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I will say having driven across the US it does feel very different at different points, but yes, stroads are everywhere from deserts to mountains to plains and coasts
The natural geography is different but anywhere united statesians actually build stuff it’s all the same crap
Same pharmacies, restaurants, gas stations, clothing stores, internet providers etc. Different names for the newspapers but same owners of everything
There’s actually plenty of different architectural styles when you look beyond the late 20th century and later generic commercial style. It’s pretty cool to see over the course of a few days, though definitely not worth the drive.
<Insert incoherent anti-DEI rambling here>
I used to play Geoguessr and I absolutely hate playing the state streaks map because every single state looks exactly the same. I would have to go through miles and miles and miles of suburban subdivisions that were mazes just to find a phone number and just go off that, which you’re not really meant to do. Literally the only thing that was different was the area codes.
People who don’t understand sarcasm will get genuinely mad about this post, and I’m here for it
One reason why I’m starting to hate communities revolving around “fuckX” (Not the social platform, btw). Responses are filled with devoid hate against everything not just X.
When people can’t tell if you’re joking, it’s a problem with your sub, not the joke
I mean maybe they were being a brat on purpose and you were the one who didn’t get it
sub
brat
BDSM on my autism app?
I’d venture there’s more purple in that Venn diagram than you think
“joke’s on you, i was only pretending to be stupid”
Poe’s Law - without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible to create a parody of extreme views that someone won’t mistake for the real thing. You cannot tell the difference between extreme satire and genuine stupidity or fanaticism because real-world opinions have become just as ridiculous as jokes.
three photos of roads across the US
“without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, it is impossible…”
Again, I can’t tell if you’re serious with this reply or if this is another joke
ok, this is funny
I like that all the states are shown to be all blobby and fat looking. Perfection.
Wonderful. Everything from “I’m about to learn you a thing” to “check republic”.
Just a bit too obvious though.
I mean, it is very clearly intended to be hyperbolic satire
We need c/woosh
Everyone knows it’s supposed to be Cheque Republic
I’ve driven through a lot of the USA. I also took a road Trip in central Europe once. I totally agree with this sentiment about USA. Very sick of living here and hoping to have the opportunity of emigrating to somewhere in Europe soon, I just want to try it once. I may regret not trying more than trying and failing to live there.I like how you drew a penis on a penis
Yo dash, I heard you like Florida…
Penisception
I live in Germany now and have taken the opportunity to visit other European nations. I’ve also done a coast to coast road trip of the US.
Overall Europe has way better smaller cities and villages. They are actually liveable and have their own charm and feel. The largest cities are comparable to the largest US cities. They offer different things to those that live their and visit, but overall comparable.
Although the suburban sprawl of the US is an absolute hellscape and is just about the ugliest type of community imaginable.
Once you get outside of the suburbs though. The US natural landscapes wins hands down. There’s a reason people from across the world visit Yellowstone. Not to mention the amount of empty space especially out west is something I truly miss. At least in Germany the greatest distance between any two buildings is 10km. That’s the most remote you can get in the entire country. True wilderness is definitely something I miss
Our national parks are our redeeming factor, but the current admin is trying to destroy even those.
Also, remote wilderness isn’t really a thing here anymore either. Yeah there’s a lot of open space in the west but most of it is owned by corporate conglomerates or utility companies, fenced off and signed “no trespassing.” If you want to spend time in the wilderness it pretty much has to be in a park or on private property that either you own or have permission from the owner.
There’s no real “commons” or “wilderness,” every square foot is owned and/or managed by someone or some company or organization. Public lands are few and far between and those generally have rules about occupancy like “no camping” or “vacate before sunset.”
That romantic vision of the “american wilderness” isn’t really a thing anymore…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_lands_in_the_United_States
Most BLM and National forests lands are opened to dispersed camping. Of course there are still rules, but that’s not wilderness meant in the sense of my comment. These are places you are allowed to be and truly be alone. You can hike into these areas and not have another human for 25+ miles if you pick the right spot.
Anyway your idea of rules for public lands doesn’t reflect the reality of the majority of lands. National parks of course have the strictest use laws since their goal is complete preservation.
