Stupid Americans?

What do you think about this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE

A lot of people seem to think that it's easy to take out the intelligent answers and leave in the stupid ones.

It's my opinion that even if the intelligent answers were left out, the stupid ones were a lot more stupid than you might find in a country that doesn't have a flawed education system.

I mean, three world wars? Not knowing if America fought in the vietnam war? Not knowing how many sides a triangle has?!? That's just scary.

You can't class a bunch of people found on the street as an entire population. I think its a bit easy to go to a country with a large population and find some idiots. You could get the same results in any country to be honest.

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Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

What do you think about this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE
I mean, three world wars? Not knowing if America fought in the vietnam war? Not knowing how many sides a triangle has?!? That's just scary.

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It is terrifying, Patrick.

The only way to learn about history anymore here is to study it yourself. Revisionist history, political correctness and a bizarre self-loathing has permeated much of American academia. And if you don't go to college, the basic K-12 education has huge holes in it that allow kids to skate through without learning anything. It isn't politically correct, you see, to encourage competition or risk hurting somebody's self esteem by failing them.

There are a lot of ways to interpret this trend... none of them very comforting.

Well, I'm no fan of history or geography myself but I had no idea that a triangle has four sides. >.<

Its not that Americans are stupid, its that America has a huge population and strong western culture, and so there are more stupid westerners in America.

England has its fair share of idiots, its just our population is lower and so we have less idiots, if the opulation was the same then we'd have a similiar amount.

Some people are just dumb:p

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Originally Posted by joey11223

Its not that Americans are stupid, its that
England has its fair share of idiots, its just our population is lower and so we have less idiots

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That doesn't really make much sense. A reduced population may mean a reduced number of 'stupid' people, but what's important is the average intelligence.

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Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

That doesn't really make much sense. A reduced population may mean a reduced number of 'stupid' people, but what's important is the average intelligence.

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Aye, but then again, it's not the most objective outlook to judge of the "average" by a video of no more than a dozen people, heh.

I have no idea what the coalition of the willing (or whatever) is... but I knew the rest of the questions... now i still feel like an idiot for not knowing that one... It's probably a very simple question... but i still don't know...

damn... time for wiki...

But that second part of the video was just pathetic (the one with the map)...

I am truly ashamed of being part of the human race right now...

thats not just intelligence btw, thats general and common knowledge.
you can be an einstain, not read news for 20 years, and be on a video like this too.
what i think about this vid... its hillarious first of all.
second, its unfair to conclude that americans are stupid. a more correct conclusion would be 'america has some stupid people'.
third, joey11223's logic is false. a country with more people should have more stupid people, and more intelligent people. it is hard finding 100 stupid people out of 1000 people just as it is hard finding 300 stupid people out of 3000 people.

lol! That video is funny...
They probably asked a BUNCH of people those questions, and the ones who seemes really dumb, they just kept asking them more questions... just to see how far the rabbit hole went.

"You know what it's amazing, 'cause I realized just now that North Korea is a lot larger than South Korea. I didn't know it was large like that!" (pointing to Australia that reads North Korea, on the messed up World Map) lmao.

yeah i guess thats true...

but if they are looking out for those who are stupid, and only keeping the responses from the dumb people, then yes you will find more in crowded areas of higher population.

It would be very unscientific and ignorant to judge 300,000,000 people based on what a few idiots said, especially when the whole point was to find idiots and showcase them. Jay Leno does that all the time so that his American audience can laugh. Americans would have to understand the ignorance to be able to laugh at it. Think about it. Yes, there are tons of idiots here. We were settled by the British, so what do you expect? :chuckle: There are lots and lots of idiots in every country. And people need to consider our private education system when they make their comments about our "failing education system". Our private schools are as good as it gets, and a lot of our public schools are good. That video didn't feature the people who invented the software you are using right now or the Americans who landed a remote control robot on Mars.

Well, we are not all that dumb.

