Fun facts about the United States

F'n commoners. I shant read any more of this tripe.

I thought it was interesting and I wanted to share it.

That's about the percentage of illegal aliens. Maybe the question confused them...

In Los Angeles the Census Bureau estimates that about 60% of the residents don't speak English at home.

http://www.census.gov/acs/www/Products/Profiles/Single/2003/ACS/Tabular/160/16000US06440002.htm

Awrighty, then care to share your take on it?

Other than the annoyance at the lack of citations in the book, forcing me to crawl around online looking for verification...

The environmental ones weren't that surprising to me, partially because i'm rather cynical, but also because that's the field i'm probably going to be going into.

I think a lot of the "knowlege" ones stem from a lack of interest in how the government works, or in public service... and the "fact" ones due to how we do public education, but also an overall feeling that what happens outside of the U.S. isn't imporant.

The first three don't really mean anything on their own, this is true. However, they hint at the large amount of overconsumption in the U.S. that a lot of people don't really notice.

(I didn't want to go through them point by point... i'm not coherent enough to make that long of a post even nearly interesting enough to read)


Whether you agree with the conclusions or not, whether you think they are fake and do your own research to corroborate them... there's a discussion on the topics. Frankly, that's the most important thing. If there's no discussion than nothing can ever get better.

I can respect that.

Too tired right now to make much of a reply, but I spent most of my weekend so far with a group of teachers, and it's been a real eye-opener to hear what's going on with kids and in schools these days.

Perhaps... but I think you paint a little too much conspiracy into it.

I think it just boils down to return on investment, companies will put their money and efforts into things that help them the most. Whether that's influencing politicians... changing laws... massive marketing campaigns... with enough funding they can and do change our world.

Personally, I think that critical reasoning has become "out of fashion", because our society's norms are so scrambled at the moment that people feel lost and are making compromises in order to better fit in.

We can blame media for that and business, but I think it comes down to the fact that as a population we're very transient. Folks leave friends and family to take jobs in far away cities, and/or spend insane amounts of time just getting from place to place.

It's all compromise, from the top to the bottom, and it erodes our perspective.

I mean seriously, take something like Iraq...

The federal government goes into debt, to back the military and make defense contractor fat cats richer.

It gets away with it because politicians want the jobs that that money supports through going through their towns so their voters will be employeed and successful, and happy enough to re-elect them.

If demand for armaments slacks, hey, just go more into debt and give money to Israel so they can buy weapons from us to help our economy along.

Everybody makes out great, they've got jobs, SUV's, pet psychologists, if they want something they can't afford, heck do like the government... go BUY money today to get the things you don't really need.

And some day, there'll be a margin call. Hopefully, after I'm dead.

Only you would challange pure facts. But then, Dictator George is changing pure facts to meet his needs every single day and the Republicans are doing their best to get the rest of the nation to obey. One also wonders if IWTSTDCTOC is just a buzz word

The World Wonders

Quoted from Magnum Serpentine.


Those 'facts' are hardly 'pure', but YOU will cite ANYTHING that makes the republican party and the president LOOK bad, no matter what the source. They don't need your help. They make themselves look bad as it is. Oh, and so do the democrats.

Who me? All I was saying was that we're in this mess because everyone compromises to get what they want.

If that makes The Compromiser in Chief look bad, well... he needs to adjust his "I'm the decider" role a little.

Well first off, I have AR'd the original poster for trolling.

Secondly, your fun facts mean nothing. Most statistics mean nothing. Statistics in a vacuum mean less than nothing. So Americans eat a lot of fast food -- so what. So do other countries. Unless you compare that number to what other countries and also look at the size of the other countries, the population of the other countriesm the nutritional content of the food that gets eaten and other salient facts, the amount of food, fast or otherwise, that is consumed in any one country is immaterial.

Lets take another of your fun facts. The size of a two-car garage. Japan is a tiny country compared to the US. Tokyo has a very large population. Therefore domiciles, garages, etc tend to be very small -- not just in Tokyo but in most of Japan. As a matter of fact, Japan has been very innovative in taking just about anything the world has to offer and making it smaller. Smaller, in the global scheme of things, is not necessary better globally. It is, however, necessary in Tokyo specifically and Japan generally. Your fun fact makes it seem as if every American has a two car garage which takes up the living space used by 100 Japanese people living in Tokyo and that simply is not the case.