Ah yeah, most on that map is from the Rockies westward. I’m from the east coast so my perspective was informed by what I’ve observed around me.
And I didn’t mean to imply that public lands shouldn’t have rules for preservation, but it’s more than just that. Most parks have designated camping areas and if you want to be there overnight you need to book a spot there. You can’t just wander aimlessly and build a lean-to like you’re John Muir or Henry Thoreau.
There are exceptions of course, for instance along the Appalachian trail you can just show up to a shelter area and if it’s not full you can pitch a tent there.
But if you want to find a spot that you can’t see or hear a road from, you’re going to be hard-pressed to find one anywhere east of the Rockies.
You can’t just wander aimlessly and build a lean-to like you’re John Muir or Henry Thoreau.
Yes you can do that in almost all western BLM land.
Dispersed camping is free in most National forests in both the east and west. Although due to smaller lands there are fewer that are open.
Regardless you can just walk into most national forests and go as deep as you want. I highly recommend reading up on the rules more, there’s a lot more recreation than you seem to think. The Northeast is probably the region with the least, but Maine and upstate New York do have some forests where dispersed camping is permitted
I get what you mean and fully agree
I can’t help but chuckle though that one of the best parts if America is the part untouched by American society and politics
Absolutely agree with the wonders of the natural beauty in the US.
Only thing I would disagree with is that the European cities are quite a bit different than US cities. They largely have more historical charm, more methods of transportation, and on the whole somewhat distinct from one another.
We do get a lot of German tourists coming to visit the northwest of Scotland - quite often a queue of campervans with their fancy license plates queuing up in Inverness. You can be stood on top of a mountain in the northern highlands, and not see any evidence of another human being from horizon to horizon. Which is also terrifying in a way - the traditional “Land’s End to John O’Groats” cycle does include quite a long way away from civilisation if your bike decides to have a mechanical.
German tourists always most welcome here, ofc. Even more welcome if you bring some konigsberger klopse and some robust dunkelbiers with you; will swap you for whisky, we’ve got loads.
Kept saying the only real reason for me to visit the USA are national parks. They are the only places us whites haven’t ruined there yet but alas, conservatives rolled out big plans to destroy those ancient forests too.
The national parks are not being logged. National forests are being opened up to more logging though, but national forests have always been logged. Of course they are opening up more wilderness area that’s never been logged and it’s a huge loss for the entire country.
So places like Yellowstone, the Great Smoky Mountains, Yosemite, etc. are still preserved*.
*In terms of logging. There is other fuckery going on. I worked for the NPS before I left and there are some major issues going on harming the regulatory side of park management but not full scale logging.
Another FoW user in the wild! Neat
X2 on the fear of not trying hard enough to move.
Awesome. Yea I love FoW! What level are you?
I just came here from reddit since it deleted the use of old.reddit and I hate the phone app and the new layout of the website. This seems like a better community too!
I’m not road traveling the US so even though I’ve been using it for like 15 years my level is small.
What I can tell you is I’ve got over 30 km2 in my home country, Lebanon, a tiny place. I’m not someone with a lot of travel experience at all but I think I’m in the top 5% of people who’ve seen the most of our country and that’s pretty cool.
Wow I wish you the best, I hope you stay safe in Lebanon. I’m glad you got to explore your home country, I hope to visit it in the future!
FYI, old Reddit works for me, though I’ve heard that it requires logging in now (which I do anyway). On Android, the RedReader app works because they allowed it for the focus on accessibility for the blind — but I was already using it for the minimalist approach.
Van lifer? Truck driver? And what is this map made from? (I saw another commentor say FoW but I couldn’t figure out what that was).
Fog of World is an app where you “track” where you have been. You earn badges from various places you’ve been and earn flags from the countries you visit. It’s not really a competition since you don’t connect with anyone online. All data is stored on your phone, so if you don’t have it backed up and lose your phone you lose all your achievements. It encourages you to explore the world around you and encourages you to take a road less travelled.
Here are some pics:
It’s pricey though but you pay once and the developer is awesome to support. I highly recommend it!
How did you color in that whole neighbourhood in LA? Did you walk all over people’s lawns and backyards?
The tracks are displayed wider than the actual gps ping and gps drift happens indoors causing wider tracks. But I do visit neighbors’ buildings as well so it’s a combination maybe?
