culture

The global_simulation

from cultural_library import global_culture

What is culture?

We use culture to imply lots of things. Some would say that the culture is a shared story. Others would say culture is the next level of our evolution. And some might say that you should be cultured.

In essence culture is just shared information.

"Inventing" fire was arguably one of the defining evolutionary step for humankind. Fire as dangerous as it has a lot of suprisingly useful elements. Such as keeping us warm through long winter nights, use it as weapon to keep beasts away and allow us to cook food. The latter had an even more surprising long term effect as we coevolved. It allowed us to concentrate and preserve calories which then led to our stomach to shrink and our brain to get even bigger.

You would think that inventing fire was an inevitable step of our evolution and given enough time we would discover it anyways. But that's not true. There were some tribes that even though discovered but also have forgotten the knowledge of fire. This highlights the fact that culture is just information that is being attained and lost every single minute by the human collective consciousness.

Anyways, we became better and better at processing and sharing information. So much so that now our biology can literally not keep up with our cultural pace.

Biological evolution is a slow process. It's driven by natural selection, where genetic mutations occur over generations, and traits that are beneficial for survival or reproduction become more common over time. But this process can take thousands, even millions, of years.

Human beings, however, have developed cultural traits—language, technology, social systems—that change on a much faster timescale. You can go from a stone tool to a space mission in just a few centuries, while evolutionarily, we've barely changed in the last 10,000 years.

Unlike biological traits, cultural traits (like tools, traditions, or societal structures) don't rely on genetics. They're transmitted through learning—parents teach children, individuals adopt new ideas, and societies shift in response to new technologies or ideas. This form of evolution is much faster because it doesn't need to wait for generations of mutations to pass through natural selection.

For example, once humans discovered fire, it didn't take generations of people to pass on the knowledge; it could be passed on within a single lifetime. But if that knowledge was encoded in our DNA, it would take many generations to spread.

Many of our biological traits were shaped in environments vastly different from the modern world. The "caveman brain" isn't well-suited to a world of smartphones, digital media, or modern political structures. We're still wired to respond to immediate, local threats or to bond in small, face-to-face social groups, but today we face global challenges that require a different kind of thinking and cooperation.

The "mismatch theory" in biology and psychology points out that our evolved instincts don't necessarily match up with modern environments, which can lead to things like stress, anxiety, and other mental health issues.

But I will give you the best hack to attain as much information as possible. It's a story.

Stories are the best tool to hang a set of facts on it.

from cultural_library import national_culture

A national culture is just a set of stories of what it means to be that nation.

But in essence all these are just informational . Some a little more up and others way down. This book is about informations way down. About beliefs, values and personality. Sets of information that we build our identity up with.

We don't like to touch the ones underneath and rightly so, because information on upper layers become very dependent on it. For instance every time we touch one of our values a refactoring is needed.

Shared is also a very important part of this. The story of babel. The ever present struggle between sameness <> otherness.

The problem we have is that shared part became increasingly fragmented. That's because in the postmodern world we live there is no absolute truth. There is only subjective reality. In the echo chambers of social media, its increasingly easy to just find a

I think we should give the devil its due and say that it's true there are no absolute truth.

But there are truths that are extremely likely. And that's what we call absolute objective reality or just objective reality for short.

But we have to move to further on the other end of the spectrum and agree on absolute subjective realities too. These on the west use to be the ten commandment. But now this axiomatic paradigms that hold our reality together are crumbling. In the weight of relative subjective truth we increasingly fail to find common ground.

But here is belief a piece of information that could pull our islands a little closer:

We share more things in common than not.

And so maybe, just maybe, we should look for the things in common and whenever a shared decision is not possible look for a consensus.

I brought you three stories from the root of my cultural library—the Hungarian library that most of my super algos become very dependent on.

The spirit of Hungary—"pálinka"

from national_culture import hungarian_culture

"The Hungarian rejoices while crying." - Hungarian saying

Alcohol is the most harmful substance in the world. It kills more people than war, terrorism and homicides. If it didn't exist inventing it today would be unthinkable. Yet it is intervowen in much of our culture and we can't imagine life without drinking wine in the mediterraniens, vodka in the arctic and everything in between.

Much of the world struggles with alcohol but the secret unsung hero of alcoholism is Hungary.

Hungary is the most alcoholic nation in the world. Some estimates say that Hungarians brew 60M liters of pálinka every year. Given that Hungary is roughly 9M people that leaves every single individual with 6.67l of pálinka for a year.

That's quite depressing. But don't worry this is just the beginning. I'll tell you now the brief history of the OG Hungarian spirit Pálinka, and you will get the essence of what it means to be Hungarian.

Let the Hungarian spirit sing now the song of Hungary.

I was born of plum and apricot, of cherry and pear.
The Hungarians found me long ago in their orchards, when their land was whole and their rivers untamed. They thought I was medicine, a healer's draught against the cold. And they were right.

But I was more.
I was laughter at the table.
I was the bond between neighbors.
I was the fire in their bellies when armies came with banners and chains.

The Ottomans taxed me, the Habsburgs caged me, the Soviets tried to replace me. None of them could.
For in the villages, behind barn doors and cellar walls, I whispered.
Copper pots glowed red with my secret.
Grandfathers passed me to grandsons, mothers to daughters.
I was rebellion in liquid form. I was defiance in a bottle.

