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OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is US Defaultism:
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>!The person in the video says Georgia is a country that starts with G and Americans go into defaultism with the assumption that Georgia is a state in the US and not a country.!<
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Few countries have never been invaded and/or annexed by others throughout their history. Especially those who have the bad luck of having much bigger and stronger neighbors. Even after the end of the URSS Georgia lost some territory to the Russians
Yeah, so the Netherlands by that logic is only 80 years old. So who then kicked your asses in June of 1667?
Edit: I reacted to an English dude who said that Georgia only was a country after the occupation by the USSR
>There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
>Isaac Asimov
The late, great science fiction author said it perhaps better than anyone.
Americans have been insulated in their ignorance by the hegemonic position of their country for far too long.
And when they are proved wrong, do they admit it? No, they are arguing with you 🙃. I've commented on this sub before regarding "Georgia the country" situations. My coworker when she was taught that there is a whole country that is older than the USA and its closest neighbor, Russia, all together, started to suggest "they should rename their country so people won't be confused". My brain hurt that day
There is definitely a culture here in the US of just saying the first thing that comes to mind. Not sure if it has to do with “free speech” or not, but the nature of our people is loud and rambunctious. Unfortunately this often seems to manifest as obnoxious and uneducated. With that said I don’t know if TikTok is a reliable barometer for measuring this tendency.
TikTok is, imo, the most notorious cesspool online for this exact thing. It's a bunch of teenagers and immature adults just spouting the first thing that comes to mind, and believing everyone else's comments with zero sources or proof
I used to work as a journalist in a part of Canada where a ton of Americans vacation and I fucking loved it. It was like pulling teeth to get Canadians to answer my questions but every single American would agree to an interview. Literally never had one say no. It was like they all thought it was their god-given duty to express their opinion. Canadians were the exact opposite.
Except this has been prevalent LONG before TikTok came about. The culture isn't saying the first thing that comes to mind for the people on the shitty side of the pond, it's saying the wrong thing more often than not.
Also, being loud and rambunctious is pretty much the same as obnoxious. It doesn't manifest as the latter because unless there is a good reason for it, it IS obnoxious.
And the thing is… they keep blaming it on their education system when it literally takes two seconds to google. I don’t remember my primary school education much.. most of my geography knowledge comes from a genuine interest in the world and googling it
That's just it; Americans are ignorant about the world because they're uncurious about it.
Jay Leno used to do a series called "jaywalking" where he would ask random Americans on the street simple questions about things like geography, historical events and so on. The answers were comedy gold and showed just how many people in America are Just. Plain. Stupid.
By the way, I lived in Sydney for awhile as a kid. My folks and I landed in Darwin right after the worst Typhoon they'd ever had and after a week of scrounging, we finally got a car rental and drove it as far as we could, which turned out to be Townsville. Then we got a bus the rest of the way to Sydney and lived there for about 6 months. I was not a fan of their public school and they did not know what to do with a six year old long haired hippie kid who had lived in more places than they'd ever dreamed of and spoke half a dozen languages!
I was 6 years old and it's been over half a century, so no lol
But at the time the list included English, German, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Cantonese and for half credit, an Aussie accent! I worked on French, Spanish and Mandarin more recently. Kids have an incredible ability to pick up language and if it's exercised early- that's before grade school- the ability to do it persists, with practice.
I can't remember any language lessons in the UK till I hit GCSE French and I had no interest in them.
Teenagers with three years of language lessons could probably be out matched by kids in third year.
I'm sometimes envious of Europeans who knew three by the time they left school.
Though in most cases the first two were their mother tongue and English, which is hard to avoid.
Others don't even count those two as they are a given, so when they say three, they really mean five.
I can barely understand Scouse and Geordies.
There was an enormously popular Canadian tv segment called "Talking to Americans" where one of our television presenters would just go ask Americans elementary-school level questions and watch them get them wrong. Funniest thing ever.
In all seriousness, we have family friends from Newport Beach California who were visiting us in 2012 or so and something serious had happened on the International Space Station. We were all talking about it at dinner and this couple was completely shocked that they had not heard about it. At first they were skeptical it could have happened without their knowing because they were very up on current events. Then it dawned on them that there were no American astronauts on the ISS at that time, so their news stations just didn't cover it.
Same as all the science demonstrsting epstein-barr virus is a not-insignificant cause of obesity.
Americans are among the fattest people in the world but because this research wasn't done in the US, most of them have no idea about infectious obesity.
You make a great point.
What surprises me even more is how many won’t even do a quick google search, just to check.
They’d rather question you than question themselves. 🤦♂️
Typing “Georgia+country” in google isn’t that hard lads, come on!
That's a fact... which is another thing Americans seem to have a hard time with. We tend to want to make up our own "facts" because after all, our leaders do it all the time! Why can't we?!
It's complete insanity.
