I'm a native Thai and I largely agree with MinisterOf's assessment. While it's true that the poor live for the day all over the world, and the rich are globally obsessed with flaunting their wealth, these traits seem to be particularly pronounced in the Thai socioeconomic order. I have lived and studied in Thailand, the United States and Singapore. From my experience, I have encountered rich airheads and intellectually indifferent poor and middle class more frequently in Thailand than any other country. I can think of a few reasons to explain why: 1. The education in Thailand does not educate. It is all about making learners memorise a set of official values ("Thainess", love for the nation, respect for authority and seniority, etc.) alongside memorising the syllabus materials. The students are not expected to ask questions, or to be curious. They are expected to listen and obey. I used to have a classmate who questioned, in a civilised manner, a teacher’s teaching and administrative methodology, and suggested some changes that could be made to make the system more efficient. He was branded as “aggressive” and “disrespectful”. As a result, students are hardwired not to think, but to keep their heads down and follow the rules, to know their place. 2. Thailand has a laidback culture (most of us prefer to spend time reading comics than labouring through scholarly works), climate (as some have mentioned) and livelihood (the majority of Thais are in the agricultural and low-skilled industrial sectors) that encourage a simple lifestyle. There is a collective mentality of “Just keep your head down and humbly do your thing”. 3. There is a lack of intellectual work in the country. I’m not saying there aren’t any, but when you size them up, per capita, we don’t really have much of the academic collections that you can normally find in the Western world. Of course, there are many intellectual Thais. But most of us have a rather poor command of English, so it’s very likely you have never heard us at our brightest.