms of PPP. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

But even 8,600 is high relative to the US in 1920’s when the economy was seen as booming. In many ways it’s the perception of wealth and a poor social safty net that’s at issue not resources.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#233

Post by micheljansen »

hutzlibu wrote: post #133
micheljansen wrote: post #123

Brazil is a huge country though and while I also always believed the stereotype of the laid back, beach-going, bossa nova listening Brazilian, I found it is not at all universal. São Paulo, for example, feels as hurried as a major city like London or New York, complete with high-pressure business culture, overcrowded public transport, killer traffic etc.

"São Paulo, for example, feels as hurried as a major city like London or New York, complete with high-pressure business culture, overcrowded public transport, killer traffic etc." So the measuerment of being reliable is the stress factor in the city? How sad. I really like reliability .. to lower stress. And hurry only, if needed, not as default.

No, I was not talking about being reliable. I was talking about the stereotype of Brazilians being laid back (or even lazy).

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#234

Post by arkitaip »

dingo_bat wrote: post #13
themodelplumber wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of these and they usually do seem to fit the groups/locations/corporations in question. I've heard Mexicans refer to "Mexican time," and I've heard Mormons refer to "Mormon time," and various corporations also have equivalent terms. Amusingly, a lot of these terms seem to have their origin in people who were really annoyed by the phenomena.

In India we call it "Indian time'. Nobody is expected to arrive at a party venue before 1 hour past the announced time.

I experienced this in Sweden. A Indian colleague was having a party for family and friends at x hours. I showed up fifteen minute early and most guest arrived 1-2 hours later...

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#235

Post by coldtea »

oblio wrote: post #177
coldtea wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Mass education (as opposed to high end elite education) can turn a nation of free people into slaves (or, as Japanese call it, 社畜: corporate livestock). After a century of that, they're losing their collective will to live, too [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_Japan

So the lesson you learned is that mass education is bad? ...

Not mass education as in the abstract concept of "educating the masses", but mass education as its actually practiced.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#236

Post by thanatropism »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #59
Berunto wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how long does it take to change the mindset and behavior of a complete country? ~80 years?

Just a caveat, I am not an economist, and am quickly approaching the edge of my knowledge. I think that time is not really a factor here. Institutions like the IMF and WTO passively suppress the economic development of poor countries by withholding incentives unless they behave like rich countries. I don't think this is done out of malice though, because I've met people who genuinely believe that forcing businesses i…

"You must be at the frontier of what you know and what you don't to be able to say anything at all" said some wise man.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#237

Post by mikorym »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #173
mikorym wrote: post #165

Similarly to Feynman's quote on the hole dug in the road, in South Africa, it is also common to simply leave a construction site. However, the comment that I want to make relates more to how South Africans are often late and why the reasons are different to Brazillians. In South African English there exists a word "now now". This was adopted from Afrikaans, which is largely based on Dutch. The existence of this word…

For comparison, the Dutch "nou" means "now" as what it means in English - right now. "net" means "just", so "nou net" means "just now", or a short while ago.

The two terms "nou-net" and "net-net" are the only two that I think have the same meaning in the original Dutch.

Would "net-nou" or "nou-nou" make any sense in Dutch?

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#238

Post by alokrai »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #152
brbrbrbrbr wrote: post #135

Earlier 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…

As for #2, I don't think Feynman meant that the students won't show up for their lecture. It's just they would prefer to have their lectures in afternoon. In fact, from his writing in the later sections of that chapter, it seems that they did show up for their lectures.

I find explanation in the previous comment, that as a visitor Feynman may have been held to a different standard in order to make his stay more pleasant, quite reasonable.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#239

Post by thanatropism »

gassiss wrote: post #207
tchaffee wrote: post #191

São Paulo is a city of over 12 million people, the largest city in the southern hemisphere of our planet, and is almost 10% of the Brazilian population. Almost everyone I meet with in SP is on time for work related meetings. I haven't noticed a difference between SP, the UK, the USA, or many of the other places I've worked. Generalizing about an entire country when that generalization is wrong for its biggest city ma…

I am born and raised in Rio de Janeiro, and am very punctual. For business meetings most people don't come up late, but for social gatherings they almost always do. It's frustrating because it seems like I will never learn my lesson and always arrive punctually even if I don't intend to

This. People are conflating social mores with business practices.

São Paulo is a much more globalized city than Rio, which is really navel-gazing. (Most families in Rio can trace their ancestry centuries back, while São Paulo is usually the largest $(nationality-descent) population outside $(homecountry). This makes for cultural differences.)

But: it's not like carioca customs bleed over to the workplace any more than, say, West Texan customs do. I mean, at my workplace we wear suits but not ties; whenever in São Paulo we tie up. That's most of it.

Re: In Brazil, it is considered rude to be on time to a party

#240

Post by dsfyu404ed »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #152
brbrbrbrbr wrote: post #135

Earlier 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…

>99% of the world's problems would be solved if we all just acted with very basic levels of conscientiousness and responsibility

Your expectations and the expectations in most parts of the west are that everyone take care to protect others from being harmed by their actions. Brazil, Indonesia, India, etc, expect people to be vigilant and steer clear of things that may do them harm. The only reason you see that as wrong is because it is foreign to you. If you grew up and lived in a different culture you'd almost certainly see that as right and anything opposite to that as wrong.

In the west we get everything in writing when we do business and rely on the ability of courts to enforce a contract to protect us when things go wrong (and this adds a lot of overhead, yes this has increased a lot in the past few generations). In China they rely less on contracts and legal solutions and rely more on the effects of a good/bad reputation to protect them from business dealings that go wrong. In the west we don't take people to court if we don't have to but it's the power of the court and ability to take things to court if needed that keeps things running smoothly, in other places the value of one's reputation performs that function.

Expectations of timeliness is another aspect by which cultures vary (as discussed at length in TFA). A meeting that starts on on time in Brazil would probably not be much appreciated. If meeting started late in Japan an apology would be in order at the very least.

These are just three examples of aspects of society that vary from culture to culture. Which is wrong and right depends on what you're used to. Personal physical safety is more likely to bring out people's inner puritanical crusader than the latter two which is why it tends to evoke such strong emotions.

Edit: changed the timing and contract law examples per comments.

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