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Notes -
I'm not sure how much any of that is attributable to culture? Yes, if you want to be world-class in something you probably need to move to America, but that's because America has a much larger population and a lot more of the world's wealth flows through America. It's just location. It's no different to the way that, for instance, talented and ambitious New Zealanders tend to move to Australia - not because Australian culture is better than (or even very different from) New Zealander culture, but just because it's bigger. There are more people, more jobs, more network effects.
I think it's probably true that a particular image of or sense of ambition is more prized in American culture - though I also experience this in part as Americans tending to come off as selfish or arrogant more frequently than Australians. One of the most shocking things I noticed in America was the near-total absence of self-deprecation. If an Australian says "I'm the best!", there will always be some sort of self-deprecating smile afterwards, or gentle laughter at one's self, or something to undercut it. You can't let that judgement actually stand, and if you try to let it stand, you're an arse and you deserve everything you're going to get. An American, however, will say "I'm the best!" and genuinely mean it. No matter how absurd or obviously false it is - they tend to get wrapped up in their illusions more.
Does that make them more successful? I doubt it. The British self-deprecate in the same way Australians do, in contrast to that weird brand of earnest selfishness the Americans have, and yet it didn't stop the British building the largest empire in history and creating the international framework that the Americans later inherited. There is still a large and visible cultural gap between Empire/Commonwealth Anglos and American Anglos, but framing that in terms of the Americans just being better at achieving things seems wrong to me.
And on the purely subjective level - yes, America has massive diversity, and you can't treat it all the same. I understand. But it's also, well, true, that every American city I've been to, even the famous centres of commerce and technology and progress, has struck me as, well, a bit nastier than its Australian equivalent. It's possible that it is just an artifact of where I've been. I'm told that the Midwest is actually much nicer than the big coastal cities I've visited, and maybe that's true.
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