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How does thai language make a thai think differently to a person raised on english language?


crickets

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The hypothesis on which this post was made is not based on what we know of linguistics.

Looking at the way language can influence thought or perception, it is possible to have thought affect ones color perception, as in color words can affect color perceived.

However, you are going down the wrong road if you think that language changes thought.

Language is a tool which evolved for the sole purpose of allowing humans to think.

We think what we think, what we want to think, using languages which are extremely similar to one another.

Oh, there are many theories about why human evolved speech. My favorite theory is that it evolve for men to sweet talk chicks. Seriously.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mating-Mind-Sexual-Evolution/dp/038549517X?tag=duckduckgo-ffsb-20

Amazon.com Review

Evolutionary psychology has been called the "new black" of science fashion, though at its most controversial, it more resembles the emperor's new clothes. Geoffrey Miller is one of the Young Turks trying to give the phenomenon a better spin. In The Mating Mind, he takes Darwin's "other" evolutionary theory--of sexual rather than natural selection--and uses it to build a theory about how the human mind has developed the sophistication of a peacock's tail to encourage sexual choice and the refining of art, morality, music, and literature.

Where many evolutionary psychologists see the mind as a Swiss army knife, and cognitive science sees it as a computer, Miller compares it to an entertainment system, evolved to stimulate other brains. Taking up the baton from studies such as Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, it's a dizzyingly ambitious project, which would be impossibly vague without the ingenuity and irreverence that Miller brings to bear on it. Steeped in popular culture, the book mixes theories of runaway selection, fitness indicators, and sensory bias with explanations of why men tip more than women and how female choice shaped (quite literally) the penis. It also extols the sagacity of Mary Poppins. Indeed, Miller allows ideas to cascade at such a torrent that the steam given off can run the risk of being mistaken for hot air).

That large personalities can be as sexually enticing as oversize breasts or biceps may indeed prove comforting, but denuding sexual chemistry can be a curiously unsexy business, akin to analyzing humor. As a courting display of Miller's intellectual plumage, though, The Mating Mind is formidable, its agent-provocateur chest swelled with ideas and articulate conjecture. While occasionally his magpie instinct may loot fool's gold, overall it provides an accessible and attractive insight into modern Darwinism and the survival of the sexiest. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Please,....

Start with Chomsky.

Point number 1: If you want to participate in a discussion then you have to discuss. Merely waving the name of a scientist as though that settled the question in a way too obvious to mention only makes me wonder whether you are one of those troglodyte members too inarticulate to be able to state his own case.

Point number 2: From what I know of Chomsky his view is that language arose as a byproduct of tool use and was then put to a myriad of other uses. Such a theory of the evolution of language in no way conflicts with Miller's ingenious idea that language arose from sexual rather than natural selection.

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Also, Captain, he is hypothesizing a given language shaping thought, not penis size.

I like Richard Dawkins. However, he is much more entertaining when he lectures about Christianity, rather than penises.

Are you trying to enumerate the ways in which it is possible to misunderstand the subject?

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Also, Captain, he is hypothesizing a given language shaping thought, not penis size.

I like Richard Dawkins. However, he is much more entertaining when he lectures about Christianity, rather than penises.

Are you trying to enumerate the ways in which it is possible to misunderstand the subject?

Of course not, however it may be the case that some of the language written in the previous above post and comments has influenced what I think.

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The hypothesis on which this post was made is not based on what we know of linguistics.

Looking at the way language can influence thought or perception, it is possible to have thought affect ones color perception, as in color words can affect color perceived.

However, you are going down the wrong road if you think that language changes thought.

Language is a tool which evolved for the sole purpose of allowing humans to think.

We think what we think, what we want to think, using languages which are extremely similar to one another.

