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Europeans tend to be fairy elitist about their own history and culture. Specific to the example that you brought up, why is knowledge of Andorra or any of the
by wbsss4412 5y ago
Europeans tend to be fairy elitist about their own history and culture.
Specific to the example that you brought up, why is knowledge of Andorra or any of the other European micro states any more geographically important than knowledge of US States? Anecdotally, Europeans will respond that those are _countries_, yet those realistically only exist due to the quirks of European political history, one can hardly hold up Lichtenstein as the geopolitical equal to California, yet in discussions with Europeans it seems that knowledge of its existence is somehow superior.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago> one can hardly hold up Lichtenstein as the geopolitical equal to California Why not?
- wbsss4412 5y agoSure, technically you can do whatever you want. But by any measure, political/cultural/economic influence it’s pretty evident that the two are not in the same category.
- eurasiantiger 5y agoLiechtenstein has over double the GDP per capita.
- bryanrasmussen 5y agowell, yeah Liechtenstein has nearly 7 billion, California has 3 trillion.
- eurasiantiger 5y agoYet it’s California that has double the murder rate, massive homelessness issues, not to mention substance abuse, armed robberies and car theft in broad daylight, the list goes on… and ends in an incarcerated population of over 2 million people, whereas Liechtenstein is incarcerating around twenty people. (TWENTY! In the entire population!)
- wbsss4412 5y agoYou’re totally missing the thread here. The discussion isn’t about which is a better place to live/governance. It’s about what’s a more relevant measure of geographical knowledge.
- eurasiantiger 5y agoCertainly it cannot be the one that is widely portrayed in ALL Western mass media, because that reduces to common knowledge and not a measure of geographical knowledge. Long live Liechtenstein.
- bryanrasmussen 5y agolast week someone in Sweden asked me if L.A and San Francisco were next to each other. There is lots of knowledge about California that is not as common as you might suppose.
- bryanrasmussen 5y agoI mean I'm starting to think you live in Liechtenstein, or maybe in Austria but you sneak across the border for late night nookie? I mean the arguments you're making, although not really arguments, don't hang together, you talk about GDP per capita which is big because the population is small but then all this other stuff which is partially small because the population is small. I mean are you sure California only has double the murder rate with its 39 million people vs. Liechtenstein's 38 thousand, because if so, damn!! Also, does that 20 take into account the people that Liechtenstein is imprisoning in Austria because the sentence would be more than 2 years? When I look at https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/liechtenstein https://www.prisonstudies.org/country/liechtenstein I think not, also it says the official capacity of the prison system is 20 and they are imprisoning 12, but ah hah https://countryeconomy.com/demography/prison-population/liechtenstein https://countryeconomy.com/demography/prison-population/liec... 41 males and 2 females were held, I interpret that to mean about 12 were held in Liechtenstein and the rest 28 people were held in Austria as there isn't the capacity in the country. You know if a country doesn't have the prison facilities to house its prisoners and farms it out to neighboring bigger country this also argues against the particular geopolitical significance of that country. Finally, re: California, I mean that someplace manages to imprison 0.03% of the world population, while obviously not a great argument for quality of life, really does argue for geopolitical significance.
- wbsss4412 5y agoOk, so it’s like Cupertino. That’s a fine enough comparison.