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

Now there's a frightening fellow, him and Ken Kesey, woof!
I mean, I've read him, but...I've read them both, but I prefer Steinbeck...he did fewer drugs.

" Italians, French, Germans, Japanese, whatever, can all converse very happily in English." - Yep, they speak a standardised english which the germans call 'Oxford English'

Everbody else speaks their own local variant, usually unintelligible to anyone from more than (in the case of some of the British variants) twenty miles away. Hence the need for a standardised written english that we can all understand. This being the BBC, British by definition, the insistence on British english seems understandable.

Yank bashing persists because SOME yanks ask for it. (By no means all, but whoever notices the quiet reasonable people?) I'm speaking as a Brit who lived in the USA for several years and has a lot of good friends there still.

Some Brits ask for it too, just not as loudly, and I have no shortage of Irish, Kiwi, american, and continental european friends to remind me of that fact. But there are more americans, and they have a disproportionately large impact on the world, than any other group so they tend to get noticed first.

Plus, and this is really hard to define exactly, americans are ... well... different. There is a really huge gap between the american world picture and everybody else's. I'm not going to go into specifics because there is always someone who has a story to disprove any point that any one else makes - you just can't generalise. But spend a lot of time talking to americans and eventually you run into a wall of incomprehension. Or maybe you are the wall. I know I have been.

Hope this helps. Humour is what helps us with adversity. Also, humoUr has a you in it.

SB

*two* youse, surely?

You just mentioned how Americans out number us all so massively - American is such a big country after all and the European nations are so very small in comparison. America is one of the biggest countries in the world, so its influence is heard around the world, there are simply more Americans so naturally their voice is the loudest.

This was something i believed myself for a long while - but it's a fallacy. The disproportion of which you speak is huge, and one which, certainly here in the UK (where we are ridiculously Americophile) this is a massive misconception. Just as when you meet a star from TV or Films in real life, they always seem so small, we spend so much time looking up at America as this big important beautiful shining example to us all, that it becomes bigger in our eyes. And i think it's the same in the States (that's certainly the impression i get from working with American schoolkids) it's so easy to point to a map and say to kids "look how big and important America is", and not say "but of course it's empty". But at least the US don't resort to drawing themselves bigger on the map that they are so as to make themselves look more prominent in the world as the British used to.

The USA is the 4th largest country in world and the Third most populous (though i think Brazil is closing in). So no dispute that it is big - but a lot of those tiny countries such as the UK (almost forty times smaller) have a much larger population that their size belies (population a quarter of the US). Equally the USA is the richest country in the world in terms of Gross National Product (7 billion)

The statistics:

America (Physical size) 9,400,000 km2
UK 240,000 km2
France 540,000
Germany 360,000
Mexico 2,000,000
Australia 7,700,000
Russia 17,000,000 (largest)
India 3200,000
China 9,600,000 (3rd Largest)
Canada 9,900,000 (2nd largest)
Israel 20,000

America (Population) 240,000,000 (Third most populous country)
UK 59,000,000 (Approximately one quarter of the USA)
France 56,000,000
Germany 79,000,000 (One third of the USA)
Mexico 110,000,000 (Almost half)
Australia 17,000,000 (One twelfth)
Russia 150,000,000 (Over half - 5/8)
India 890,000,000 (Three and a half times more - 2nd most populous country)
China 1,200,000,000 (Five times the USA - Most populous country in world)
Israel 4,6000,000 (One fiftieth of the USA)

Richest nations (of around 190 countries):
1. America 7 billion.
2 Japan 5 billion
3 Germany 2.5 billion
4 France 1.5 billion
5 UK 1.4 billion
6 Italy 1.1 Billion
7 China 1 billion
8 Brazil 800,000 million
9 Canada 500,000 million
13 Russia 400,000 million
14 Australia 380,000 million
15 India 350,000 million
16 Mexico 300,000 million

What does this prove? Nothing. But it's an interesting point when we talk about how important countries think they are. There are five more countries in the world with populations in excess of 100 million people other that the six i've mentioned here. Could you work out who they are without looking it up? The nations of Europe have a disproportionate voice in the world too, as can be seen here, and all of the Group of Eight nations have more power than perhaps the number of people they represent should dictate.