There's a lot to dislike about America. There's a lot to like about America as well. You are using a page of statistics you got somewhere -- probably Harpers they love doing crap like this -- to try and paint some terribly ugly picture when it simply isn't true.

The rest of you -- don't feed the troll mmmkay?

Why? Even if the facts aren't accurate they still make interesting food for thought, no?

I bet you are american to, what is about some yanks that they take it all to heart when someone decries thier country? why AR the OP for posting some stats? I enjoyed reading them ive seen some equally crazy stats about our little island, but to take them personally so that u feel u have to AR the poster, well thats plain crazy imho

Stats can be manipulated at will your administration does it daily as does our government, they are generally not worth a jot, tho there is always truths within them and is it then the fact that the truth hurts?

Peace

I have issue with this line of logic. It's like the logic Ulrika used to use (way way back in the dark ages before she turned to pure evil) for some of her troll-wars... Like her "Sexual discrimination" rant based on the percentage of pictures on the homepage. Raw data used in a misleading fashion to force people to address an issue. Porky did the same thing.

If you want to criticise america, fine - we're far from perfect, it's easy to do. But don't resort to verbal prestidigitation to do it.

It gets old after a while.

Has anyone noticed that the OP is from the U.S.?

Most of us are already familiar with the OP, yes.

OK - I was just thinking that it made the AR even more ridiculous.

Woot my first troll!

I'm finally one of the gang! *cries*

Not you Jop. It was a reply to Magnum.

I'll take a step back on being "deliberately" dumbed down -- not because I think I'm wrong but because when push comes to shove, I don't have the data to prove it. On the point of the media being compromised, however, I will not budge. The data is there, and if it's data that points to conspiracy, guess what? Conspiracy is as old as history ... and probably older still.



Well, whether you believe it's conspiracy or mere "coincidence," the fact is that children are not taught to think critically. Chiefly, they're taught to jump through hoops and to absorb and regurgitate, verbatim, data (the actual truth or falsity of said data is not something they're especially taught to independently examine). Facts (and sometimes factoids) are simply packed into them, stuffing them in like sausages so that they can later spew them out onto homework and then test papers.

Memorization and critical thinking are by no means the same things.



How does this account for such widespread ignorance? Moving around does not prevent you from reading and learning. Only being kept from valid information (which is technically available but often very difficult to locate and differentiate from the garbage, like the proverbial needle in the haystack), being fed disinformation or incomplete and misleading information through easily accessed sources (i.e., network news), and not being taught how to think critically and separate the two can really account for it.



Um, it's a hell of a lot more than that. Aside from the amazing number of "coincidental" personal financial benefits our "leaders" have gained from the ongoing so-called "War on Terror," there's the fact that Peak Oil (and natural gas) is basically upon us. And, shockingly, "terrorists" just seem to pop up wherever oil and/or natural gas can also be found. I know, I know. Sheer coincidence.



I won't disagree that rampant consumerism is both very real and very unfortunate. As well, I positively loathe SUVs -- horrid, wretched gas-guzzling monsters that they are.



You'll have to die rather soon. We're already into the very beginning of the biggest resource war in the history of humankind, which is also, for all intents and purposes, World War III. And needless to say, resource wars by their very nature ironically deplete resources even faster, as it takes a lot to power an actively fighting military force (especially the U.S. military).

Call me a conspiracy theorist now (it's a popular, if silly, label), but I'm telling you something now: the future is not going to be pretty.

I was reading the story on CBS.com about the girl in Austria who was kidnapped and held captive for 8 years before she escaped. She was kidapped by an Austrian pedophile. One European poster claimed it was America's fault that it happened.

Funny how so many "facts" are really pretty meaningless if you think about them deeply. (ALOT of those fall into that category.) Unless they're put into a context like this where they can be misused to build up a propaganda style attack on someone, of course.

And the attack message will never be questioned or examined by anyone who agrees with the message. Then it's like: "OH LOOK! Those fat americans eat big hamburgers and buy things alot!!!1 What a bunch of looosers!!"

Glancing through that stupid list, the only/main thing that looks bad is the ignorance factor. But you'd be a fool to think that all Americans are ignorant and stupid.

It's called pride, patriotism and loyalty.

These concepts weren't always exclusive to Americans, and it is a fairly recent euro-trash sport to mock them as plebeian.

Also, while a family might occasionally discuss that their own child is ugly, it is generally considered impolite and rude for non-family to broach the subject.

Bullshit. Real patriots have the courage to step up and speak out. "Good Germans" wave flags and do what they're told.