Comment by ttyes on What Have Been Your Most Valuable Casual Conversations At Conferences? · 2024-12-25T14:12:16.033Z · LW · GW

Going to an EA conference was the first time I made friends from Western Europe. (I live in a developing country.)

I realised that Europeans on average experience a higher level of emotional security and willingness to be vulnerable than people of my country. I realised this just by hearing what said people do in their free time, or what their personal relationships are like. 

This then pushed me into a rabbit hole trying to figure out why this is the case, and reading more about generational trauma and the various decisions made by country leaders - Deng, Mao, Xi Jinping, Lee Kuan Yew, Nehru, etc - and their impact on people’s psychology. 

I became noticeably less optimistic about geopolitical plans like dropping nukes on the other country when they won’t yield on important issue X, after this experience. I realised I need to factor in longterm psychological effects like parents beating their kids because that’s what the previous generation normalised for them. 

I have updated upwards on “culture” being a predictor of what any set of people do. Two groups with identical material resources can have vastly different cultures and therefore future outcomes.