The point i was making there was that there are not as many US citizens as you might at first think (though there are a lot, and though the American voice is disproprtionatly loud, the voices of other G8's are as disproportionate.

I think there's a real distinction between
"What's wrong with Americans"
and
"What's wrong with America"
and much of the discussion here seems to be on the latter topic.

If we were talking about Britain, there are definitely many things wrong here, and some things wrong with the culture and government are mirrored in the beliefs and actions of some Britons.

I'm embarrassed by the home and overseas behaviour of some Britons, and by the attitudes of fellow citizens towards various sections of the population here, and to foriegners, many apparently partially driven by sections of the UK media.

Similar discussions could focus on France - I don't like certain aspects of the government culture on the other side of the channel, but most of the French people I've met have been really pleasant.
Likewise, most of the Americans I've met are really decent people.

Many citizens of many nations believe their country is the best in the world. Unfortunately, few people anywhere are anything like fully informed, and the semi-religious aspects of nationalism taken too far can help to supress doubts about the actions of imperfect governments.

When a country is relatively small or powerless, there's a limit to how much damage their government can do elsewhere.
The British Empire did many things wrong, to some extent, they were done because they could be done, rather than being solely due to any national character flaws in the people as a whole, or in an average citizen.
It's also easy for people to use the circular logic that because their country is powerful or effective, it must also be 'right'.

I do keep saying it, but i can't agree with you more - there's nothing wrong with Americans, just America as a state - that said Americans do seem to have a problem in that they take any criticism of their country as a personal attack.

I love Americans, i hate America. That's understandable isn't it?

No. But I believe it.

That word. B****r... related to the or originating from the word 'bulgarian', because the French allegedly believed that the Bulgarians were into the practice. In fact Louis XVI called someone a bulgarian when he clearly meant the other...

I taught my 3 year old to say Bulgarian when he picked up the other word when he was at kindergarten. I feel sorry now for those people from a certain Eastern European country denigrated by this...

IN NZ thanks to a certain advert., the word has been declared acceptable, after a complaint about said advert. So, when cursing the computers in my special needs class, I'd say "Toyota Advert", so my students wouldn't pick up the B word.

Lentilla, evidently I came across the same source, but remembered it as Dutch...

My list of truly great Americans:
Dorothy Day
Carl Sagan
Noam Chomsky
Stephen King
Brendan Manning (Catholic priest and writer)
Gene Roddenberry
Michael Moore


I know there are more, especially more women, but I am going blank now, for some reason. Maybe hunger... or need of a fix...

....need of a fix?...a fix of what

Isn't Michael Moore Canadian?

Terrible news! Andrea Pia Yates has been found *guilty* of *capital murder* and as I write, the jury are considering the death penalty. What???!!! The woman is clearly insane, and I have no doubt that she'll be 'given' the death penalty. In what universe is *that* sane behaviour?

What's wrong with some Americans (65% was the latest figure I saw) support capital punishment - is that an euphemism?)That and the fact that in some states, Texas especially, one's mental state makes no difference! Dubya is said to take a fiendish delight in the execution of what Americans call the 'retarded'

The USA was the first country to pass eugenics laws, sterilising the 'unfit', and the last to remove them from the statute books. If circumstances were different, the USA might have beaten the Nazis to it, with extermination camps. If the Romans were the Nazis of the ancient world, then modern North Americans might be called the Nazis of the C21st!

I make no apologies.I am spitting tacks angry. The Texans will kill a woman with post-natal psychosis. They have executed people with IQs lower than 65. This is the country that calls itself the most civilised in the world!

Terrible news! Andrea Pia Yates has been found *guilty* of *capital murder* and as I write, the jury are considering the death penalty. What???!!! The woman is clearly insane, and I have no doubt that she'll be 'given' the death penalty. In what universe is *that* sane behaviour?

