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Living outside America

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Re: Living outside America

#121

Post by rdl »

why-el wrote: post #99
ralfn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Can you elaborate on what aspects of European culture you think are dead?

Europeans (and Chinese, etc.) have a lot more historical culture. Entire large and well-documented civilizations which have passed. US culture is basically independent of pre-Colombian American culture, and most pre-Colombian cultures are badly documented and understood compared to the Greeks, Romans, various Chinese dynasties, etc.

You might also consider various fine arts to be "dead", in that their peak point has passed. Not sure if I'd argue that, but it's clearer to argue that specific schools of art meet that definition. e.g. I don't think anyone will surpass Bach in organ music.

Modern European culture isn't the part that's dead, it's that there are also "dead" cultural artifacts in Europe, while the US was basically a clean slate. That's a plus for Europe in some ways, but in some ways actually helps the US -- having to create everything from scratch, taking the best (well, maybe) of other cultures, is itself interesting. Look at Singapore for another example.

Re: Living outside America

#122

Post by einhverfr »

sneak wrote: post #46
jwilliams wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I entirely disagree there. Seattle is culturally different from LA and LA is culturally different from San Francisco, and none of them are really culturally the same as Portland, Oregon, and that's just the West Coast.

Heck, if you go to Texas, Austin is culturally different from, say, Houston.

I've lived in the Southwest, the Northeast, and the Northwest. I can say these areas are culturally different and if you don't see it, you haven't lived in enough places.

I think the big problem is that culture is largely invisible to those who grow up in it. All the little things you do, how you greet people, the little micro-dialects of the language, etc. are so second-nature that they are hard to see.

Re: Living outside America

#123

Post by ralfn »

rdl wrote: post #118
ralfn wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a dutch citizen the idea that you would rank the states above and beyond our nation is offensive and idiotic. What on earth would make you qualify the situation like that?

The Netherlands, while a nice place to live, is a small country and not a world power (it was maybe during the time of the VOC, but not before or since). It's also a very difficult place to start a successful high-growth technology business, for a variety of reasons -- a culture of consensus and the "dutch disease" (natural resources curse) being primary.

Whats the natural resources curse?

-- all right, ive read it I think the final paragraph gets it right: gov pending was at an all time high in that decade. And it sounds like, most of the supposed risks no longer apply, because of the Euro.

But you are correct in that Holland isnt the best place for a startup.

Re: Living outside America

#124

Post by rdl »

ralfn wrote: post #71
rdl wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, its not. From history, to language, to culture, one would claim Europe the center. But if you look at population, production volume, China would look like the center, with the rest of the world as fringe exotic life on its borders.

Historically, Europe was the center; it went from Rome to Paris to London to the US, at least for the past 2000 years.

Center of population is somewhere near Afghanistan I think, but that's kind of a silly measure (like "the average person is 50% male").

US manufacturing production was #1 from 1895-2010. China is #1 now, but the US numbers are far more certain than China. If you look at total industrial base, the US is far above China (wealth vs. income, basically). I think Japan and a bunch of European nations actually would beat China on that metric.

Re: Living outside America

#125

Post by khuey »

excuse-me wrote: post #109
intellegacy wrote: post #79

To really understand America, you must not only live in it, but also live outside it. Note: I am from the USA, and "we" or "our" refers to us Americans. I spent 3 years abroad, recently returning to the USA this summer, and I will try to outline some of what I learned, although it is somewhat difficult as this knowledge has become ingrained in me and obvious as to seem to require no explanation. - English as lingua f…

> the effectiveness of USA institutions: legal system, courts, law enforcement, Congress, media, higher education Good governance and higher civilization aren't created overnight Couldn't you have just copied them from Britain and France - wouldn't that have been easier ?

To a large extent we did. US law has its roots in British law, although the two have diverged considerably since 1776.

Re: Living outside America

#126

Post by jules »

robomartin wrote: post #108

This is a tough topic with the potential for heated diametrically-opposed opinions. I too have had the experience of living a big chunk of my life outside the US, about 18 years, between South America (mostly Argentina) and Europe. I've also split my time in the US between east and west coast. When abroad I have at times felt embarrassed to call myself an American. Well, first of all, I hate the use of the term "Amer…

As I see it from the outside, USA's greatest strength it its culture of ambition: the belief that an individual can achieve great things through good ideas, skills, and hard work. Whereas in Europe Gates or Jobs might have finished college and become a cog in the system, in the USA they dropped out and had a huge impact.

FYI, homosexuality is not genetic. Although genes play a large role, they are generally thought to explain the variance in sexual orientation for less than 50%.

Re: Living outside America

#127

Post by einhverfr »

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…

What's interesting is to spend time living in an even younger culture, but with deeper roots, like in the Andes, or in Indonesia....

One thing I noticed in Ecuador was the level of visceral patriotism I had never seen and yet the lack of sense of "we're number 1" that is equated with this in the US. It was as if Ecuadorians said "We love our country. Let's make it number 1."

In Indonesia, it's different. The Chinese-Indonesians are afraid to get involved in politics, and the religious politics makes the Christian Right look pretty tame. Malaysia is different still, in weird and disorienting ways.

Re: Living outside America

#128

Post by einhverfr »

mdda wrote: post #96
thetabyte wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 runs through a lot of European institutions too (for instance, the UK Queen is the head of the Church of England - no separation of church and state). However, in the US, the line gets blurred when people start to talk about /actual/ God. The idea that someone can claim some benefit via allegiance to actual God in a political setting is pretty scary, IMHO.

Indeed. I remember recently when Asatru was recognized as a legitimate religion in Denmark. I remember thinking "Wow, religions need government approval in Denmark?"

Re: Living outside America

#129

Post by rdl »

ralfn wrote: post #123
rdl wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Netherlands, while a nice place to live, is a small country and not a world power (it was maybe during the time of the VOC, but not before or since). It's also a very difficult place to start a successful high-growth technology business, for a variety of reasons -- a culture of consensus and the "dutch disease" (natural resources curse) being primary.

Whats the natural resources curse? -- all right, ive read it I think the final paragraph gets it right: gov pending was at an all time high in that decade. And it sounds like, most of the supposed risks no longer apply, because of the Euro. But you are correct in that Holland isnt the best place for a startup.

One specific example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

Basically, once you discover natural resources (in the case of NL, natural gas), it crowds out all other activity. You can earn a great return from exploiting the resource, so the best people, best capital, etc. goes into that.

With floating exchange rates, you get currency inflation, but you can have the same problems even with fixed exchange rates or common currency.

A bigger problem is the general "resource curse". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

I remember talking to people who said "at least we (Afghans) don't have oil, then we'd really be screwed."

Re: Living outside America

#130

Post by thetabyte »

excuse-me wrote: post #102
mixmax wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I think GDP might be a proxy for education here. A graph of educational standards vs religion might be even more revealing

You also have to consider that there is a possible correlation between being poor and being religious. As bad as that may sound, religion brings hope to a lot of people who do not have many other sources of it.
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