Comment by mrtksn

In a park in Stuttgart a man approached us as we were walking the dog, and after realising we spoke English politely said "You must not be aware, dogs must be on lead here".

Good Q.

From my own short stint in Germany, n=1, the rules often did tend to make sense, so it actually seemed like a good idea to follow them.

(I've also had friends complain that Germany wasn't actually as tidy or rules based as they were lead to believe. So take with a grain of salt!)

To clarify, are you categorising German culture as low uncertainty avoidance? I am not sure that I would.

These communities are lovely when they occur, but they tend to be small and ephemeral; it takes one single persistent troll who is good at gaming community mores and calmly wrapping complaints about any pushback in reasonable-sounding phrases to completely destroy such a space. I've seen this happen entirely too often :(

First of all, this is such an excellent post, and thank you.

>>seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive

I'm sad to say that this is true everywhere I've been. The attitude is everywhere in the US... it's only that in the US people are trained to be quiet about it. My observation, everywhere I go, is that only smart, observant people do not mistake kindness for weakness.

>> because fuck you, that's why

So, this is one thing I do like about the US. The police in the US do not get involved in anything unless you pull out a gun and shoot somebody... even then, they really don't care. On the other hand, this kind of fake "manliness" you're describing is sort of self-limiting in the US; it tends to look ridiculous to us when we travel overseas or when we see new immigrants from (choose a chaotic country) act this way - because here, the guy you jump in line in front of might look like nothing but he also might have a 9mm. I say this from the perspective of someone who has seen multiple shootings at the bar around the corner from my house in the past year, for things as stupid as someone acting rudely.

Stupid, selfish, short-sighted people are the same everywhere. Being rude is really the issue; one does not need a God or a police force to avoid being rude. Being rude and taking advantage for oneself is cultural, and I actually believe it's impossible to take a culture who has been raised that way and make them - under any police regime - act differently. (I'll qualify that further by telling you that all my grandparents came from Russia in the 1920s, and spoke Russian, but they hated the criminal type of Russian scavengers who came out of that ruthless wasteland from the 1980s onward). Taking care of others outside your family requires two things: 1. a functioning rule of law, yes, but 2. a view passed to you from your parents that treating others well will cause you to flourish more than trying to take advantage of them. This cannot be enforced. It has to be internalized and understood. I really think it's better in many ways to see what kind of people you're speaking with bluntly than to listen to the sophistry of the modern version of the same avarice as it presents itself in New York or Los Angeles. I can sit and listen to the racism toward black people in the American South or toward Aboriginal people in Australia, and just openly disagree. That's better to me than listening to people who I know are racist trying to sound politically correct in Seattle.

>> I know that cutting in lines is not the most important metric for life quality in the world

I think it's the second-most important metric. Being polite. But it's worse to be somewhere everyone is polite and everyone is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is to me the most important metric.

(This is actually what my problem is with Thailand. True, no one cuts in line. But there's so much bottled-up anger that no one can admit to, and suddenly it explodes).

But not cutting in line - in my book - is representative of the best human value. So I absolutely agree with your view and don't think you should say it's not important. It's possibly the most important thing.

A shout out to the Argentines, when my ex-gf was possibly kidnapped there, people asked me to cut in line in front of them at an ATM that was running out of money, where they had been waiting for a long time, just from seeing the look on my face.

> the worst part of it, seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive, that is so pervasive in Turkey

pervasice in Russia too. Most non-democratic societies are indivifualistic and highly cynical.

That's why I say American brain is' a prison - they think in 'Socialist countries everyone cares about each. other too much, and that why they are poor

Exactly! I like to explain this kind of casual rulebreaking to US/UK people as being the German equivalent of using disgusting swearwords. Fine to do with your friends if nobody is around, or if you want to look tough or whatever, but don't do it in crowds and especially not in front of children.

>> Maybe you were doing it near children?

YES that is precisely what happened. That's so funny you said this.

I was standing in heavy falling snow, at the corner of an empty boulevard, next to a woman with two little daughters and a young boy. I stood for a moment and then walked across and she started yelling at me. I suppose she was trying to teach her children to be patient and wait for the light to change. What went through my head at that moment was, I kid you not, "ah, that's how they learn to follow orders".

And this is entirely in sync with my original point above, but also personally, I loathe Munich. There's nothing like being told holocaust jokes when people don't know you're Jewish. I believe the people there would vote for Hitler in a heartbeat if he were alive and running for office.

Overall, this is why I love Argentina.

It's also why Argentina is a fucking mess, but I love it. When I'm there it feels like the people will never, ever be conquered.

This is true in a lot of countries that had a dictatorship.

Weirdly, it is not true for Chile, where everyone still acts like they're in a dictatorship.. also the US, which never had a dictatorship but created and supported dictatorships all over the world.

I moved to Japan. I think we’re almost at the level where I’m confortable with the level of rule following here.

Some people don’t follow the unimportant rules, but almost never when it’d inconvenience someone else.

>> jaywalking widely practiced

Depends. In NYC, jaywalking is normal. In Santa Monica, you get a ticket. Speeding is mostly enforced everywhere.

What sets the US apart from countries like Argentina, in this department, is that the cops won't just ask you for a bribe when they stop you. You actually end up with a ticket and have to deal with it.

Fair dinkum? I've lived in Oz for many decades and travelled widely. I have never seen obedience as a common trait. In fact, rule breaking with a shrug is far more prevalent.

If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index you can also notice how post-soviet countries that keep close ties with russia also still rank high on that. I wonder how much of that is from same kind of people keeping power, or russian influence.

> Anyway, what's the difference between a rule and a guideline? Is a red light a rule or guide?

Guideline: don't bother neighbours after 20:00

Rule: Loud noises not allowed after 20:00

If you make sure to steer clear from guideline ("hey neighbour, we want to have a party, will it be okay if we be loud till 00:00","thanks"), the rules will not need to be enforced (neighbour calling the police to complain)

>At places where the rule was enforced people simply continue their night somewhere without live music.

Live music doesn't / didn't attract more people in closer proximity than areas with no live music? Did everyone still go to the same place and sat there in silence? That sounds very unlikely, but I have never been to Turkey.

>It made no sense in the context of Covid, it made sense in the context of islamist trying to destroy the non-islamists.

This is tied to the above, but who made the consensus that this was the point of the rule? Without a source of the consensus and to someone who have never been there it flies in the face of logic. Surely fewer people would go to, say, a British park Saturday evening if there's no music event there than if there is a band playing. Without some context, it reads to me like this post is anti-islamist and bashing Turkey for a rule that seem to have been enforced in one way or another in most of the west under COVID. As far as I know, every festival was shut down and events with music or other entertainment had to jump through lots of hoops or be shutdown too. How is this rule different?

It was clearly targeting the secular folks and the musicians, which are predominantly secular and from the opposition.

Ban on gatherings were introduced for short periods at the hight of the pandemic, the music ban was a separate one which lasted up until days ago.

All other kind of gatherings were allowed. They even held a large religious gathering , bringing people from all around the to the conversion of the Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque since it was also a political event(They were promising to turn it into a mosque since years, apparently an important thing for the devout muslims). This was between the first wave which claimed the lives of 50K and the 3rd wave which killed that many more.

That's why it's a ridiculous rule. It's arbitrary and subject to selective enforcement.

But as a guideline you could say if it's after midnight it's probably a party. And if it's not you let people use their judgment, because guidelines are suggestions enforced via social pressure, not via official penalties.