Europeans are stupid

[SneakySneaky]

And our politicians say prices for several commodities should be risen to levels of EU states, but who will then rise our salaries?

That is so true.  I believe this to be a problem in every country that has joined the EU (Greece for sure).  Although the prices went up,  salaries didn't and that is really bad for the economy.  So I suppose there will be serious econmomical problems in the future  .

@ Iron Duke:  Good thinking about this thread.  Living in Greece where anti-americanism is extremely spread,  I'm always frustrated when I hear this bullshit about Americans being stupid!   Well, duh!  It happens everywhere.  It all depends on whether you ask an ignorant person or not.  Had you come to me I'd tell you that EU has 25 nations,  but if you'd ask some friend of mine he'd be wrong.  Does his/their answers make me stupid?  Why?

I'd praise you,  but you requested that people kicked you,  so I'll oblige and kick you again   

 

[JackKnife]

Provide evidence for that extremely rude generalization, which is a direct insult to some members of this board (including me) ... or develop the decency to retract it.

There is no reason for saying that americans are, on average, less educated than other people. Obviously, they are probably (on average again) far more educated than people in many other parts of the world. The problem isn't here. In Europe, we are "used" to consider that Americans have poor knowledge of e.g. geography. I can provide an example with this picture taken from CNN. How come people be aware of geography when TV shows that:

However, it is not good to make generalizations (although I like it as a matter of joke). The feeling we have in Europe that Americans are poorly educated comes from the fact that, given that USA is the world's first nation in terms of richness and power, one could suppose the inhabitants to be leaders in terms of culture and aducation as well.
But obviously, one can think that way about all European countries!

 

[Anonymous]

Woah, I live between Paris and France 

(It also looks like it's just a two-hour drive to Strassbourg)

 

[ScreamForMeZurich]

Switzerland got a new place too. I just wonder what happend to the Czech Republic...

 

[Raven]

There is no reason for saying that americans are, on average, less educated than other people. Obviously, they are probably (on average again) far more educated than people in many other parts of the world. The problem isn't here. In Europe, we are "used" to consider that Americans have poor knowledge of e.g. geography. I can provide an example with this picture taken from CNN. How come people be aware of geography when TV shows that:

However, it is not good to make generalizations (although I like it as a matter of joke). The feeling we have in Europe that Americans are poorly educated comes from the fact that, given that USA is the world's first nation in terms of richness and power, one could suppose the inhabitants to be leaders in terms of culture and aducation as well.
But obviously, one can think that way about all European countries!

To be fair, they got quite a few of the French cities in the correct locations.  Maybe they just needed to move the country name over to the right a little, to make room?  Or maybe America is supporting a potential French incursion into Germany?  Now, wouldn't that be a reversal of roles....

As for Natalie's comment, although I didn't read all of this thread (I'm tired), I would like to make the point that it was indeed a generalisation, and one that is not helped by the face of America that the vast majority of the rest of the world see.  As one of my Geography teachers once said; "I hate Americans.  I don't hate them individually-individually, they're very nice people.  But as a nation, they're horrible."  Perhaps this is the sentiment that Natalie was trying to get across, even if it is still a bit prejudiced.

 

[IronDuke]

Strasburg is eine deutsche Stadt!

Hoch Wilhelm! Nieder mit der Brut!

 

[Anonymous]

To be fair, they got quite a few of the French cities in the correct locations.  Maybe they just needed to move the country name over to the right a little, to make room?

Since you're obviously too tired to get an atlas, I'll do it for you:

-Strassbourg is placed roughly where Munich should be
-Toulouse is placed a little south of Liechtenstein
-Lyon is somewhere in the middle of nowhere (I think the closest city is Clermont)- it should also be northeast of Toulouse and not southwest
-Cannes should be slightly more to the east (by a few 100 km)
-Lille isn't even close to the sea

Only Paris and Rennes (two, not "quite a few") are somewhat accurately placed. As for moving the country name outside of the border, that's fine with me, but they should at least put some sort of arrow indicating where it should be. The last time the territory the country name is placed in was even close to being French was in 1813...

I don't expect people to know where Toulouse or Strasbourg are (I had to look up Lille and Rennes myself), but seriously, if they're going to place it on a map they are distributing to the public, they should get it right or just don't do it (not to mention they forgot two of France's biggest cities there).