But hear me now — I was never only a friend.
I was also the shadow at the feast.
I was the fog behind the fire.
I numbed their wounds, but I also dulled their dreams.

When the country was torn apart after Trianon, when two-thirds of their land was stolen, I was there.
"Drink," I said. "Forget the loss."
When communism rationed their lives, I flowed freer than bread.
"Drink," I said. "This is freedom enough."
When sorrow weighed heavy, when joy burned too bright, I was always waiting.
"Drink," I whispered. "Rejoice while crying. Cry while rejoicing."

I am pálinka.
Not just brandy — never just brandy.
I am Hungary itself: strong, clear, and impossible to break.
But I am also its curse.
I have kept them alive through conquest and ruin.
And I am slowly killing them still.

Even now, when tourists sip me from golden bottles and call it folklore, the old ones know the truth.
They look into their glass and see my face, sly and smiling, always the trickster:
"I am your pride. I am your rebellion.
I am your medicine. I am your poison.
And you will never be free of me."

Hungary has never had time to grow up. In the last millennia we have been ruled first by the Muslims, then the Nazis, and then we lost WW2 and with that ⅔ of our territory. Can you imagine? The latter basically sent us back to preindustrial times.

3/3 spies

from hungarian_culture import soviet_dictatorship

As the Soviets took over Hungary. Something even darker happened, something that never should have happened. Because if Hitler is in the Abyss drowning in a lake of fiery blood, Stalin is at least three feet deeper.

Stalin arguably led the most totalitarian regime. Topping at its prime hundreds of million people under the Soviet red star. And Stalin's paranoia cut its crawl so deep in the nation's vein that even child's cry.

But as the Soviets took over Hungary, something even darker happened — something that never should have happened.

Because if Hitler is in the abyss drowning in a lake of fiery blood, Stalin is at least three feet deeper.

Stalin ruled not only armies, but whispers.

His paranoia cut so deep in the nation's vein that even a child's cry could betray a family.

And he did the most evil thing one can imagine: he cut Hungary's soul into two opposing forces.

On one side, the Hungary of silence: bowed heads, false smiles, hands forced to sign denunciations to protect kin.

On the other, the Hungary of defiance: secret songs in cellars, poems copied in the dark, glasses of pálinka raised to whisper, "We will not bow."

Trust bled away, and suspicion became a companion to every Hungarian.

Even so, the fire inside could not be fully snuffed.

Children learned courage alongside fear.

Workers labored by day, whispered rebellion by night.

The old bottles of pálinka became talismans — warmth in the cold, fire in the gray, defiance in liquid form.

And so the nation waited, its soul divided, its anger simmering.

The spies had won fear, but they had not won obedience.

The two halves of Hungary — fearful and defiant — carried the same spark.

Then came October, 1956.

The Spirit of Fire — 1956

break soviet_dictatorship

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was one of the most dramatic uprisings of the Cold War. For nearly two weeks, students, workers, and ordinary citizens rose against Soviet domination and the communist regime in Hungary. It was a fight for freedom — brief, fiery, and brutally crushed. But like all of Hungary's great tragedies, it became a myth, woven into the nation's spirit.

Let the spirit of Hungary now speak.

I am Hungary, and in 1956 I burned.

For long years before, the red star weighed heavy upon me.
Grey men in grey offices rationed bread, censored words, silenced songs.
They promised order but gave only chains.
In every factory, in every schoolroom, in every farm field, the silence grew heavy.
But silence cannot last forever.

Then came October, and the streets began to murmur.
Young men, students, poets — they carried not guns but verses, not bombs but demands.
They tore down Stalin's statue, and the earth itself shook with the crash.
They raised our tricolor with the Soviet emblem cut out, a hole in the middle, a wound turned into a flag.

"Freedom!" they cried, and I was with them.
For once, the fire that had always smoldered in secret burst into the open.
The whole nation was drunk, not with pálinka this time, but with hope.
Mothers carried food to fighters, priests blessed rifles, children filled bottles with petrol and flame.
Even the stones of Budapest seemed to rise against the tanks.

For twelve days we fought like hell.
For twelve days, the Hungarians remembered themselves as free.
But the world watched — and did nothing.
And then the tanks returned, iron and endless, grinding the dream beneath their treads.
Soviet fire poured down like rain and Hungary's blood spilled all over the place.
The young fell in the streets, the poets were dragged away, and the tricolor flag was stained dark with smoke and blood.

But listen well my dear friend: even in defeat, I endured.
Because freedom tasted once can never be forgotten.
Because every whispered toast, every hidden song, every drop of pálinka after 1956 carried that same vow:
"We rose once. We will rise again."

I am Hungary, scarred and stubborn.
I am the spirit that burns, that will not die.
1956 was crushed, yes. But it was not lost.
It still burns in the memory of my people —
Like fire beneath ash, waiting, waiting, waiting for the spark to rise again.

The Revolution of 1956 did not succeed. Thousands were killed, even more imprisoned or forced into exile. But its memory remained a seed — proof that Hungarians could still defy empires. Even today, the uprising stands as one of the defining moments of Hungarian identity: tragic, heroic, and unforgotten.

This note is part of the first draft of the self-ware project. Email me: "I want to be a beta reader." (or something like that) if you want to hop on the journey and influence the content."