Just cause the people in that video are stupid doesn't mean our entire nation is stupid.

take the average man on the street......
half the country are stupider than he is

Actually, the question about how many sides a triangle has, that two people answer - well the interviewer's voice could easily have been edited in, to be asking a different question. Especially with the lady who says "None... no wait, one" that very much sounds like the answer to how many sides a circle has.

Yeah this could have been done in any countrey really, and you'd get the same results, it's just american is frequently the one who gets asked the most questions, maybe because it's president has made so many mistakes in the past, I serously doubt any of the new generation americans would be this stupid, I mean this is way below the intellect of america's education curriculum.

Why the US should go over to the UK and write Iraq over the US the same thing would accure

It wouldn't suprise me if the vid. was edited.

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Originally Posted by pj

It is terrifying, Patrick.

The only way to learn about history anymore here is to study it yourself. Revisionist history, political correctness and a bizarre self-loathing has permeated much of American academia. And if you don't go to college, the basic K-12 education has huge holes in it that allow kids to skate through without learning anything. It isn't politically correct, you see, to encourage competition or risk hurting somebody's self esteem by failing them.

There are a lot of ways to interpret this trend... none of them very comforting.

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I'd have to agree. I can simply just read a page to get a worksheet done, and forget what i read from the day before, simply because i don't care. I can;t believe that they don't try to inprove the school systems. The content that we are being taught is getting more complicated, but the method is staying the same.

They probably went through a lot of people that got most of the questions right.
Like others have said, there are stupid people in every country.

Very funny video though, it amazes me how stupid some people are.:)

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Originally Posted by Ynot

take the average man on the street......
half the country are stupider than he is

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Average is not median :P

nvm

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Originally Posted by Replicon

Average is not median :P

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For continuous probability distributions, the difference between the median and the mean is no more than one standard deviation
From a sample of many millions, there's going to be no difference between the median and mean




;)

This thread is simply hilarious! The creator of this thread is just as stupid for labling an entire country based off something that was seen on youtube. You gotta be freaking kidding me right? :wtf:

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

This thread is simply hilarious! The creator of this thread is just as stupid for labling an entire country based off something that was seen on youtube. You gotta be freaking kidding me right? :wtf:

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I did not, ever, in ANY of my posts in this topic, 'label an entire country'. I didn't even say that Americans in general were stupid! I was trying to open a debate about this video.

Next time, READ THE THREAD BEFORE YOU POST IN IT!

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

How about Next time you keep your hatred toward Americans to yourself. You could've easily labled this post "Some People Are Stupid" You have a problem with us? Because it sounds to me like you do. Punk!

Listerine

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Originally Posted by Ynot

Listerine

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Uh, excuse me.. flame war going on.

Mentos > listerine!!

There. Now I feel better.

no, no

being anti-septic
Listerine, ya know

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

How about Next time you keep your hatred toward Americans to yourself. You could've easily labled this post "Some People Are Stupid" You have a problem with us? Because it sounds to me like you do. Punk!

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Looking back at his first post I don't think he was being prejudice against Americans, he was just asking about the video.

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Originally Posted by Ynot

no, no

being anti-septic
Listerine, ya know

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You trying to start something, punk? =P

This is so silly. Stop getting worked up over arbitrary things. The person who made the video had an agenda, which was to make Americans look stupid. Good, great, mission accomplished. Had I the same agenda for any other country, I'm sure I could waltz down the streets, and record some saps giving me the wrong answers to some arbitrary questions. Doesn't mean a thing. Some people are stupid. However, the video proves nothing because he could have walked down that street all day looking for people with wrong answers. So, it isn't accurate.

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Originally Posted by NeAvO

Looking back at his first post I don't think he was being prejudice against Americans, he was just asking about the video.

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THANK YOU! I was just trying to start a discussion.

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

How about Next time you keep your hatred toward Americans to yourself. You could've easily labled this post "Some People Are Stupid" You have a problem with us? Because it sounds to me like you do. Punk!

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You'll find I labelled the thread "Stupid Americans?" with a QUESTION MARK, hence, it's a QUESTION!

