10 ms·

Things Most Americans Don’t Know About America

95 points by blackjack48 13y ago

Codhisattva 13y ago
Nice perspective from outside the USA USA USA bubble.
Apocryphon 13y ago
I'm wondering how many fo these apply to other countries in the Anglosphere. Certainly Americans in general must be better at expressing emotions than the British in general, culturally speaking.
- TillE 13y ago
  Yeah, this for example is blatantly false in most other anglophone cultures and at least a few others I'm aware of. Or it's the exception rather than the rule: > Whereas, in almost every other culture approaching women this way is met with a confident smile and a “Thank you.”
- onli 13y ago
  That part was quite funny to read, as a german. If americans are cold, what are we? Frozen to death.
  - weinzierl 13y ago
    As a fellow German this was my thinking as well.
mitchty 13y ago
As an American, I honestly don't see these as being a problem at all where I live. Maybe its more relegated to the coasts but by and large everyone I know here (obviously there are exceptions every now and again) already knows/has this internalized. This post largely strikes me as attacking American export culture mostly. Guess I'm in an exceptional bubble then.
- alanctgardner2 13y ago
  'Problem' and 'attacking' sound a bit defensive. The post is definitely a generalization, but I would say (as a Canadian who visits the US a few weeks out of the year) that these are fairly accurate. I don't know if these are very popular in the US, but the CBC has a whole series called 'Rick Mercer Talks To Americans' (comme ca http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhTZ_tgMUdo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhTZ_tgMUdo) where he gets people in DC, New York, and other major cities to go on national television and petition to 'Save The Parliamentary Igloo', 'Stop the Saskatchewan Whale Hunt', etc. These people really just don't seem to: a) have any awareness of the rest of the continent they live on, above the 49th b) care what they say in public. They'll just spout anything to be on the TeeVee I'm aware it's all edited to be entertaining, but frankly it does seem fairly representative of American exceptionalist and isolationist culture.
  - mistermann 13y ago
    You could easily send an American reporter onto the streets of Canada, or any nation for that matter, and produce the same results.
    - alanctgardner2 13y ago
      It's all fine and well to say that, but there's actually the meta-problem that Americans don't really want to watch non-Americans. Despite the dismal quality of network television, and drought of content for 24 hour news stations, no US television producer has thought, "We'll go to Canada and laugh at how they don't know how to make a Philly Cheesesteak!". Seriously thought, did you watch the video? I should find the one where he says our Prime Minister is "Pierre Poutine".
      - gruseom 13y ago
        But mistermann is right; his point is the critical one, and you've responded to it by changing the subject. Another humorist who does this, in a meaner way, is Sasha Baron-Cohen. The lesson here is not how ridiculous the people being ridiculed are, but rather: Who controls the editing controls everything. (Christopher Hitchens said brilliantly about the dinner party scene in Borat that it showed not how racist Americans are, but how polite they are.) Mercer's portrayals of Americans are not portrayals of Americans at all, but of Canadians' self-congratulatory caricatures of Americans. It makes me cringe with embarrassment.
miles 13y ago
The author's point number 8: "We're Status-Obsessed and Seek Attention" and he proves it at the end of the article: "You should like Thought Catalog on Facebook here."
- postsantum 13y ago
  It's not the original blog, it is just a repost from here http://markmanson.net/ http://markmanson.net/
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    The original site prominently displays logos of well-known media outlets ("as seen on NBC News"), promotes a book entitled "The Style Guide for Men" and also has all the usual social media buttons. So I see a bit of status obsession and attention seeking there too.
olympus 13y ago
This is more or less correct, but I think the author exaggerated the "non-noteworthiness" of the USA in order to make a point. While the rest of the world may not care about an individual US citizen, they all pay close attention to the country as a whole. They do this because the USA makes a HUGE impact on the world stage and not paying attention to us isn't an option. Just about every news broadcast in the rest of the world will have a short bit on "what's going on in America." Granted, the things the rest of the world thinks are important (who are we invading now, who did we make angry) are not the same things that CNN thinks are important (the popular murder trial, Kim Kardashian's baby's name). The USA casts a large shadow around the world. This doesn't give Americans the right to act like fools when we travel, but we aren't exactly impotent.
adambratt 13y ago
Great article! One thing I'd like to point out though is how his note about making generalizations in the first section makes it seem like everything he says is mostly fact. I haven't lived outside the United States, but I have spent a considerable amount of time in parts of Europe and I definitely saw "exceptions" to what he presents everywhere I went. For example, in Poland, people absolutely loved Americans and telling people I was American and not British warranted free beers and lots of attention from women. In Scandinavia, everyone was extremely insecure because their cultures look down on competition and individuality. In the article, he mentions that in America women don't know how to react when told they are beautiful. If that's the case then Scandinavian women all but have a stroke when you tell them they're beautiful. In contrast, in South America, Women have no issues at all carrying on a conversation after a bold approach like that. My point is that there are some HUGE generalizations being made here -- the world is a very big place -- and you should take this all with a grain of salt. That said, I found this a fascinating, refreshing article. Thanks for sharing it blackjack48.
mehrzad 13y ago
As a teenager in America with immigrant parents, I'm surprised at how few people understand metric units or even the universal dating system and 24 hour time. Foreign language classes are the only things even bringing this stuff up where I am.
weinzierl 13y ago