Oh also I’m not a van lifer or truck driver. I just loved driving around this country on my vacations. Though I have soured on it in recent years with how things have been going (due to politics and how strange people have become in rural areas).
I was messing around with a steetview app one time and I was pretty fascinated by the fact that basically anywhere on the globe, clicked at random, looks incredibly similar to somewhere that I’ve been. Click randomly in Ukraine, “huh, I’ve definitely been on country back roads in the US that look basically just like this.” Click a spot in Kazakhstan, I’ve seen places in the Midwest that look pretty similar. Click something in a more tropical spot in search of something altogether different, “you know I’ve been to some coastal towns that look a lot like this.” Click a spot in a French mountain range, “This doesn’t look all that different from parts of the Rockies.”
It brings to mind one of my favorite quotes:
“If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries. The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”
- Marjane Satrapi
That quote always hits me hard. I really want the best for the ordinary citizens of Iran
“check republic”? No one uses checks anymore.
Hey dummy, it’s a country, called Checkya
The polish are more reliable anyway
The Germans do, for some reason.
German here, i have never seen a check in my life.
They live in a republic. :) You should visit, they are nice people.
I once got one. Must be 35ish years ago, though.
Nope, nope, nope.
I drove from Montréal to Orlando, on the highway and various exits in town, you see :
- NY State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc
- PA State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc
- WV State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc
- VA State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc
- NC State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc + Jesus ads + SOTB Pedro ads
- SC State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc + Jesus ads
- GA State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc
- FL State: Target, Hobby Lobby, JC Penney, Home Depot, etc
That is amazing that you see so many JC Penneys still in business
During their last bankruptcy, one of the mall groups (Simon?) bought them to add to their portfolio of dying / dead mall brands.
I assume it’s some ploy to rent their own mall space to failed brands they own.
it was a few years ago :)
I went D.C.→Florida in 2023, and found it really unsettling that you get to the exact same carbon-copy of a parking lot with the Walmart in the middle, and then you enter the Walmart and it has the exact same layout as the last one you were in, down to the meanest stick of gum.
I mean I guess it’s convenient when you want to find a specific item or you need to go to the bathroom, but I’m not going to go exploring the USA by car again.
i would be nervous to ride the rides at SOTB. I once stopped there to pee and it was like a ghost town
Back in the day I followed a blogger who was a designer and also travelled over the world. He had the habit of photographing local infrastructure like trash bins, lamp posts and such. He’s said, infrastructure all over the US looks the same, including even overseas territories. When one is dropped off in US Virgin Islands, they could think they’s in the continental US if not for the trees.
Yep.
Why bother traveling anywhere in this country? Anywhere you go, you haven’t left.Still plenty of Jesus ads in GA and FL.
And several Waffle Houses on each exit.
What do Jesus ads try to sell you exactly ?
I don’t know, a saving?
He’s a carpenter you muppet he wanna make you tables, but in this 3D printed word business is not exactly booming…
😂 Reminds me of that sketch “I’ve been busy with non-carpentry work…”
I can’t stand when I get somewhere in the US in geoguessr because 80% of the country looks identical
You can usually tell a little bit from the plants. I can’t exactly put my finger on what it is but the grass in Florida looks different to the grass in California. Both in terms of colour and shape, but that’s not an automatic and said because it’s difficult to get an image where you’ve got a good view of blades of grass.
I can usually figure out which part of the country I’m in from the plants, buildings, and mountains, but narrowing things down in those regions can be tough. I’ve had at least one where I passed 3 dollar generals before seeing any state name, flag, or outline.
I have the same problems in rural South Africa, Australia, and especially Russia though.
I’ve spent some summers in Europe over the past few years. Americans don’t know what you are missing:
Greece:
Italy:
Spain:
Why are all the exits in Spain Italian cities?
i think the last two got mixed up
For the same reason most cars in the “Italy” photo have Spanish plaques
Oops! How could I possibly have mixed up Barcelona with Rome?
Your pictures are not from Barcelona or Rome. They’re from highways between cities. OPs pictures are from stroads within American cities. Anybody that’s set foot within Thessaloniki, Barcelona and Rome can instantly tell those cities apart.