 

[Raven]

Since you're obviously too tired to get an atlas, I'll do it for you:

-Strassbourg is placed roughly where Munich should be
-Toulouse is placed a little south of Liechtenstein
-Lyon is somewhere in the middle of nowhere (I think the closest city is Clermont)- it should also be northeast of Toulouse and not southwest
-Cannes should be slightly more to the east (by a few 100 km)
-Lille isn't even close to the sea

Only Paris and Rennes (two, not "quite a few") are somewhat accurately placed. As for moving the country name outside of the border, that's fine with me, but they should at least put some sort of arrow indicating where it should be. The last time the territory the country name is placed in was even close to being French was in 1813...

I don't expect people to know where Toulouse or Strasbourg are (I had to look up Lille and Rennes myself), but seriously, if they're going to place it on a map they are distributing to the public, they should get it right or just don't do it (not to mention they forgot two of France's biggest cities there).

Okay, I get you now.  The fact that they didn't show any borders confused me a bit, but now I see where Germany actually is...yes they did get most of them screwed up.   Still, at least Cannes is on the coast!  Credit where credit is due!

 

[Anonymous]

Not only that, it's even on the right coast 

 

[Raven]

Not only that, it's even on the right coast 

Now that's what threw me.  I thought, 'Hell, I don't even know where Cannes is; if they got Paris and Cannes in the general area...'

Bah; I stopped learning proper geography whenever I started my GCSE course.  Human geography is just depressing, but it's seen as more important than political geography....

Still, physical geography rocked...at least the Danube will still follow the same course in the next 100 years...God knows what countries it'll flow through, though....(to elaborate, our Geography department has wall maps printed in 1965)

 

[Anonymous]

Bah; I stopped learning proper geography whenever I started my GCSE course.

Yeah, I stopped learning proper geography when the other classes became interesting/important enough for me not to read my atlas all the time

 

[Urizen]

This [glow=red,2,300]thread [/glow] has a life of its own.

Good way of learning geography is playing a board game called "Risiko", and also computer games called "Total war medieval", and "TW Rome". This is a nice way of learning history as well. If you get tired of books, that is.

 

[Anonymous]

Good way of learning geography is playing a board game called "Risiko", and also computer games called "Total war medieval", and "TW Rome". This is a nice way of learning history as well. If you get tired of books, that is.

I recommend books nevertheless. These games are a lot of fun, but they teach very little history apart from what happened on the battlefields.

 

[Raven]

I recommend books nevertheless. These games are a lot of fun, but they teach very little history apart from what happened on the battlefields.

That reminds me; I have a copy of 'Great Battles of the World' upstairs, with full colour 3D representations of everything from Little Bighorn to Port Arthur to Arnhem and Iwo Jima...must dust it off one day!

 

[Urizen]

I've just looked at my brother's favourite game "Civilisation 4", and it has this in-game encyclopedia called Civilopedia that is like a big history book with all kinds of information, military history, inventions, historical figures, terrain...

Though I completely agree with Perun(the Slavic thunder God). Books are much better, not to mention they affect the eyes less.

This thread just moved in a new direction.

 

[Albie]

I think the biggest problem with JackKnife's map is that the lettering is so huge that the creator of this map had to nudge the odd city along a bit to cater for the name tags. An example is that Toulouse sits somewhere underneath the Lyon graphic.

And I'll agree with Natalie, this is not stupidity it really is ignorance. Been in the UK I can assure you, the EU (for some petty reason) means very little to us (hence the 1 in ten result). I really can't defend this apathy - blame the likes of The Sun (or to make my case stronger, click here - shame on us. No, stick all the blame you want on our media).

Most of our trade is done inside the EU, we all holiday more so in countries that have the Euro than any other, so why do we seem to distance ourselves from them?

 

[Urizen]

I guess if UK thought it could benefit from being a member of the EU it would be in it already.
People on this thread said lots about pros and cons of membership in the EU, so maybe leaders in Britain just measured them and thought the cons outweighed the pros, and therefore decided not to be a member.

 

[Anonymous]

The UK is in the EU

 

[Albie]

The UK is a member of the EU (since Harold Wilson's days I think), it is just our current government choose not to convert our currency to the Euro - possibly of fear of a massive backlash.

 

[Urizen]

And we are right back on the topic. Yes, there definitely are some stup...hmm... uninformed Europeans after all.

  I've just made one of the biggest contributions to this thread- a proof for the original subject of the thread. Some good can come from ignorance after all.

This thread... It is alive, I'm telling you!