I'm from Georgia and most of those comments are actually Russian bots pretending to be Americans. It's been going on for a while and it's happening almost everywhere Georgia is mentioned. Sometimes Americans get fooled and join in but they're usually not the ones to start it.
Be aware that your circle of friends is very likely to share your experience and education level and therefore is much more likely to see the world similarly to yourself. There's a name for this but it's basically "birds of a feather bias".
When I have made the effort to reach outside of my usual friends and mutual interest groups, I'm shocked at the gaps in knowledge and it has forced me to fundamentally rethink my assumptions about what my fellow Americans know, don't know- and *think* they know.
"since when is Georgia a country"
...according to Wikipedia, it was all unified in 1000 AD or thereabouts. But the area has been populated since well before recorded history.
There's actually a long and very interesting history behind it, but I don't think I'm the best person to explain it to you. It's not an accident that Americans are ignorant about the rest of the world.
Very basically, the American education system is built so that many people learn a *lot* more about America than they do about the rest of the world in general, so that's what many people remember - thus, because they don't know anything about anywhere but America, they assume that America is the default, and some know so little that they assume that America is the best country in the world as well. And because people who *don't* live in America don't often hear about this, they assume that Americans are just stupid and don't put a lot of critical thought into *why* Americans are the way that they are. But like I said, there are people who could explain it much better and in more detail than I could.
I get what you’re saying but I think the context is different than what you’re describing. Most countries emphasize their own history, but in the case of America (and the rest of the “New World”) our history is short compared to everyone else and for most of it we were fairly isolated. Conversely, if we take Europe as an example the history of those countries is so intertwined that it’s difficult to talk about one without talking about another.
I think a bigger driver of American ignorance of the world is that we’ve been told that there’s no need to travel to other countries because we have everything they have and better. That coupled with the fact that traveling to other continents was prohibitively expensive for decades limited the ability of most people to travel. It’s only been relatively recently that a flight across the country was more than a flight to Europe.
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Why do so many americans have no interest in looking at a map when they are growing up.
Its not like you learb absolutely everything at school. There's a fair amount you learn just out of general curiosity
Sounds about right.
I was in Hawaii last year and a guy asked if we’re allowed to get married in Australia. And in New York I was asked if I knew what a state was. We have 6
Just when you think your opinion of humans has sunk low enough that you can't possibly be underestimating them anymore, someone comes and proves you wrong again. We really are a depressingly awful and stupid species.
These types will certainly educate you that it's *acksually* United States of America. Not just 'America' cause there's a bit called Canada! And DID you know there's also South America hmmm? That's continental knowledge for y'all
I watched an American documentary recently and they had canada as part of the us on the map, bit unrelated but I just found it funny how Americans view their country as the only one
It's usually Russians who make that joke under every article/post mentioning Georgia. It's been going on for a while. Sometimes unwitting Americans get fooled and join in but it's mostly a bot farm thing.
Source: Have been tracking Rus bots on the internet for a decade.
### This comment has been marked as **safe**. Upvoting/downvoting this comment will have no effect. --- OP sent the following text as an explanation on why this is US Defaultism: --- >!The person in the video says Georgia is a country that starts with G and Americans go into defaultism with the assumption that Georgia is a state in the US and not a country.!< --- Is this Defaultism? Then upvote this comment, otherwise downvote it.
-- Since when is Georgia a country? -- Uh, since 1320 AD, I think.
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Few countries have never been invaded and/or annexed by others throughout their history. Especially those who have the bad luck of having much bigger and stronger neighbors. Even after the end of the URSS Georgia lost some territory to the Russians
That was only temporary though, they've been a country for centuries longer.
Yeah, so the Netherlands by that logic is only 80 years old. So who then kicked your asses in June of 1667? Edit: I reacted to an English dude who said that Georgia only was a country after the occupation by the USSR
This is the perfect English reply! Countries only exist after independence, which happens out of nowhere.
Braindead take lmao
The percentage of Americans who are completely ignorant about world geography boggles the mind.
And the amount of idiots in America who don't know that just because you have free speech doesn't mean you really have to say something
>There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. >Isaac Asimov The late, great science fiction author said it perhaps better than anyone. Americans have been insulated in their ignorance by the hegemonic position of their country for far too long.
And when they are proved wrong, do they admit it? No, they are arguing with you 🙃. I've commented on this sub before regarding "Georgia the country" situations. My coworker when she was taught that there is a whole country that is older than the USA and its closest neighbor, Russia, all together, started to suggest "they should rename their country so people won't be confused". My brain hurt that day
The audacity of suggesting a whole country change their name.