Other European cities might be less easy to tell apart, but you chose some of the most iconic cities that truly are unique and easy to distinguish.
I mean the same can be said of the cores of American cities as well. The stroads are generally out on the edges where the city grew just in the last 75 years or so, just like how the highways in major European cities generally won’t be in the ancient city centers.
Sure I can find plenty of nearly identical stroads around New York, Minneapolis and Chicago but if you look at the very center of each of them they’ll all look very different and local culture and history will shine through
A stroad and a highway is not the same though. A highway doesn’t take you to stores or services, it takes you between cities. Stroads are a part of a city.
I’d also note that the Italian highways (which was showcased in two pictures) are pretty infamous in Europe.
OPs pictures are from stroads within American cities
I Wikipediad a picture of Leavenworth, Kansas and this is the picture:
But really I was just trying to be funny.
Looks like any random mid sized American city.
Were you just another car in a lane?
Stock photos because I didn’t photograph getting around from the airport into the cities.
But many of my actual city photos are shockingly similar all over Europe. Outside of a few streets it’s mostly fake styling. Like in Zurich where the building might look older but then you walk close and it’s poured concrete to look like stone and the store itself is a Starbucks or Sephora.
Edit for the downvoter:
This is a view very close the the Acropolis that I walked past several times. (Again not my photo because I photo the “interesting”, not the realistic.)
But no one shares these photos, it’s always the glamour shots.
Buildings that look like this are usually much older than the chains in them. In European city centers, big international chains just set up stores in historical buildings.
It’s not the chain store inside. It’s the fake poured concrete facade to look like stone. It gives the illusion of being old like a castle at DisneyWorld.
So just like home, then.
They’re mostly missing the motorcycles (and scooters!) lane splitting.
Not in LA where lane splitting is legal!
It’s just bad timing, it’s usually not like this most of the time (at least in Italy), summer is especially full of tourists and people going from a region to another so it clogs a lot but is usually not that much of a problem except in some periods (eg: august is an HELL)
This is so ridiculous and absurd it HAS to be satire. Either that or Poe’s Law got me. This just seems too hyperbolic and flippant to be somebody being for real and genuine
This should have been immediately obviously that it was satire.
A trick to tell if something is satire is to consider what would have to be true for it not to be satire and why they would use that tone, and then weigh what’s more likely.
I call it the Flat Earth conundrum. There is no comment so stupid that someone won’t make it unironically.
I am just waiting for someone to utterly fail at basic reading comprehension, be told the correct answer, and then comment, unironically “well the fact I imagined someone that dumb says a lot about society”
I have experienced it in the other direction, the other day. There was a comment that was so ridiculously racist that it had to be a bit, for sure, racists wouldn’t say things like that. Nope. They apparently would.
Satire conundrum: there is no comment so stupid someone won’t take it anally.
Having lived and traveled both “places” (and speaking in jest):
-
America’s cities are vastly more uniform than European ones, especially the mid-size ones. The approach goes big box stores > strip malls > suburbs > trendy strip malls > abandoned downtown > highrise downtown complex. In Europe, it’s more quaint medieval village > commercial area > medium density living > high density living > medieval city core
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America’s landscapes are vastly more uniform than European ones, outside of a few highlights. Driving cross-country is city > farm land > more farm land > desert > National Park (yay!) > desert > farmland > city. Europe is more city > shrubs > border wait > mountains > border wait > lake > valley > border wait > city
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Europeans think of any European country as an equivalent to America as a whole. That’s simply stupid. America as a whole is equivalent to Europe as a whole, and American states roughly equivalent to European countries. States are on average half as big as countries in Europe, but America as a whole is roughly equivalent to the EU. So, yes, a European should know what the capital city of Florida is if they expect an American to know the capital of Poland. (Only Germans and people from Montana can reliably tell you the state capital of Montana, though.)
-
American regional cultures are almost as diverse as European ones. Europeans seem to think that it is the language barrier that keeps regional cultures intact and diverse, but an American from California and an American from Texas use the same language but might as well be from different universes. People from Utah think drinking coffee is sinful and drown their uncaffeinated selves in thinly diluted sugar while next door in Colorado climbing 14ers (4300 meter mountains) is a social event that requires crowd control and permitting.