As a German, I'd say most of the points of this article are true for Germany, and I guess for many other countries, as well. They are not specific American but just typically human. I think there is one thing were many Americans really have a wrong opinion about themselves. It's that they enjoy the most freedom in the world. IMHO this should be number one in the list.
dusklight 13y ago
I think this writer of this post is more than a little ignorant of the class that he is in and the class that the people he has been meeting are in. As a personal account from someone honestly expressing his own opinion I still think it was a good read but it makes way too many assumptions that are wrong. For one thing it is really wrong to talk about the "culture" of America. Even just in the same state, even in the same county, the culture of people can vary widely. Just go to Palo Alto, talk to the super friendly people there (because the billionaires wear hoodies and they don't know how much money you have) then try to find the black people (oh they are there .. there are lots of them .. can you find them?) and see if you can talk to them and get them to open up and see what their culture is like. In the south, go to a white church and a black church and then come tell me if they have the same culture. This sort of thing happens all over the world as well. Unless you have stayed in a country for YEARS I don't think you can even begin to understand the intricacy of cultures in that area. Generalizing a people by their country is no more (or less) accurate than generalizing people by their gender or the color of their skin. It's not completely inaccurate but it is completely wrong a lot of times.
SeanLuke 13y ago
> We didn’t even invent modern democracy. There were parliamentary systems in England and other parts of Europe over a hundred years before we created government. AFAIK, England's parliament, prior to the US, could not remotely be described as a democracy. Indeed, it was well over a hundred years later that this would be the case. I have no idea what he means by "other parts of Europe". My best guess would be San Marino, which has had a democratic-ish thing going for a very long time. But San Marino was (and indeed is) pretty far from a modern democracy in any sense of the term. The US might not have a lot of things going for it. But I think it's fair to say that it's the first modern democracy.
- elo 13y ago
  > I have no idea what he means by "other parts of Europe". Iceland perhaps?
  - SeanLuke 13y ago
    Yeah, the Althing, I suppose. But while this was an early parliament, it was largely hereditary.
- nawitus 13y ago
  The U.S. can be called a modern democracy only after 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified.
  - rmc 13y ago
    You mean before black people could regularly excersise their vote?
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  Since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, English Bill of Rights 1689, the Monarchy never since had absolute power, there was always a powerful parliament. The English Civil War, a few decades earlier, was fought between pro-parliament (Oliver Cromwell) and pro-monarchist forces. Without these events, it's unlikely the U.S. would have been founded explicitly as a Republic. As it was, Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists argued at the constitutional convention for an elective monarchy. (Which is why the presidency is more powerful than the anti-federalists and others would have liked)
JackFr 13y ago
Pretend-smart pablum.
stephen_g 13y ago
"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." What? I don't know any Australian people who would be impressed by American people just because they are from the US. Perhaps you didn't pick up on our sense of humour? Or perhaps you meant Australian politicians?
Tarrosion 13y ago
The author's discussion of healthcare seems a bit off, or at least misleading, to me. I'll freely admit I'm not an expert and my understanding is that the healthcare system in the United States has all kinds of perverse incentives and lack thereof, etc. That said: The author (and others) mention people getting surgery and the like for free. This doesn't seem accurate to me: doctors and nurses must be payed, medicines acquired, hospitals run, etc. The cost may be collected differently (taxation vs. insurance or at time of service) and various systems may be more or less efficient. But except in rare edge cases, no system is free. Speak of medicine, yes, drugs are more expensive in the US than elsewhere. My understanding is that there are multiple reasons for this, including that some countries with nationalized healthcare can negotiate in bulk, Americans have more to spend, and the insane cost of R&D is primarily recouped in the American market. The rest of the world quite literally has subsidized pharmaceuticals. Edit: which is not to say that drugs are not in fact unusually expensive in the USA. But it is misleading to blithely imply that other countries are less messed up because they have cheaper pharmaceuticals. Finally, the snarky comments about profit seem a bit off the mark. Do we believe that the food industries in other countries are not interested in profit?
- coldtea 13y ago
  >That said: The author (and others) mention people getting surgery and the like for free. This doesn't seem accurate to me: doctors and nurses must be payed, medicines acquired, hospitals run, etc. The cost may be collected differently (taxation vs. insurance or at time of service) and various systems may be more or less efficient. But except in rare edge cases, no system is free. Well, for one it's not overpaid 10 times, as is in the US. So essentially, even in the numeric sense, it's almost free. Second, for free means "without having to pay directly". Yes, people pay through taxes. But then again, you pay taxes in the US too, and that doesn't give you free surgery.
xenophanes 13y ago
Off topic political rant. Flagged.
- wldlyinaccurate 13y ago
  You could just, you know, ignore it and carry on with your life. You'll be happier that way.
chinpokomon 13y ago
" 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)." So, is that respectively? Do conservatives generally feel one way while liberals feel another?
dhughes 13y ago
It's difficult to discuss this without arguing but what about the name "America" not the "United States of America". There are many countries on the continent of Africa and almost a billion people and nobody would argue referring to people from there as Africans. What if South Africa argued only its citizens could be called Africans? There are many people and many countries in the EU and Europe (who aren't part of the EU) that you could refer to as Europeans. Spain doesn't have exclusive use to the word European anymore than someone from Italy or Germany does. Asia is a bit different but an Asian person is generally from India, China, south Asian, etc. just not China or Japan. The Americas both North and South what do we call people from those countries? No not just North American or South American I mean referring to all people, otherwise the USA should be called the United States of North America.