You know, you're not really doing much for the Americans aren't stupid argument.

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Originally Posted by Ynot

For continuous probability distributions, the difference between the median and the mean is no more than one standard deviation
From a sample of many millions, there's going to be no difference between the median and mean




;)

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That's true, but assuming a large sample size and continuous distribution, "taking the average man on the streets" will almost never yield the average you're talking about in your post hehe. Case in point, take the average post in the religion forum :lol:

And who are we to assume continuous distribution anyway? I'm thinking it's more of a shark's tail, with most of the stupidity lying in the fin :D.

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Originally Posted by Replicon

And who are we to assume continuous distribution anyway? I'm thinking it's more of a shark's tail, with most of the stupidity lying in the fin :D.

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those damn Fin's

I blame Lordi

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Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

It's my opinion that even if the intelligent answers were left out, the stupid ones were a lot more stupid than you might find in a country that doesn't have a flawed education system.

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no. they aren't. but you can keep telling yourself that.

I'm sure people would give equally stupid answers anywhere else in the world.

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Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

A lot of people seem to think that it's easy to take out the intelligent answers and leave in the stupid ones.

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When setting out to make a video that "shows how stupid the masses are", you can bet they've edited to include only the idiots. But yes, the world is full of morons. Sadly, that's the case everywhere, not just America.

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Originally Posted by pj

The only way to learn about history anymore here is to study it yourself. Revisionist history, political correctness and a bizarre self-loathing has permeated much of American academia. And if you don't go to college, the basic K-12 education has huge holes in it that allow kids to skate through without learning anything. It isn't politically correct, you see, to encourage competition or risk hurting somebody's self esteem by failing them.

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I'm glad I'm not the only one with great loathing of the entire political correctness movement. I could write volumes on the dangers and false "feel-goodedness" of PC mentality.

One thing I can say with the utmost of confidence is that PC is the single most dangerous entity in the world today. It'll be the ruin of us all. And that is meant quite literally - not an overstatement at all.

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Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

THANK YOU! I was just trying to start a discussion.



You'll find I labelled the thread "Stupid Americans?" with a QUESTION MARK, hence, it's a QUESTION!

You know, you're not really doing much for the Americans aren't stupid argument.

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And once again why not title it "Stupid People?" I don't like my questions being avoided and I hate repeating myself. So can you explain to me why you labled it the way that you have?

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

And once again why not title it "Stupid People?" I don't like my questions being avoided and I hate repeating myself. So can you explain to me why you labled it the way that you have?

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He also said this...

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Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick

It's my opinion that even if the intelligent answers were left out, the stupid ones were a lot more stupid than you might find in a country that doesn't have a flawed education system.

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That was a dis on the people of the U.S. I don't see any way around that.

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Originally Posted by Ne-yo

And once again why not title it "Stupid People?" I don't like my questions being avoided and I hate repeating myself. So can you explain to me why you labled it the way that you have?

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Because the video was in America, that's why. I wasn't asking if people everywhere were stupid, but if Americans in particular were stupid. Hence, the "Stupid Americans?".

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pensive Patrick http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...s/viewpost.gif
It's my opinion that even if the intelligent answers were left out, the stupid ones were a lot more stupid than you might find in a country that doesn't have a flawed education system.

That was a dis on the people of the U.S. I don't see any way around that.

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Yeah, that was a 'dis' on the American education system, which I have been subjected to, by the way.

So......who did win in Vietnam?

Ne-Yo, stop acting like a little pussy. (ha-ha, irony (his avatar is a pussy)).

It is a pretty funny video. Besides, not like the average American isn't more stupid then the average European. You can't help having a bad school system. Also, I highly doubt patrick really thought every American is as stupid as that.

He was generalizing, but if people know they are, I don't see a problem with that. Generalizing is only bad if the person or others actually take the generalization as an absolute truth.

And yesss, you could make a video of that in every country if you go out in the streets. Probably even at most universities, if you tried long enough.

