Topic: How Americans are? Tell an European.

There’s always Uber and Lyft.

Quoted for truth. While I like living in a predominantly rural area, it's pretty much a given to have a driver's license and access to a vehicle. We have a taxi service out of a nearby town for people who can't drive for whatever reason, and there is a small bus that transports senior citizens. There is an Amtrak station not too far away, but it isn't always reliable; part of this is because freight train companies own the vast majority of the rail network here, so more often than not the freight trains take priority.

Religion (Christianity mostly) is quite common in my area. A few people can be judgmental and intolerant, sure, but a lot of people here are nice, normal, and quite willing to not give out snap judgments. The ones that usually give religion a bad name (not always necessarily related to Christianity either) are the extremists that are what I'd consider a very vocal minority. As a practicing Christian, I feel that we should love and welcome others no matter their shortcomings.

@NEStalgia: I know that I grossly oversimplified unemployment, but it'd take a novel just to explain everything. And that would only be for my state!

You are correct about the rise in contracted/part-time/temp employment, and the use of it to get out of paying benefits is something that bothers me. I'm a contractor as well, but I do work for a parent company presently.

@ReaderRagfihs Interesting. I live in the suburbs and even though I’m pretty far from dowtown, I can easily get a lift to wherever.

As much as I enjoy having the freedom to drive anywhere I want, I share this envy. My current commute isn't bad by any means, but that time will more than double if I get a job that I'm applying for.

I think there's an Uber driver around here, but I've heard it's hard to catch him when he's open for business.

@Link-Hero As long as you don’t go into depth, I’m pretty sure it’s fine. The worst you could get is a warning.

I'm just posting in here because the first page was a ****ing warzone lul.

I'm an American (New Yorker) living in South Korea. I've been here for almost 7 years now. Before I came to Korea, I never really traveled outside of the US, so I'm sure I had pretty stereotypical views of Europeans just due to general ignorance. But since I moved to Korea, I've had the chance to travel a lot, and it has really broadened my perspective. I've obviously made a bunch of Korean friends, my wife is Chinese, so I've met a lot of Chinese people through her, and Korea has pretty tight expat communities, so I've made close friends from all over the place (namely the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa). My main takeaway is that despite there being some cultural and/or country-specific differences, we mostly just have a ton of stuff in common. I've traveled to Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan, China, Greece, and Italy since I've been here, and while it's cool to see different cultures and ways of life in action, when it boils down to it, we're all humans. Cool people are cool people, no matter what country they're from, and similarly, d-bags will be d-bags. I don't know, I just kind of feel like even though we're all different, we're also all kind of the same.

On specific cultural differences, I really have to say that tipping throws me for a loop now. There's no tipping in Korea. It took me a while to get used to it, but now I am. Every time I go back to the US to visit, I always forget to tip someone at least once or twice, and I feel terrible about it. I also didn't know what to do when I was in Europe. I read online that it's still considered good form to tip for good service, so we always did, but I think we went overboard. Got great service at the places we frequented during the trip though!

In my country Bulgaria, the typical American stereotype is that they are fat and stupid.

For one I love the American culture. I do not know why but they gave so much entertainment to the world.
I love American movies, TV series etc. I do not like their political views right now because the political correctness there is killing the advancement of their culture and the culture of the World in general.

Some day I would love to go there and see that wonderful country.

I would also love to be able to buy things online from USA without paying 40$ on every order because of our idiotic customs

Mate. Can't you tell I'm just having a bit of a laugh? I mean, I'm more of a let's-all-work-together guy, rather than a looking-out-for-ourselves guy. Sure, the EU has it's issues, but I still think we're all better off banding together instead of everyone saying 'Yeah nope bye' when there's trouble. But that's just my opinion.

The language thing? Yeah, I'm all for everyone in the world learning a single language. Maybe an easy-to-learn one, like English. But that'd be quite the task, wouldn't it? I mean, it would definitely work out plenty of communication kinks. Plenty of people will see it as an obligation, though. Or as an invasion on their culture. Or they'll go 'Why can't we all just learn Spanish/Chinese/Indian/etc.' instead of seeing the benefits.

Also, I said 4-ish. My Dutch and English are quite good. German is decent. French... well, I can understand most of what someone's saying, and I can do basic replies, but my vocabulary is rather limited.

I used to speak Portugese, but I never bothered with it anymore after my (Portugese) ex dumped me.

@ReaderRagfihs @Blitzenexx so I’m not misunderstood, folks around here are pretty “live and let live” when it comes to religious beliefs. There’s some that still believe Catholics worship Mary and things like that, but I’m totally able to have civilized discussions about beliefs around here. It’s pretty nice. I still haven’t met any of the “My way or Hell” folks. Or maybe they’re nice enough to keep their personal beliefs, well, personal. Which really isn’t much different than keeping your sleeping habits to yourself 😂
I think in the south it’s just a given that many people believe in something, and that goodwill toward each other is more important than a Crusade. And I’m Catholic, we love a good Crusade. (Kidding, internet)

@Blitzenexx @ReaderRagfihs Ahh yeah the joys of "car culture" are one of the biggest, and worst things. And worse, with constant building, construction, repairs, utility work, ever more population being crammed in every year but not a single new road in site, getting anywhere consumes your life. What used to be a 15 minute trip to the shopping area is now 45 minutes if you're lucky. So realistically between getting to a shopping location, doing shopping (in 4 different parking lots, each with 5-10 minutes travel between) a shopping trip is easily a 5 hour project minimum. Basically a full work day to do shopping. I'd give anything for trains and light rail.

