Noting before reading that 15mb of animated GIF's is not a great way for an article to make a first impression.
Also they give me a headache so bonus points for that.
We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
61–70 of 94 posts
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#62One of my biggest eureka-moments I had when I moved to the states from Denmark — wasn't what I learned about the US — but what I learned about Denmark. I suddenly saw things about my own culture clearly when I wasn't surrounded by confirmation bias of specific ways of looking at things. One of the most eye-opening experiences for me; If you wan't to understand something you need to understand it through things that a…
I had the same revelation when I studied in the Netherlands for 4 months. You think you are going there to learn only about a new country and its people, and you come back having learned equally as much about your own. I also happened to take a class on the Second Industrial Revolution, which compared Germany, Great Britain and the U.S. and in a class of mostly German students, it was quite an eye-opener and forced m…
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Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Americans will be shocked to learn that people in other countries don't walk around thinking about America or wondering what "the Americans" are going to do about stuff. I don't know any Americans who do that.
I know plenty that think the US is the center of the world. This very discussion is about why you might not have noticed that part of American culture. Why do you think that our democratically elected leaders feel so comfortable bombing, invading and murdering? They know much of the population ultimately feels that it is the US society's prerogative.
From discussions online, the average foreigner seems to know more US Senators than the average American citizen. I get most of my US news from my Australian friend. My three top sources for U.S politics are all sourced from the U.K.
I can only name the Prime Minister of Australia because I have an Australian friend. I'd wager the average American isn't even aware Australia has a Prime Minister, let alone what his name is.
I agree that US citizens think we're the "center of the world". They get that idea because we know nothing about other countries yet they know a lot about us. Under the reasoning of "A king doesn't learn a peasants favorite color." people look at their ignorance in a positive light rather than a negative one.
I never gave a damn about US politics until I started travelling internationally and having more international friends than national ones. It was embarrassing to speak about US politics and have someone from Australia know more about my countries internal politics than I did.
Edit:
I think a large part of this is that many countries are bilingual. Learning a second language is especially common and probably the most common language is English. Meaning they can actually read our local news. Meanwhile, few people in the U.S actually speak French/German beyond what they learned in a few years of high school.
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Traveling internationally has been an eye opener for me, although it also confirmed many of my deeply held biases about my own country. Americans will be shocked to learn that people in other countries don't walk around thinking about America or wondering what "the Americans" are going to do about stuff.
I actually think a lot of Americans would be surprised how much people in other countries know about the US. For example, a significant portion of Americans probably know basically nothing about France, and French government. France doesn't really affect their lives at all, and the mainstream news only mentions the country when a really major story happens. But glancing at the front page of the Le Monde website, I se…
In the past four days, the New York Times has published 36 news stories about Europe, plus various multimedia features and opinion pieces. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/world/europe/index.html
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#65One of my biggest eureka-moments I had when I moved to the states from Denmark — wasn't what I learned about the US — but what I learned about Denmark. I suddenly saw things about my own culture clearly when I wasn't surrounded by confirmation bias of specific ways of looking at things. One of the most eye-opening experiences for me; If you wan't to understand something you need to understand it through things that a…
I think international travel should be mandatory, especially for US citizens. The longest I've stayed anywhere overseas is a month, but even a few days in another country can be eye-opening.
Transatlantic roundtrip airfare for a family of 4 at a time kids will have off from school is around $5500. That's before you start getting places to sleep for any appreciable amount of time, car rentals or train tickets (which are quite expensive), etc.
Median income in the US is around $50,000. $7-8k is a family car, most of somebody's student loan balance, the entire electronics budget for ~5 years. You want them to piss it all away on a week or two? Fuck no.
International travel is a luxury for the extremely privileged. Hell, I was pretty privileged - my parents made a total of around $110k in a low-cost-of-living city - and $3,500 for New York City was a once-in-a-lifetime treat.
Granted, there are ways to do it outside of the family, like study-abroad programs. But then in addition to the cost of the vacation you're paying full tuition to not take real classes and (if you're in a field like CS) delaying graduation by a semester or more because you're not making any progress on your major.
Analysts say current airline prices are hilariously, unsustainably low. It's only going to get far, far worse.
