Another of my idle speculations is the effect of climate on character.
Base instinct makes me feel that people who grow up in areas where the day to day is pretty set by climate must have a different mindset to people who grow up in countries (hard stare at the British archipelago) where you can have four seasons in one day at any time of year.
Surely it burns it's way into culture disposition and what eventually coalesces into national character ?
Samuel Johnson sort of summed it up:
"When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather"
(Ordinarily I'd point out that historically "English" and "British" were very much interchangeable. But given Johnsons famous antipathy towards the northern part of the island, I can't be sure 😀 . And "men" was generally taken to include "women" as well. )