Fun fact, for @BlueOcean we used to have tons of light rail, probably the most in the world. Then in the 50's they approved the interstate highway project that replaced the railroads which were slowly going bankrupt, in part to the fact that passenger rail wasn't allowed to trim its stops to profitable locations, it was regulated and forced to stop everywhere, meaning it slowly went bankrupt. Plus the government used the rails to excess moving around muitions and heavy equipment for WWII, and never actually paid the railroads for the upkeep, so the roadbeds turned to mud. Public sentiment was against the RR companies because they were the GOOGL/AMZN/AAPL/FCEBK of their generation who held all other industry under their boot. So the taxes to fund the highway development were applied against the railroads....they forced the already struggling railroads to actually pay for cars to replace themwhich accelerated rail decline. But worse, light rail was still profitable. In the late 50's, 60's and 70's, the auto industry, particularly Firestone and GM, bought up nearly all the light rail in the country for the purpose of dismantling it.....thus they could sell more cars/fuel/tires. We have "car culture" because the auto industry forced us to buy their products by removing all alternatives.

It goes back to: The purpose of our society is business investor success, and everything revolves around investment first. That happened in the depression. It's tin foil hat conspiracy, but there's that conspiracy that goes that the US actually failed and ceased to exist after the stock market crash of 1929 and is actually a private corporation now. That may be extreme in the tin foil, but there's also a large grain of truth to it. The market crashed in '29, and the government back then was small as designed, and rather than some huge national treasury, most of it's money was in investment in the market. It was a small, streamlined organization that ran on meager funding, just as those wise British revolutionaries designed it. The government more or less went bankrupt with the market crash. Then J. P. Morgan walks into the White House....walks out a while later, and announces that an agreement was met to keep the government funded and running. Some time later we get the Federal Reserve. This is the treasury underpinning the value of our national wealth. Few people realize, the Federal Reserve, located in D.C. is not a public institution. It is not part of the government. It is not democratically representative of the public. It is a private organization.....founded by.....the Morgans. So did a handful of super rich bankers basically buy the USA in 1929? How much tin foil you use is up to you. Though it's relevant that that is the exact problem that other wise Brit Jefferson warned about happening back when setting up the government to begin with. And we find ourselves now amidst the central banking cartels controlling things that he specifically made a point of warning against allowing to happen.

It also underscores the idea that the US, culturally, is just a different region of the UK more than anything. Everything underpinning it was based on British thinking during the enlightenment era and the trendy rejection of hereditary governance of the era, following the logical path starting with the Magna Carta.

@Zuljaras I don't know, I think art/entertainment here has kind of been stagnated for a long time. We used to do it great, but it's been sanitized/commercialized/commoditized/homogenized over the last 15 years to a point where it's just plasticize and empty. Real art/creativity of course does exist, and is unique, but it's more niche for those looking for it, and not what you see in your face all over. Music was really stagnated, but seems to be coming back to its own though, slowly but surely.

@Bart_T @edhe to reverse the tables as an American looking at the UK, the American perspective from someone more Jeffersonian in politics, which is to follow classical British political thinking than modern, and as someone old enough at the time to remember it, I always thought it was beyond idiotic for the UK to join the EU to begin with. It was always a one way deal, and it was always plain to see it was a one way deal. The focus on Brexit is on what's lost by leaving the EU, and yeah, that's painful, but the pain of ending bad arrangements is the best reason to not begin them from the start. There wouldn't be the pain of breaking it all part once you're used to it later. It was a bait and switch. The UK entered in under the original concept of the EU where it was just a trade pact, and blithely pretended that the EU wasn't lining up their ducks to take over the currency and apply oversight as well. The thing is the UK didn't need the EU to still be a significant partner with the EU...it's not Estonia, it at the time was a hugely successful independent economic power that would have had almost all the same trade power with the EU it has from within, without any of the negative consequences. Of course serious political palm greasing is required to have bought that vote to begin with. So Brexit is, as an outsider, a mixed bag. Now that everything is based on it being there, it sucks to have to go through breaking it all down, but on the other hand, it's a rare political undo button on what was a poor deal from the start. And manipulative "leaders" count on the fact that "all we have to do is force this on everyone now, and then in time, they'll come to rely on it being there and won't want to change it", and they approach everything that way. Some spin Brixiters as anti-EU, but I don't think you have to be against someone to decide that entering in a bad financial contract with them isn't smart. You might love your crazy surfer dude brother...but you might not want to co-sign his boat loan... EU's a good thing for most of it's member states. But for UK the situation was quite fair before signing in and becoming a loan bank to float other country's debts. For DE they bear even greater brunt of the financial burden but seem to enjoy using that to have effective total control of their neighbors, which makes sense that their vulnerability to their neighbors is what made their history so volatile. Plus it ties into the never-ending "we're sorry for our Nazis" self-loathing campaign their government seems to enjoy. The UK got to float the debts, and got no real power over other nations in exchange. Who would sign that contract? A paid for politician, that's who. There's only the trouble of breaking it apart because someone was foolish or corrupt enough to set it up to begin with. I think France has a similar position to UK. Why are they in it? The very concept of the EU (which is based heavily on the concept of the US union of states, ore more specifically the Articles of Confederation, which we unfortunately destroyed and removed forever through the American Civil War) ends up being broken when you have a few of the world's largest economies mixed in with dozens of minuscule ones. You either end up with the big ones paying for the small ones, or the big ones controlling the small ones. The latter being the original situation the EU was supposed to prevent in the first place.

