Although I find it interesting, what's the point of the article other than "look how most Americans are ignorant about world geography"? And what do I gain from it?
People that take surveys seriously take all of the questions seriously
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The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
11–20 of 78 posts
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#12Although I find it interesting, what's the point of the article other than "look how most Americans are ignorant about world geography"? And what do I gain from it?
The more people actually know about a place, the less they think it's a good idea to kill people who live there.
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#13How did they ask people to locate Ukraine? Some of these points look like somebody accidentally clicked on a random spot of a map. For example, the dot below New Zealand is in the middle of the ocean (approx. -55.000000,176.000000). Some even located it within the US (Florida seems to be a popular guess). Have they found really misinformed people or is this noise in the data?
I would bet that the noise comes from people who have no idea just closing their eyes and clicking at random.
Clearly the map wasn't coloured to differentiate bodies of water, considering the clusters in the Black and Caspian seas. (But you'd think people could at least identify the major oceans...)
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#14Although I find it interesting, what's the point of the article other than "look how most Americans are ignorant about world geography"? And what do I gain from it?
What I always find interesting about "look at how ignorant Americans are" type articles is that they never bother to compare against any other nationality and see if the ignorance is in any way abnormal in a broader context. Is a "look at how ignorant non-Europeans are about world geography?" going to have a different result? (And I would be quite curious to know how many, say, British or Spaniards can accurately pla…
Coming from a non-American as well:
Assuming ignorance would fall in the same spectrum compared to other nationalities, you don't hear other nationalities confidently stating their opinions about things they know nothing about.
To be fair, I don't have data to back that up, but I can tell you from my personal observations that people usually refrain from commenting or are reasonably educated about the topic.
Why this is important in this case is because it's largely a matter of geo-politics, and if you don't even know where the damn country is, you should not seriously suggest a certain course of action.
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#15Although I find it interesting, what's the point of the article other than "look how most Americans are ignorant about world geography"? And what do I gain from it?
The point is that calls for intervention in Ukraine are being driven by people who are ignorant of the situation.
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#16Many replies here try to dispute the methodology and UX in the survey. When it comes to geography, you either know it, or you don't.
The distance from Ukraine for many data points is so big, that you can't possibly write it down to projection/UX.
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#17Although I find it interesting, what's the point of the article other than "look how most Americans are ignorant about world geography"? And what do I gain from it?
What I always find interesting about "look at how ignorant Americans are" type articles is that they never bother to compare against any other nationality and see if the ignorance is in any way abnormal in a broader context. Is a "look at how ignorant non-Europeans are about world geography?" going to have a different result? (And I would be quite curious to know how many, say, British or Spaniards can accurately pla…
Yep. It seems that most people were actually quite close (with the majority at least pointing at other Eastern European countries) and, like you pointed out: most people from Europe wouldn't do much better. An even better comparison would be to ask Europeans about the location of different US states, I'm pretty sure the results would be very poor, if not worse.
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
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Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#19How did they ask people to locate Ukraine? Some of these points look like somebody accidentally clicked on a random spot of a map. For example, the dot below New Zealand is in the middle of the ocean (approx. -55.000000,176.000000). Some even located it within the US (Florida seems to be a popular guess). Have they found really misinformed people or is this noise in the data?
I would bet that the noise comes from people who have no idea just closing their eyes and clicking at random. Clearly the map wasn't coloured to differentiate bodies of water, considering the clusters in the Black and Caspian seas. (But you'd think people could at least identify the major oceans...)
Believe it or not, but there are many real people who point to UK, when asked where Finland is.
The point is, if you know where Russia is, you likely know where Ukraine is. The clicking at random is by people who have no idea about either.
EDIT: Sorry. I meant that as a reply to your comment regarding legitimacy of the map.
Re: The less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the more they want ...
#20Although I find it interesting, what's the point of the article other than "look how most Americans are ignorant about world geography"? And what do I gain from it?
That is not the point of the article. The reason why Americans are the subject here is that the news agency is American. It is an artifact. What is the interest to an American that people from Botswana want intervention in the Crimean peninsula? That is useless to you. You want to know what your fellow citizens are thinking and why first. That gives you more actionable information.
Here the article claims that a desire to intervene is correlated with a lack of geographical knowledge. _That_ is the point.
Your comment, whether you meant it to or not, comes off as the sort of defensive reaction that is so very common when any article on the Internet claims something that can be interpreted as putting down Americans.