EDIT: I should say that vacations are important and we do take them. We drive 10-15 hours and stay at AirBnbs in other 3rd-string US cities that, while pleasant, are not high-end tourist destinations. Nashville, Lawrence, Raleigh-Durham, Cape Cod, far-flung D.C. suburbs, etc. With a Prius and more than 2 people, driving far is cheaper than flying pretty much everywhere in the continental US.
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think international travel should be mandatory, especially for US citizens. The longest I've stayed anywhere overseas is a month, but even a few days in another country can be eye-opening.
Transatlantic roundtrip airfare for a family of 4 at a time kids will have off from school is around $5500. That's before you start getting places to sleep for any appreciable amount of time, car rentals or train tickets (which are quite expensive), etc. Median income in the US is around $50,000. $7-8k is a family car, most of somebody's student loan balance, the entire electronics budget for ~5 years. You want them…
Without even getting into money - try taking 2 or 3 weeks off work and see if you still have your job in most places... taking time off is a rarity in the U.S for anything short of maternity leave. Meanwhile many other countries have mandatory time off. As in "you better take off at least 21 days this year."
Seriously, just take a look at this. [0] United States has 0 days off. Over half the list is >15 days. Those people have time off to go on a 2 week vacation.
You might note that US workers can "earn" up to 20 days. Taking off those days is usually looked down upon and can hurt chances of promotions. Being fired shortly after returning from an "extended leave" is not unheard of.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_empl...
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#67NB: I'm finding this article impossible to read, even in Reader Mode, due to the animated images within its main body.
1. Do. Not. Fucking. Do. This.
2. Firefox: include element blocking / image removal, or at the very fucking least, animation blocking/suppression, in Reader Mode.
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't say he's unpopular around here: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Zizek&sort=byPopularity&type=c...
Too many entries to sift through if you sort by all time, but I recall him being called a charlatan here, which is what Chomsky once called him (which might explain it). Otherwise I feel the tech community in general rejects the field of critical theory. I don't think Zizek is just a critical theory guy - he identifies primarily as a scholar of Hegel - but he's certainly the best known among critical/ literary theory…
Otherwise I feel the tech community in general rejects the field of critical theory.
What else would you expect when someone's entire experience with critical theory is some wanker using it to poorly advocate a pet cause?
Now that wanker's position may be well founded in critical theory and have good arguments supporting it, but that doesn't matter. When someone uses critical theory as a magic "I'm right" box, rather than helping their detractors acquire the tool-set with which to criticize (or come to agree with) their position, that behavior just makes them an even bigger wanker.
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#69NB: I'm finding this article impossible to read, even in Reader Mode, due to the animated images within its main body. 1. Do. Not. Fucking. Do. This. 2. Firefox: include element blocking / image removal, or at the very fucking least, animation blocking/suppression, in Reader Mode.
The animated images are ridiculous. When I read your comment I thought "Oh great another article using one second gifs of popular tv shows to seem funny". But it's worse than that. It's literally just text.
Re: We can't see our culture very well, because we see with it
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Traveling internationally has been an eye opener for me, although it also confirmed many of my deeply held biases about my own country. Americans will be shocked to learn that people in other countries don't walk around thinking about America or wondering what "the Americans" are going to do about stuff.
I actually think a lot of Americans would be surprised how much people in other countries know about the US. For example, a significant portion of Americans probably know basically nothing about France, and French government. France doesn't really affect their lives at all, and the mainstream news only mentions the country when a really major story happens. But glancing at the front page of the Le Monde website, I se…
Non-Americans know a lot of facts about the US. However, the evidence that non-Americans know a lot about life in the US is much thinner; you get exactly, and I do mean exactly, the same sort of stereotyped impressions of a complex country that Americans have of others. It's exactly the same because it sources from the exact same human brain patterns. We're all just human in the end.
I'd also observe that since the US has had such a large footprint, the interesting question isn't whether the French know our President, vs. whether an American can name the French Prime Minister. That doesn't scale properly, as it implies a standard by which the non-American wins by knowing one name, but the American has to know everyone. The more interesting question is does the average Japanese person know the name of France's Prime Minister, or vice versa? And that's staying comfortably within the world's top ten economies, hardly an unfair question. I suspect by this standard the US would look a lot less bad, though I would still be completely unsurprised to see it at the bottom of such a measure. It just wouldn't be such an extreme difference.