> Better in the way that western civilization (with America leading the way) has been built on hierarchies.
Despite that that is an incorrect statement (it has been addressed by coldtea's comment), my original question tried to hint towards a wider view. It's not as simple as saying western civilization is better. Is it better for the individual? How? Is it better for humanity? How? Is it better because we have cars, computers, airplanes and what not? Would all humans have starved to death without it? And then what is the cost of western civilization? Does it carry those costs? After all, hierarchical systems have stood for some of the worst atrocities in both historic and more modern times. When a ruler can send millions to war with some other ruler because he (let's be honest it's mostly a he) has the power over "his" people.
Western civilization is what we have and know but what is to say that the world couldn't have been in a better place if history had taken some other turns?
Interesting, in Swedish we have two (main) words too. The most common word, avundsjuk, even though it has sjuk in it (meaning sick or ill), doesn't necessarily have to be negative. E.g. "I'm so avundsjuk on your vacation to the Bahamas but I hope you have a nice trip." Missunnsam (sounds related to Missgunst) OTOH means that you refuse to let someone enjoy the object of envy. "I guess you must do some pretty heavy tax-evasion in order to afford that trip to the Bahamas."
I agree, fairness != equality. While I'm a great believer in fairness, the problem with it is that it opens up to arbitration. What I consider fair may not be what you consider fair. Equality OTOH is measurable.
> I'm of the opinion that egalitarianism is not a desirable outcome. Hierarchies [...] are much more preferable and have demonstrated to be the better pick for humanity.
Better in what way? The Ju/’hoansi have lived in this egalitarian society for some 200k yrs[1]. It has obviously served them quite well.
This. I studied German for six years in school and have yet to complete a successful conversation. I worked as a volunteer in a children's home in Thailand for a couple of months and while far from fluent in Thai, I can manage most situations.
I very firmly believe that languages are taught the wrong way in school. There's too much focus on grammar but not enough of getting a "feel" for the language. You need to soak in it for that. You shouldn't need to think about how to say something (but that's what German is to me, whenever I try to say things the "is it accusative or dative?"-question pops up in my mind).
Needing to think about how to say what you want to say is like needing to think about how to move your feet in order to walk.
> having access to iPad helped my daughter to learn way more than I thought she could at that age (e. g. English names for colors; count in English and the alphabet song — before she even was three)
While that may sound awesome, I'm not so sure it's better in the long term. Your daughter would've learned the English names of colors and the alphabet eventually anyway. OTOH using phones and pads changes our brains, making us worse and worse at keeping our focus. We become addicted to that something is always changing or moving until reading a book becomes hard. I'd rather start from the other side, reading a lot of books for the kids, letting them learn at a slower rate but with retained ability to focus.
I recently returned from a trip to the USA and was a bit surprised that they asked for ZIP code instead of PIN for my credit card. While the NY subway accepted my non-US ZIP code, some gas stations did not as they apparently checked the entered ZIP code against valid US ZIP codes.
In Sweden we incinerate[1] the trash in super hot ovens and use the resulting heat to heat our homes. We do recycle as well but as we sometimes even import trash to burn (it's a cold country after all) I don't feel so bad when throwing something in the ordinary bin instead of sorting it proper.
We had a flight once where they had assigned my then six year old daughter to a seat on a separate row from the rest of us (me, wife and son) so naturally my wife took that seat and let me sit with the kids.
This was very confusing to the flight attendant. She was like "You need to sit in your seat!" to my wife and as we explained the error by the airline, she scolded us and said "but kids can't sit by themselves!" Uhm, no that's what we fixed... Rest of the flight she looked at us suspiciously as if we were up to something.
On a related note I've found it's easier to get your way with e.g. your manager if you say "I will do this!" rather than "Can I do this?"
This probably have to do with that in the second case you ask your manager to make a decision, causing them cognitive load. In the first case you already made that decision for them.
The issue isn't that you could break most any padlock using heavy duty tools, the issue is that you can break any Tapplock without arousing suspicion.
Consider using it for your gym-locker. The changing room is typically occupied by at least some people whenever the gym is open so if someone is pulling out a bolt-cutter or an angle grinder it would probably lead to someone notifying the gym-employees/police. Meanwhile someone who just walks up to the lock and seemingly opens it must be legit and goes unnoticed.
While true in many cases, in my experience it's not only the engineers. Unless you have the senior managers on board as well, they'll just lean on the engineers to "ship now".
Despite that that is an incorrect statement (it has been addressed by coldtea's comment), my original question tried to hint towards a wider view. It's not as simple as saying western civilization is better. Is it better for the individual? How? Is it better for humanity? How? Is it better because we have cars, computers, airplanes and what not? Would all humans have starved to death without it? And then what is the cost of western civilization? Does it carry those costs? After all, hierarchical systems have stood for some of the worst atrocities in both historic and more modern times. When a ruler can send millions to war with some other ruler because he (let's be honest it's mostly a he) has the power over "his" people.
Western civilization is what we have and know but what is to say that the world couldn't have been in a better place if history had taken some other turns?