Why 1/5 of Americans Can't Locate The U.S.

Originally posted by evilCorgi

also the fact that america has an average estimated iq of 98 may have something to do with the issue.

As do Australia, Denmark, Norway, and France. I honestly don't see what your point is when the high average IQ is estimated to be 107, and the low is estimated to be 59 out of the countries listed there. 98 isn't that bad when you look at the rest of the numbers.

reply to post by Jenna


sorry, i was looking for something to support my stereotypical view that the average American is not very intelligent.

those numbers where convenient (and slightly hypocritical with me being in Australia). I am fundamental a very lazy person.

a more appropriate example should have been something like this:

In a 2003 study conducted by UNICEF that took the averages from five different international education studies, the researchers ranked the United States No. 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of its educational system.

kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu...

I do technical support for cable internet customers, and those customers are in the United States. I have talked to a lot of people in the 7 years that I have been at this job. Most don't know what a power cord is.

So not finding their own country on a map is not a surprise. Its not importrant enough to learn I guess.

Originally posted by evilCorgi

a more appropriate example should have been something like this:

In a 2003 study conducted by UNICEF that took the averages from five different international education studies, the researchers ranked the United States No. 18 out of 24 nations in terms of the relative effectiveness of its educational system.

kapio.kcc.hawaii.edu...

Yep, that one will work much better than the IQ one. Our school systems are atrocious, but that's what happens when you have no choice about what school you go to unless your parents want to move to a different school system. There isn't much incentive for the schools to do a better job at teaching when they know that regardless of whether or not the students learn, there isn't any other option. They know they will get their state funding each year simply because they know that the kids in their area have no better alternative and will have to return for each school year.

Thus the reason I read constantly while in school, and still do. So I actually know something besides 2 + 2 = 4 and how to tie my shoes.

Someone I know and respect asked me yesterday where Cyprus was as they were going there for their holidays

I told her to stop being so ignorant and go and find out.

She is British and no more an immigrant than I am.

The US does not have a monolopy on ignorance and stupidity.
However, they probably wouldn't get singled out so much if they didn't put themselves on a pinnacle to be shot at.

This is why :
Who Controls Our Children ? (Public Education Dumbs Down Kids Deliberately)
video.google.com...

[edit on 26-8-2007 by pai mei]

In that video above, it was quite disturbing that, even though the US is Israels biggest ally and has let Israel do whatever they want in the middle east, alot of those people thought the following Israel is Muslim, in the axis of evil and one of the nations that should be invaded.

So, if there would be more voting by peoples referendum in the US, Israel would actually be invaded by the US sooner then Iran would be, dang ...

Also a big ROFLMAO at people putting the flags for Israel, Iran, Korea etc etc etc all on Australia.

One of them even thought Australia was North Korea and New Zealand was South Korea :p even stating 'damn I didn't know North Korea was that big!'


I guess all this strengthens my case when I said that when I was in school both in the US and Belgium, I could use what I learned in the first 2 years in school in Belgium to graduate high school in the US.

Its not that the people in the US are dumber then anywhere else, its because the education system is designed to make sure that the average Joe has no knowledge, so that the people actually running the country can act asif they have all the knowledge and can trick the people into giving them everything they want.

"Knowledge is Power" and even if your citizens have an average IQ of 150, if you make sure they don't gain knowledge and have other things to keep their mind busy, they'll still act like retards.

[edit on 26/8/07 by thematrix]

It is NOT America bashing to tell the truth about how dumbed down the average American is, it is just facts that hurt. It is not ' Bush bashing ' to point out that Bush is a traitor and murderer and liar, and worse, it is a fact, although it may upset rabid truth denier's.

Americans are dumbed down because in schools they do not TEACH anymore, they prepare kids for tests, standardized tests, that when the kids pass they forget all about. They only learn enough to pass the tests and then only learn about subjects that really interest them. They do NOT teach GEOGRAPHY anymore, but instead try to convince the kids that the political disaters that we generate all over the world are justified, no matter where.

Most kids know really about nothing much until they get to college or a training school for a trade. But the arts, and sciences, and info that may be interetsing but not critical to living, will be dropped. Americans are notoriously lazy and want to be distracted from leisure as little as possible. The ' party ' colleges are the most popular and college students are drunk or stoned at ever incresing rates while they are supposed to be ' learning '.

