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Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

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Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#141

Post by arwhatever »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

Regarding at least the location names, the US is definitely a massive exporter of pop culture and our pop culture tends to mention place names frequently.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#142

Post by Retric »

lordnacho wrote: post #96
cf498 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue, that you inadvertently learn the names once you learn of the context. I would see it more as a filing system. If there is nothing it points to, whats the benefit of knowing it in the first place.

This is just a syllogism. Context -> names. !names -> !context. So we can tell that a guy who hasn't heard of eigenvectors (name) doesn't know much about linear algebra (context).

I don’t need to know the names of Chinease subdivisions to know most people live on the eastern side, the west is dry to the north and mountains to the south etc.

Knowing similar things about the US tells you the area Texas covers is dryer than average even if you don’t know the name Texas.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#143

Post by amalcon »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

Part of this is just that USA's chief export is culture. People know about subdivisions of other countries when their country imports a lot of culture from there. E.g. most Americans will know about Sicily and Champagne, because of cultural (mostly food) imports from those places.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#144

Post by keypress »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

Not that true in myopic UK. We know your president, and big news events. I can't even list one US box office movie from this year.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#146

Post by zxcvvcxz »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

This is because America is the wealthiest and fastest-growing economic nation in the history of the world. It has the right combination of laws, institutions, freedoms, infrastructure, and people, to create a new life.

There's a reason it's by far the top destination for immigrants around the world.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#147

Post by schoen »

bkcreate wrote: post #130
adventured wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of people outside the US will know the name or location of more than a few US states? I'd bet it's extraordinarily low. I'd bet less than 1% of the world's adult population can name more than six US states. My experience has been, educated people I know from Europe struggle to do a lot better than that. Point them out on a map? Forget about it beyond the obvious or famous ones like California, Florida…

To be fair, as an American I don't even need to go to Europe to prove how little non-US geography I know. I can't even name or point to any Mexican or Canadian regions except for British Colombia

Maybe you've heard of Quebec?

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#149

Post by eponeponepon »

bmurray7jhu wrote: post #56
gpvos wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would just split and dilute the mentions of the Soviets/Russia during the USSR's existence. While it existed, Russia and the USSR were pretty much synonymous.

I don't think Russian SSR and the USSR were synonymous terms for anything but for informal colloquial usage. The Russian SSR had only 51% of the population and 77% of the land of the Soviet Union.[1] Both the Belyrussian SSR and Ukrainian SSR were United Nations members states and constituent states of the Soviet Union.[2] After the breakup of the Soviet Union, some scholars have referred to Russian Federation as a r…

I think the previous poster's point was precisely about the vernacular - don't forget the flags in the articles derive from news headlines, of which the vast preponderance are very much expressed in the vernacular.

Speaking for myself, growing up in the 80s, I definitely wasn't completely aware that Russia and the USSR were separate concepts, probably until the latter's break-up.

Re: Countries that have preoccupied Americans the most since 1900

#150

Post by gvd »

lordnacho wrote: post #24

What's interesting is if you did this for just about any other country, there would be a wall of star spangled banners. If you ever travel outside the US, you inevitably hear about what the US is doing, what they're discussing, who the important people are, etc. The reverse is not true: - Everyone outside the US knows the top US politicians. You even know what issues they are discussing, like gun control and healthca…

I think you get the US plus a bunch of other countries that you hear much less about in the US.
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