And, yes, my sentence was meant as an encouragement! I have been reading your comments for years, since you started posting, and I like your style, tone and topics.

The internet culture, whatever it is, makes compliments sound like patronization or irony. How sad. How much do you identify with such culture? What is in your mind?

It’s not a matter of internet culture. It is simply context. If you have been reading my comments for years, then you know that I have disagreed on many occasions with other commenters and continue to post, so the encouragement, though well-intentioned, seemed unnecessary.

From my reading, he always won, because no one was willing to put in the research time to continue answering his bottomless supply of links to subversive theories. Whether he believed the conspiracy or not is immaterial - his phychosis was fed by the fight. 9/11 was a good topic for him, because it made his victims emotional; his tone never changed, always cold and derisive.

I bet he just moves from blog to blog, as any predator will move on to new hunting grounds when the supply of victims runs low.

He was an interesting phenomenon.

I missed the point, thanks for correcting me.

Still, I am a tad skeptic about one thing: the influence of the culture of the researchers, just like in anthropology. It is my experience in Korea that Koreans I don’t know well do not answer questions about their culture the same way close Korean friends do. That is why I mentionned deceiving tactics, or public relations, if you prefer. When you get to know Koreans privately, you see how many differences there are in the way they think their culture and their relationship to it. But this is not the topic of the paper you referred to, just a rambling of mine.

And, yes, my sentence was meant as an encouragement! I have been reading your comments for years, since you started posting, and I like your style, tone and topics.

The internet culture, whatever it is, makes compliments sound like patronization or irony. How sad. How much do you identify with such culture? What is in your mind?

Maybe if we consider what Brendon was warning cinegauche about, we might be able to get some insight into why cg’s not been around to post his enlightened info.

Perhaps the same gov’t/illuminati/treadstone/blackbriar group that crashed planes into the WTC and launched a missile into the Pentagon finally found him and snuffed him out?

Please keep posting.

I’ve been a regular here for three years. Thanks for your encouragement? permisson?

I mean, saying “East Asians think in context.” (from the paper) or “Westerners are individualists (meaning East Asians are not).” I can think of endless counter-examples in Koreans and Americans I know… Reality is colourful.

This what the researchers actually said:

Previous psychology research has shown that American culture focuses on the individual and values independence, while East Asian culture is more community-focused and emphasizes seeing people and objects in context.

The study also explained that:

The researchers were surprised to see so strong an effect, Gabrieli said, and interested in the reasons for individual variations within a culture.

So they surveyed subjects to find out how strongly they identified with their culture by asking questions about social attitudes, such as whether a person is responsible for the failure of a family member.

In both groups, participants whose views were most aligned with their culture’s values showed stronger brain effects.

The first paragraph does not say that all or even most Americans or Koreans think this or that way. It describes general cultural values that are shared to various degrees by members of those cultures, as explained in the second paragraph. It noted individual variations within each culture and linked the degree of identification with the native culture’s prevailing values with the outcomes of the experiment.

I agree that we must be careful not to stereotype. Science tells us that there is more variation within a group than between groups. Moreover, cultural values are shaped not only by nationality but also local and socioeconomic conditions. This study simply looked for evidence that cultural values are wired in the brain.