I’m no german, not american either (pheeew) and even I can tell you the capital of Montana is Hannah
it has its show, it has its Linux distro. it’s basically common knowledge by this point
YOU CRIMINAL are the reason the neighbors complain about my crazy laughing! 😀
my pleasure, kind sir / maam
American regional cultures are almost as diverse as European ones.
Not even close. Almost every European country has it’s own language (sometimes more than one), and often times regional dialects within countries aren’t even mutually intelligible.
In Europe, the differences in traditions and expectations for how to act are massive, with different stories, different educational systems and different political systems. Half of Europe even lived in a different economic universe with the Soviet union just up until 40 years ago. Many European peoples still retain traditional crafts and lifestyles - it’s not “quaint little villages”, it’s a living heritage that it takes both specialized skill and understanding to maintain.
Spain is its own cultural universe spanning the globe, with media that never touches the English-speaking world; Albania and others have been Muslim-majority for 500 years (to say nothing of Turkey); Russia borders Finland in the West and Japan in the East. I could go on but I really think you’re vastly under-estimating how different European countries are from each other, and exaggerating the differences between American states.
That’s not to say that America doesn’t contain diverse cultures, but it’s your minority cultures within and across states that provide the flavor. But put succinctly: do think Minnesota is to South Carolina what Denmark is to Slovenia?
Of note, Minnesota and SC are almost twice as far away from each other as Denmark and Slovenia 😂 I live in the US and the idea that our cities’ cultures are as diverse as those found among all the nations of Europe is laughable. There’s plenty diversity within the US between cities, but it’s a totally different beast, and every city is also surrounded by homogeneous suburbs
That’s what I was trying to get at. And I don’t want to take anything away from America, there are reasons why some of the best cultural exports in terms of music, sports, film and books come from the USA and I think the multiple swathes of cultural incubators that cut across geographical boundaries help a lot with that.
Yeah, that’s an absurd claim.
Americans watch the same TV channels. They shop in the same national retailers. There are some small differences in regional cuisine, but burgers, pizza, tacos, fried chicken, etc. are common everywhere. The same musicians are popular everywhere. The same 4 sports are the popular ones everywhere.
There are regional festivals celebrated in Europe that have been celebrated since before Europeans set foot in the Americas. The regional foods are completely different. Even though football is the most popular sport in most places, the number 2 sport varies greatly. There are bands and singers that are popular across Europe, plus a lot of American cultural exports that are popular too. But there are lots of regional kinds of music that are popular within certain countries.
The fact that Mardi Gras in New Orleans is so popular shows just how homogenous the culture is. To Europeans, Mardi Gras is just a very typical American-style festival. And yet, it draws Americans from other states because it’s considered to be so unique.
The second to last point makes no sense, since the capital of Montana plays no role in international geopolitics, so it’s useless information. Poland is not the biggest international player either, but at least it’s not just part of a federation
The Montana mention was a joke. The capital is Bismarck.
(Psst, that’s North Dakota, Helena is the capital of Montana)
I think that was another joke
But what was the first one?
The first one was earnestly serious, I’m sure of it.
The last point does not mention Montana?
If you mean the point above that, then the comparison is between Poland and Florida. Florida’s large Cuban community has been a driver of the support of Republicans in Congress. It is both a reason why the President is a Republican right now, and why America is thinking of invading Cuba. So, yes, Florida is very important to international geopolitics.
if you meant Montana, then let me point out that the population of Montana is somewhere between Cyprus and Luxembourg and has the geopolitical clout of either.
But their point still stands that your state capitals have no real geopolitical influence. Outside of a few big cities there is absolutely no need to know the individual American cities on a global scale.
Leipzig has a really strong scene of zionists which is one of the reasons that the left party of Germany has a problem recognising the need to stop weapon shipments to Israel, but I don’t expect a random american to know that Leipzig exists.
Whose state capitals? I am European.
It’s as a European that I say Europeans have to get over internal differences and stop thinking European countries are equivalent to the big players in the world.
The UK thought it was super special and better than the rest, and it got exactly what it deserves. We Europeans are probably better off forgetting the “geopolitical clout of Poland” and considering it embedded in that of Europe as a whole. It’s no coincidence that Europe’s enemies fan the flames of nationalism in European countries.
