h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Said Blair of the United Kindom Of Great Britain And Northern Ireland.

By what measure is he correct?

Me and mi typos...

I'd pretty much go along with Tim Dowling's suggestions:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,2077284,00.html

But he forgot to mention Ale & Turner.

i traveled a bit when in the merchant navy . i can honestly say we have the best beer . and after enjoying and experiencing many different cultures , i was always glad to come home and drink some of it after 6 or 7 months away .


best fishes......tod

By his own lights, then yes, the UK probably *is the greatest country on earth

Having traveled a bit, I can only be confident enough to say it's certainly unique.

Oh yes.

And the beer is pretty good, too. Not the best, certainly, but pretty good.

But then, Tony didn't interfere much with the breweries... did he?

And you got all that food and candy with mint in it.

Well I wake up every morning and thing, thank god I’m not an American , and when ever I’m in France I freak out,
so many foreigners are desperate to get here ,so I think we must be the greatest.

Whilst we may be the greatest nation on Earth, TB and his cronies have done their best to bring us down to the standards of the rest of the world.

RF

Get a load of this, Johnny Foreigner!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ2FOBxshWY

Good old traditional dancing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7ytMspgJ5A

Very multicultural too! They've even blacked up for it.

sadly,no more

This is how they do it these days.

http://www.rathergood.com/morris_dancers/

>>Said Blair of the United Kindom Of Great Britain And Northern Ireland.<<

But isn't that what Shrub says about the US?


I find it really weird that anyone would think that one place was the best in the world. I mean, by all means love somewhere, but to make an objective statement that somewhere is the greatest is idiotic IMO. There are good things and crap things about everywhere, and any place that says it's the greatest can easily be shown its shortcomings

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I find it really weird that anyone would think that one place was the best in the world. I mean, by all means love somewhere, but to make an objective statement that somewhere is the greatest is idiotic IMO. There are good things and crap things about everywhere, and any place that says it's the greatest can easily be shown its shortcomings >

well said

best fishes .....tod

Besides, we all know NZ has it zipped up

Don't tell everyone!

Well its the nation I'm happiest living in but thats probably mostly familiarity.

Greatest nation on Earth
Not in terms of anything measureable. "Great" nations come and go, I'd be happier if we concentrated on making it a decent place to live for everybody.

"I find it really weird that anyone would think that one place was the best in the world"

Why?

The world is heterogeneous, i.e. not all of it is the same. Therefore, some bits will be, by definition, "better" by some measurement than other bits. This is simply inevitable.

You might just as well say you find it really weird that anyone would think one kind of food was the best in the world.

And if some bits are better than other bits, then again inevitably some bit will be better than ALL other bits. Nothing weird about that at all.

The only possible thing you may find weird is how one person or group of people define "better" or "best". Obviously different people's criteria will be different. One could attempt to apply an objective standard, such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So let's look at that:

1. Physiological needs.
The need to eat, drink, breathe, poo, pee and have sex. In many countries not all of these can be taken for granted. We can cross those ones off the list.

2. Safety/security.
Safety from violence, secure employment, security of health. Again, there are countries where these needs are not met. Iraq, for instance...

3. Love/social needs
Need for friendship, family relationships and sexual intimacy. Probably available in most countries.

4. Esteem needs
The need to be respected, to have self-respect, and to respect others. From the sort of behaviour one can see on the news, there are many countries where self-respect and respect for others seems to be in short supply.

5. Cognitive/aesthetic needs
The need to be intellectually and artistically stimulated. A luxury more readily experienced in the developed world, probably.

6. Self-actualisation
One of the trickiest - the need to make the most of oneself and one's gifts. Again, a luxury, and it's arguable in which country this need is best met. I think the UK does pretty well. (It goes without saying, I think, that all the other needs up to this point are met and exceeded easily in the UK).

I don't agree with Maslow's position on self-transcendence, so I'm leaving that one out, but you could argue that Britain, secular as it is becoming, actually doesn't do too well on that one. The alternative, however, is too likely to be an irrational theocracy, so I don't consider that a "need". I don't need it, for sure.

Are we the best country in the world? I wouldn't want to live anywhere else, but then any resident of Australia, Canada, the US, Germany or France could say the same, most likely.

One criterion I do agree with is this: asylum seekers, fleeing "terrible persecution", yadda yadda, blah blah, do somehow seem to manage to flee it very effectively, passing through perfectly civilised countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Germany on their way here before demanding to be allowed to stay. I have never yet heard any convincing argument why an African asylum seeker who has made it to France should be permitted to live here. They've got away from the threatening situation - they're safe. We in the UK therefore have NO obligation to them. The fact that these people continue to come in droves to these shores, rather than staying in any of the supposedly perfectly safe countries they've passed through on the way here, suggests that to their fairly objective view, the UK really is the best place to be.

SoRB

The immigration argument isn't quite that simple - populations tend to flock together, whatever the situation.

Thus we have a record of immigration/asylum seekers from the Far East, particularly the sub-continent and Sri Lanka, as well as southern Africa. France tends to get asylum seekers from west and North Africa, and for some reason Germany gets the Turks.

It would be interesting to see if Spain has a record of immigration/asylum seeking from South America. Judgeing from the make up of their football teams I wouldn't be at all suprised.

As to whether we are the greatest nation of earth...well, we one of a very select few that still play Rugby Union and Cricket to a decent international standard, but on the other hand we no longer have a monopoly on decent beers, and we don't do gridiron and baseball.

Whicvh is probably what would matter to me most in the long run.