Teaching to pass tests is the worst way to instruct, and the kids tend to forget all they know after the test is passed. America is full of nice and sincere and friendly people who TRUST too much and accept too much from the TV and the Govt. The fact that 20% of the people watch Fox News lies and about that same percent worship Bush the Scum tells us all we need to know: Many Americans are content to let the ' other guy ' do the investigating and checking and complaining when things go wrong; most Americans cannot conceive of a nation like ours that is literally going to the dogs and that has been corrupted totally from within.

How can ANY citizen of this nation sit back and care not one bit about the FACT that we have MASSIVE , documented evidence of terrible crimes being committed by the Bush/Cheney cabal yet the people just yawn and say " well, if there was a real problem someone would do something ". THAT is the mindset of this nation. Let the other guy worry, there is cold beer in the cooler and a game to watch and hot babes on the Tv..who needs conspiracies and investigations and facts? Too distracting.

We are a nation poised to enter total control, martial law, and they will win without a whimper; see the gun confiscations in the Katrina debacle for details. It is going to take an armed stand againt the forces that are now in control, the shadow govt. and their minions, to get us back on track. If there is no revolution, we are finished and might as well join Britains as totally controlled and observed and monitored and coered people who are at the mercy of the criminal government.

I think we are using the wrong words, i wouldn't say dumb, i would say ill informed. It seems that out of all people it is Americans that simply don't want to learn about anywhere outside their country. This does not mean all Americans, just quite a few of them. I think one cause of this is blind patriotism.

Well now that i have bashed Americans i should insult my own country. Here in the UK the youngest generation are starting to become just as ignorant. I am not exaggerating when i say i have talked to a good deal of people under 18 who don't know who Adolf Hitler was. They couldn't name the years that the world wars were on, they knew nothing of older civilizations, and very little of the world in general.

It isn't just Americans anymore, it seems to be spreading.

[edit on 26-8-2007 by ImaginaryReality1984]

Back when I was at school when we were just starting a session of IT classes (on almost new 286's!! - *sniff* nostalgia ) I remember we were all issued passwords which were countries - class size was prob 25+. We were about 15.

Needless to say hardly any one knew where their country was, OK some were pretty obscure but I could locate a general area and then pin point on a map, or I could say something like isn't that Africa - any who, in the corridor was a poster of guess what the world! - most of the class crowed round after that first lesson and talked all about their passwords! Totally secure, you just had to watch the fingers pointing and listen to the muttering! (mind you there was no email / web access available to us then - best you could hope for was ripping off someone's work and there were a few cases of random swear words being inserted and missed before printouts were made.

Still funny tho!

80% of American youth don't even know Europe is on the world map...
IMO i think it's just ignorance in the educational system.
Type "America is stupid" in Youtube and watch some of the people, the funniest one is a regular Australian man pretending to be the Oz president, i guarantee you'll ever laugh or cry at their stupidity
EDIT:Oops the video has been posted

[edit on 26-8-2007 by SKUNK2]

so i couldnt even listen to the whole clip it made me all pissed off. haha jesus christ her answer is really horrible i felt bad for her.

damn i can't believe people cannot point out the usa in a map..or even china just anywhere wtf ? blows my mind.

I, as an American, CAN believe that only 1 in 5 could find America, ( if you are under 30) the reason I say this is because they are the PC Generation, I didn't have Google and such in High school, I had to learn the Dewy Decimal system ( google THAT) To be Honest if I was asked if I could find America on a map I just may point to the wrong Country for asking me such an Absurd question, ( was this taken into account?) Also, if you ask this question in a Barrio in East L.A. and compare it to the Rural Mid west, would the stats be the same? How many were drug users/homeless, what were the parameters of the questions? I assure you that I can go to any country on the planets and ask quantum physics questions in slums and they say "these people of this country are stupid". without context, we have nothing, now if they said one in 5 high school grads couldn't pick out America, I wouldn't be shocked either, it's the "google" generation, you don't need to remember anything, you can google it. Context means more then anything, otherwise the stats are meaningless

Im from the United States and live and the United States. I have been all over the world and lived in Germany for three years.