Oh, there are many theories about why human evolved speech. My favorite theory is that it evolve for men to sweet talk chicks. Seriously.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Mating-Mind-Sexual-Evolution/dp/038549517X?tag=duckduckgo-ffsb-20

Amazon.com Review

Evolutionary psychology has been called the "new black" of science fashion, though at its most controversial, it more resembles the emperor's new clothes. Geoffrey Miller is one of the Young Turks trying to give the phenomenon a better spin. In The Mating Mind, he takes Darwin's "other" evolutionary theory--of sexual rather than natural selection--and uses it to build a theory about how the human mind has developed the sophistication of a peacock's tail to encourage sexual choice and the refining of art, morality, music, and literature.

Where many evolutionary psychologists see the mind as a Swiss army knife, and cognitive science sees it as a computer, Miller compares it to an entertainment system, evolved to stimulate other brains. Taking up the baton from studies such as Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, it's a dizzyingly ambitious project, which would be impossibly vague without the ingenuity and irreverence that Miller brings to bear on it. Steeped in popular culture, the book mixes theories of runaway selection, fitness indicators, and sensory bias with explanations of why men tip more than women and how female choice shaped (quite literally) the penis. It also extols the sagacity of Mary Poppins. Indeed, Miller allows ideas to cascade at such a torrent that the steam given off can run the risk of being mistaken for hot air).

That large personalities can be as sexually enticing as oversize breasts or biceps may indeed prove comforting, but denuding sexual chemistry can be a curiously unsexy business, akin to analyzing humor. As a courting display of Miller's intellectual plumage, though, The Mating Mind is formidable, its agent-provocateur chest swelled with ideas and articulate conjecture. While occasionally his magpie instinct may loot fool's gold, overall it provides an accessible and attractive insight into modern Darwinism and the survival of the sexiest. --David Vincent, Amazon.co.uk --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Please,....

Start with Chomsky.

Point number 1: If you want to participate in a discussion then you have to discuss. Merely waving the name of a scientist as though that settled the question in a way too obvious to mention only makes me wonder whether you are one of those troglodyte members too inarticulate to be able to state his own case.

Point number 2: From what I know of Chomsky his view is that language arose as a byproduct of tool use and was then put to a myriad of other uses. Such a theory of the evolution of language in no way conflicts with Miller's ingenious idea that language arose from sexual rather than natural selection.

As Chomsky likes to say, while waving his hands, it is common knowledge, it can be easily read, what he thinks about the evolution of language, and the purpose of language.

The fact that language has many uses does not demonstrate the principal advantage that evolutionarily gave rise to human language.

He states very clearly that the reason language arose was not for communication, but to facilitate thought.

He states this clearly and categorically.

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Also, Captain, he is hypothesizing a given language shaping thought, not penis size.

I like Richard Dawkins. However, he is much more entertaining when he lectures about Christianity, rather than penises.

Are you trying to enumerate the ways in which it is possible to misunderstand the subject?

Of course not, however it may be the case that some of the language written in the previous above post and comments has influenced what I think.

Also, Chomsky did NOT state that language changes thought. He stated it was a tool to facilitate thought.

The OP here hypothesized that one's language changes thinking.

This is completely a wrong conclusion, and not based on what we observe.

I am just stating the obvious, and not enumerating anything other than my understandings of the subject, while disregarding any possible misunderstanding, or the than the original misunderstanding by the OP, which I have already mentioned.

I am sure this will also become clear to people from places like Princeton or Yale.

Edited by BaronOfThunder
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Language is only a reflection of culture not its root determinant. I think Thais think and solve problems differently because their ways of interacting with others are different. Their lack of open confrontation and their need for always being with other people makes them think about situations differently.

Agree, also in the picture is what is learned by observation of the behaviors involved in 'problem solving' .

Thais and western people* observe many things in life and copy from what they observe as well from what they are taught by parents, by wider society and from more formal lessons.

If we tried to 'package' what we have all observed (from a young age) in the way our fathers etc., solved problems, then we would obviously have a number of different / slightly different 'packages'.

*western people - actually all of the above is different county by country / culture by culture. A typical German person is more likely to establish facts and data before solving the problem, some other westerners (country by country) just try a 'fix' without too much detail.

If we go back a thousand years people had very little contact with other 'groups' so the way problem solving developed is going to be different.

