Europeans and other Foreign Nationals who Trash America

Discussion in 'Politics' started by WillNever, Nov 18, 2009.

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  1. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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  3. John99 Banned Banned

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    you can be an arrogant scum bag all you want. no one will care.
     
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  5. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm, do I detect a very slight sense of humour failure somewhere around here?

    Obviously you cared enough to comment.

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  7. John99 Banned Banned

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    no. no failure.
     
  8. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    quite right - one needs to be in possession a sense of humour in order for it to experience failure
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Celery

    And?

    Or, to be more specific:

    "Mass consumption does not equate to the product being superlative though does it?" (#2418848/78)

    Beatlemania is irrelevant to the consideration.

    The answer to the Sgt. Pepper question is Pet Sounds. Don't get me wrong; drugs had a bit to do with it, but a trip to the American west coast changed the Beatles.

    The Beach Boys, "Vegetables"​

    It's a curious song that, as I recall, was written in response to an advert Brian Wilson saw for a jingle contest. I don't recall that it was ever used to this purpose, though, eventually being released in alternate form on Smiley Smile, which was, in its own right, a disastrous album despite the number of strong tracks. However, at approximately fifty seconds, you'll hear an odd rhythmic "crunch" take up the percussion. The official credit on that, I believe, would be, "Paul McCartney, celery".

    That's right. The percussion section for "Vegetables" is the Cute Beatle chewing celery, recorded in 1966.

    Imagine you're Paul McCartney, and visiting The Beach Boys in the studio, and it's a completely bizarre experience. The orchestra is crawling around on the floor, barking like dogs and bleating like sheep (Pet Sounds, 1966) and performing odd compositions like "George Fell Into His French Horn" (SMiLE sessions, 1966). The experience changed the way The Beatles looked at composition, and transformed what would become Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
     
  10. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/002654.html
     
    Last edited: Nov 21, 2009
  11. John99 Banned Banned

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    gtfooh.
     
  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    So what.

    Blacks are not American? You're giving England credit for Alan Turing having invented the computer, thereby destroying all American claims to the thing (the transistor, the PC, none of it) and you aren't giving America credit for what Keith Richards lifted from the blues. Bizarre.

    Even the people who brought the records to England, who dug out the old recordings and traveled the American southeast and midwest looking for the musicians - often long forgotten by the locals, who had moved on to other music - were Americans, no?
     
  13. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, the US is the freest in many categories, freest of outside invasions, freest of tradition, freest of military oppression, freest of any kinds of plagues and famines, freest of any kind of land struggles. If you build your capitalist-utopia on top of that, kudos to you.

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    Last edited: Nov 21, 2009
  14. EntropyAlwaysWins TANSTAAFL. Registered Senior Member

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    Are you honestly making the claim that foreign invasion, military occupation, plagues, famines and land struggles are somehow good for a country? That they are a feature that is desirable? Because it sounded awfully like you were.
    Tradition on the other hand, the US has plenty of traditions.
     
  15. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    No Entropy, I am saying the opposite. And because the united states never had to go through any of these things it is a country of privilege. I wasn't being completely serious with my last post, I was just trying to show where my anti-american sentiment is rooted. Other than that, I don't really have any problems with the USA or US americans.

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    Last edited: Nov 22, 2009
  16. EntropyAlwaysWins TANSTAAFL. Registered Senior Member

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    Fair enough. No person or country is perfect, to believe otherwise would be foolish.
     
  17. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    I'm not sure if I understand you right.. The US doesn't have to be perfect in order to draw power from a homogenized world. All america has to do is create a difference in power that will mold other countries - by setting the stage america can still have a large influence on world affairs without breaking any humanitarian conventions. :shrug:
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2009
  18. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, I do really think so. It was the Black Maria in Edison's workshop and the industry that eventually grew up around it that gave the world the media of films, which is a large part of why Hollywood was and remains the film capital of the world.

    Elsewhere, culturally speaking, you have an American inventing the short story (Poe) and numerous American writers changing prose in the 20th century (Stein, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe). You have music being radically altered first by the America blues and jazz artists, then again by the rock n roll pioneers. More recently, rap and hip-hop.

    This is to say nothing of blue jeans, fast-food, trainers, television, telephones or any of the other ubiquitous items American has given the world.

    Oh, and then there's the whole internet thing, right?

    Yes, I know them both. Again, both men develop primitive single-function machines that have limited value until the United States revamps them. And lest we all forget, the PC and what we understand today as an operating system is developed in the US. The computer and IT revolution occurs in Silicon Valley California and Seattle.

    Yeah. The US is the only nation ever to enslave people.

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    Now, you're just being an ass and playing games. The fact you can point to a foreign-national involved with something totally removes an achievement from a nation's column? What other country COULD put a man on the moon? What other country HAS put a man on the moon?

    But let's follow your logic; I guess England didn't win the Battle of Trafalgar, because there were Americans and Irishmen and Dutch people crewing the ships. And to return to Mr. Turing, the "bombs" he invented to break German codes could never have worked without the contributions of the Poles, so take that out of England's column, too, right?

