Originally posted by
Chris
Ok, as usual, I'm going to go left-field here and be my usual contrarian self. I find the European proclivity to be highly condescending towards Americans, calling them stupid and such, highly irritating. Intelligence can be measured and Americans are about average for the Western World. PISA scores put them on the lower end of the OECD average, but still not significantly lower than the European average.
Now, if you want to go to a country with very intelligent people, you won't find them in Europe, but rather in Asia. Singapore has an average IQ of 114 and Japan is pretty close as well. Consequently, they look like some advanced planet from Star Trek, rather than the dilapidated mess of what most of the Western World is becoming. I can compare London and Singapore directly, since I know both cities inside and out and Singapore looks like it's 50 years ahead of London in every sense. Don't even get me started on things like public safety, cleanliness, infrastructure and the education system. Most London Underground stations look like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Most Singapore MRT stations look like the lounge of a 5-star hotel. Changi Airport is unmatched anywhere else in the world. Heathrow is a toilet. British schoolchildren can barely read and write. Singaporean schoolchildren wipe the floor with them in English comprehension, reading, spelling, etc... even though for most of them English isn't even their first language. The gap in maths is embarrassing.
So, instead of bashing Americans, Europeans should concentrate on how they are increasingly falling behind Asia in every area you could think of, except of course for paying people to sit at home doing nothing for decades on end, whilst Asians work their asses off. Yes, rant, but I think this had to be said, because I feel Europeans are completely oblivious to how rapidly they are being eclipsed and made utterly irrelevant, except as a sort of Disneyland-For-Asians.