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The Differences Between Germany and the United States

math-www.uni-paderborn.de

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Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#131

Post by rdl »

tjoff wrote: post #88
sanderjd wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that knowing that Zurich is in Switzerland is more similar to knowing that Denver is in Colorado than it is to knowing that Denver is in the United States. Presumably the size of the city is interesting because the implicit assumption is that knowing where Zurich is important because Zurich is a big city.

My point is that it isn't similar at all, on any level. A typical foreigner to the US probably knows where some large cities in US are without having the slightest clue about which state many of them reside in. That is my perception of it.

There ate tens of cities in China with populations over several million that westerners have never heard of, too.

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#132

Post by wruce_billis »

soperj wrote: post #130
maratd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's far far more expensive for an American to visit other western countries than it is for the average European. Well, yes. Then there's the enjoyment factor. Personally, I've been to Europe multiple times. Hell, I was born there. And frankly, I enjoy going to the Caribbean, Bermuda, and Mexico much more. > I know visiting different states isn't the same as visiting countries but I think people living outside of t…

The more I think about it, the more out of touch you really seem. The people you label as plenty exotic from NOLA were actually deported from eastern Canada(your "tundra") and St.Petersburg(what they've been calling Leningrad for the last 20 years) is pretty well on the Arctic circle, and yet is not part of your "tundra". (and Yes I realise that St.Petersburg isn't tundra, neither is the vast majority of Russia or Ca…

>The people you label as plenty exotic from NOLA were actually deported from eastern Canada(your "tundra")...

Are we talking about New Orleans, Louisiana here?

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#133

Post by waterlesscloud »

barrkel wrote: post #128
waterlesscloud wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London is more ethnically diverse than any American city? Hmm. Los Angeles may have something to say about that.

Apparently Houston is more diverse than LA. Re London: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jan/21/britishidentity1 I certainly was surprised by how monocultural the US appeared to be when I visited. Most noticeable was the relative absence of people from Africa (I don't mean African-Americans), the Middle East and south Asia.

I was suspicious of the claim that Houston was more diverse than Los Angeles, which has to be based on some weird data.

So looking it up, I find it's a study from Rice University, which is in...Houston. Aha.

London probably is more diverse than LA, but not by a huge amount. Large communities of people from pretty much everywhere in the world.

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#134

Post by waterlesscloud »

soperj wrote: post #110
maratd wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toronto is in Ontario. I did mention Ontario. Look, Canada is a wonderful place to visit. I'm going there at the end of August. But if you're a Canadian and you've already been to BC, QB, and ON ... there's not much else to see. Correct me if I'm wrong.

You're wrong. Also Ontario is huge, and Toronto is a miniscule part of it. The people outside of Toronto/Ottawa in Ontario are completely different from the people who live in those two areas. If you'd had been to any other parts of Canada aside from Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal, you'd realise how much more there is to see, and how much more diverse the country really is. "It's not about size. It's about…

Canada lacks the climate diversity of China or India.

For instance, where's Canada's desert? Its jungle?

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#135

Post by cutie »

soperj wrote: post #78
maratd wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's far far more expensive for an American to visit other western countries than it is for the average European. Well, yes. Then there's the enjoyment factor. Personally, I've been to Europe multiple times. Hell, I was born there. And frankly, I enjoy going to the Caribbean, Bermuda, and Mexico much more. > I know visiting different states isn't the same as visiting countries but I think people living outside of t…

really... just india and china? what about australia? canada? Russia?

Brazil !

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#136

Post by cutie »

barrkel wrote: post #125
charonn0 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In America I don't need to travel at all to hear many different languages, experience different cultures, etc. They're all in walking distance in any major city. European mono-cultures need to make nationalistic distinctions, the American multi-culture doesn't.

America's monoculture was actually one of my surprises. I live in London; going to the Bay Area and seeing the monoculture was a bit of a shock. IMO you're far more likely to hear foreign languages (foreign to the country) in Europe than almost anywhere in the US.

SF is a bit white and hipster, like the northern half of the country. Try Los Angeles, there are few gringos here, and fewer all the time.

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#138

Post by esrauch »

zalew wrote: post #106
temphn wrote: post #84

http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/us-d.html#communism It is not very well known however that Germany saw a much more vigilant communism hunt at about the same time. While in the US only about a dozen people ever went to prison for being Communists, that same number runs in the thousands in Germany. The communist party was forbidden by the German high court, and party members who continued their activities were a…

yeah, reading him feels like he's been totally disconnected from reality or managed to forget the circumstances of that era in Europe, where fighting communism was real not just a propaganda witchhunt. hence my comment before, many of his observations are totally out of context.

Hm can you elaborate on that? In the US they teach that McCarthyism was an absurd witchhunt, but it seems to me that the Soviet Union and the US were pretty much just as much enemies as West Germany. Why is it so much different?

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#139

Post by derleth »

Argorak wrote: post #80
derleth wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think Germany is the only country that has developed regional Wikipedias (at least Bavaria, Palatinate and Northern Germany). Different varieties of English could do that, but English tends to center on an American/Commonwealth divide with only the two prestige dialects everyone else sees as the only 'valid' ones.

They _could_. But in Germany, those things are reality, which shows that those groups take these matters seriously. My point wasn't that US culture is not diverse, it was that german culture is very diverse _as well_.

Also that Germany didn't exist as a unified country until 1871.

Re: The Differences Between Germany and the United States

#140

Post by barrkel »

charonn0 wrote: post #127
barrkel wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

America's monoculture was actually one of my surprises. I live in London; going to the Bay Area and seeing the monoculture was a bit of a shock. IMO you're far more likely to hear foreign languages (foreign to the country) in Europe than almost anywhere in the US.

The San Francisco Bay Area? That's where I live. Mono-cultural it is not. Maybe you meant another Bay Area (there are as many of those as there are bays.)

I meant relatively speaking. In London, there are many streets that all could be in different countries, right down to the script used for the shop signs. I never once saw someone in a niqab or a djellaba, for example.
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