Geography is four-dimensional (opens in new tab)

I get the latitude, longitude, and they added time. But what was the fourth dimension? Or third rather, because the post assumption is that time was the fourth added.

I resonate with the first paragraph. Those people raised with beliefs of a time that does not exist anymore happen to be very conservative and refuse to see the change.

Same is true for humans too. About their personality. Constantly changing and you will never meet the same person twice in that sense.

I feel like the headline relies on a misnomer. Sivers is talking about culture. Most culture occupies a geography, even if it’s a changing one; the culture shrinks, expands or drifts over the land. The land itself shifts and changes under the culture. Both affect each other. But what Sivers is talking about is groups of people changing, and someone returning with a snap shot of what used to be. This is a common experience among returning emigrés, and their time capsule abroad is sometimes referred to as cultural fossilization. They removed themselves of the living dynamic body of a culture, and have become unknowingly conservative toward it in their expectations. This has also been noted by authors like Thomas Wolfe (There’s no going home.), and consolidated to a Greek word, nostalgia, which also means the pain of homecoming.

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Every geography has a timestamp.

You can't go home again.