- omonra 13y ago
  The problem is that US dwarfs the rest of the continent in most things - economy, scientific development, etc. In other words - if a random person somewhere in the world mentions 'America' they are most likely refering to the USA. So people (outside of South America obviously) just choose to save time and skip the 'Northern' bit. I know it's a bit unfair to South Americans - but that's life. Same way Scots and Welsh are probably unhappy when rest of the world thinks they are from England. Perhaps if in the future the roles change and South America dominates, the language will adopt.
  - dhughes 13y ago
    I prefer USians. ;)
    - omonra 13y ago
      Sounds like a nice shorthand for asian americans :)
coldtea 13y ago
>Hitler was primarily defeated by Russia (not us) That's what European history buffs think too. Russia (USSR) bled Hitler to death, and then the US comes, does a little song and dance and "we defeated Germany!".
- vmarsy 13y ago
  Hitler was primarily defeated by the US in western Europe at least. He was fully defeated by Russia and Americans+UK.
jawngee 13y ago
As an American who is living in Vietnam and has travelled around Asia a lot (including North Korea), I take issue with a lot of the points in this article. 1. There are more American flags in Saigon that I've seen almost anywhere in the US. Being American here has more cache here than being British, Australian, etc. Probably because American ex-pats are kind of rare here, not counting the Viet Kieu. Maybe this isn't true the more north you go, but it is in Saigon for sure. 3. I'm totally not sure where he gets the idea the Vietnamese think the "American War" (what they refer to it as) being about China when it was clearly about expelling foreign occupation and re-uniting the country. Maybe he has it confused with the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in the 1970's which had more to do with the Khmer Rouge aligning with China, while Vietnam was aligned with Russia. 5. If you think the quality of life isn't great for the average American, come on down to District 4 and grab a bowl of pho with me. Or we could go to PR Karaoke and have the hostess girl tell us about why she's working at karaoke. 6. Bangkok is kind of a shit hole. But it's a much nicer shit hole than most of it's SE Asian neighbor's big cities. And of course the world is predictable and all people everywhere have common sets of problems. But my experience is that the severity of those problems, on a whole, are much more severe in developing countries than what most people face in America. 7. Agree whole heartedly. 8. This is what makes America special though. Try training iPhone developers in Vietnam for a few months and you realize it's that "you are special" thing we are taught from childhood that makes the difference in our skillsets. I think a mild level of arrogance is healthy.
bhauer 13y ago
I have never flagged anything at HN before, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the characteristics I associate with HN. Plus the "things that most Americans don't know" are pablum I've seen so many times before as to be boring. I would have preferred to keep my mouth shut, but when my own (software-development oriented) submissions have been flagged, I've groused that I wish flagging required a brief written justification. So I felt obligated to write this to explain myself.
- D9u 13y ago
  Amen brother. While this article is a break from the PRISM fodder that's seen quite a bit of play here, it has absolutely nothing to do with software development, technology, or the internet. If I could downvote the article I would, and I'm not the type to flag submissions, but to see this on the front page is, I guess, indicative of the audience and their views.
D9u 13y ago
I found the article to be inconsistent. >Norwegians make more money. >despite being the richest country in the world, we come in a paltry 38th. (life expectancy) So which is it? How can the USA be the richest country in the world if Norwegians make more money? >In a recent survey of young Americans, 63% could not find Iraq on a map (despite being at war with them) Umm, we were never at war with Iraq. The perpetual proxy wars are being waged against an ideology called "Terror." Then there are the references to CNN and Fox News. (vomit) Do Americans really get their news from these sources? Or is it only the TV-zombie masses? That said, I do agree that we are too full of ourselves, and we do exhibit a fair bit of myopic tendencies as pertains to just where we actually stand in the overall global scheme. I guess what I'm trying to say is, why is this crap on the front page of HN?
- vmarsy 13y ago
  > So which is it? How can the USA be the richest country in the world if Norwegians make more money? Norwegians make $62,767 per year per capita on average.[1] Americans make $49,965 per year per capita on average.[1] So an average Norwegian makes $12,802 more every year. You know that Norway is a pretty small country compared to the USA : 5 millions inhabitants vs 300 millions. That is you should try simple maths : 5,000,000 * 62,757 300,000,000 * 49,965 I'm pretty sure the second result will be slightly bigger. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...
diminoten 13y ago
I take issue with the sexist bits of this article, but I agree with the overall "Americans are cold and don't say how they feel" message. As an American, it gets confusing and lonely sometimes.
crazygringo 13y ago
As someone who lived outside the US for about 10 years as an adult, in several countries, this pretty much rings true. It's not that all 10 items are only true for the US and not true for any other countries -- there are certainly other status-obsessed countries, other unhealthy countries, etc. -- but I think the most important take-away from the article is that America is not nearly as special as Americans assume it is. I remember being shocked as I discovered that on my own, long ago. America may have the biggest military or invent a lot of things, but it's still just another country. But because we're so big and so insular, it's hard for most Americans to realize. (However, I still like the US an awful lot too -- living in NYC now is great because there's such a mix of people from everywhere.)
