2011-04-30
My Bond
One of the things I have been subconciously doing is documenting Australian culture so that it can be exported to the legions who wish to migrate to here but are unable to do so. More people would be happy if they could simply have Australia's ideology in their backyard.
But what exactly is it? Here's the latest installment.
Instead of having honour codes about female virginity or whatever other cultures have, our culture has a "my word is my bond". So if you promise to give someone $10,000 in return for some goods, they can in fact drop off the goods even if they turn up late or whatever when you're not around to hand them the cash in person. They know you'll give them the money when they turn up at some other time, or you'll send it electronically or whatever. Not only that, but even if the honour wasn't enough, it's backed up by a working court system. Not only that, but there's yet another backup that you'll wear the expense of court costs even for something not cost-justified because you'll do it for the principle. Altogether these factors make for a very good environment to do business.
Obviously there are exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions in other cultures too. Those exceptions in other cultures are called "Australians" and those are the immigrants I would most like to see turning up on our shores. :-)
Anyway, that's my bond, and I would quite literally rather be dead than cheat a stranger out of money. My mother also mentioned that she would trust me with her life's savings. I'm not the sort of guy who sends his mother flowers, but I would hope that integrity like that has value too. Note that deception is an important war strategy, so there are circumstances where I would say something like "I want Saddam's WMD" when I really mean "I want to bring about cultural changes in the Middle East as an alternative to general genocide against all Muslims and all Arabs so that hopefully we get everyone who would do a 9/11 other than Timothy McVeigh who was clearly the sole exception". Note that in that equation there is plausible deniability, which is something I expect from my government in order to win this very tough ideological war.
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But what exactly is it? Here's the latest installment.
Instead of having honour codes about female virginity or whatever other cultures have, our culture has a "my word is my bond". So if you promise to give someone $10,000 in return for some goods, they can in fact drop off the goods even if they turn up late or whatever when you're not around to hand them the cash in person. They know you'll give them the money when they turn up at some other time, or you'll send it electronically or whatever. Not only that, but even if the honour wasn't enough, it's backed up by a working court system. Not only that, but there's yet another backup that you'll wear the expense of court costs even for something not cost-justified because you'll do it for the principle. Altogether these factors make for a very good environment to do business.
Obviously there are exceptions to the rule. There are exceptions in other cultures too. Those exceptions in other cultures are called "Australians" and those are the immigrants I would most like to see turning up on our shores. :-)
Anyway, that's my bond, and I would quite literally rather be dead than cheat a stranger out of money. My mother also mentioned that she would trust me with her life's savings. I'm not the sort of guy who sends his mother flowers, but I would hope that integrity like that has value too. Note that deception is an important war strategy, so there are circumstances where I would say something like "I want Saddam's WMD" when I really mean "I want to bring about cultural changes in the Middle East as an alternative to general genocide against all Muslims and all Arabs so that hopefully we get everyone who would do a 9/11 other than Timothy McVeigh who was clearly the sole exception". Note that in that equation there is plausible deniability, which is something I expect from my government in order to win this very tough ideological war.
# posted by Paul Edwards @ 03:42 
