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Living outside America

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Re: Living outside America

#41

Post by jwilliams »

sneak wrote: post #31
pg wrote: post #22

I've been able to do the first 3 without leaving (perhaps because I wasn't born here), and number 4 doesn't seem so certain. What I noticed about living outside America when I did it later as an adult was that it made it clearer what was distinctive about the US. Many of the distinctive things I noticed could be summed up by describing America as a young culture. Americans have the optimism and energy of youth, but t…

I think there's something to the not being born there that helps. #1 was a huge revelation to me (I'd like to think I'm observant and well-informed), and continues to be so to Americans I've had the opportunity to tour-guide for. I'm really curious where it comes from. Perhaps because of the ubiquity of American mass-media? Every European knows the New York skyline and what "NYPD" and "FBI" mean. How many Americans c…

I think there is a lot more subtlety to #1.

I'm Australian, and despite numerous cultural shifts, when you graduate the natural place to go is Europe. The thing young Aus/NZ people do is backpack around Europe.

When I was growing up, I knew a lot about the US from Mass Media, but it was pretty shallow. I saw the US as a mono-culture. When I finally visited the states that's what shocked me most - it's a diverse, complex place. In many ways more so than Europe.

I have my doubts about #4 too.

Re: Living outside America

#42

Post by mixmax »

thetabyte wrote: post #36
mixmax wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an interesting aside, there's a strong negative correlation between GDP per capita and religion; the richer a country is the less religious it is. America is the exception that sticks out like a sore thumb on a graph.

Really? That's actually very interesting, if you have source material for that I'd love to see it. Though I wonder if it's biased by very religious middle eastern states lacking in natural resources other than oil (which benefits a very small group).

Here's a graph: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/137/religion-god-theology/...

Looking at it I noticed that I'm from one of the least religious countries in the world (Denmark).

Re: Living outside America

#43

Post by ashishgandhi »

sneak wrote: post #31
pg wrote: post #22

I've been able to do the first 3 without leaving (perhaps because I wasn't born here), and number 4 doesn't seem so certain. What I noticed about living outside America when I did it later as an adult was that it made it clearer what was distinctive about the US. Many of the distinctive things I noticed could be summed up by describing America as a young culture. Americans have the optimism and energy of youth, but t…

I think there's something to the not being born there that helps. #1 was a huge revelation to me (I'd like to think I'm observant and well-informed), and continues to be so to Americans I've had the opportunity to tour-guide for. I'm really curious where it comes from. Perhaps because of the ubiquity of American mass-media? Every European knows the New York skyline and what "NYPD" and "FBI" mean. How many Americans c…

> How many Americans can spot the difference between Hong Kong and Seoul, or know what "BKA" stands for?

That only means American culture is more exported than others in many forms like movies, TV shows, etc. People like to watch American shows, American that, American this, etc. If Honk Kong and Seoul were able to export their culture as effectively you'll know about them too. A lot of people know about Paris and Cannes in the US. Doesn't mean they are "well educated" or anything. Nor the other way around.

Re: Living outside America

#44

Post by [deleted] »

sneak wrote: post #31
pg wrote: post #22

I've been able to do the first 3 without leaving (perhaps because I wasn't born here), and number 4 doesn't seem so certain. What I noticed about living outside America when I did it later as an adult was that it made it clearer what was distinctive about the US. Many of the distinctive things I noticed could be summed up by describing America as a young culture. Americans have the optimism and energy of youth, but t…

I think there's something to the not being born there that helps. #1 was a huge revelation to me (I'd like to think I'm observant and well-informed), and continues to be so to Americans I've had the opportunity to tour-guide for. I'm really curious where it comes from. Perhaps because of the ubiquity of American mass-media? Every European knows the New York skyline and what "NYPD" and "FBI" mean. How many Americans c…

[deleted]

Re: Living outside America

#45

Post by xiaoma »

michael_h wrote: post #19
Alex3917 wrote: post #2

"A ton of people I met from around the World thought Americans were overweight, materialistic and unintelligent. This was, of course, an unfair generalization." Less than 30% of American adults are at a healthy bodyweight, so it's really not an unfair generalization.

Based on BMI, yes? According to that, I believe Brad Pitt at his peak was classified as 'obese'. There is a weight problem, but our tools for measuring it are subpar.

