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Living outside America

ryancarson.com

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Re: Living outside America

#61

Post by milesskorpen »

citricsquid wrote: post #10

> I stopped calling myself a Christian Specific to this point as someone that has lived in England forever I find it really strange how on the reddit atheism subreddit all the (American) posters act as if they're persecuted for their Atheism whereas in England religion is just something people do in private if they do it at all, it's hard for me to understand the way r/atheism posters perceive their persecution, but…

The NE, NW, and NorCal areas of the US are pretty secular. I've never had an issue with atheism. Like in so many things, this part of America is pretty polarized.

I suspect there is a tipping point for religion. It is easy to be culturally Christian and accept basic tenets (i.e., God exists) when there aren't significant vocal doubters. Currently, even in secular areas, it is seen as a bit rude to vocally doubt the existence of God.

Re: Living outside America

#62

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Living outside America

#63

Post by mixmax »

rdl wrote: post #37
mixmax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This quote from the article " I don’t view the USA as the center of the world. " seems rather fitting with the part where you mention America as culturally superior to other cultures.

The US basically is the center of the world (any alien who landed on Earth would recognize that, since 1945); it's just not the whole world, which is the default US view.

I think a lot of Europeans, muslims and Chinese would disagree with you. But thank you for proving my point.

Re: Living outside America

#64

Post by mberning »

Just wrapping up a several weeks trip to Europe (London, Cologne, Edinburgh) as we speak. I think I'm having the opposite observation. Western cultures have so much in common it has actually been surprising to me. I always expected to be amazed by the differences, but if you throw out all of the superficial stuff the set of appreciable differences is rather smaller.

As for his specific points

1. I have no idea how somebody with half a brain and access to the internet can have this notion. Maybe I am the exception to the rule, but I never fancied my Country to be any more 'important' than any other nation. In fact, the opposite was often considered given that modern civilisation has few roots in the Americas.

2. Never believed in religion in the first place

3. Every country has their fair share of embarrassing points, and of course their fair share of unfortunate embarrassing people. I have rather enjoyed seeing that the human condition is more or less the same the world over. I also feel occasionally embarrassed by my fellow countrymen, but I figure the best way to counteract that is to represent myself, and by association my country, the best I can.

4. As for that, we will see. I've not seen anything that screams out to me "This economy is vastly more productive than the US" in the areas that I have visited. Perhaps public transport and some infrastuctural aspects lend themselves to a more efficient country, and the US should certainly take a look at those things.

Oh well, I'm glad to have had the experience of travelling throughout Europe, but I would expect some deeper takeaways from somebody that literally spent years immersed in a foreign culture.

Re: Living outside America

#65

Post by pm90 »

eru wrote: post #17
ashishgandhi wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That's something as an outsider living here in since around last December I've noticed. Your government is quite broken. But it somehow still works. (Paradox, I know!) For instance, the healthcare bill that was recently passed largely solves the textbook prob…

> Trust me there are a lot of countries where they don't like to spend money at all (consume). Are you talking about Germany?

(disclaimer: i'm not the op) India, South Korea, Japan and so on. All have astronomical savings rate. All that money is locked up in the banks and not flowing to the people who need it the most (need==to make/market their innovation/products), because the delivery system is so broken and there is so little trust

Re: Living outside America

#66

Post by citricsquid »

brown9-2 wrote: post #55
citricsquid wrote: post #10

> I stopped calling myself a Christian Specific to this point as someone that has lived in England forever I find it really strange how on the reddit atheism subreddit all the (American) posters act as if they're persecuted for their Atheism whereas in England religion is just something people do in private if they do it at all, it's hard for me to understand the way r/atheism posters perceive their persecution, but…

There is a lot of confirmation bias in judging how non-religious folks are treated in America by using /r/atheism - the people that don't feel persecuted won't ever feel a need to join an online community to discuss it.

oh of course and I do not use r/atheism regularly, I find the entire place really disappointing because it's not about atheism, it's about how much religious people are morons (which I disagree with). My curiosity was because there are thousands of redditors that believe they're persecuted for their Atheism and I've never once seen someone from England claim that, it's only ever Americans, which leads me to believe there may be some base to the claim (if what Ryan said in the blog post is accurate).

Re: Living outside America

#67

Post by Locke1689 »

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…

The US is coasting, and I believe it will implode financially within our lifetimes.

Given the European financial crisis, this seems misplaced. Not to say that there will not be a financial collapse, but only if there is one it will be world-wide and the US will not be the worst off of the Western nations.

Re: Living outside America

#68

Post by antidaily »

mberning wrote: post #64

Just wrapping up a several weeks trip to Europe (London, Cologne, Edinburgh) as we speak. I think I'm having the opposite observation. Western cultures have so much in common it has actually been surprising to me. I always expected to be amazed by the differences, but if you throw out all of the superficial stuff the set of appreciable differences is rather smaller. As for his specific points 1. I have no idea how so…

I wonder if more Americans would travel through Europe if they knew how easy it is. EVERYBODY speaks English. And yet, you still get to experience the cultures and augment your worldview a bit.

Re: Living outside America

#69

Post by RivieraKid »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #30
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…

I've been an out American for 7 years now, first two in Switzerland, the last 5 in China. I still think America has a lot going for it. Switzerland is efficient and fair, but something is missing because of restrained competition and protectionism. China is the exact opposite, and its hard to believe the system works at all. For whatever troubles America has, our system still works and is rather effective; no one is…

Social mobility is actually very low in the US in comparison with other developed countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_compari...

Re: Living outside America

#70

Post by Alex3917 »

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.

Yes, based on BMI. I know BMI isn't always accurate for each individual, but I'm assuming that it's more or less evens out on the population level.
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