10 Things Most Americans Don’t Know About America

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

Thought this was an interesting article. I dont agree with all of it, but its interesting.

http://bananenplanet.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/10-things-most-americans-dont-know-about-america/

1. Few People Are Impressed By Us

Unless you’re speaking with a real estate agent or a prostitute, chances are they’re not going to be excited that you’re American. It’s not some badge of honor we get to parade around. Yes, we had Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison, but unless you actually are Steve Jobs or Thomas Edison (which is unlikely) then most people around the world are simply not going to care. There are exceptions of course. And those exceptions are called English and Australian people. Whoopdie-****ing-doo.

As Americans, we’re brought up our entire lives being taught that we’re the best, we did everything first and that the rest of the world follows our lead. Not only is this not true, but people get irritated when you bring it to their country with you. So don’t.

2. Few People Hate Us

Despite the occasional eye-rolling, and complete inability to understand why anyone would vote for George W. Bush, people from other countries don’t hate us either. In fact — and I know this is a really sobering realization for us — most people in the world don’t really think about us or care about us. I know, that sounds absurd, especially with CNN and Fox News showing the same 20 angry Arab men on repeat for ten years straight. But unless we’re invading someone’s country or threatening to invade someone’s country (which is likely), then there’s a 99.99% chance they don’t care about us. Just like we rarely think about the people in Bolivia or Mongolia, most people don’t think about us much. They have jobs, kids, house payments — you know, those things called lives — to worry about. Kind of like us.

Americans tend to assume that the rest of the world either loves us or hates us (this is actually a good litmus test to tell if someone is conservative or liberal). The fact is, most people feel neither. Most people don’t think much about us.

Remember that immature girl in high school, who every little thing that happened to her meant that someone either hated her or was obsessed with her; who thought every teacher who ever gave her a bad grade was being totally unfair and everything good that happened to her was because of how amazing she was? Yeah, we’re that immature high school girl.

[jnhay]

The author seems to be unaware that people in other countries may also grow up with the notion that their country is the best. The Olympics would be pretty lame if every country just said "meh, we're okay I guess."

[zoony]

Well, that was the dumbest ****ing article I've ever read. Thanks for sharing.

Next up, 10 things Canadians don't know about Canada

1. Nobody cares if you're Canadian. That's just a badge you parade around

2. Few people hate you. Because Canada sucks

Etc. etc.

[grego]

Imagine you have a brother and he’s an alcoholic. He has his moments, but you keep your distance from him. You don’t mind him for the occasional family gathering or holiday. You still love him. But you don’t want to be around him. This is how I lovingly describe my current relationship with the United States. The United States is my alcoholic brother. And although I will always love him, I don’t want to be near him at the moment.

as a person who came from a foreign country- who served in the american military just so he could be 'more' american- i feel uniquely qualified to tell the author to go **** himself without coming off a too ethnocentric.

[SWFLSkins]

Well, that was the dumbest ****ing article I've ever read. Thanks for sharing.

Next up, 10 things Canadians don't know about Canada

1. Nobody cares if you're Canadian. That's just a badge you parade around

2. Few people hate you. Because Canada sucks

Etc. etc.

Hahahaaa, that was funny.

[KCClybun]

Cliff Notes Version: We secretly suck.

[thebluefood]

Way to paint 300 million people with a broad brush.

What a bunch of self-loathing nonsense.

[zoony]

What a bunch of self-loathing nonsense.

Thats really all this is. You don't need talent in the digital age to get your stuff out there, just motivation

[Corcaigh]

The Griswolds European Vacation put it a lot better.

[The Sisko]

Not too difficult to predict the response this article would get. There's a lot of truth in that article though, whether many of us choose to realize it or not.

[Jumbo]

I often think you're one of the more "courageous" posters here, Yusuf.

While I quite easily see where some of my fellow ESers are coming from in their responses, and share much of their basic attitude, I also get a fair amount of where the writer is coming from, and I don't find it all stupid or despicable in essence---but more than half of it is to me.

I do think the whole cliche' "self-loathing" thing (usually applied to some view declared "liberal") when someone roasts our culture or this country, is often misplaced. It's one of those "misses" that can say more about the state of mind of the shooter, at times, than the target (but I am definitely not applying that to thebluefood).

I think 3, 7, and 8-10 have a little more leg to them than the others as far as premises go, but it really is some pretty simple-minded writing and the execution here is mostly suckage.

[thebluefood]

Not too difficult to predict the response this article would get. There's a lot of truth in that article though, whether many of us choose to realize it or not.

There are no universal truths when it comes to an entire nation, especially one as diverse as ours.

[pointyfootball]

Being the arrogant, xenophobic American that I am, I found it amusing to read the comments beneath the article. Especially the ones by those who moved, or are moving, to the US, yet still bash it.

Having traveled abroad some, there is some truth in the article. Notably #s 5, 9 and 10, IMO.

[Koolblue13]

There are no universal truths when it comes to an entire nation, especially one as diverse as ours.

Yeah, the article immediately states that, so you can probably stop championing that point.

I enjoyed that article personally, but it's pretty much in line with my own feelings. Land of the Me.

I've been talking to a friend this morning, who is working on getting his paperwork to stay working in Mexico and another friend who is going to be staying permanently in Australia. I'm seriously considering trying to pull off a 4/6 month back pack travel next year, just not sure what quarter of the world I want to do.

