The real core value of Japanese culture (or one of them) is something like "never stand out or make a fuss". Nowhere in that principle is a strict requirement to follow the rules. In fact, it's perfectly fine, in Japan, to break the rules as long as that's what everyone does and expects you to do. In terms of framings, the Japanese culture has acquired—by arbitrary and unimportant means—a definition of the concept of (or a "black box" for) "standing out" that differs from its equivalent in many other cultures: instead of being generally neutral, it is seen as intrinsically unpleasant and embarrassing.

The behavior that stems from employing this ontological "thing" (this particular flavor of "standing out") in your mental models is what you see manifested on the train platforms, on the escalators, etc.

The Italian culture has the concept of simpatia that translates awkwardly to English as "being a mix of likeable and/or charming and fun to be around" and doesn't even exist in Japan. I do believe that having this compact and convenient idea of simpatia makes Italians more conscious of the importance of being simpatico and seek that property in others. It drives their behavior in more or less explicit ways.

What I'm talking about is not a unification of actions but of the thinking patterns from which those actions arise. Culture is the mass-synchronization of framings.

A mental model is a simulation of "how things might unfold", and we all build and rebuild hundreds of mental models every day. A framing, on the other hand, is "what things exist in the first place", and it is much more stable and subtle. Every mental model is based on some framing, but we tend to be oblivious to which framing we're using most of the time (I've explained all this better in A Framing and Model About Framings and Models).

Framings are the basis of how we think and what we are even able to perceive, and they're the most consequential thing that spreads through a population in what we call "culture".

Those miraculous scenes have nothing to do with the Japanese DNA: it's their culture. And culture is, by and large, random, arbitrary, and self-reinforcing.

In programming languages, a delimited continuation, composable continuation or partial continuation, is a "slice" of a continuation frame that has been reified into a function. Unlike regular continuations, delimited continuations return a value, and thus may be reused and composed.

Baloney Detec­tion Kit

• Wher­ev­er pos­si­ble there must be inde­pen­dent con­fir­ma­tion of the “facts.”

• Encour­age sub­stan­tive debate on the evi­dence by knowl­edge­able pro­po­nents of all points of view. Argu­ments from author­i­ty car­ry lit­tle weight — “author­i­ties” have made mis­takes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Per­haps a bet­ter way to say it is that in sci­ence there are no author­i­ties; at most, there are experts.

• Spin more than one hypoth­e­sis. If there’s some­thing to be explained, think of all the dif­fer­ent ways in which it could be explained. Then think of tests by which you might sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly dis­prove each of the alter­na­tives.

• Try not to get over­ly attached to a hypoth­e­sis just because it’s yours. It’s only a way sta­tion in the pur­suit of knowl­edge. Ask your­self why you like the idea. Com­pare it fair­ly with the alter­na­tives.

• See if you can find rea­sons for reject­ing it. If you don’t, oth­ers will. If what­ev­er it is you’re explain­ing has some mea­sure, some numer­i­cal quan­ti­ty attached to it, you’ll be much bet­ter able to dis­crim­i­nate among com­pet­ing hypothe­ses.

• What is vague and qual­i­ta­tive is open to many expla­na­tions. If there’s a chain of argu­ment, every link in the chain must work (includ­ing the premise) — not just most of them.

• Occam’s Razor. This con­ve­nient rule-of-thumb urges us when faced with two hypothe­ses that explain the data equal­ly well to choose the sim­pler. Always ask whether the hypoth­e­sis can be, at least in prin­ci­ple, fal­si­fied…. You must be able to check asser­tions out. Invet­er­ate skep­tics must be giv­en the chance to fol­low your rea­son­ing, to dupli­cate your exper­i­ments and see if they get the same result.

Once a self-sustaining feedback loop has started, how it started ceases to mean anything. Mindless forces emerge that suck you in a specific direction.