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I am tempted to just slice off the top layer of the "answer" and present it on a slightly clean platter. But actually, I think we have done a lot of thinking about “ultimate causes” in Diamond’s terms. I think I’ll just bring it back to a human scale again for a break.

Okay, so cultural changes come about because people change. Rather, people’s mindsets change. Or people decide to change their minds and people make new things. The key point I want to make is that cultural change doesn’t happen unless people accept change and make it their own. You can have isolated phenomena that never really catch on to become “culture.” I really think there is real active agency involved in culture in conjunction with plain ol’ exposure and diffusion.  If the internet didn’t become widely used by people who decided it had value, it wouldn’t be part of our “culture.” The same goes for religions, baseball, pop music, writing, etc. By the way, I think “culture” deserves a Making Sense of Ourselves definition.  What is your definition of “culture”?

P.S.

Wow, overuse of  " ". Why is everything always in such flux that I can't even write "culture" without " "? It's okay, I've gotten used to it.