Just dropping in to say that I, as an American, also look at Europe as though it’s one country with individual states. I don’t think that’s a universal rule, but I think a lot of Americans do that, in part, because we mostly hear about politics in terms of the “European Union”.
Occasionally the news is at the country level… France’s nuclear reactors… Spain suggesting development in the military… Denmark starting conscription… but the regulations we hear about, such as regarding carbon emissions or GDPR are in terms of the EU as a whole.
Tbf you also get very little international news in total
Reuters, BBC, Le Monde, RTÉ … All are available on line.
Outside of a few big cities there is absolutely no need to know the individual American cities on a global scale.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but this statement can be applied to pretty much every region in the entire world. Definitely also applies to Europe.
If you ever need to drive the point home, half of our states are only important to the people who live in them. Sure, California or New York is comparable to say, France or Germany, and impact the world stage; but our deep South or Midwest is probably more comparable to the Balkans or the Baltics, etc. I’m sure they’re lovely, of course, but… they aren’t exactly a focus.
I say that, given an American can probably pick correctly where Spain, France or Germany are, roughly, but fuck us to know where Latvia or Albania are. Europeans are forgiven if they can’t figure out which of our fucking rectangles is Wyoming.
Why, it’s easy! Wyoming is the rectangle above the Best Rectangle!
You know, I think the fact I live here and I still had to look up which one you meant is just one fucking stellar example of their point.
Europeans think of any European country as an equivalent to America as a whole. That’s simply stupid.
It is stupid. Many European countries are culturally more diverse than the entire US.
American regional cultures are almost as diverse as European ones.
Not even close. This is laughable and, honestly, proof that the cliché of the American knowing nothing about world geography and foreign cultures is alive and well.
To even suggest that some guy from Texas and some other guy from California are as culturally far apart, as, say, a Spaniard from a Finn… this is truly the dumbest timeline.
Some good stuff. Some not so good stuff. Hard to tell where the jest and bad info meet.
Europeans think of any European country as an equivalent to America as a whole. That’s simply stupid. America as a whole is equivalent to Europe as a whole, and American states roughly equivalent to European countries. States are on average half as big as countries in Europe, but America as a whole is roughly equivalent to the EU. So, yes, a European should know what the capital city of Florida is if they expect an American to know the capital of Poland. (Only Germans and people from Montana can reliably tell you the state capital of Montana, though.)
I tried to make a very similar point in one of the European communities on Lemmy earlier this year (in response to a post about Americans being bad at European geography) and basically the whole community jumped on me for it. Watch your back. They’re rabid over there if you dare suggest that a US state is comparable to a European country. :P
They’re like states, if the states each spoke their own separate languages and had spent the bigger part of the last 2,000 years constantly at war with each other.
I’ll explain. People get annoyed because you are proudly ignorant of 2000 years of history and tons of cultural differences.
The issue was never about cultural differences or history (though I would argue that different US states have quite different cultures, too) - it was purely about geographical knowledge. In that case specifically it was Europeans ragging on Americans for not being able to find smaller European countries on a map. I tried to compare being able to point to a country like Moldova as a European to being able to point to Kansas as an American and that was apparently the wrong thing to suggest, let me tell you, but the point I was trying to make is that of course Americans aren’t going to be as well-versed in European geography as a European, because we simply don’t need to know where those countries are regularly. Meanwhile I’d wager most Americans can point to Kansas or Colorado on a map, but I wouldn’t expect Europeans to be able to.
A better comparison to Moldova would be Belize.
I mean most American states are shaped as rectangles, have nothing notable in terms of geography or culture to tell them apart, and are under 2 million inhabitants.
It’s like if Europe had Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and then 15 more of that, but they’re all shaped the same and speak the same language and their capitals are made of cinder block and plaster.
I mean most American states are shaped as rectangles,
Objectively false!
and are under 2 million inhabitants.
Objectively false!
I don’t know why anyone is upvoting you
You’re objectively right, I was being hyperbolic. It’s a lot of states that are rectangle-shaped with quite small populations though. I mean if I had given the cutoff of “4.3 million inhabitants”, then that would cover half of all states.
