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I don't agree. Humans are just naturally more concerned with what's close to them or what directly interacts with them. It's just part of the normal signal to n

I don't agree. Humans are just naturally more concerned with what's close to them or what directly interacts with them. It's just part of the normal signal to noise filtering. In the US, unless you live in certain coastal cities, the overwhelming majority of people you meet are from the US and living within 100 miles of where you're at. So, the context of almost all the important information that you need on a daily basis to survive is going to be about the US and about your state. If there's a massive flood of the Mississippi and you live in Missouri, you might know someone affected, or at least be impacted due to the economic damages. If a German lives near the French border, isn't he naturally going to be more concerned about news of what's going on in France? He's going to meet French nationals much more often than others and French culture is going to have a pretty direct impact on his daily life. If there's a major fire in Strasbourg, he's going to be interested in what happened. He might know some of the casualties, directly or indirectly. Maybe he dated a girl from the University. If there are riots due to poor management of the crisis, or a sewage leak into the Rhine, all these things can affect him directly. Just because he lives nearby. Do either us Americans or the German need to know about what's going on in Vietnam? Only in the broadest sense. If there's a tsunami that hits Da Nang, it's unlikely to affect anybody we know personally, unlikely to affect our daily life, unlikely to affect our larger economic lives (even if our countries send aid). It's tragic. We certainly care that people died and that they need help. It just isn't a tragedy that touches us personally. Vietnam is not part of our default context.

oska 8y ago
Your entire argument is bogus in the context of this story. It has nothing to do with "caring more about people close to them". The manufacturing and consumption of lard in the U.S. is a technology/tradition inherited from the parts of the world Americans emigrated from. And the development of the hydrogenation process and its implementation as a consumable product (replacing lard) was shared between Europe and the US. (Reference is made to this in the article). Thus the experience in Europe (and elsewhere) is directly relevant to the topic under discussion and comments from non-Americans on the situation in their countries are also directly relevant.
- true_religion 8y ago
  I don't see why you can't have similar outcomes from different causes when a social circumstance is involved. What killed lard in Europe? Different things. Probably even different things per country if you get very specific about it. Merely exploring only American causes to an American result, doesn't make the article bogus and that criticism is what everyone is responding to because the OP said: > I often see Americans attempting to explain why things happen in their country by pointing to domestic events, with said events failing to account for an identical thing happening all over the world.

oska 8y ago

Your entire argument is bogus in the context of this story. It has nothing to do with "caring more about people close to them". The manufacturing and consumption of lard in the U.S. is a technology/tradition inherited from the parts of the world Americans emigrated from. And the development of the hydrogenation process and its implementation as a consumable product (replacing lard) was shared between Europe and the US. (Reference is made to this in the article). Thus the experience in Europe (and elsewhere) is directly relevant to the topic under discussion and comments from non-Americans on the situation in their countries are also directly relevant.

true_religion 8y ago
I don't see why you can't have similar outcomes from different causes when a social circumstance is involved. What killed lard in Europe? Different things. Probably even different things per country if you get very specific about it. Merely exploring only American causes to an American result, doesn't make the article bogus and that criticism is what everyone is responding to because the OP said: > I often see Americans attempting to explain why things happen in their country by pointing to domestic events, with said events failing to account for an identical thing happening all over the world.