91–100 of 216 posts
"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.
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 see America as an overreaching empire that has had it's heyday And yet most of us are right now using computers designed in America, with an operating system written in America, posting on an American website. How is the USA not the centre of the world? From jeans to Katy Perry, from Google to McDonald's -- Americans totally dominated both the culture and the business. If I turn on the tv right now, I will have t…
Source?
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…
> Americans have the optimism and energy of youth, but they're also comparatively unsophisticated. Aside from the obvious ambiguities of what defines sophistication of a culture: It feels like you're begging the question to me. "Americans are unsophisticated because they're a young culture so they're unsophisticated..." Moreover I think suggesting that an entire culture is full of optimism and youth because it's only…
There is lots of influencal US culture. From rap to mcdonalds. We may look down upon it now, but all of tat will age into cherished cultural relics when they stop being relevant.
I think the point the OP wanted to make, is that the US has less dead culture, compared to say Europe.
No, you've went into a field whose practitioners are largely non-Christian, and since you've probably acquired most of your social circle directly or indirectly through that you mostly meet non-Christians.
If a kid who grew up in a religious family in London and went to a religious school most of his life where almost all his social group was religious left the UK after school and moved to Seattle to work for Google or Microsoft, he could reasonably blog years later that the US is largely a non-Christian country based on his experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Living and traveling outside the US for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US" As an Australian who has travelled the world extensively, spent a great deal of time in the USA, and currently lives in Canada, I strongly disagree with this statement. It should also be noted that in most quality of life indexes, cities in the US rank far below many of those in Europe, Canada, and Australia - that…
> It should also be noted that in most quality of life indexes, cities in the US rank far below many of those in Europe, Canada, and Australia... Having personally lived in two of the most recently top-ranked cities (Vancouver and now Melbourne) I'd say the indexes are mostly bogus. Evidently something as important to quality of life as the weather isn't much of a factor given that it rains for most of the year in Va…
The science says that social mobility is much higher in other countries like Denmark than in the US:
> Several studies have been made comparing social mobility between developed countries. One such study (“Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults?")[5][15][16] found that of nine developed countries, the United States and United Kingdom had the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility with about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income passed on to the next generation. The four countries with the lowest "intergenerational income elasticity", i.e. the highest social mobility, were Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Canada with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children.
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#Country_compari...
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 idea that someone can claim some benefit via allegiance to actual God in a political setting is pretty scary, IMHO.
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…
There is a considerable amount of cultural distance between, say, one of the Cascadia cities (like Seattle), and Mississippi, and Boston, more so than you often find between different European countries. What deceives people is that Americans nominally all speak the same language despite the stark cultural and historical differences between regions.
> 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Americans have the optimism and energy of youth, but they're also comparatively unsophisticated. Aside from the obvious ambiguities of what defines sophistication of a culture: It feels like you're begging the question to me. "Americans are unsophisticated because they're a young culture so they're unsophisticated..." Moreover I think suggesting that an entire culture is full of optimism and youth because it's only…
Yeah. How can the US be exporting more culture than any other country, yet, have less of it? Something doesnt add up. There is lots of influencal US culture. From rap to mcdonalds. We may look down upon it now, but all of tat will age into cherished cultural relics when they stop being relevant. I think the point the OP wanted to make, is that the US has less dead culture, compared to say Europe.
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 see America as an overreaching empire that has had it's heyday And yet most of us are right now using computers designed in America, with an operating system written in America, posting on an American website. How is the USA not the centre of the world? From jeans to Katy Perry, from Google to McDonald's -- Americans totally dominated both the culture and the business. If I turn on the tv right now, I will have t…
Citation please.
"A 2001 review of studies on this topic found "The existing evidence surrounding the effect of religion on crime is varied, contested, and inconclusive, and currently no persuasive answer exists as to the empirical relationship between religion and crime." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morality_and_religion
The Nordic countries regularly feature at the top of the 'Best places to live' and 'most atheistic countries' lists. Correlation doesn't imply causation, but that should be enough to at least question your assertion.