And easily more than half at least one 90 degree angle.
Europe also has a lot of small states to be fair, and I don’t think we can expect people in general to keep track of all these.
This isn’t really relevant to the conversation, but your comments made me curious and I’ve just discovered that San Marino is actually a full 61km2. I had no idea, I thought it was about the same size as Monaco. The other mildly interesting tidbit is that Luxembourg is about the same size as Rhode Island - and both fill the role of “vortex of unknowable financial hijinks” for their respective region. I wonder what it is about small regions that breeds both tax havens and a shockingly high density of chocolatiers.
Yeah these small independent states are really strange. At least Rhode Island isn’t landlocked, but Luxembourg depends on all of its neighbors using it to launder money, and I’m not sure why that’s tolerated. Maybe it’s the chocolate.
NIMBYism, but for financial criminals? Oh well. At the very least they’re not boring, I suppose that counts for something.
Europeans think of any European country as an equivalent to America as a whole.
Half of the problem with that phrase is that this line of thought is far more common from Americans than Europeans. No European think France = US in any other context than geopolitically, maybe. But a lot of US citizens do think that way. The phrase “Americans think 200 years is a long time, and Europeans think 200km is a long distance” is of US origin. It’s literally the result of US ignorance that compares the geographical distances of a single European state, like Germany or France, to the entire extent of the continental US. Europeans are perfectly aware that 200km are 200km anywhere on the planet. Whether you are driving to another country or another state, it is irrelevant.
The other half of the problem is that the political dynamics of the European Union are fundamentally different to the United States federation. Just by the fact that the US was forged in war while the EU is an economics first agreement. Their nature is vastly different and not comparable at all. Maybe one day in the future the EU will just be a federation of states, a single country with a single constitution, but today that’s not the case. There’s no executive power in the EU that can override a country’s authority. That alone sets them so very far apart.
Europeans are perfectly aware that 200km are 200km anywhere on the planet
There is a difference in the way distances are perceived; I was talking to a British person bemoaning that airfare was 200 lbs more expensive in Manchester than London, and treated the notion of driving just 4 hours as if it was crazy. I’ve heard similar stories about not visiting family because they’re just a few hours away by car.
That really just depends on the scale they are personally used to though, for a fair few years I lived ~5 hours from my family (relatively far within the country), but it didn’t feel like very much because I/we visited my partner’s family on the other side of the continent at least once a year. Prior to that, I don’t think that I would have visited anywhere near as frequently.
The lack of Schengen and now EU membership may make British people more prone to being on the smaller side of this.
The classic saying “In Europe, 100km is a long distance. In the US, 100 years is a long time” holds a lot more truth about perceptions in the respective cultures than you’d expect. I’ve had a very pleasant 100km daily commute - seriously, I quite miss that - and at the same time, there’s a building down the street that’s just been added to the historical registry and was built in the late 80s.
Meanwhile I’ve had German friends offer to book me a hotel when I went from Cologne to Essen to give them a visit (admittedly this might have just been learned pragmatism, I was taking the trip on DB…) and said hotel dated back to before my ancestors had a written language.
Sure, perception can change. When all you have is a car and a highway. It seems outrageous to want an alternative. When you are used to high quality public transport, driving there is a chore.
Driving four hours is an effort that you have to actively take. Plus costs for ownership or rental, fuel and lodging. Americans treat these factors as mundane (and the cultural romanticization of road trips that doesn’t exist anywhere else), but they have real costs. Sure, a plane or a train are more expensive. But it offloads a great deal of cognitive costs as well.
The distance itself doesn’t change though.
Sure, a plane or a train are more expensive
Are things really that bad in Europe? In Japan, non-HSR is cheaper than driving, in China HSR is slightly cheaper than gas, and in vietnam I can even put my motorcycle on the train for less than it would cost to drive.
Trains being more expensive than driving sounds like what happens when you have politicians trying to kill your train system.
Totally depends on the country and the route. I don’t live there but have family. They say some train lines are comparable to a plane ticket. Some are cheaper, some are more expensive. The most expensive ones are usually the ones that cross national borders. Though overall the train will always be considered a tiny bit more expensive, it will also be a lot more comfortable. Since the airlines with tickets cheaper than trains usually offer the tiniest seats with zero amenities.