@JackEatsSparrows Yeah, I never understood this view, especially among younger folks that America is this religious obsessed super state. Even going back to the 50's when most of the population was practicing Christians, it was just a central shared part of people's values, social activities, etc, not this militant campaign of spreading the gospel etc. etc. I don't know where that view came from. Do those militantly religious groups exist? Sure. But they exist everywhere.

traditionally in the founding period, we probably got that reputation back in Europe because half the point of the country was as a refuge for "non-conformist" religious types that tended to be highly orthodox (and usually were control freak social engineering dbags that bothered everyone else...Puritans, Amish, Quakers, Shakers, etc. But also Catholics in England, and non-Catholic Christians everywhere else in Europe.) I.E. it was the government-enforced religiousness of Europe & GB that forced non-conformist religious followers to seek the US since it was an anything-goes sanctuary for other religious bases.

But in the modern era? Other than TV who fear-mongers whatever gets ratings and promotes their politics, I have no idea where this "everyone is a born-again religious zealot across the US" idea comes from. Not just for foreigners but even a lot of young people here (plus washed up hippies.) You would think Far Cry 5 was a documentary if you trust these people.

@NEStalgia That whole thing is why I heart you as a human and appreciate your discussions.

"Lets all work together" is a good idea when you have a predetermined set of goals that everyone agrees on (e.g joining forces to win a war).
If you don't agree on the goals however, more people just leads to more inner conflict and chaos. That's what's happened with both the EU and the US.

@JackEatsSparrows Awww, shucks

@ReaderRagfihs Well I have US cartridges but someone else imported them first.

But the American versions of many games are better then EU. In EU many games could be language locked or German (censored) games. I got Half-Life 2 and ALL the blood in the game was black for you know the sensitive people.

Also the it is very hard for European to find certain games here. Like there are so many games from the USA region that their counterparts are just almost non existent here or if they are they are 50-100$ more expensive.

So yeah if my consoles are not region locked I would buy all my games for USA. Here I have to search for the UK version if I want to be sure my game will have English.

I had made couple of these mistakes or the people who sold it to me never listed the language lock.

@Zuljaras I remember in the 90's when all violent games were banned in Germany. Unreal and Quake were simply contraband there.

So....naturally there were lots of German players online.....

@JackEatsSparrows: That's how a lot of folks are around here when it comes to religion really. That or, like you said, they just keep a lot of things to themselves. 😂

@NEStalgia: Dang. I knew about the decline of the railroad industry and in fact can still easily trace the route of some local tracks that were taken out in the 70s (I spent an unhealthy amount of time on Google Maps in college). I just didn't know the auto industry had that much to do with it. I enjoy the freedom of having a car, but I'd also love for public transportation to be more accessible outside of the cities and their suburbs since I DON'T always want to drive everywhere. I'd usually just chalked the lack of that up to the fact that the US is just so large by some standards....Similar thinking as to why most of the country (geographically) still has to rely on crappy satellite internet.

I consider myself a member of the tl;dr post club here at times, but....Where do you find the time to type all that? XD There's a reason why I normally check the forums in the evenings (barring notifications, obviously).

By "shortcomings", I meant that nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. People have a right to be loved despite all that. Everyone is unique in their own way, and that's okay! May I disagree with someone's opinions on certain ideas and subjects? Yes. But that doesn't make them any less of a person.

Part of our perception of US is also based on stereotypes, like mistrustful conservative ignorant fat old men with shotguns in the southern inland states and the fashionable junk-food eaters of New York.

Back to your comment, it's fascinating how the different regions in US have been defined under different influences.

The weather is being wonky over here too and depending on the country and area it can be sunny and warm or windy and rainy and everything in between. My father, who visited US several times, used to tell me the northeast part is completely European culture-wise.

Those stereotypes are probably even more popular in the US. There aren’t many rednecks here, but they ones that exist sure aren’t afraid to show it. The stuff that defines NY state aren’t the people, it’s the Statue of Liberty, Trump Tower, and 9/11.

And North Eastern US really does live up to the name of New England, as none that I have seen sound American or act like those farther west and south. To be fair, most of the people I see around here are pure Southerners, so take that with a grain of salt.