Originally Posted by jonny danger

No, it's Third World semi-poverty. In America it's one in an SUV.

According to Tyler and Morgan, two Englishmen who fathered the study of cultural anthropology more than 100 years ago, say it's: All learned, transmitted, behaviour. Not so difficult a notion.

Since then, as thousands of PhD candidates hammered away at the notion, other factors have come to acceptance. The latest, I think, is the notion that societies not only survive through fitness but through cooperation.

So you're a one-year-old baby and your mother tells you: This is blue and this is green. That is culture, you learned it from someone who learned it, and you will teach it to your children as well. Thing is the Polynesians who were invaded by PhD candidates in the 30's discovered they saw no difference between green and blue because they had the same word for both colours, that's culture.

Haven't you seen a Thai father or mother teaching a young child how to eat rice with his spoon in his right hand and his fork in his left? I adore watching the English eat, fork up-side-down in the left hand. My mother unlearned that when she came to America. Why? Because it was deemed unacceptable in America. She unlearned it as a survival tool, no manners = no friends.

If you consider just how complicated a human is you'll understand what makes him complicated is his culture. Consider the human matting ritual to that of a frog. For us one wrong word at an unfortunate time = going home to a good wank.

So we take what we learned as a child and absorb what we've learned as an adult and use the ever-to-be-updated result to get what we need from other people, then feed ourselves with the spoils. If our devised plan doesn't work we go on to plan B. If plan B doesn't work we look for a scapegoat.

When what your culture taught you doesn't work in the World today we modify it if we're clever or observant enough, or just remain the same and get selected out. The Darwin Awards are full of such examples. What's true for an individual is what's true for his society. "We told you not to drink and drive didn't we, son."

Thais are simple people, I like simple people, but they're dangerous .. be careful.