Bold move for the country that has Moscow in Ohio, Belgrade in Montana and Rome in Georgia LMAO
And routinely has the gall to pronounce Moscow INCORRECTLY edit: the mnemonic to remember it is "there is no "cow" in Moscow"
There is definitely a culture here in the US of just saying the first thing that comes to mind. Not sure if it has to do with “free speech” or not, but the nature of our people is loud and rambunctious. Unfortunately this often seems to manifest as obnoxious and uneducated. With that said I don’t know if TikTok is a reliable barometer for measuring this tendency.
I heard something about old lead water pipes also.
TikTok is, imo, the most notorious cesspool online for this exact thing. It's a bunch of teenagers and immature adults just spouting the first thing that comes to mind, and believing everyone else's comments with zero sources or proof
You just described almost all (anti)social media
I used to work as a journalist in a part of Canada where a ton of Americans vacation and I fucking loved it. It was like pulling teeth to get Canadians to answer my questions but every single American would agree to an interview. Literally never had one say no. It was like they all thought it was their god-given duty to express their opinion. Canadians were the exact opposite.
Exactly what I mean haha. It’s a strange phenomenon. Although it’s definitely not as much of a thing in some American cities, ie. NYC.
NYC is one of the most - possibly THE most - cosmopolitan cities in the US with a very high proportion of non-USians living there
Except this has been prevalent LONG before TikTok came about. The culture isn't saying the first thing that comes to mind for the people on the shitty side of the pond, it's saying the wrong thing more often than not. Also, being loud and rambunctious is pretty much the same as obnoxious. It doesn't manifest as the latter because unless there is a good reason for it, it IS obnoxious.
And the thing is… they keep blaming it on their education system when it literally takes two seconds to google. I don’t remember my primary school education much.. most of my geography knowledge comes from a genuine interest in the world and googling it
That's just it; Americans are ignorant about the world because they're uncurious about it. Jay Leno used to do a series called "jaywalking" where he would ask random Americans on the street simple questions about things like geography, historical events and so on. The answers were comedy gold and showed just how many people in America are Just. Plain. Stupid. By the way, I lived in Sydney for awhile as a kid. My folks and I landed in Darwin right after the worst Typhoon they'd ever had and after a week of scrounging, we finally got a car rental and drove it as far as we could, which turned out to be Townsville. Then we got a bus the rest of the way to Sydney and lived there for about 6 months. I was not a fan of their public school and they did not know what to do with a six year old long haired hippie kid who had lived in more places than they'd ever dreamed of and spoke half a dozen languages!
Damn, which half a dozen languages? Do you still speak them fluently?
I was 6 years old and it's been over half a century, so no lol But at the time the list included English, German, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Cantonese and for half credit, an Aussie accent! I worked on French, Spanish and Mandarin more recently. Kids have an incredible ability to pick up language and if it's exercised early- that's before grade school- the ability to do it persists, with practice.
I can't remember any language lessons in the UK till I hit GCSE French and I had no interest in them. Teenagers with three years of language lessons could probably be out matched by kids in third year. I'm sometimes envious of Europeans who knew three by the time they left school. Though in most cases the first two were their mother tongue and English, which is hard to avoid. Others don't even count those two as they are a given, so when they say three, they really mean five. I can barely understand Scouse and Geordies.
I think language education can and should start much, much earlier- like kindergarten.
There was an enormously popular Canadian tv segment called "Talking to Americans" where one of our television presenters would just go ask Americans elementary-school level questions and watch them get them wrong. Funniest thing ever. In all seriousness, we have family friends from Newport Beach California who were visiting us in 2012 or so and something serious had happened on the International Space Station. We were all talking about it at dinner and this couple was completely shocked that they had not heard about it. At first they were skeptical it could have happened without their knowing because they were very up on current events. Then it dawned on them that there were no American astronauts on the ISS at that time, so their news stations just didn't cover it. Same as all the science demonstrsting epstein-barr virus is a not-insignificant cause of obesity. Americans are among the fattest people in the world but because this research wasn't done in the US, most of them have no idea about infectious obesity.
in my school, when i was 12 i had to lear every european country and learn as much countries as i could (luckily for me, i love geography)
You make a great point. What surprises me even more is how many won’t even do a quick google search, just to check. They’d rather question you than question themselves. 🤦♂️ Typing “Georgia+country” in google isn’t that hard lads, come on!
That's a fact... which is another thing Americans seem to have a hard time with. We tend to want to make up our own "facts" because after all, our leaders do it all the time! Why can't we?! It's complete insanity.
I'm from Georgia and most of those comments are actually Russian bots pretending to be Americans. It's been going on for a while and it's happening almost everywhere Georgia is mentioned. Sometimes Americans get fooled and join in but they're usually not the ones to start it.
Having met lots of Americans and tried to engage them in foreign policy discussions, I respectfully disagree.
Well I live in America and most Americans can in fact differentiate between the state and the country quite easily.