What's wrong with some Americans (65% was the latest figure I saw) support capital punishment - is that an euphemism?)That and the fact that in some states, Texas especially, one's mental state makes no difference! Dubya is said to take a fiendish delight in the execution of what Americans call the 'retarded'

The USA was the first country to pass eugenics laws, sterilising the 'unfit', and the last to remove them from the statute books. If circumstances were different, the USA might have beaten the Nazis to it, with extermination camps. If the Romans were the Nazis of the ancient world, then modern North Americans might be called the Nazis of the C21st!

I make no apologies.I am spitting tacks angry. The Texans will kill a woman with post-natal psychosis. They have executed people with IQs lower than 65. This is the country that calls itself the most civilised in the world!

"Dubya is said to take a fiendish delight in the execution of what Americans call the 'retarded'"

So when's *his* number up?

I think people's main objection to American politics and behaviour abroad is that they give the impression that the rest of the world is there for the taking. This does of course refer to *all* Americans. Yes, all of them. Even you. Yes, you.

But seriously, I think it may be the hypocracy of the freedom/fascism dual nature thing. The land of the free is confused - there is the death penalty, spying, abuse of human rights and all the rest of it. But you are also free to set up a private army (as long as you don't call it a private army) and buy guns over a counter. But not booze if you're under 21 - weird.
Also, this freedom depends on a pledge of allegence - I pledge to subscribe to the freedom endorsed by the government of the USA. Freedom with strings.

Frogbit (not yank bashing - genuinely curious about national duality)

ps - Bush takes fiendish delight in getting his boots on the right feet (ie, his own).

The state of Georgia (i think) yesterday murdered (oh sorry! did i say murdered? I of course ment 'justly executed in the name of god') a British man. I think that America's (by that i mean the government, not the people) intolerance, and ignorance, of other nations is one of the reasons why many people dislike dislike americans.

Recentley we here in Britain have had to accept American steel import tariffs, despite our consistent support in "the war on terrorism". This is just one example of the USA's hypocrisy in its actions. If one of its major export countries such as Canada, or Europe, tried to do such a thing, Bush would be complaining to the WTO or NAFTA faster than you can say "a redneck stole the whitehouse".

This relatively mild action has annoyed many British politicians and the public. The Times newspaper carried a cartoon showing Dubya 'stabbing the UK in the back'. Now imagine how p****d off many of the other countries that the USA has ripped off must be.

re: "murdered a British man", you gloss over a couple of points. First, there wasn't the slightest doubt that he was guilty of strangling a hitch-hiker, and second, as far as I'm aware, he was only "technically" British, in that his American parents just happened to be staying on British soil when he was born, and he only brought up the subject of his dual nationality *after* he was caught - up until then he was a good little American...

Does it matter where the guy was from? What matters is that a country saw fit to kill someone because he killed someone else.
Same attitude killed more people in Afghanistan than died in the Twin Towers. That doesn't seem to be of importance to the (vocal) majority, though, as American lives are vastly more important than a bunch of cowering, poor, dirty Arabs lives.
Any eye for an eye will result in a blind world.
A tooth for a tooth, however, will result in increased porridge sales (but don't tell the WTO, or they'll increase the tarrifs on oats and pliers imports).

Hell yes we executed that guy. He deserved it. He raped and then murdered a woman. There is no doubt of his guilt. He's just the sort of person we have the death penalty for. He was kept in prison just a few miles from me. He doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as I do, or any of you for that matter.

I don't think the fact that a person's crime is horrific should be a defense that they can present at trial. In this case the jury evaluated the evidence that it was given, and it decided that she acted with intent to kill.

Here's a link to an NPR article about it: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20020313.me.10.ram. There's a deeper analysis of the insanity defense that was on today, but the link won't be available until later tonight.

These people commit such heinous crimes that I don't think we should have to suffer them to live.