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The Nr.1 mentality again. Only US Americans work their asses off.
No one is saying that only Americans work their asses off. What we are saying is that Americans are in the top 25th percentile of nations when it comes to hours worked and fewest paid vacation days.
Have you ever seen Jay Leno do his "Jaywalking" bit. He goes out into the street and asks people at random questions like what countries border the U.S.
He gets a lot of blank stares and some very wrong answers. He claims that he never has to interview more than 10-15 people to get some major league stupid answers.
I saw another segment where a man on the street asked several people if they could name a country that starts with the letter U. Well, there is Uganda and Uzebekestan, but these people didn't even guess their own country: the United States.
Why? Discuss.
Everyone has their 'specialty' and interests. Some folks know a lot about math, or about literature, or about geography, art, music, sports, etc.
On the other hand, everyone has topics that just do not interest them. It's not that they are particularly stupid, they are just not interested. This being the case, some folks just don't know and don't care about geography and geography-related topics. Other than for curiosity, most people have no reason to know about it. If you are never travelling away from your home, it's not critical knowledge. Just the same as it's not important to know calculus if you are never going to use it for anything.
Anyone who says they don't have a 'weak area' of knowledge is a liar. Personally, I've always been interested in geography; but ask me a business-related question or a financial question and, I admit, I'm pretty much a dolt in that regard, even though I have a high IQ and a good working knowledge of quite a variety of subjects. It isn't that I don't have the ability to understand business/finance, it's just that I have zero interest. It bores me to tears. I'm sure for some folks, geography bores them to tears. We're all different.
No one is saying that only Americans work their asses off. What we are saying is that Americans are in the top 25th percentile of nations when it comes to hours worked and fewest paid vacation days.
Yes, people were saying US Americans are the only hard-working people.
No one mentioned what you mentioned.
Can you actually provide me with a link to your claim?
I think in some countries people work less just because there are no jobs. Or no jobs that would be included in that kind of calculation.
I don`t think there is good data on working hours in many african countries due to the state of the country, e.g. countries with a dictatorship don`t offer much reliable data.
Or countries where people mostly only have a farm and work for their family.
Also, I doubt Americans or Europeans work harder than people in sweatshops. Needless to say, a country with many sweatshops would release data on how many hours these people work there under really bad conditions.
Even if Americans worked harder than anybody else, which I doubt, thats no excuse of being ignorant toward the rest of the world.
Even if Americans worked harder than anybody else, which I doubt, thats no excuse of being ignorant toward the rest of the world.
I don't think it's that Americans are more ignorant about the world than others - I just think some people from certain countries are arrogant and have an extremely inflated opinion of themselves and their country, and are jealous of the incredible success America has had since the 1940s... and they manifest their contempt and frustration by endlessly criticizing America.
When anyone - a sports team, an athlete, a politician, a country - is number one for a long time - it breeds continuously increasing jealousy and contempt from those with lesser abilities and accomplishments.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,329 posts, read 54,373,658 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zekester
Have you ever seen Jay Leno do his "Jaywalking" bit. He goes out into the street and asks people at random questions like what countries border the U.S.
From my admittedly limited viewing of 'JayWalking', many are just as ignorant about the US
I don't think it's that Americans are more ignorant about the world than others - I just think some people from certain countries are arrogant and have an extremely inflated opinion of themselves and their country, and are jealous of the incredible success America has had since the 1940s... and they manifest their contempt and frustration by endlessly criticizing America.
When anyone - a sports team, an athlete, a politician, a country - is number one for a long time - it breeds continuously increasing jealousy and contempt from those with lesser abilities and accomplishments.
Really? e.g. I live in the biggest export country in the world, in one of the wealthiest regions in the world and that does not make me feel any better or worse than someone else. I don`t feel like I am any better than a person in rural China.
Whenever I watched american news or read american news papers, there was always a huge lack of news of the world.
Maybe you think european media is full with american news, its not. It has his fair share of news from all over the world.
Have you ever compared americans media to non-american media and realized that non-american media covers much more important! topics than -lets say- Fox News.
Maybe you think an American doesn`t care what happens in China, but do you really think the story of ballon boy is more important than the top story from the UK, Germany or Iran?
Do you really think american news should focus on Tiger Woods rather than on the real conflicts of the world?
If you say that Americans are not ignorant toward the world, can you then prove that?
When anyone - a sports team, an athlete, a politician, a country - is number one for a long time - it breeds continuously increasing jealousy and contempt from those with lesser abilities and accomplishments.
Only people with a small small-esteem need to cheer for some sports team or an athlete to feel superior. Maybe its the american mentality, maybe thats why there is this Dem vs Rep cheer contest on CD.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,329 posts, read 54,373,658 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pamky
Only people with a small small-esteem need to cheer for some sports team or an athlete to feel superior. Maybe its the american mentality, maybe thats why there is this Dem vs Rep cheer contest on CD.
They do but I am not "Europe", just Pamky and find it ridiculous when people are obsessed with their soccer team. When grown men cry because their favourite team lost, you know theres something wrong .
I think one poster on here said something very important, I think his name is TrnHillTrooper (?).
People these days cheer for their party (Dem or Rep) like it was a football team.
In Germany, undoubtfully due to the history, people do not cheer for their parties. They do not identify with their parties as much as people do in the US, because they know politics is a dirty game and most politicians have to cater to lobbies to survive no matter if they are conservative, left, libetarian or green.
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