In all of the movie bios I've seen he was between 155-165lbs. In fight club, for example, his BMI was about 22.5

Re: Living outside America

#46

Post by sneak »

jwilliams wrote: post #41
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's something to the not being born there that helps. #1 was a huge revelation to me (I'd like to think I'm observant and well-informed), and continues to be so to Americans I've had the opportunity to tour-guide for. I'm really curious where it comes from. Perhaps because of the ubiquity of American mass-media? Every European knows the New York skyline and what "NYPD" and "FBI" mean. How many Americans c…

I think there is a lot more subtlety to #1. I'm Australian, and despite numerous cultural shifts, when you graduate the natural place to go is Europe. The thing young Aus/NZ people do is backpack around Europe. When I was growing up, I knew a lot about the US from Mass Media, but it was pretty shallow. I saw the US as a mono-culture. When I finally visited the states that's what shocked me most - it's a diverse, comp…

> I saw the US as a mono-culture.

I think the problem is that all the non-boring places to live in the US _are_ a monoculture, mostly due to the network. (Then again, most non-boring places on Earth are all converging to this point anyway.) The parts that diverge from the monoculture are places that would be horrible to live (e.g. the south, the rust belt, etc).

Re: Living outside America

#47

Post by kruk »

pixie_ wrote: post #11
rdl wrote: post #3

Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. The threats to the US are not other countries getting better than us, but the decline of the natio…

I agree. I've also spent a few a years living outside the US and while I had a great time it made me realize a lot about all the simple things about living in the US that we don't even realize we have and take for granted. The political stability, the infrastructure, the uniform culture that stretches coast to coast, and just the feeling of being surrounded by the immense wealth of it all. Just last week when I was a…

What culture? American culture, compared to most of Europe and Asia is underdeveloped and shallow. Not to mention, 20% of US citizens are not even native English speakers. All the points you're listing could be more appropriately used to describe Japan.

Re: Living outside America

#48

Post by yashchandra »

Every country has its good and bad, in terms of people, culture, society, taboos etc etc. I have lived in 3 countries including the US and I think that it all comes down to how you look at things that are around you. The best thing to do is to try and enjoy the best of it.

Re: Living outside America

#49

Post by rdl »

sneak wrote: post #38
rdl wrote: post #3

Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. The threats to the US are not other countries getting better than us, but the decline of the natio…

> There are plenty of specific areas where other countries are better than the US, but no single country which is enough better on enough things to be a serious competitor. Germany. Better education, better attitude, more open-minded, less harassment for being weird/nonstandard, median level of critical thinking ability, healthier food, better transport, more cultural things to do/see, better solutions to the growing…

I haven't lived in Germany (I've visited for maybe 3 weeks total), and in terms of quality of life, it wasn't that different from the US, at least for the things you see as a short-term tourist. Lots of stuff was more expensive (vs. SF baseline), and rural Germany around 2000 was pretty undeveloped, but Berlin would be more representative.

I'm also using SFBA, NY, Boston, Seattle as exemplars of the US. I'd rather live in London than New Mexico, but there are parts of the UK worse than New Mexico, too. (amazingly. I didn't know this until living in the UK.)

US universities are stronger than German universities, at least in commercialization, graduate studies, etc. K-12 could go either way; Baltimore public schools are worse than what I assume are the worst German schools, but Palo Alto, Stuy, etc. might be better (at least I don't know of anything comparable in Germany).

Re: Living outside America

#50

Post by psykotic »

thetabyte wrote: post #20
mixmax wrote: post #9

This is a great article, and as a European I can relate to all of his points. Here are some comments from the other side of the pond; they're of course my personal opinion but I think they're somewhat representative of the European view. I don’t view the USA as the center of the world - i see America as an overreaching empire that has had it's heyday. If you take a historical perspective this is how many empires fall…

Opening Note: Personal views- Practicing Jewish most of my upbringing, now agnostic by choice "If the Danish prime minister started confessing her belief in a god she'd be laughed out of the room." As an 18 year old American, active in American politics (I've done minor campaigning, father is a US History teacher), this is utterly strange. A politician that was not some denomination of Christianity would be, most lik…

> The concept of God abounds in our Pledge of Allegiance, in our graduation ceremonies, in our political speeches--it is almost universally accepted and above question.

You probably know this already, but Yahweh's prominence on the coinage and in the Pledge of Allegiance is a relatively recent phenomenon. It wasn't until 1908 that 'In God We Trust' was mandated on the coinage, and 'under God' wasn't inserted into the Pledge until 1954, as part of a wider anti-communist reaction. The supposed areligiosity of the Founders is often overstated by modern-day atheists with an axe to grind. However, while you'd be hard pressed to find a more pompous and puritanical Christian than the likes of John Adams, even he was strongly supportive of the separation of church and state: "Nothing is more dreaded than the national government meddling with religion."

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