[ExI] An anomalous point

[Lee Corbin]

Giulio writes

>>  http://flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/2275614130/
> 
> Very interesting.
> 
> So the US is an anomaly because it is both rich and religious. It is
> also an anomaly because things get done.
> 
> In Europe we don't take seriously things like religion, patriotism
> etc. This is good.

It does seem good for short term sanity, at least. But those 
things, one hundred fifty years ago, would have prevented,
say, European civilization from becoming Muslim. You aren't
worried at all about the demographic and long term religious
tendencies?  Because technological change is so rapid that
it won't matter?

> But here in Europe things do NOT get done. This is not so good.

I don't understand this.  If you control for population size, (the
U.S. is and has been a fully integrated nation with "new" habits
unencrusted by centuries of tradition), and economic size, then
is the U.S. really more effective at "getting things done"?  Like
what?

> I wonder what is the correlation. Why do religion and naive
> patriotism correlate with results.

The other posters in this thread have come up with good ideas,
but the relationship between individualism and all these other
variables and phenomena still seems very obscure at this point.

Lee