znowi 13y ago
Few people hate us Well, this part has changed a little since the article was written in May.
tokenadult 13y ago
My user profile discloses my experience all over the United States, and my lengthy stays overseas (mostly in just one part of the world, but including a stay at an international dorm where I met people from all over the world). I'm not impressed by the author's use of "we." Speak for yourself. Calling out the points in the blog post kindly submitted here one by one, 1. FEW PEOPLE ARE IMPRESSED BY US I beg to differ. I know just one non-American part of the world well, and I am well aware that opinions about the United States and Americans are varied and complicated everywhere, but I have met quite a few people who are impressed by Americans as Americans. In particular, I have met quite a large number of people from other countries who are impressed by Americans who learn a non-English language (hmmm, that would only be a minority of Americans) and who make an honest effort to understand and appreciate the history and culture of another country while living in that country. Perhaps the author mostly knows unimpressive Americans. 2. FEW PEOPLE HATE US In general, people I've encountered from all over the world wherever I've been overseas have seemed friendly to Americans. (I should note that I have been inside the borders of the United States since a couple months before 11 September 2001, so I acknowledge this may have changed.) Even when my government misbehaves on the world scene, which means my country is misbehaving and I am im part blameworthy as one American voter among millions, I still feel most people from other countries give me a break and assume that I have as little control over my government as they may have over theirs. (Because I feel I have more control over my government than people in many other countries, I feel more responsible for its misdeeds than some foreign friends blame me for being.) 3. WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD I call baloney on this. There is a level of ignorance that Americans have about the rest of the world particularly because of the systematic lack of foreign language learning in K-12 schooling in the U.S., but there is also an exposure to people from all over the world here because of openness to immigration and mass media from everywhere that largely counterbalances that. I know a LOT of Americans who have traveled to multiple countries for fun or business or both. The most knowledgeable Americans are the Americans who learn languages other than English, but some other Americans know about other countries too. Because many Americans are first-generation immigrants, a lot of Americans are personally acquainted with friends and relatives who know about other countries. 4. WE ARE POOR AT EXPRESSING GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION Here, the author far too much emphasizes his particular ethnic subculture in the United States (and contrasts it with particular example countries that are not representative of the whole world) and doesn't accurately represent America. In contrast to the author, I have encountered a lot of people who think of Americans as very warm and passionate and straightforward people. "Compared to what?" is the question to ask here. 5. THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS NOT THAT GREAT This is put to the lie by the continued strong net immigration rate the United States enjoys compared to almost all other countries in the world. Tens of millions of people all over the world want to live here. http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-dream-life.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-drea... The United States has to adjust its immigration and border regulations to keep people from coming in in even greater numbers, not to hold people here and keep them from moving to other countries. (Many countries of the world have "exit visas" or onerous regulations for obtaining passports, while it is ridiculously easy to leave the United States.) 6. THE REST OF THE WORLD IS NOT A SLUM-RIDDEN SHITHOLE COMPARED TO US The rest of the world is catching up, true. Taiwan is quite a pleasant place to live now, and may become one of the five wealthiest countries in the world in my lifetime. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/singapore-worlds-richest-country-by-2050/ http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/singapore... But the United States is still improving year on year too. Much of what I enjoy about life in the United States in 2013 was unimaginable in 1969, when my elementary school class prepared a time capsule with predictions of the year 2001--which was opened that year so that I can check my predictions. 7. WE’RE PARANOID Again I call baloney on this. My four children have all roamed our neighborhood freely and walked or biked to the public library (one mile away in one direction) or to shopping (one mile away in another direction) by themselves since early childhood. We don't worry about anything here. 8. WE’RE STATUS-OBSESSED AND SEEK ATTENTION Speak for yourself, bub. I notice how you are weaving in an advertising message in your blog post, but I have ways of reality-checking anyone's reputation, and I'm not buying what you're selling until I hear more about you from my friends. 9. WE ARE VERY UNHEALTHY 廢話. This is just flatly contradicted by all available data. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-why-we-die-global-life-expectancy http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w... Health is improving at all ages for Americans. Life expectancy at all ages is rising. Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel, http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six hours a day." http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.... 10. WE MISTAKE COMFORT FOR HAPPINESS Again, speak for yourself. The lifestyle trade-offs I am allowed to choose with my family in my free country include lots of family togetherness (we are a homeschooling family) and "multiculturalism" in the best sense (we know and cherish as friends people from all over the world). For us, happiness is all about human relationships, not about owning the latest "penis car" or other status symbol. One of the great things about America is that any doofus with an opinion can express it on a blog, and anyone who chances to read the blog by following a link posted to Hacker News can discuss it here. Isn't life in America great?
greenyoda 13y ago
Previously submitted a couple of times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5633838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5633838

95 points by blackjack48 13y ago

Nice perspective from outside the USA USA USA bubble.

I'm wondering how many fo these apply to other countries in the Anglosphere. Certainly Americans in general must be better at expressing emotions than the British in general, culturally speaking.

TillE 13y ago
Yeah, this for example is blatantly false in most other anglophone cultures and at least a few others I'm aware of. Or it's the exception rather than the rule: > Whereas, in almost every other culture approaching women this way is met with a confident smile and a “Thank you.”
onli 13y ago
That part was quite funny to read, as a german. If americans are cold, what are we? Frozen to death.
- weinzierl 13y ago
  As a fellow German this was my thinking as well.

mitchty 13y ago

As an American, I honestly don't see these as being a problem at all where I live. Maybe its more relegated to the coasts but by and large everyone I know here (obviously there are exceptions every now and again) already knows/has this internalized. This post largely strikes me as attacking American export culture mostly. Guess I'm in an exceptional bubble then.

alanctgardner2 13y ago
'Problem' and 'attacking' sound a bit defensive. The post is definitely a generalization, but I would say (as a Canadian who visits the US a few weeks out of the year) that these are fairly accurate. I don't know if these are very popular in the US, but the CBC has a whole series called 'Rick Mercer Talks To Americans' (comme ca http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhTZ_tgMUdo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhTZ_tgMUdo) where he gets people in DC, New York, and other major cities to go on national television and petition to 'Save The Parliamentary Igloo', 'Stop the Saskatchewan Whale Hunt', etc. These people really just don't seem to: a) have any awareness of the rest of the continent they live on, above the 49th b) care what they say in public. They'll just spout anything to be on the TeeVee I'm aware it's all edited to be entertaining, but frankly it does seem fairly representative of American exceptionalist and isolationist culture.
- mistermann 13y ago
  You could easily send an American reporter onto the streets of Canada, or any nation for that matter, and produce the same results.
  - alanctgardner2 13y ago
    It's all fine and well to say that, but there's actually the meta-problem that Americans don't really want to watch non-Americans. Despite the dismal quality of network television, and drought of content for 24 hour news stations, no US television producer has thought, "We'll go to Canada and laugh at how they don't know how to make a Philly Cheesesteak!". Seriously thought, did you watch the video? I should find the one where he says our Prime Minister is "Pierre Poutine".
    - gruseom 13y ago
      But mistermann is right; his point is the critical one, and you've responded to it by changing the subject. Another humorist who does this, in a meaner way, is Sasha Baron-Cohen. The lesson here is not how ridiculous the people being ridiculed are, but rather: Who controls the editing controls everything. (Christopher Hitchens said brilliantly about the dinner party scene in Borat that it showed not how racist Americans are, but how polite they are.) Mercer's portrayals of Americans are not portrayals of Americans at all, but of Canadians' self-congratulatory caricatures of Americans. It makes me cringe with embarrassment.

miles 13y ago

The author's point number 8: "We're Status-Obsessed and Seek Attention" and he proves it at the end of the article: "You should like Thought Catalog on Facebook here."

postsantum 13y ago
It's not the original blog, it is just a repost from here http://markmanson.net/ http://markmanson.net/
- greenyoda 13y ago
  The original site prominently displays logos of well-known media outlets ("as seen on NBC News"), promotes a book entitled "The Style Guide for Men" and also has all the usual social media buttons. So I see a bit of status obsession and attention seeking there too.

olympus 13y ago

This is more or less correct, but I think the author exaggerated the "non-noteworthiness" of the USA in order to make a point. While the rest of the world may not care about an individual US citizen, they all pay close attention to the country as a whole. They do this because the USA makes a HUGE impact on the world stage and not paying attention to us isn't an option. Just about every news broadcast in the rest of the world will have a short bit on "what's going on in America." Granted, the things the rest of the world thinks are important (who are we invading now, who did we make angry) are not the same things that CNN thinks are important (the popular murder trial, Kim Kardashian's baby's name). The USA casts a large shadow around the world. This doesn't give Americans the right to act like fools when we travel, but we aren't exactly impotent.

adambratt 13y ago

Great article! One thing I'd like to point out though is how his note about making generalizations in the first section makes it seem like everything he says is mostly fact. I haven't lived outside the United States, but I have spent a considerable amount of time in parts of Europe and I definitely saw "exceptions" to what he presents everywhere I went. For example, in Poland, people absolutely loved Americans and telling people I was American and not British warranted free beers and lots of attention from women. In Scandinavia, everyone was extremely insecure because their cultures look down on competition and individuality. In the article, he mentions that in America women don't know how to react when told they are beautiful. If that's the case then Scandinavian women all but have a stroke when you tell them they're beautiful. In contrast, in South America, Women have no issues at all carrying on a conversation after a bold approach like that. My point is that there are some HUGE generalizations being made here -- the world is a very big place -- and you should take this all with a grain of salt. That said, I found this a fascinating, refreshing article. Thanks for sharing it blackjack48.

mehrzad 13y ago

As a teenager in America with immigrant parents, I'm surprised at how few people understand metric units or even the universal dating system and 24 hour time. Foreign language classes are the only things even bringing this stuff up where I am.

weinzierl 13y ago

As a German, I'd say most of the points of this article are true for Germany, and I guess for many other countries, as well. They are not specific American but just typically human. I think there is one thing were many Americans really have a wrong opinion about themselves. It's that they enjoy the most freedom in the world. IMHO this should be number one in the list.

dusklight 13y ago

I think this writer of this post is more than a little ignorant of the class that he is in and the class that the people he has been meeting are in. As a personal account from someone honestly expressing his own opinion I still think it was a good read but it makes way too many assumptions that are wrong. For one thing it is really wrong to talk about the "culture" of America. Even just in the same state, even in the same county, the culture of people can vary widely. Just go to Palo Alto, talk to the super friendly people there (because the billionaires wear hoodies and they don't know how much money you have) then try to find the black people (oh they are there .. there are lots of them .. can you find them?) and see if you can talk to them and get them to open up and see what their culture is like. In the south, go to a white church and a black church and then come tell me if they have the same culture. This sort of thing happens all over the world as well. Unless you have stayed in a country for YEARS I don't think you can even begin to understand the intricacy of cultures in that area. Generalizing a people by their country is no more (or less) accurate than generalizing people by their gender or the color of their skin. It's not completely inaccurate but it is completely wrong a lot of times.

SeanLuke 13y ago

> We didn’t even invent modern democracy. There were parliamentary systems in England and other parts of Europe over a hundred years before we created government. AFAIK, England's parliament, prior to the US, could not remotely be described as a democracy. Indeed, it was well over a hundred years later that this would be the case. I have no idea what he means by "other parts of Europe". My best guess would be San Marino, which has had a democratic-ish thing going for a very long time. But San Marino was (and indeed is) pretty far from a modern democracy in any sense of the term. The US might not have a lot of things going for it. But I think it's fair to say that it's the first modern democracy.

elo 13y ago
> I have no idea what he means by "other parts of Europe". Iceland perhaps?
- SeanLuke 13y ago
  Yeah, the Althing, I suppose. But while this was an early parliament, it was largely hereditary.
nawitus 13y ago
The U.S. can be called a modern democracy only after 1920, when the 19th Amendment was ratified.
- rmc 13y ago
  You mean before black people could regularly excersise their vote?
jivatmanx 13y ago
Since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, English Bill of Rights 1689, the Monarchy never since had absolute power, there was always a powerful parliament. The English Civil War, a few decades earlier, was fought between pro-parliament (Oliver Cromwell) and pro-monarchist forces. Without these events, it's unlikely the U.S. would have been founded explicitly as a Republic. As it was, Alexander Hamilton and other Federalists argued at the constitutional convention for an elective monarchy. (Which is why the presidency is more powerful than the anti-federalists and others would have liked)

JackFr 13y ago

Pretend-smart pablum.

stephen_g 13y ago

"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." What? I don't know any Australian people who would be impressed by American people just because they are from the US. Perhaps you didn't pick up on our sense of humour? Or perhaps you meant Australian politicians?

Tarrosion 13y ago

The author's discussion of healthcare seems a bit off, or at least misleading, to me. I'll freely admit I'm not an expert and my understanding is that the healthcare system in the United States has all kinds of perverse incentives and lack thereof, etc. That said: The author (and others) mention people getting surgery and the like for free. This doesn't seem accurate to me: doctors and nurses must be payed, medicines acquired, hospitals run, etc. The cost may be collected differently (taxation vs. insurance or at time of service) and various systems may be more or less efficient. But except in rare edge cases, no system is free. Speak of medicine, yes, drugs are more expensive in the US than elsewhere. My understanding is that there are multiple reasons for this, including that some countries with nationalized healthcare can negotiate in bulk, Americans have more to spend, and the insane cost of R&D is primarily recouped in the American market. The rest of the world quite literally has subsidized pharmaceuticals. Edit: which is not to say that drugs are not in fact unusually expensive in the USA. But it is misleading to blithely imply that other countries are less messed up because they have cheaper pharmaceuticals. Finally, the snarky comments about profit seem a bit off the mark. Do we believe that the food industries in other countries are not interested in profit?

coldtea 13y ago
>That said: The author (and others) mention people getting surgery and the like for free. This doesn't seem accurate to me: doctors and nurses must be payed, medicines acquired, hospitals run, etc. The cost may be collected differently (taxation vs. insurance or at time of service) and various systems may be more or less efficient. But except in rare edge cases, no system is free. Well, for one it's not overpaid 10 times, as is in the US. So essentially, even in the numeric sense, it's almost free. Second, for free means "without having to pay directly". Yes, people pay through taxes. But then again, you pay taxes in the US too, and that doesn't give you free surgery.

xenophanes 13y ago

Off topic political rant. Flagged.

wldlyinaccurate 13y ago
You could just, you know, ignore it and carry on with your life. You'll be happier that way.

chinpokomon 13y ago

" 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)." So, is that respectively? Do conservatives generally feel one way while liberals feel another?

dhughes 13y ago

It's difficult to discuss this without arguing but what about the name "America" not the "United States of America". There are many countries on the continent of Africa and almost a billion people and nobody would argue referring to people from there as Africans. What if South Africa argued only its citizens could be called Africans? There are many people and many countries in the EU and Europe (who aren't part of the EU) that you could refer to as Europeans. Spain doesn't have exclusive use to the word European anymore than someone from Italy or Germany does. Asia is a bit different but an Asian person is generally from India, China, south Asian, etc. just not China or Japan. The Americas both North and South what do we call people from those countries? No not just North American or South American I mean referring to all people, otherwise the USA should be called the United States of North America.

omonra 13y ago
The problem is that US dwarfs the rest of the continent in most things - economy, scientific development, etc. In other words - if a random person somewhere in the world mentions 'America' they are most likely refering to the USA. So people (outside of South America obviously) just choose to save time and skip the 'Northern' bit. I know it's a bit unfair to South Americans - but that's life. Same way Scots and Welsh are probably unhappy when rest of the world thinks they are from England. Perhaps if in the future the roles change and South America dominates, the language will adopt.
- dhughes 13y ago
  I prefer USians. ;)
  - omonra 13y ago
    Sounds like a nice shorthand for asian americans :)

coldtea 13y ago

>Hitler was primarily defeated by Russia (not us) That's what European history buffs think too. Russia (USSR) bled Hitler to death, and then the US comes, does a little song and dance and "we defeated Germany!".

vmarsy 13y ago
Hitler was primarily defeated by the US in western Europe at least. He was fully defeated by Russia and Americans+UK.

jawngee 13y ago

As an American who is living in Vietnam and has travelled around Asia a lot (including North Korea), I take issue with a lot of the points in this article. 1. There are more American flags in Saigon that I've seen almost anywhere in the US. Being American here has more cache here than being British, Australian, etc. Probably because American ex-pats are kind of rare here, not counting the Viet Kieu. Maybe this isn't true the more north you go, but it is in Saigon for sure. 3. I'm totally not sure where he gets the idea the Vietnamese think the "American War" (what they refer to it as) being about China when it was clearly about expelling foreign occupation and re-uniting the country. Maybe he has it confused with the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in the 1970's which had more to do with the Khmer Rouge aligning with China, while Vietnam was aligned with Russia. 5. If you think the quality of life isn't great for the average American, come on down to District 4 and grab a bowl of pho with me. Or we could go to PR Karaoke and have the hostess girl tell us about why she's working at karaoke. 6. Bangkok is kind of a shit hole. But it's a much nicer shit hole than most of it's SE Asian neighbor's big cities. And of course the world is predictable and all people everywhere have common sets of problems. But my experience is that the severity of those problems, on a whole, are much more severe in developing countries than what most people face in America. 7. Agree whole heartedly. 8. This is what makes America special though. Try training iPhone developers in Vietnam for a few months and you realize it's that "you are special" thing we are taught from childhood that makes the difference in our skillsets. I think a mild level of arrogance is healthy.

bhauer 13y ago

I have never flagged anything at HN before, but this has absolutely nothing to do with the characteristics I associate with HN. Plus the "things that most Americans don't know" are pablum I've seen so many times before as to be boring. I would have preferred to keep my mouth shut, but when my own (software-development oriented) submissions have been flagged, I've groused that I wish flagging required a brief written justification. So I felt obligated to write this to explain myself.

D9u 13y ago
Amen brother. While this article is a break from the PRISM fodder that's seen quite a bit of play here, it has absolutely nothing to do with software development, technology, or the internet. If I could downvote the article I would, and I'm not the type to flag submissions, but to see this on the front page is, I guess, indicative of the audience and their views.

D9u 13y ago

I found the article to be inconsistent. >Norwegians make more money. >despite being the richest country in the world, we come in a paltry 38th. (life expectancy) So which is it? How can the USA be the richest country in the world if Norwegians make more money? >In a recent survey of young Americans, 63% could not find Iraq on a map (despite being at war with them) Umm, we were never at war with Iraq. The perpetual proxy wars are being waged against an ideology called "Terror." Then there are the references to CNN and Fox News. (vomit) Do Americans really get their news from these sources? Or is it only the TV-zombie masses? That said, I do agree that we are too full of ourselves, and we do exhibit a fair bit of myopic tendencies as pertains to just where we actually stand in the overall global scheme. I guess what I'm trying to say is, why is this crap on the front page of HN?

vmarsy 13y ago
> So which is it? How can the USA be the richest country in the world if Norwegians make more money? Norwegians make $62,767 per year per capita on average.[1] Americans make $49,965 per year per capita on average.[1] So an average Norwegian makes $12,802 more every year. You know that Norway is a pretty small country compared to the USA : 5 millions inhabitants vs 300 millions. That is you should try simple maths : 5,000,000 * 62,757 300,000,000 * 49,965 I'm pretty sure the second result will be slightly bigger. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP...

diminoten 13y ago

I take issue with the sexist bits of this article, but I agree with the overall "Americans are cold and don't say how they feel" message. As an American, it gets confusing and lonely sometimes.

crazygringo 13y ago

As someone who lived outside the US for about 10 years as an adult, in several countries, this pretty much rings true. It's not that all 10 items are only true for the US and not true for any other countries -- there are certainly other status-obsessed countries, other unhealthy countries, etc. -- but I think the most important take-away from the article is that America is not nearly as special as Americans assume it is. I remember being shocked as I discovered that on my own, long ago. America may have the biggest military or invent a lot of things, but it's still just another country. But because we're so big and so insular, it's hard for most Americans to realize. (However, I still like the US an awful lot too -- living in NYC now is great because there's such a mix of people from everywhere.)

znowi 13y ago

Few people hate us Well, this part has changed a little since the article was written in May.

tokenadult 13y ago

My user profile discloses my experience all over the United States, and my lengthy stays overseas (mostly in just one part of the world, but including a stay at an international dorm where I met people from all over the world). I'm not impressed by the author's use of "we." Speak for yourself. Calling out the points in the blog post kindly submitted here one by one, 1. FEW PEOPLE ARE IMPRESSED BY US I beg to differ. I know just one non-American part of the world well, and I am well aware that opinions about the United States and Americans are varied and complicated everywhere, but I have met quite a few people who are impressed by Americans as Americans. In particular, I have met quite a large number of people from other countries who are impressed by Americans who learn a non-English language (hmmm, that would only be a minority of Americans) and who make an honest effort to understand and appreciate the history and culture of another country while living in that country. Perhaps the author mostly knows unimpressive Americans. 2. FEW PEOPLE HATE US In general, people I've encountered from all over the world wherever I've been overseas have seemed friendly to Americans. (I should note that I have been inside the borders of the United States since a couple months before 11 September 2001, so I acknowledge this may have changed.) Even when my government misbehaves on the world scene, which means my country is misbehaving and I am im part blameworthy as one American voter among millions, I still feel most people from other countries give me a break and assume that I have as little control over my government as they may have over theirs. (Because I feel I have more control over my government than people in many other countries, I feel more responsible for its misdeeds than some foreign friends blame me for being.) 3. WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THE REST OF THE WORLD I call baloney on this. There is a level of ignorance that Americans have about the rest of the world particularly because of the systematic lack of foreign language learning in K-12 schooling in the U.S., but there is also an exposure to people from all over the world here because of openness to immigration and mass media from everywhere that largely counterbalances that. I know a LOT of Americans who have traveled to multiple countries for fun or business or both. The most knowledgeable Americans are the Americans who learn languages other than English, but some other Americans know about other countries too. Because many Americans are first-generation immigrants, a lot of Americans are personally acquainted with friends and relatives who know about other countries. 4. WE ARE POOR AT EXPRESSING GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION Here, the author far too much emphasizes his particular ethnic subculture in the United States (and contrasts it with particular example countries that are not representative of the whole world) and doesn't accurately represent America. In contrast to the author, I have encountered a lot of people who think of Americans as very warm and passionate and straightforward people. "Compared to what?" is the question to ask here. 5. THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS NOT THAT GREAT This is put to the lie by the continued strong net immigration rate the United States enjoys compared to almost all other countries in the world. Tens of millions of people all over the world want to live here. http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-dream-life.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/161435/100-million-worldwide-drea... The United States has to adjust its immigration and border regulations to keep people from coming in in even greater numbers, not to hold people here and keep them from moving to other countries. (Many countries of the world have "exit visas" or onerous regulations for obtaining passports, while it is ridiculously easy to leave the United States.) 6. THE REST OF THE WORLD IS NOT A SLUM-RIDDEN SHITHOLE COMPARED TO US The rest of the world is catching up, true. Taiwan is quite a pleasant place to live now, and may become one of the five wealthiest countries in the world in my lifetime. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/singapore-worlds-richest-country-by-2050/ http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/singapore... But the United States is still improving year on year too. Much of what I enjoy about life in the United States in 2013 was unimaginable in 1969, when my elementary school class prepared a time capsule with predictions of the year 2001--which was opened that year so that I can check my predictions. 7. WE’RE PARANOID Again I call baloney on this. My four children have all roamed our neighborhood freely and walked or biked to the public library (one mile away in one direction) or to shopping (one mile away in another direction) by themselves since early childhood. We don't worry about anything here. 8. WE’RE STATUS-OBSESSED AND SEEK ATTENTION Speak for yourself, bub. I notice how you are weaving in an advertising message in your blog post, but I have ways of reality-checking anyone's reputation, and I'm not buying what you're selling until I hear more about you from my friends. 9. WE ARE VERY UNHEALTHY 廢話. This is just flatly contradicted by all available data. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-why-we-die-global-life-expectancy http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=longevity-w... Health is improving at all ages for Americans. Life expectancy at all ages is rising. Girls born since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of 100, with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel, http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... originally published in the journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an average of six hours a day." http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.... 10. WE MISTAKE COMFORT FOR HAPPINESS Again, speak for yourself. The lifestyle trade-offs I am allowed to choose with my family in my free country include lots of family togetherness (we are a homeschooling family) and "multiculturalism" in the best sense (we know and cherish as friends people from all over the world). For us, happiness is all about human relationships, not about owning the latest "penis car" or other status symbol. One of the great things about America is that any doofus with an opinion can express it on a blog, and anyone who chances to read the blog by following a link posted to Hacker News can discuss it here. Isn't life in America great?

greenyoda 13y ago

Previously submitted a couple of times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4231219 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5633838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5633838