    Again, you're making my argument for me. European walks around with this ridiculous claim to "advanced" culture. What such arguments fail to grasp is that American culture is built on the same European culture. That is, it's in our background -- through our immigrants and intellectual history -- too. Where do you think our Declaration of Independence came from? Do you think we just made it up? It, like the rest of our culture, is an advancement on European ideas.
     
  19. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Forgotten the Lumiere Brothers have we?

    Blue jeans, made of what fabric? Of, that's right, denim, 'De Nim' a French cloth.

    The Plimsol is American?

    John Logie Baird was Amercian?

    Alexander Graham Bell was American?

    So far you've only really got fast food that's standing up

    Yeah, but it was Tim Berners Lee that gave us the World Wide Web. There were 'Internets' before the Internet, JANET being one, and we had Prestel services in the UK from the late 70's


    Clearly you don't know the work of Alan Turing; the whole point of a 'Turing Machine' was that it was programmable, and able to perform a variety of logical tasks. It was the framework for modern computing.


    Again you show ignorance about Turing, and the real life use of computers to crack the Enigma cipher.

    Ooh, no, again , Alan Turing invented the concept of the Operating System. The PC, again no, French invention, sorry.


    The former Soviet Union could have. China will.

    On success in space, America needed the Moon landings to save face, having been beaten by the USSR at every turn;

    First artifical satellite, First object to leave Earth orbit, first object to land on the Moon, first soft landing on the Moon, first to photograph the far side of the Moon, first to Venus, first to Mars first lunar rover, first man in space, first space walk, first woman in space, first space station, and holders of space endurance records thanks to the Mir space station.

    OK, so you have fast food. Oh wait, did the USA invent Fish and Chips? No, OK, so you invented the burger, but not the concept of fast food.

    Toodle pip, and have fun wallowing in your revisionism.
     
  20. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Babbage's was intended to be programmable, which is why Ada Lovelace spent so much time with him (and got a nod of recognition from the US DoD when they called their "universal programming language" ADA).
     
  21. superstring01 Moderator

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    Whatever, Phlo. The point is, it took an American industrialist to realize that tent material made really sturdy pants. His connection to Europe and the French only come by way of the fact that the USA is a European nation.

    Either way, none of those nascent networks really achieved anything. In the end, it took the US military to create the only lasting network of computers. In fact, so powerful is the US internet base, that ICANN and 10 of the 13 master DNS are American while 9 out of those 10 are fullly based and operated in the USA (effectively, under American control, even to this day despite the fact that the US government chooses to play a hands-off game with both of them). The one single master root server (the "A" server") is controlled rather quietly in an undisclosed spot in Northern Virginia, still to this day, by a US DOD controlled corporation. All this stems from one truth: the Internet is an American invention like the steel plough is. Yes, John Deere invented it, but his invention--LIKE ALL INVENTIONS--is merely another layer on top of some other person's inventions. Siting all the people the contributed to it is reasonable, but it doesn't negate the fact that Deere and Deere alone invented the steel plough.

    Nobody is even debating the fact that the Brits--ounce for ounce--punch higher than any nation except, maybe, Germany in the world of scientific and cultural contributions. Nobody even compares. That said, the computer revolution, including the invention of (the first real personal computer, etc) comes from the USA. Just take a look at all the nifty stuff that's come out of Seattle, Silicon Valley, especially PARC.

    That just sounded petty and pointless.

    The point is: nobody else HAS. Shit, eventually the Aborigines would have invented the computer and put a man on the moon if nobody on earth existed. . . given enough time ANY civilization will do exactly what everybody else did. All of these "inventions" and "achievements" were going to be done by somebody at some point in time. The Write Brothers made the first sustainably flyable plane. . . but in a few more years--had they not--somebody somewhere else would have. The point stands that, thus far, only the US has. Speculating about what may be or would have been is not a valid argument in this case.

    Nobody's denying Russian successes or their "firsts". They deserve every ounce of credit they get. But. . . uh, are you denying that the USA put a man on the moon?

    ~String
     
  22. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Afraid not, 'De Nim' was utilised as Naval Uniform material by several nations already, long before Levi Strauss started making trousers.


    I was using JANET to send emails to fellow students in the 80's. All UK Academic sites had access to JANET, so yes, those other networks rather did achieve something, they allowed British academics to colloborate.

    Nobody wanted access to the Internet at home, until the World Wide Web was created. FACT. Do you think Tim Berners Lee would have thought to use the Internet, if he hadn't seen the value of JANET, and thought bigger? Nobody wanted WAIS, or Gopher, TBL gave us Mosaic, and BOOM! Here we are.

    FRANCE.

    Boohoo for you.

    You think? Interesting idea, but they are a stone age culture, and didn't look set to evolve cultutally much beyond that before settlement. It's rather arrogant to assume humans would always develop technology.

    Go tell that to Zero who seems to be under several other false impressions too.


    Of course I'm not and to infer such is dishonest.
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2009
  23. countezero Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not under any false impressions. Indeed, the ironic part of all of this is that you display the exact attitude I initially pointed out (the hate-America, it's never done anything attitude). So far as that goes, there's no point in discussing anything with you. You've made my argument for me. I never wished to engage in a country-to-country comparison of who did what first. All I wanted to prove is that Europeans look down on American culture. You've proved that in spades. Congratulations.
     
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