Plus in all cases the way people in the situation react with each other and the spoken language (the vocabulary, the construction and the inherent emotions attached will be different) has deep long-term roots in the actual culture and will be different. Nothing wrong with that in any way.

Is one approach, in terms of language better then another approach? 'Approach' has a number of factors. I suggest there is no absolute answer to which approach is better.

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Language is only a reflection of culture not its root determinant. I think Thais think and solve problems differently because their ways of interacting with others are different. Their lack of open confrontation and their need for always being with other people makes them think about situations differently.

-------------------

Thank you.

A intelligent and thoughtful post, unusual on this forum.

I think you are right, the differences in behavior are the results of cultural (culturally learned) norms in the learned Thai cultural environment.

Unfortunately, many native English speakers never learn to escape the "prison" of their language and learned culture norms either.

P.S. I can see I am going to get in trouble fort hat last sentence, aren't I.

Edited by IMA_FARANG
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Also, Captain, he is hypothesizing a given language shaping thought, not penis size.

I like Richard Dawkins. However, he is much more entertaining when he lectures about Christianity, rather than penises.

Are you trying to enumerate the ways in which it is possible to misunderstand the subject?

Of course not, however it may be the case that some of the language written in the previous above post and comments has influenced what I think.

Also, Chomsky did NOT state that language changes thought. He stated it was a tool to facilitate thought.

The OP here hypothesized that one's language changes thinking.

This is completely a wrong conclusion, and not based on what we observe.

I am just stating the obvious, and not enumerating anything other than my understandings of the subject, while disregarding any possible misunderstanding, or the than the original misunderstanding by the OP, which I have already mentioned.

I am sure this will also become clear to people from places like Princeton or Yale.

Yes and no, and why do you introduce Yale and Princeton?

From my professional understanding, instant and broad analysis, conversion to different conceptual approaches is quite different culture by culture.

The global longer-term research seems to indicate fairly clearly that the ability / the natural immediate behavior of 'analysis' is quite different person by person, and culture by culture, and country by country.

Attached, from the research, well proven, analysis is not always a natural behavior for everybody but is can be enhanced by the local methodology of education, and observed societal behaviors, especially in organizational settings.

In countries / cultures where students, usually from a quite young age, are asked and encouraged to attempt answers and are deliberately not penalized for wrong answers, the natural analysis behavior is enhanced, increased, improved. Example: the Singapore education system / process.

But not true for all students.

Edited by scorecard
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I read your comment, Scorecard, and.....

Oh, I was asking Captain H about education.

I do not think that you should rely on person by person analysis, if you mean that you only go by anecdotal analysis, however I think that I do not clearly understand your question(s). However, I restated a view held by Chomsky that language arose solely to thought. In other words, without language there would not be thought, and that the human capability to think and visualize the future is welcomed from a selection point of view.

It is interesting to note that Chomsky states that language did not arise as an instrument with which to communicate.

If you look at the research concerning the influence of language on thought, you will see that the impact is very subtle, and not easy to measure experimentally. The best research so far, is that which shows some small correlation between language and color perception. Other than that, there is very little to find, although some people have mistakenly wondered about language, or different languages, shaping beliefs or the way humans think. So far, this is bogus, and there is no research to support this hypothesis.

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Plan B, Plan C...

I suspect this relates to some main extent to anticipation.

In most western cultures we strongly learn about anticipation by observation of our parents, wider society, education to anticipate things, 'what if' etc. I know my own parents emphasized this strongly, when my father taught me to drive he kept telling me 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc., and it was an extension of the 'life lessons' I had experienced regularly as a child.

I grew up in a quite isolated area, 500 kilometres through close to desert to the next city, after I got my first car I wanted to drive the 500 kilometres to visit my grandfather. My father said 'OK but I want you to sit down and make a list of the things that could go wrong and what you need in the car if one of these things happen'. Deliberate anticipation.