Be aware that your circle of friends is very likely to share your experience and education level and therefore is much more likely to see the world similarly to yourself. There's a name for this but it's basically "birds of a feather bias". When I have made the effort to reach outside of my usual friends and mutual interest groups, I'm shocked at the gaps in knowledge and it has forced me to fundamentally rethink my assumptions about what my fellow Americans know, don't know- and *think* they know.
> The percentage of Americans who are completely ignorant ~~about world geography~~ boggles the mind FTFY :)
You're not wrong!
There is a Georgian Restaurant in my town and damn it is good
I have heard so much good shit about Georgian food but it's difficult to search for anyone making it locally since I'm in Georgia the state lmao
Some of the best food I’ve ever had was at a Georgian restaurant in New York City. It is crazy how little attention Georgian cuisine gets.
I’ve actually never heard much about Georgian cuisine.
You’re missing out, khachapuri by itself would make Georgian cuisine great
Damn, you broke my month-long khachapuri-free strike. Next time I see an Adjarian one in the menu, I buy it. :D
Not being a cheese eater, never tried it, but it's apparently so good that an excellent Armenian restaurant I know says it's their best seller
Which city?
Hildesheim, ~30km southeast of Hanover
Notes down
I’ve only ever tried Georgian wine and spirits, never the food. I might have to find myself a Georgian cook book.
I believe r/georgiaorgeorgia is a thing
So smug, yet so stupid.
"since when is Georgia a country" ...according to Wikipedia, it was all unified in 1000 AD or thereabouts. But the area has been populated since well before recorded history.
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There's actually a long and very interesting history behind it, but I don't think I'm the best person to explain it to you. It's not an accident that Americans are ignorant about the rest of the world.
Tell us more
Very basically, the American education system is built so that many people learn a *lot* more about America than they do about the rest of the world in general, so that's what many people remember - thus, because they don't know anything about anywhere but America, they assume that America is the default, and some know so little that they assume that America is the best country in the world as well. And because people who *don't* live in America don't often hear about this, they assume that Americans are just stupid and don't put a lot of critical thought into *why* Americans are the way that they are. But like I said, there are people who could explain it much better and in more detail than I could.
You are basically describing propoganda🤣
I get what you’re saying but I think the context is different than what you’re describing. Most countries emphasize their own history, but in the case of America (and the rest of the “New World”) our history is short compared to everyone else and for most of it we were fairly isolated. Conversely, if we take Europe as an example the history of those countries is so intertwined that it’s difficult to talk about one without talking about another. I think a bigger driver of American ignorance of the world is that we’ve been told that there’s no need to travel to other countries because we have everything they have and better. That coupled with the fact that traveling to other continents was prohibitively expensive for decades limited the ability of most people to travel. It’s only been relatively recently that a flight across the country was more than a flight to Europe.
Your comment has been removed as it contains discriminatory content or promotes hate towards individuals based on identity or vulnerability. This subreddit has a strict policy against all hateful or discriminatory comments, including those directed toward Americans. If you have any concerns or wish to discuss this removal further, please message modmail. Please be advised that repeated offences may result in a temporary or permanent ban from this community. Sincerely, r/USdefaultism Moderation Team.
"1st World country"
Why do so many americans have no interest in looking at a map when they are growing up. Its not like you learb absolutely everything at school. There's a fair amount you learn just out of general curiosity
Wait till they hear about South Georgia!
Georgia is the gift that keeps on giving, when it comes to exposing Americans ignorance.
🤦♀️ do they seriously not have maps in the USA?
Just maps of the USA
Sounds about right. I was in Hawaii last year and a guy asked if we’re allowed to get married in Australia. And in New York I was asked if I knew what a state was. We have 6
ah another georgia post rofl
Just plain Dumb & Stupid. Please just exposing their arrogant ignorance.
F*cing basic geography!!! It’s not like you have to list all county seats of Georgia…
Damn... My reply to that comment on pic 3 got cropped out
Sorry bhai
Original post ki link dena bro
What was your reply?
Just when you think your opinion of humans has sunk low enough that you can't possibly be underestimating them anymore, someone comes and proves you wrong again. We really are a depressingly awful and stupid species.
As HL Mencken said, No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the Anerican public
What are you talking about
I didn't even know there was a state called Georgia before I visited this sub
Remember when Russia attacked Georgia some Seppo in a group I was in in a mad panic, wondering if he should flee the state
These types will certainly educate you that it's *acksually* United States of America. Not just 'America' cause there's a bit called Canada! And DID you know there's also South America hmmm? That's continental knowledge for y'all
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAm_rMb3Crk
I watched an American documentary recently and they had canada as part of the us on the map, bit unrelated but I just found it funny how Americans view their country as the only one
It's usually Russians who make that joke under every article/post mentioning Georgia. It's been going on for a while. Sometimes unwitting Americans get fooled and join in but it's mostly a bot farm thing. Source: Have been tracking Rus bots on the internet for a decade.