Some countries are better than others as well. In England, trains can get you almost anywhere relatively comfortable and fast (yes, some caveats exist). Spain is rather good in the central regions but many places have spotty coverage. While in Switzerland you can go virtually everywhere except the alps without ever sitting in a car.
The big comparison, that most people fail at, is not just the price of gas. Cars are taxed heavily almost everywhere in the EU. And the tight emissions regulations also require a lot of regular maintenance. So the train will always be more expensive than just the gas, but not more expensive than the bigger picture of car ownership. Plus, if you drive, you’re the sod stuck driving the whole way.
“Offloading cognitive costs” for the sake of convenience is ruining this species.
I meant like paying someone else to drive the plane/train/bus. Not the AI kind.
Having to drive everywhere makes people misserable.
Edit: we take for granted the infrastructure required to support a society that drives everywhere in personal cars. That is what is actually driving the species to extinction via climate change.
I wasn’t just talking about AI.
Being trapped and anxious makes people miserable; lots of people are scared of driving (because they’re bad at it and/or have attached anxiety), and sitting in traffic is frustrating. There’s lots of very good reasons to choose mass transit. The unwillingness to be engaged with the task of driving a car for a few hours is not a good reason, it’s a symptom of a totally cooked attention span.
Appreciate the warning! I think the real problem is that Europeans never accepted they are becoming a single political entity and still don’t necessarily consider themselves European. I think that’s sad, as Europeans are extensively closer to each other than to nations outside of Europe. Also, the EU is a decent model for how smaller entities can work with larger ones without being suffocated or absorbed.
My mother was from Montana which is why I know. I know Billings more though.
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You can do this with Europe too
yeah, this is trivial to do when you cherry-pick. no cities? no national parks? nothing from any of the mountains, deserts, two sets of dunes, or coasts? nothing from the PNW? no forests? not even grasslands? the grand canyon is literally one of the natural wonders of the world.
Yeah but what does it look like where people live?
I picked random spots in European cities in google street view and most of the places did not look at all like the photos above. Brick streets, people driving bicycles, people chilling in out door cafes. I did see some spots (mostly in Eastern Europe) that looked like the photos above. I did same bigger cities and some cities I never even heard of.
Doing the same thing in the US, I got dropped into a train station in Charlotte NC, so that was cool. But besides that, I saw a lot of suburbs, parking lots, and places that looked like the photos above from random cities across the US.
It’s a joke so it only needs an element of truth to it. And it’s directed at American culture, not about landmarks. From what I can see from my very non-scientific survey, the joke definitely has an element of truth about American culture being very samey in terms of how the places the live look.
It might also be fair to say Western Europe all looks the same with people driving bicycles on brick streets to cafes and such. But that probably wouldn’t sting all that much.
I would say that stems from the fact that America is extremely young. So all of the development of our cities, architecture, and transportation happened in the last like 300 years.
Most of it has been from the 50s
Exactly, so all of the layouts and architecture was done around the same time, so the styles and culture spread much faster over a wider area. That wasn’t the case in Europe, which has a much more diverse set of cultures from thousands of years. Cities and infrastructure will feel more unique because they weren’t designed with the same considerations.
Kinda, but also not really. The automobile seems like the way to go for quite a number of decades pretty much everywhere. Some countries made more effort than others to be car-centric. When it became clear that a car-centric city kinda sucks, some countries made more effort than others to change away from that.
Sure, some places had historic buildings that meant going 100% car-centric impossible so they effort needed to move away from that is less.
But we can’t ignore the fact that a lot of this is culture. I’m in Canada and I can admit that a lot of places here do look like those photos. And I know that a lot of people are against things like bicycle lanes, and just want to add yet another lane to the roads. It’s controversial to even build an apartment building with shops on the ground floor. Why would people get up in arms over that? I don’t know, but they do.
We don’t even want to try all that much to make the places we live better.
Funny how they always ignore Australia when attempting to swing geographical peen.
Not sure what that has to do with anything i said but go off, i guess
It doesn’t really. I’ve just been watching that comedian a bit recently and your comment reminded me of the bit.