I naturally took this same approach to life lessons in bringing up my Thai son. He was the captain of his university football team for a couple of years, and he often talked to the team about anticipation: on the field, planning for trips, etc. They thought he was crazy. Son now has a 10 yr old child, she regularly gets the same 'anticipation comments and lessons' from her dad. Example, we often have pizza at home nights, son's daughter is in charge of checking the pantry and making a list of what we need for pizza tomorrow night etc. In fact when we go to the supermarket she will often put things in the trolley because she's thinking about what's running low and what will be needed soon for pizza night. Anticipation.

My son met a girl at uni, now his wife, she asked me to teach her to drive. I copied how my father taught me to drive; 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc. She was shocked when I did this - why, in all of her life she had never experienced this, from her parents, other older family members etc., anything which was anticipation. In fact she later shared with me she told her older brothers what I was teaching her, their comments were ' farang crazy', etc. But she quickly embraced the approach and realized it was valuable, and she has since used the same approach to teach 2 friends to drive.

Typical Thai government schools are another example, the teaching / learning process contains no anticipation whatever. Plan B, Plan C not in the picture, not at all.

Edited by scorecard
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Plan B, Plan C...

I suspect this relates to some main extent to anticipation.

In most western cultures we strongly learn about anticipation by observation of our parents, wider society, education to anticipate things, 'what if' etc. I know my own parents emphasized this strongly, when my father taught me to drive he kept telling me 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc., and it was an extension of the 'life lessons' I had experienced regularly as a child.

I grew up in a quite isolated area, 500 kilometres through close to desert to the next city, after I got my first car I wanted to drive the 500 kilometres to visit my grandfather. My father said 'OK but I want you to sit down and make a list of the things that could go wrong and what you need in the car if one of these things happen'. Deliberate anticipation.

I naturally took this same approach to life lessons in bringing up my Thai son. He was the captain of his university football team for a couple of years, and he often talked to the team about anticipation: on the field, planning for trips, etc. They thought he was crazy. Son now has a 10 yr old child, she regularly gets the same 'anticipation comments and lessons' from her dad. Example, we often have pizza at home nights, son's daughter is in charge of checking the pantry and making a list of what we need for pizza tomorrow night etc. In fact when we go to the supermarket she will often put things in the trolley because she's thinking about what's running low and what will be needed soon for pizza night. Anticipation.

My son met a girl at uni, now his wife, she asked me to teach her to drive. I copied how my father taught me to drive; 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc. She was shocked when I did this - why, in all of her life she had never experienced this, from her parents, other older family members etc., anything which was anticipation. In fact she later shared with me she told her older brothers what I was teaching her, their comments were ' farang crazy', etc. But she quickly embraced the approach and realized it was valuable, and she has since used the same approach to teach 2 friends to drive.

Typical Thai government schools are another example, the teaching / learning process contains no anticipation whatever. Plan B, Plan C not in the picture, not at all.

I take this to be a cultural difference between rich people and poor people. In our rich, Westerner culture we expect to have choices and expect to be able to control events to a high degree. Poor people generally do not have such expectations. Poor culture emphasizes luck instead of planning. And there are degrees in this difference. So, it is an old saw among sociologists that, speaking of the West, one's position in life determines how much of the future one can expect to control. So, that the genuinely rich plan on passing wealth to future generations and focus on estate-planning tools like generation-skipping trusts. The middle class looks out only as far as planning careers and planning retirement on the whole. The poor live from hand to mouth. They have jobs, not careers, and they don't have savings. Instead of planning they have "manana" or "mai pen rai" that emphasize acceptance over control.

Choices and the resources necessary to make them are a kind of wealth. The culture of average Thais is a poor man's culture. Until only a little more than a hundred years ago, they were all slaves. A hundred years is not a long time.

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Plan B, Plan C...

I suspect this relates to some main extent to anticipation.

In most western cultures we strongly learn about anticipation by observation of our parents, wider society, education to anticipate things, 'what if' etc. I know my own parents emphasized this strongly, when my father taught me to drive he kept telling me 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc., and it was an extension of the 'life lessons' I had experienced regularly as a child.

