Most of the ideas in the world, the big ideas that change your life, the little ideas that make your coffee better, the interesting ideas that change the nature of computing, the mundane idea that keeps important things working, most of these ideas originate from a small pool of people and are used everywhere.

This is especially noticeable in small every day things, things that can be done in multiple equally good ways, but is done in one way. And when you see things being done the same way in two countries like the United States and India, you know that the idea has travelled far -- not because it was a brilliant idea -- no, but it was good enough to get the job done, and the job it gets done is something so uninteresting, no one ever bothered to see if there's another way to do it.

The way a door knob is designed, the way a post office is run, the way normal houses are designed, the way bureaucracies are run, the way clothes are designed, the way toilets are flushed, the way your nail-cutter cuts nails, the way cloth is weaved  etc. For a world this large, it is surprising how little variation there is in how the small (and big) things are done.