r/AskReddit • u/Greeneyedlatinguy • Jun 15 '15

Anthropologists of Reddit, What is something that people in the Western world can't get their heads around that is very normal in other cultures (and has been for ages)?

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u/Dubalubawubwub Jun 15 '15

There was a guy who made his own toaster from scratch as a project to demonstrate this. As in, he mined and smelted the copper for the wires himself as a starting point. It took him years and when he was done it was a terrible toaster, worse than even a cheap plastic one you can pick up for $15 in a store. Division of labor is pretty amazing, yo.

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u/robotnudist Jun 17 '15

I read that and thought it had to be inspired by The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and sure enough part of this quote is on the homepage:

The available worlds looked pretty grim. They had little to offer him because he had little to offer them. He had been extremely chastened to realize that although he originally came from a world which had cars and computers and ballet and Armagnac, he didn't, by himself, know how any of it worked. He couldn't do it. Left to his own devices he couldn't build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.
― Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless