4 ms·

> the east and west coast have a lot in common We really don't. We (barely) share a language and are held hostage together in a room by dead white male slaveho

> the east and west coast have a lot in common We really don't. We (barely) share a language and are held hostage together in a room by dead white male slaveholders who a vocal minority have turned into a new American Pantheon. The west coast has some political common ground with the northeast, but there are still huge cultural gaps, and the "east coast" extends a long way south of Maryland and DC. This isn't some big mystery, just a big continent.

nostromo 13y ago
Compared to Europe, the US is very homogenous. Think about how many cultures you would encounter walking from Paris to Moscow. Now compare that with walking from New York to LA. Even though Paris is much closer to Moscow than NY is to LA, you'd experience much more cultural diversity along the european walk.
- bowlofpetunias 13y ago
  Hell, you would experience much more cultural diversity of you would walk from one end of France to the other. Just like Europeans have difficulty mentally grasping the physical size of the US, Americans seem to have great difficulty grasping the internal cultural diversity of Europe.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  In my state alone, I can encounter at least three very different cultures just within the English-speaking populace. I'd have to have some long conversations with people in the Spanish-speaking populace to establish a rough approximation of the real number. But something tells me you draw your own entirely subjective cultural lines in vastly different places than I do mine.
  - mtrimpe 13y ago
    We've had this argument here before and in some sense you're right in that culture is relative and 'more diverse' is essentially a meaningless phrase. What is true though is that Americans tend to underestimate the homogenizing effect a shared language, border, government and media apparatus has and the degree to which it helps in facilitating cross-country trade.
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      I'm sure there's a substantial effect there. I have no idea how to estimate or measure it, and I don't really care, either. I also don't really care whether the US has larger or smaller cultural gaps than Europe, and I wasn't talking about that. I spoke of present reality in the US as I observe it, not long-term trends. Present reality is that anywhere east of the Rockies may as well be a foreign nation. I am far more comfortable with many foreigners, even non-Western foreigners, than with most people in the eastern US. Present reality thus leaves me utterly unsurprised that Silicon Valley remains relatively unique in the US. Edit: Incidentally, I'm amused by the strongly negative reaction I'm getting from Europeans who wish to tell me, an American, what America is really like. What would be your reaction, exactly, if I started telling you what Europe is really like?
      - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
        I grew up in the Northeast, and what is all this? What's this bizarre East Coast Culture that you West Coasters have nothing in common with?
        nknighthb 13y ago
        What east coast culture? That was part of my point, the northeast is not the south is not the midwest is not appalachia is not the west is not the west coast... (And for that matter, there are at least four very different regions I could divide the west coast into.) My brief description of the northeast would hardly be "bizarre", but probably "traditionalist", or "old world". Of course, New England and the mid-Atlantic are themselves quite distinguishable. I didn't say we had "nothing" in common, any more than I would say I had nothing in common with a European, but it's hardly one culture.
      - mtrimpe 13y ago
        The negative reaction is probably because while you can argue this position from a perspective of wisdom (re impossibility to quantify cultural differences) many Europeans have plenty of prior experience with arguing this from a perspective of ignorance (i.e. failing to consider even basic things like the implications of language differences making you resort to sign language a few 100km from where you live.) Technically your argument didn't necessarily show any signs of such ignorance, but statistically speaking it would have been quite likely.

nostromo 13y ago

Compared to Europe, the US is very homogenous. Think about how many cultures you would encounter walking from Paris to Moscow. Now compare that with walking from New York to LA. Even though Paris is much closer to Moscow than NY is to LA, you'd experience much more cultural diversity along the european walk.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago
Hell, you would experience much more cultural diversity of you would walk from one end of France to the other. Just like Europeans have difficulty mentally grasping the physical size of the US, Americans seem to have great difficulty grasping the internal cultural diversity of Europe.
nknighthb 13y ago
In my state alone, I can encounter at least three very different cultures just within the English-speaking populace. I'd have to have some long conversations with people in the Spanish-speaking populace to establish a rough approximation of the real number. But something tells me you draw your own entirely subjective cultural lines in vastly different places than I do mine.
- mtrimpe 13y ago
  We've had this argument here before and in some sense you're right in that culture is relative and 'more diverse' is essentially a meaningless phrase. What is true though is that Americans tend to underestimate the homogenizing effect a shared language, border, government and media apparatus has and the degree to which it helps in facilitating cross-country trade.
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    I'm sure there's a substantial effect there. I have no idea how to estimate or measure it, and I don't really care, either. I also don't really care whether the US has larger or smaller cultural gaps than Europe, and I wasn't talking about that. I spoke of present reality in the US as I observe it, not long-term trends. Present reality is that anywhere east of the Rockies may as well be a foreign nation. I am far more comfortable with many foreigners, even non-Western foreigners, than with most people in the eastern US. Present reality thus leaves me utterly unsurprised that Silicon Valley remains relatively unique in the US. Edit: Incidentally, I'm amused by the strongly negative reaction I'm getting from Europeans who wish to tell me, an American, what America is really like. What would be your reaction, exactly, if I started telling you what Europe is really like?
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      I grew up in the Northeast, and what is all this? What's this bizarre East Coast Culture that you West Coasters have nothing in common with?
      - nknighthb 13y ago
        What east coast culture? That was part of my point, the northeast is not the south is not the midwest is not appalachia is not the west is not the west coast... (And for that matter, there are at least four very different regions I could divide the west coast into.) My brief description of the northeast would hardly be "bizarre", but probably "traditionalist", or "old world". Of course, New England and the mid-Atlantic are themselves quite distinguishable. I didn't say we had "nothing" in common, any more than I would say I had nothing in common with a European, but it's hardly one culture.
    - mtrimpe 13y ago
      The negative reaction is probably because while you can argue this position from a perspective of wisdom (re impossibility to quantify cultural differences) many Europeans have plenty of prior experience with arguing this from a perspective of ignorance (i.e. failing to consider even basic things like the implications of language differences making you resort to sign language a few 100km from where you live.) Technically your argument didn't necessarily show any signs of such ignorance, but statistically speaking it would have been quite likely.