I grew up in a quite isolated area, 500 kilometres through close to desert to the next city, after I got my first car I wanted to drive the 500 kilometres to visit my grandfather. My father said 'OK but I want you to sit down and make a list of the things that could go wrong and what you need in the car if one of these things happen'. Deliberate anticipation.

I naturally took this same approach to life lessons in bringing up my Thai son. He was the captain of his university football team for a couple of years, and he often talked to the team about anticipation: on the field, planning for trips, etc. They thought he was crazy. Son now has a 10 yr old child, she regularly gets the same 'anticipation comments and lessons' from her dad. Example, we often have pizza at home nights, son's daughter is in charge of checking the pantry and making a list of what we need for pizza tomorrow night etc. In fact when we go to the supermarket she will often put things in the trolley because she's thinking about what's running low and what will be needed soon for pizza night. Anticipation.

My son met a girl at uni, now his wife, she asked me to teach her to drive. I copied how my father taught me to drive; 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc. She was shocked when I did this - why, in all of her life she had never experienced this, from her parents, other older family members etc., anything which was anticipation. In fact she later shared with me she told her older brothers what I was teaching her, their comments were ' farang crazy', etc. But she quickly embraced the approach and realized it was valuable, and she has since used the same approach to teach 2 friends to drive.

Typical Thai government schools are another example, the teaching / learning process contains no anticipation whatever. Plan B, Plan C not in the picture, not at all.

I take this to be a cultural difference between rich people and poor people. In our rich, Westerner culture we expect to have choices and expect to be able to control events to a high degree. Poor people generally do not have such expectations. Poor culture emphasizes luck instead of planning. And there are degrees in this difference. So, it is an old saw among sociologists that, speaking of the West, one's position in life determines how much of the future one can expect to control. So, that the genuinely rich plan on passing wealth to future generations and focus on estate-planning tools like generation-skipping trusts. The middle class looks out only as far as planning careers and planning retirement on the whole. The poor live from hand to mouth. They have jobs, not careers, and they don't have savings. Instead of planning they have "manana" or "mai pen rai" that emphasize acceptance over control.

Choices and the resources necessary to make them are a kind of wealth. The culture of average Thais is a poor man's culture. Until only a little more than a hundred years ago, they were all slaves. A hundred years is not a long time.

And still upcountry bumbkin girls without almost any form of education working as bargirls can hookup with lovelorn foreigners and have them pay for everything.Get of yer high horses please......

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Plan B, Plan C...

I suspect this relates to some main extent to anticipation.

In most western cultures we strongly learn about anticipation by observation of our parents, wider society, education to anticipate things, 'what if' etc. I know my own parents emphasized this strongly, when my father taught me to drive he kept telling me 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc., and it was an extension of the 'life lessons' I had experienced regularly as a child.

I grew up in a quite isolated area, 500 kilometres through close to desert to the next city, after I got my first car I wanted to drive the 500 kilometres to visit my grandfather. My father said 'OK but I want you to sit down and make a list of the things that could go wrong and what you need in the car if one of these things happen'. Deliberate anticipation.

I naturally took this same approach to life lessons in bringing up my Thai son. He was the captain of his university football team for a couple of years, and he often talked to the team about anticipation: on the field, planning for trips, etc. They thought he was crazy. Son now has a 10 yr old child, she regularly gets the same 'anticipation comments and lessons' from her dad. Example, we often have pizza at home nights, son's daughter is in charge of checking the pantry and making a list of what we need for pizza tomorrow night etc. In fact when we go to the supermarket she will often put things in the trolley because she's thinking about what's running low and what will be needed soon for pizza night. Anticipation.

My son met a girl at uni, now his wife, she asked me to teach her to drive. I copied how my father taught me to drive; 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc. She was shocked when I did this - why, in all of her life she had never experienced this, from her parents, other older family members etc., anything which was anticipation. In fact she later shared with me she told her older brothers what I was teaching her, their comments were ' farang crazy', etc. But she quickly embraced the approach and realized it was valuable, and she has since used the same approach to teach 2 friends to drive.