People that live in the US are on average very Ignornant of what I would could consider more important things, like knowing where your country is located on a Map, that Iraq and Afghanistan are two completely different countries, that Israelis are not Arabs, Palestinians are not Jews, Ireland is not part of the UK, the UK isnt just England, that Egypt gets as almost as much aid as Israel, Iraq gets more aid than Israel, and I could go on and on.

Americans on the other hand on average are far from Stupid. I realized this when I was in Afghanistan for a year. Americans may not know whats going on in the world, know history, science, or even read. On the other hand they use all of their potential to memorize the most useless crap on Earth.

People magazine is one. Which has now infected major news media in the US. People know all about the lives of disfunctional celebrities and love to learn more about it. They are encyclopedias of the lives of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Idiots who fight dogs, and various other entertainers and athletes.

They are also Encyclopedias of Sports knowledge. Usually people specialize in one field like Football, Baseball, Hockey, NASCAR, Boxing, Basketball, and the worst one a Non Sport, aka Sport Entertainment: Wrestling. People can tell when and where something happened, who was involved and what the outcome was.

Americans usually specialize in mediums of entertainment. I'm even guilty of this. Whether its Television Series(like Lost, Star Trek, X files), movies ( Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Carribean, Harry Potter), and Video games ( Halo, Halo, World of Warcraft, all of the EA Sports games, and did I mention Halo?).

Americans like to memorize music, albeit craptastic music with lyrics like " My Lump, My Lump," Sexyback, something about Witness, Fitness, and being Fergiliscious, Umbrellas, and eh, eh , eh, I can be your Girlfriend, Homeless people under eaststreet bridges, knowing who your friends are, and well I think people get my point.

Theres more than just this, but this gives you could idea of the crap that fills the minds of many Americans.

So when you stand back and really look at it Objectively, Americans arn't stupid. They just dont have any space left for anything important.



[edit on 26/8/07 by MikeboydUS]

This one is so funny...check it out...

Originally posted by resistancia
I find that hard to believe.

I do however, believe that the average American knows nothing about the rest of the world.

Why ?

Because the rest of the world does not matter. Every American I have ever met (and I have met lots in my line of work) is usually so full of crap and goes on an on about how good they are at this and that and how great their country is.

I heard an American say once that Australia was next door to Germany!

Ethnocentric Ignoramus

The problem you describe isn't limited to the USA. I've been to Europe have family in Europe and you have a large class of fools just like we do. Stupidity knows know boundaries. That I'm sure we agree on. Anytime you have a country of 300,000,000 and freedom of choice in just about everything your bound to have retards. Especially when the government will subsidize your expenses, because then you don't have to be smart to survive.

[edit on 26-8-2007 by dmxny]

Now that I've had a few minutes to clean off my desk from the milk spewing out of my nose while laughing hysterically, I can type again properly.

First off, I'm not shocked at all. I've personally interviewed dozens of random people on the street in downtown Atlanta that can't tell me who the mayor of Atlanta is, even when its printed on every single publication on every single wall next to the "Welcome to Atlanta" sign.

The more you babysit your children with the TV the more chance that they will become a product of it.

I spent two days randomly asking who our state senator was. Only about 1/25 people knew that we have two of them and only a rare few knew their names.

I guess I shouldn't be asking 23 year old girls outside of clubs if they are registered to vote when the only thing on their tiny little minds is what guy they are about to scam a drink off of.



[edit on 8/26/2007 by TheExaminer]

lol

OMG I honestly feel stupid just for listening to that crap.

Why can't 1/5th of American's locate America on a map? Because 1/5th of Americans are about as retarded as that girl is.

I think she should stick to the modeling and refrain from attempting to answer 3rd grade questions.

Anyone ever see the movie Idiocracy? This is that movie being played out.

It is sad that foreigners need to bash Americans and make videos about how stupid all Americans are (when not representing all Americans and many of them being from other countries hence the ACCENTS such as in the "Talking to Americans" segments) just to make themselves feel better about their own insignificant countries and actions.

Oh well.

Originally posted by ThichHeaded
He was able to get 3 out of 4 right.. he couldn't answer Russia.

Your map has country names on it.