I don't see why people would have a problem with this video. It is interesting, it is funny, it has a truth to it (:)). But that all doesn't even matter, the biggest reason why this video is a good watch is because generalizing is FUNNY. HAHA.

It is true. It always is. (generalization)

I didn't quite read ALL the posts, so I may repeat something by accident, but I did read quite a few of them...


All countries have more than their fair share of idiots. I mean, I can't even turn on the TV or the radio without hearing someone from somewhere making fun of/judging some other person or place for some reason. I admit, I WAS pretty surprised at some of the answers on that video, but you can't generalize about this kind of thing. There were maybe 20 people interviewed on there, and there are what... 300 million people in the USA?

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He was generalizing, but if people know they are, I don't see a problem with that. Generalizing is only bad if the person or others actually take the generalization as an absolute truth.

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I still say generalizing is bad, you never know what could come out of it. People generalize way too often. Thats one of the reasons we have racism and prejudice etc. We can't understand a whole civilization from just 20 people. Saying that all Americans are stupid just because of those people that got a few questions wrong... That's just not fair to the other 299,999,970 people in the US.

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This is so silly. Stop getting worked up over arbitrary things. The person who made the video had an agenda, which was to make Americans look stupid. Good, great, mission accomplished. Had I the same agenda for any other country, I'm sure I could waltz down the streets, and record some saps giving me the wrong answers to some arbitrary questions. Doesn't mean a thing. Some people are stupid. However, the video proves nothing because he could have walked down that street all day looking for people with wrong answers. So, it isn't accurate.

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I agree.

Flawed education system? Aren't they ALL seriously flawed? And wasn't the US originally a BRITISH colony? (Even though now its very diverse.)


If I was in the mood I would probably start a debate about racism/prejudice... maybe I will later. To bad I'm not in school, I would probably feel quite at home in a debate class.

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Originally Posted by Ynot

So......who did win in Vietnam?

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As for this... you could have googled it. This might not be the best article, but I'm too lazy too look for something else right now.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...&articleId=172


Sorry for my long rant. ;)

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Originally Posted by indescribable

I still say generalizing is bad, you never know what could come out of it. People generalize way too often. Thats one of the reasons we have racism and prejudice etc. We can't understand a whole civilization from just 20 people. Saying that all Americans are stupid just because of those people that got a few questions wrong... That's just not fair to the other 299,999,970 people in the US.

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I already covered this. I really, really doubt Pensative Patrick really though every single man, woman and child in America is stupid. : )

Also, 'fair' doesn't matter. I don't see why any American should be upset by such a video saying, 'hehe, see, Americans be stupid, hehehehe'. What does matter is that it is funny (at least to others). : )

And hey, sometimes there is a core of truth in a stereotype. People from the Netherlands always make jokes about how stupid Belgium people are, the people in Belgium always make fun about how cheap we are. I think the average person living in the Netherlands is relatively to other countries pretty cheap indeed. (I don't know or Belgians are actually averagely more stupid, I haven't been to Belgium that often.)

Oh darwin awards... oh how I worship thee!

I'm sure they just picked the worst of the bunch to show when the questioned the public, but still... ARGH!!! :shock:

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Originally Posted by indescribable

Flawed education system? Aren't they ALL seriously flawed? And wasn't the US originally a BRITISH colony? (Even though now its very diverse.)

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Don't play the British colony card. That's a lame card to play. Sure, you started off as European settlers, but you got your independance, and I am pretty damn sure that the modern American education system has very, VERY limited links to colonial rule. And no, not all education systems are seriously flawed. Many European countries have very effective education systems (Britain, unfortunately, is not one of them.).

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Originally Posted by Neruo

I already covered this. I really, really doubt Pensative Patrick really though every single man, woman and child in America is stupid. : )

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Thanks for your support Neruo. I definitely do not mean to say that all Americans are stupid.

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Originally Posted by Ynot

So......who did win in Vietnam?

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Barry Levinson

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Originally Posted by indescribable

As for this... you could have googled it.