Typical Thai government schools are another example, the teaching / learning process contains no anticipation whatever. Plan B, Plan C not in the picture, not at all.

I take this to be a cultural difference between rich people and poor people. In our rich, Westerner culture we expect to have choices and expect to be able to control events to a high degree. Poor people generally do not have such expectations. Poor culture emphasizes luck instead of planning. And there are degrees in this difference. So, it is an old saw among sociologists that, speaking of the West, one's position in life determines how much of the future one can expect to control. So, that the genuinely rich plan on passing wealth to future generations and focus on estate-planning tools like generation-skipping trusts. The middle class looks out only as far as planning careers and planning retirement on the whole. The poor live from hand to mouth. They have jobs, not careers, and they don't have savings. Instead of planning they have "manana" or "mai pen rai" that emphasize acceptance over control.

Choices and the resources necessary to make them are a kind of wealth. The culture of average Thais is a poor man's culture. Until only a little more than a hundred years ago, they were all slaves. A hundred years is not a long time.

And still upcountry bumbkin girls without almost any form of education working as bargirls can hookup with lovelorn foreigners and have them pay for everything.Get of yer high horses please......

Oh. Are you saying that the Suzie Wong types are all uneducated? Because many are very intelligent.

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Plan B, Plan C...

I suspect this relates to some main extent to anticipation.

In most western cultures we strongly learn about anticipation by observation of our parents, wider society, education to anticipate things, 'what if' etc. I know my own parents emphasized this strongly, when my father taught me to drive he kept telling me 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc., and it was an extension of the 'life lessons' I had experienced regularly as a child.

I grew up in a quite isolated area, 500 kilometres through close to desert to the next city, after I got my first car I wanted to drive the 500 kilometres to visit my grandfather. My father said 'OK but I want you to sit down and make a list of the things that could go wrong and what you need in the car if one of these things happen'. Deliberate anticipation.

I naturally took this same approach to life lessons in bringing up my Thai son. He was the captain of his university football team for a couple of years, and he often talked to the team about anticipation: on the field, planning for trips, etc. They thought he was crazy. Son now has a 10 yr old child, she regularly gets the same 'anticipation comments and lessons' from her dad. Example, we often have pizza at home nights, son's daughter is in charge of checking the pantry and making a list of what we need for pizza tomorrow night etc. In fact when we go to the supermarket she will often put things in the trolley because she's thinking about what's running low and what will be needed soon for pizza night. Anticipation.

My son met a girl at uni, now his wife, she asked me to teach her to drive. I copied how my father taught me to drive; 'be ready if ..... happens', 'what will you do if another car suddenly .....', etc. She was shocked when I did this - why, in all of her life she had never experienced this, from her parents, other older family members etc., anything which was anticipation. In fact she later shared with me she told her older brothers what I was teaching her, their comments were ' farang crazy', etc. But she quickly embraced the approach and realized it was valuable, and she has since used the same approach to teach 2 friends to drive.

Typical Thai government schools are another example, the teaching / learning process contains no anticipation whatever. Plan B, Plan C not in the picture, not at all.

I take this to be a cultural difference between rich people and poor people. In our rich, Westerner culture we expect to have choices and expect to be able to control events to a high degree. Poor people generally do not have such expectations. Poor culture emphasizes luck instead of planning. And there are degrees in this difference. So, it is an old saw among sociologists that, speaking of the West, one's position in life determines how much of the future one can expect to control. So, that the genuinely rich plan on passing wealth to future generations and focus on estate-planning tools like generation-skipping trusts. The middle class looks out only as far as planning careers and planning retirement on the whole. The poor live from hand to mouth. They have jobs, not careers, and they don't have savings. Instead of planning they have "manana" or "mai pen rai" that emphasize acceptance over control.

Choices and the resources necessary to make them are a kind of wealth. The culture of average Thais is a poor man's culture. Until only a little more than a hundred years ago, they were all slaves. A hundred years is not a long time.

Then can you explain why in 1976/92 there were a half million Thais on the streets demanding their rights? Bigger guns now?

Edited by dageurreotype
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