[JumpCrisscross]

> Cultural relativism is largely nonsense

There are multiple optima on the cultural space. Americans' individualistic and Scandinavians' committee-loving systems both work well, and optimize for a complimentary set of problems. Saying "ignore the students–go to the beach," on the other hand, is an objectively worse cultural tenet than "balance everyone's needs."

[AlexB138]

Absolutely. In no way would I argue "It's what the West does, therefore it's right", and being aware of the "it's how we do it, so it's right" bias is worthwhile. There are definitely equally viable alternatives to many cultural norms. Unmarked pits in the road is not one, and I find the desire to treat all alternatives as equal, and a matter of culture, unsettling.

[heurist]

If you want to lure Feynman back to give more lectures, you roll out the red carpet the first time he comes. That's sales, not culture.

[kbutler]

Is balancing needs really the best, though?

Balancing everyone's needs tends to result in something that doesn't make anyone really happy.

This leads to a least common denominator result (you can have any color you want, as long as it's black) which is objectively worse in aggregate than "optimize for some, and let someone else optimize for the others".