There is a lot to love about America, but I don't see what makes it the greatest.

[RVAbrendan]

Of course generalizations aren't true for all of us, but in general, this article makes some valid points.

But this isn’t really getting into the real problems of our health. Our food is killing us. I’m not going to go crazy with the details, but we eat chemically-laced crap because it’s cheaper and tastes better (profit, profit). Our portion sizes are absurd (more profit). And we’re by far the most prescribed nation in the world AND our drugs cost five to ten times more than they do even in Canada (ohhhhhhh, profit, you sexy *****).

In terms of life expectancy , despite being the richest country in the world, we come in a paltry 38th. Right behind Cuba, Malta and the United Arab Emirates, and slightly ahead of Slovenia, Kuwait and Uruguay. Enjoy your Big Mac.

[Henry]

I liked the article more than I thought I would. I went into it expecting to roll my eyes a lot, but actually most of it was pretty reasonable.

I thought a couple points were kinda dumb. For example, #1 and 2 should be fairly obvious to everyone. And #5 simply points out a cultural difference with other parts of the world. So what?

Some of the points, however, we really need to pay attention to. The part about our food and our eating habits is absolutely true. I never realized it myself until I started paying attention to what I ate about a year ago, and it's shocking and disturbing how unhealthy our basic food is here. And the problem is (as the writer also points out) our culture of success and capitalism, while providing us with many wonderful advantages, also allows problems like this to gather momentum. And we have become extremely paranoid as a nation. Or have we not all been bemoaning the rise in things like helicopter parenting? Like the writer I blame the 24 hour news shows who propagate this paranoia for viewership. Once again our culture allows it to gather momentum.

So while I don't think we need to take everything that article says to heart, we don't need to necessarily dismiss every single idea in there.

[PCS]

Agreed Henry. I some of it a couple of times and actually agree with a couple of the points in there. I think that #9 is obvious,but still a good point. I do believe a contributing cause to that is how stressed we are as a nation,(even before the economy decided to rent space in the ****ter). #5 addresses a little of that. #8 can be seen right here in the Tailgate sometimes.

[#98QBKiller]

Way to paint 300 million people with a broad brush.

What a bunch of self-loathing nonsense.

^---this.

[Riggo-toni]

I already knew everything in that article. BFD....

[Koolblue13]

(Note: I realize these are generalizations and I realize there are always exceptions. I get it. You don’t have to post 55 comments telling me that you and your best friend are exceptions. If you really get that offended from some guy’s blog post, you may want to double-check your life priorities.)

^---this.

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mc1yljtl3m1qbzzu0.gif

[pjfootballer]

I married a foreigner. She is from Peru and she said that people there don't hate America. She and alot of others love to come to our country for vacation and alot of them want to come to live here. The one thing that my wife said is their skewed view of how much money we have. Alot of people think everyone here is rich and nobody struggles. My wife has been here for over 8 years and now she understands that the majority of people here are either middle class or poor. This will be her first election to vote in as a citizen. She told me who she's going to vote for, but I'll keep it to myself.

---------- Post added October-18th-2012 at 11:05 AM ----------

Also, some of my wife's family go back to Peru to get extensive medical or dental work done, because by the time you pay for the plane ticket and procedure, you've still spent 50% or more, less than it would cost you in the US. I was reading about the guy who had the knee surgery done for free in Columbia.

[Predicto]

There was a lot of truth to that article.

Of course, a similar article could be written about every single country on the planet. The details would be different but the basic principles would be the same.

Where the author fell down was in suggesting that all of the other places he has lived are superior and immune to the failures that infect America. The life of a wealthy ex-pat is a deceptive one, and you will get a hell of a lot of confirmation bias from that lifestyle and the people you will likely encounter.

However, we Americans are fatter and less healthy. That one point is spot on.

[No Excuses]

He is dead wrong about #4. People in the US are much nicer than people I've encountered in other countries. I've traveled to Asia (spent a lot of time there) and Europe. Most people had a stick up their ass and were only nice once they figured out you're a foreigner who might be looking to spend a ton of money.

I remember this one incident in India where I got into an elevator with a girl and smiled and said 'Hi'. She gave me the look of death and on her way out called me a pervert.

The only country I've visited where majority of the people were genuinely nice was Nepal.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

Absolutely brilliant:

5. The Quality of Life For The Average American Is Not That Great

If you’re extremely talented or intelligent, the US is probably the best place in the world to live. The system is stacked heavily to allow people of talent and advantage to rise to the top quickly.

The problem with the US is that everyone thinks they are of talent and advantage. As John Steinbeck famously said, the problem with poor Americans is that “they don’t believe they’re poor, but rather temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” It’s this culture of self-delusion that allows America to continue to innovate and churn out new industry more than anyone else in the world. But this shared delusion also unfortunately keeps perpetuating large social inequalities and the quality of life for the average citizen lower than most other developed countries. It’s the price we pay to maintain our growth and economic dominance.

In my Guide to Wealth, I defined being wealthy as, “Having the freedom to maximize one’s life experiences.” In those terms, despite the average American having more material wealth than citizens of most other countries (more cars, bigger houses, nicer televisions), their overall quality of life suffers in my opinion. American people on average work more hours with less vacation, spend more time commuting every day, and are saddled with over $10,000 of debt. That’s a lot of time spent working and buying crap and little time or disposable income for relationships, activities or new experiences.