Topic: The Chit-Chat Thread

Eh, I guess we were more like serfs.

@Zuljaras Enjoy the day!

@Zuljaras From the American perspective, your country was first discovered a mere 30 years ago!

@NintendoByNature " we weren't slaves to England. " A matter of semantics really. The only real dividing line between slavery and serfdom/peasant subjects is papers of ownership. Certainly neither are free. And "new world" peasants were second class subjects, a good portion of which were effectively banished from the UK to begin with. An island of misfit toys and rejects with no free will may not be technically "property" of a slaver, but as subjects of the crown, you're really owned by the crown all the same. The concept of "citizens" instead of "subjects" hadn't hit the UK at that point still.

@NEStalgia HAHAHA how so? Do even Americans know where Bulgaria is?

@Zuljaras Of course we do! It's next to Hungary and Wallachia, and Transylvania.
(I'm kidding, I do know. But I bet folks think 'Eastern Europe' and assume it's in the top-right tucked up to Russia)

@HobbitGamer I am assuming that the "30 years ago" is because around 30-31 years ago the Communist regime was brought down and we started developing again like a normal country

@NEStalgia good point.

@Zuljaras Sure we do, It's in Russia, with all the bears and stuff. EVERYONE knows that!

@HobbitGamer has the right of it. Everything East of Berlin = Russia in the US. And all are impoverished countries with an early 20th century level of technological advancement.

That's of course a stereotype and egregious parody of the American knowledge of geography, obviously it's not actually that bad, at least not universally, and is a bit of poking fun. But like all stereotypes it has its basis in at least some truth. At at least the US stereotype is based mostly on lack of knowledge and general apathy/disinterest in the region seen as otherwise uneventful.

There's also a practical reason that imagery persists here, though. A lot of people here of course have ancestry from various countries in Eastern Europe (half of which no longer exist), and most of those ancestors left there at a point where all that was pretty much true, so that's kind of the family legend everyone grows up hearing every generation. The last time great-great-great grandpa saw the place it really was Russia, destitute, backward, and with active human hunts on a regular basis. The history got kind of frozen in time to the last point the family was there in the early 20th century when it was a miserable, hopeless, living nightmare to be near (anywhere in Eastern Europe.) So it's not all plain ignorance, but sort of a "family tradition" a lot of people hear. No need to ever visit "the old country" that your nearest connection to was 3+ generations ago, so that overall mood of Communist era Eastern Europe kind of endures in the mind-share as "present" forever. Not all inaccuracies are 100% attributable to American ignorance

@NEStalgia HAAHHA! Nice. I have watched lots of videos when they were "new" about US Students given a map of Europe with the countries but no names. And they were tasked to write the names of the countries. It was lots of fun! It was similar to what you described. 80% of Europe was Russia and that was it

@Zuljaras Don't feel bad, those same kids would draw a US map that consists only of California, Texas, New York, and Disney. Canada would be Alaska, The Florida Keys would be Hawaii, and at least 30 states would be missing. There would be at least one New England State, a State of Chicago, and and Old Jersey would appear somewhere.

Those videos don't tend to reflect kids on a scholarship track, exactly.....

@NEStalgia Really? From the sitcom "Friends" I saw there is a challenge for 4th of July that in 30 Minutes you have to name all 50 states.

Is there truth to it or it is only for the show?

@Zuljaras I can't say it's not a real thing, it's not a specific thing. Various local contests and such probably exist for various things. 30 minutes would be an awfully long time. If it took that long, you're probably cheating. Unless you forget about New Hampshire and all of it's 10 residents.

There's always the national hot dog eating competition that's held on the 4th. That's certainly a real thing 😋

@Zuljaras So I just gave it a try myself, not looking at a map, just imagining one and listing the states in kind of random order in under 2 minutes. I forgot 3:

Utah (we actively try to forget that one in hopes the Osmonds disappear. They don't but we still try.)
Nebraska (why is this a place? Who ever goes to Nebraska?)
And Maine. F***** Maine. Even worse than Nebraska. What ever happens in Maine? Nobody goes to Maine, nobody comes from Maine, nothing important is in Maine. It's hanging out in the middle of the ocean. It's cold. It's wet. It's stormy. I'm pretty sure they only reason we have it is that Canada keeps regifting it.

It's good for lobsters and postcards of lighthouses.

@NEStalgia New Hampshire is up to 12 this year. Someone had twins, so they’re beating out Rhode Island by 7

@HobbitGamer At least Rhode Island has a cooler name. It sounds like a place you'd want to go but every time Siri tells you you've arrived at your destination, all the signs say "Welcome to Boston".

Nobody wants to go to New Ham Shire. Except politicians looking for pork. But even if you try, by the time Siri tells you you're there you look around and realize you're in ****ing Maine.

@NEStalgia I know Maine because Bioshock Infinite starts on the coast of Maine. Before that I never knew it was a state but I knew that the best lobsters are there.

Rhode Island from Family Guy.

Never knew about Nebraska

Utah I know for the Incident in the Nutty Putty cave where John Jones could not be taken out and they sealed the save with his body inside forever. It was very fascinating and terrifying story for me.

And I know some more stated from Video Games of course and Movies. But all 50 is king of impossible for me without a map

@NEStalgia I disagree, Rhode Island’s name doesn’t beckon me. It’s like the corner store knock off Isle of Rhodes. Or that it has some visitors center with a slot car track running straight across a model of the state, just to get in a pun about it being the Road in Rhode Island.

@Zuljaras Nebraska has corn. That's about it, but they have corn.

Lobsters are so abundant in Main that they're dirt cheap. Everywhere else, surf & turf is "market price", $40.... Maine, it's like $1. They eat it every day as a staple food. Now think about this for a minute. A cold, stormy, waterlogged, remote state swarming with insurmountable quantities of lobsters. No wonder Bioshock Infinite started there! Why does anybody live there?

Well, Utah, is more famed for the 2000 Salt Lake Olympics...but good for knowing the obscure ones And of course the Osmonds. Mormons & traditional polygamy (though they're trying to dial that back.)

Those cave things....I'll never see the appeal of cramming yourself into "caves" that are little more than narrow tunnels. I've seen caves. Real caves. Huge gigantic, cathedral-esque rooms. One could call them....cavernous. Little rock tunnels are not worth of being called "caves." That's just asking for trouble.

Yeah, everyone likes poking fun at Americans and our global geography skills, but technically the US is physically larger than Europe (minus the part of Russia that sits on Asia, technically) and has almost as many "states", so I do wonder how many Europeans easily know US geography as badly as Americans know European geography Of course American's not knowing American geography, that's just our horrible education system.

I had a substitute teacher in elementary school who could name all 50 US states and their capitol cities in sub 30 seconds. It was a crowd pleaser.

Yes, one of the unfortunate things about living in a state with a well-known major city is that 1. Outsiders forget the rest of the state exists, 2. Those that do acknowledge the rest of the state think it's only full of corn, and 3. Once in awhile you have someone come along who thinks said major city is the state capitol... :facepalm:

@Zuljaras While @NEStalgia isn't fully wrong on this matter ( 🤪 ), some of us who are map nerds do know where many other countries are located. Heck, my shower curtain is one big world map that only neglects Antarctica.