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Living outside America

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Re: Living outside America

#141

Post by biotech »

il wrote: post #28
citricsquid wrote: post #10

> 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…

Religion seems to be much more pervasisve in public policy in America than anywhere else. 40% of voters believe the Rapture/end of the world will occur in their lifetime. This is unprecendented in any secular country, and it affects all spheres of life. Why worry about global warming when Jesus is going to come back and fix everything in a few years anyway?

> 40% of voters believe the Rapture/end of the world will occur in their lifetime. This is unprecendented in any secular country

This is unprecedented because it's simply not true. The best statistic I could find for this is 11%. Even 11% seems like a very high number based on my personal experience. As an American who has lived in different parts of America my whole life (and currently living in a high-tourist city with people from all over the US), I can say that most people in most parts of the US do not believe that the rapture will happen within their lifetime.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_US_0602.p...

Re: Living outside America

#142

Post by philwelch »

mixmax wrote: post #9

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…

If the USA was ever an overreaching empire, it was very reluctantly. OK, we picked some fights and managed to take a fair chunk of our own continent, but we were also isolationist to a fault until the mid-20th century. It was the Europeans who managed to rope us into both of their "world wars"--and in 1945, when you're looking at the whole of Europe spent and in ruins, and Joseph Stalin as the last dictator standing--well, would you really rather we just went home and forgot about you at that point?

People who say the US was imperialistic seem to forget that we didn't, for example, send tanks into France when they wanted to pull out of NATO, which is more than you can say about the other superpower. The British empire stationed troops and bureaucrats all over the world where they weren't wanted. They directly ruled over civilizations larger and more ancient than their own. Aside from the Philippines (whom we granted independence in 1946) and Hawaii and Puerto Rico (who both want to stay with us), we didn't really do that. It starts getting far more abstract when you talk about American imperialism via Coca-Cola and blue jeans.

Re: Living outside America

#143

Post by einhverfr »

spindritf wrote: post #78
mixmax wrote: post #9

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…

Honestly I think the bigger concern is a long erosion, not a collapse.

After WWII, the US had an economy so large we consumed half the oil that was consumed in the world. Our economy has grown since then but the rest of the world has too. We are down to half our percentage of energy use, and this is a general proxy for economic activity. So we are growing but developing nations are growing faster. Additionally we re incredibly dependent on oil to the extent that it would be a fair summary to say that the main job of the US armed forces is to protect international oil supply.

So the US isn't about to drastically collapse, but the role in the world is declining and will continue to decline. I think within my lifetime we will see the world shift from a unipolar model with the US as the sole superpower, to a world dominated by several major world powers.

Re: Living outside America

#144

Post by philwelch »

sneak wrote: post #31
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…

I think there's something to the not being born there that helps. #1 was a huge revelation to me (I'd like to think I'm observant and well-informed), and continues to be so to Americans I've had the opportunity to tour-guide for. I'm really curious where it comes from. Perhaps because of the ubiquity of American mass-media? Every European knows the New York skyline and what "NYPD" and "FBI" mean. How many Americans c…

> Every European knows the New York skyline and what "NYPD" and "FBI" mean.

As an American, that weirds me out.

Re: Living outside America

#145

Post by il »

biotech wrote: post #141
il wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religion seems to be much more pervasisve in public policy in America than anywhere else. 40% of voters believe the Rapture/end of the world will occur in their lifetime. This is unprecendented in any secular country, and it affects all spheres of life. Why worry about global warming when Jesus is going to come back and fix everything in a few years anyway?

> 40% of voters believe the Rapture/end of the world will occur in their lifetime. This is unprecendented in any secular country This is unprecedented because it's simply not true. The best statistic I could find for this is 11%. Even 11% seems like a very high number based on my personal experience. As an American who has lived in different parts of America my whole life (and currently living in a high-tourist city…

Your personal experience living in a high-tourist city does not represent the rural, Evangelical majority that actually votes. Here's one poll with the 41% number: http://pewresearch.org/databank/dailynumber/?NumberID=1043

Re: Living outside America

#146

Post by felipemnoa »

einhverfr wrote: post #128
mdda wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?"

I assume that anybody can invent their own religion in Denmark. Getting recognized by the state probably grants the religion some special privileges. i.e. No Taxes

Re: Living outside America

#147

Post by robomartin »

jules wrote: post #126
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 t…

I stand corrected. At least the play a large role. It certainly isn't an abomination as the religious like to see them. It's the year 2012 and we still show respect for this kind of thinking rather than laughing them out of the room.

Re: Living outside America

#148

Post by rdtsc »

mixmax wrote: post #87
spindritf wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I'm writing this on a computer produced in China, running an operating systeem developed by a Finn, delivered to you via the world wide web which comes from CERN.

> a computer produced in China

Is it an American company that made it? Yeah it could have been produced in China because labor there is cheaper than in California. Next year it could be produced in Vietnam.

> running an operating systeem developed by a Finn

Last I checked he is an American citizen, isn't he? So +1 for America then? Would you agree? If you go by your logic, then nothing from America is from America, because most people could easily trace their ancestry to one of the ships that came America at some point.

> delivered to you via the world wide web which comes from CERN.

Ok, we can argue about the first two. This one is just silly.

Re: Living outside America

#149

Post by einhverfr »

ashishgandhi wrote: post #14
rdl wrote: post #3

Living and traveling outside the US (Europe, Middle East, Asia) for ~15 years convinced me of the inherent superiority of the US (culturally, economically, etc.). Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. The threats to the US are not other countries getting better than us, but the decline of the natio…

> Our government is broken, but generally the US lets problems get really inefficiently bad, then overcorrects, so I hope that will happen in the next 20 years. That's something as an outsider living here in since around last December I've noticed. Your government is quite broken. But it somehow still works. (Paradox, I know!) For instance, the healthcare bill that was recently passed largely solves the textbook prob…

Every government is broken btw. In most of the world it still works because you pay an agent to take care of things for you, and in all honestly a large part of your fee probably ends up in bribes to various people but at least you have plausible deniability.....

Re: Living outside America

#150

Post by einhverfr »

felipemnoa wrote: post #146
einhverfr wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I assume that anybody can invent their own religion in Denmark. Getting recognized by the state probably grants the religion some special privileges. i.e. No Taxes

In many countries it also has benefits like being able to perform legally valid weddings....
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