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I wasn't asking 'cause I didn't know.....

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Originally Posted by indescribable

There were maybe 20 people interviewed on there, and there are what... 300 million people in the USA?

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Plus, those are undoubtedly the worse 20 out of maybe 100 or more interviewed.

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Originally Posted by indescribable

Saying that all Americans are stupid just because of those people that got a few questions wrong...

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Exactly. And given the fact that no "interview" was shown in its entirety, who's to say that every one of those people didn't get every other question absolutely correct?

I knew the answers to the questions but I'm sure most of the people questioned did too. It's all cherry-picked for the most "ratings-worthy" footage, as I'm sure we all have to sense to realize.

God, you lot are tetchy

lighten up
learn to laugh yourselves

Damn people , that video was made to make people laugh , why are you taking this so seriously?
One would be worse than stupid if he thinks that all americans are stupid by just seeing 20 of them.
And people who get offended from this video are equally dump.

I died when i heard the KFC question rofl!
The funny thing is that he did know that it meant Kentucky Fried Chicken.

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Originally Posted by carcharoth

Damn people , that video was made to make people laugh...

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Obviously but, given the thread title, some one seems to think it's meaningful. It's no different than any other video of its kind, such as Jay Leno's "Man on the street" segments.

Sadly, some people (in general) don't have the sense to realize that TV, etc..., is populated almost exclusively by edited footage intended to skew the story and present a given objective.

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Originally Posted by PensivePatrick

Don't play the British colony card. That's a lame card to play. Sure, you started off as European settlers, but you got your independance, and I am pretty damn sure that the modern American education system has very, VERY limited links to colonial rule. And no, not all education systems are seriously flawed. Many European countries have very effective education systems (Britain, unfortunately, is not one of them.).

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Sorry, I wasn't trying to 'play a card'. Why would I? I'm from the same British colony. I was not trying to say that the British are stupid.
I cant really be sure who you mean by 'you', but I am NOT American. And I don't know what you mean by 'limited links to colonial rule' but I'm sure you are right. I know that I for one do NOT like the Canadian school system, and thats why I'm not a part of it.

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Originally Posted by Neruo

I really, really doubt Pensative Patrick really thought every single man, woman and child in America is stupid. : )

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I didn't think he was saying this at all. The comment wasn't aimed at anyone in particular, it was just an opinion.

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Originally Posted by carcharoth

Damn people , that video was made to make people laugh , why are you taking this so seriously?
One would be worse than stupid if he thinks that all americans are stupid by just seeing 20 of them.
And people who get offended from this video are equally dump.

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I wasn't offended by this video, in fact I thought it was quite funny. Although I've already seen about 20 of these kinds of videos from various different countries. (Mostly Canada, Britain and the US.) And yes they are, quote "cherry picked."


Pensive Patrick wanted to start a debate. At least thats what he said. I was just throwing my thoughts out there. (Which may not be the smartest thing to do) If he had just posted the video up for a simple laugh, I most likely wouldn't have bothered to reply at all.

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Originally Posted by indescribable

I was not trying to say that the British are stupid.

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I wouldn't mind if you did. We are. Just look at our government...

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And I don't know what you mean by 'limited links to colonial rule' but I'm sure you are right.

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I meant that the modern American schooling system has probably not been influenced by the original British occupiers in America.

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Pensive Patrick wanted to start a debate. At least thats what he said. I was just throwing my thoughts out there. (Which may not be the smartest thing to do) If he had just posted the video up for a simple laugh, I most likely wouldn't have bothered to reply at all.

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Sorry about attacking you quite so aggressively, and yes, I did want a debate, not a funny video. Thanks for having the guts to put your opinions out there, anyway.

eh i've seen a lot worse governments, at least we have freedom and rights. Also you know Blaire is doing the best he can, every leader is going to be critised by the groups that think the opposite to what he does. It's impossible to keep everyone happy.

