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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

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My country is being exceptional again on European polls. (If you don't want to click, it's a poll on how many agree with the question "One of my main goals in life is making my parents proud", and while in most European countries well over 70% would strongly agree or agree with this statement, and even in other Nordic countries the affirmative answer ranks in the 50% range, in Finland only 25% agree.)

Some explanations I've seen:

  • The word "proud", or rather its translation, just has a different, considerably more negative connotation in Finnish. Like, if hearing this question in English, the idea of "pride" I'd get would just be a beaming parent going "So proud of you, son!" while imagining the same phrased in Finnish, using the word "ylpeä" (direct translation), has much more of a connotation of an arrogant, conceited parent going around their friends going "Oh, you didn't know my son/daughter is a doctor?"

  • even taking this into account, the Finnish/Nordic culture of "collective individualism" (which I've discussed here) might play a role

  • some have just guessed that Finns tend to answer surveys like this more honestly and bluntly, actually thinking about their priorities instead of just automatically giving the pro-social answer - yes, something of a self-serving explanation

How many here would answer this question in affirmative, anyway?

some have just guessed that Finns tend to answer surveys like this more honestly and bluntly, actually thinking about their priorities instead of just automatically giving the pro-social answer - yes, something of a self-serving explanation

I used to do some work for a major american company with customer satisfaction scores, customer retention and upsales. A major issue was that the American management compared different European countries with each other using only the CSR score and there were very large cultural differences in how people answered them.

An Italian company that was about to drop us could rate us as 10 while a Swedish company where we did a ton of business and that loved us, with no plans of changing partners, could rate us as 7 with comments like "it isn't perfect", and a customer with minor complaints could rate us a 6.

We had far higher retention and upsales and yet far lower CSR, and this wasn't just a Swedish problem. The entire Nordics and to a lesser extent all "germanic"/protestant countries trended far below the Mediterranean and eastern countries, regardless of actual customer satisfaction.

Some made accusations that the Mediterranean

and eastern countries encouraged their customers to lie, which might have been true, but I suspect that differing cultural interpretations of the question played a large role.

I almost never answer a question like this as 10. To me 10 would mean service above and beyond the call of duty, a truly mindblowing experience.

tldr: ridesharing apps offer rating systems out of 5 stars and anything other than 5/5 threatens the driver's longevity on the platform. I think at one point, ~4.7 was the cutoff. Local restaurant owners and other similar industries; a "bad string" of "bad" 4/5 reviews and The Algorithm rears its ugly head.

The USA tends to treat less-than-perfect scores as egregious failures. Two issues: enough people are somewhat conscious of the reality that, despite agreeing with your sentiment (it wasn't perfect; there's room for improvement; giving a 100 percent makes no sense), the choices available are "perfect" or "bad enough that I want to damage their bottom line." So we maintain the "perfect is the normal answer" -- but there's still enough people who aren't in the loop (or don't care) that they'll write a glowing 4/5 review for a local business not understanding how frustrating that must be for the proprietor: clearly the customer enjoyed their experience and plans to return... but a 4/5 just lowered the restaurant by seven positions on assorted metric consolidation sites... because the top 10 restaurants are all between 4.7 and 4.9 (for example).

OTOH it's easier for me to give 5/5 than 10/10, funny how it works.

I wonder if rideshare apps operating in other countries eventually learn to adjust their scales culturally or if people using the rideshare apps tend to have the sort of cultural awareness to fix their own behavior to fit the company's expectation. The first would be more likely.

I instinctively almost never give 10/10 scores to anything, and appreciate it when companies that are really just wondering if service is good enough use a three point scale; I think it captures what they're looking for better (was it good enough? Was it so terrible I'll be complaining to everyone who will listen?)

I think the perfect-or-nothing attitude is well in effect in Russia, for what it's worth.

I remember a girl I know telling an internet stranger off for giving one of her photos on OK.ru less than 5. She explained that only two marks were allowed: 5/5 or no vote. You wouldn't tell a girl she's pretty, but not very pretty, so why would you do the same online?

Zuck was smarter, and Facebook only lets you "like" stuff.

This is quite an accurate attitude, in my experience, even on a broader grading scale. Russian neighbourhoods tend to be either "horrendous dystopian mudpit" or "super-rich paradise". Usually the former. Russian businesses tend to be either amazingly conscientious and accommodating, or pathologically dishonest and uncaring.

Also: https://youtube.com/shorts/xikDWOtOOiw