At first people thought the Iraq thing what be shorter then it was and so yes it was a good thing that we were going to help America, i mean 9/11 was a crisis. It's only now the peacekeeping is dragging on and the statistics of civilians and our soliders killed is sinking in that people are calling Blaire weak and idiotic to help America, which is unfair because we are allies, its kinda what allies do...

Anyway yeah they totally cherry pick scenes, like " In your face" on Bravo, they do a similiar thing and you can tell by how he's walking down the street asking people that they just picked the best 6 or 7 responses.

I know I'll regret this, but here's a much better video. It's unlikely any of this was edited. Just to clarify, I'm not saying that Americans are stupid. As such.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLXRVvA6T9k





P.S. Thank you to the *anonymous* user who introduced this video to me. You know who you are.

I think I like this video a bit better. I don't feel it has quite the edge the other one did. I did a search and I found a part two of it, where it shows the Americans asking 'Is this a joke?' before answering the questions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFqzBiLBwM8

And it is obviously just for humor, not to make anyone feel bad, or stupid. It's just funny. By the way, just if anyone is wondering, Rick Mercer is a popular Canadian comedian, so this is his job. ;)

I'm wondering if anyone else has any thoughts on the second clip?

Maybe it isn't that American people are more stupid then other people, just that Americans don't know as well when to shut the fuck up : ) ?

I don't think it's Americans in particular. I think it's certain people in America who can be dumb, or obnoxious. Just like certain Canadians say 'eh' or 'aboot', and certain people. Just like certain people are racist, etc. (The list could go on forever) Anyone can be dumb or obnoxious. Not just Americans, and not ALL Americans.

I have known all different kinds of people, from all sorts of different cultures (Canada being very diverse) and I can tell you, they are NOT all the same.


Note: I have never actually heard a Canadian say 'aboot', I believe that is more of a Scottish thing. But the 'eh' thing is pretty common. It's like how the English are stereotyped to always say 'what' after a sentence. 'Eh', actually does mean 'what' in Spanish.

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Originally Posted by Ynot

So......who did win in Vietnam?

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Interesting topic. Approximately 58 thousand Americans were killed in the Vietnam War. The number of Vietnamese killed has been difficult to determine because the North Vietnam government was suppressing the numbers for propaganda purposes. The lowest estimate I have found is 1.5 million. The highest estimate I have found is 4 million. If you want to keep score that way, we whipped their asses. However, Ho Chi Minh refused to surrender, and the American left had put so much pressure on Washington to get us out of Vietnam that we left in 1975 without bringing about a surrender. South Vietnam remains unfree to this day because of that. So in terms of whether we were able to get the North Vietnamese schmuck ass dictator to surrender and get his government out of South Vietnam, we failed. In that way, we lost. But we were not outgunned by any stretch of the imagination. I think we needed to focus on assassinating the dictator instead of killing his soldiers and civilians and trying to get him to surrender. That sociopath was never going to surrender. He needed to be killed.

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Originally Posted by NeAvO

You can't class a bunch of people found on the street as an entire population. I think its a bit easy to go to a country with a large population and find some idiots. You could get the same results in any country to be honest.

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Exactly. It isn't like all americans are like that. Those idiots just give us a bad rap =P

It isn't like it is hard to go on the streets all day asking people obvious questions, and cut the 95&#37; that are right

"Congrulations, Canada, on your first McDonalds!"

:lol: Awesome.

And really, I don't understand why we can't get along. When people insult America, it's pointless. When people insult Canada, it's pointless.

Also, I think Canadian's only say 'eh', when posed as questions. Unless you live in Newfoundland. :D

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Originally Posted by CoLd BlooDed

Also, I think Canadian's only say 'eh', when posed as questions. Unless you live in Newfoundland. :D

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Newfies say "by" all the time for no reason. "Eh?" actually makes sense. It loosely translates to "Do you casually agree with what I just said?" But newfies will actually point and say "look by" and I'm like..... by what? (I dated a newfie for 4 years, I'm allowed to make fun :lol: ).