Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful for us

Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by Sami_Lehtinen on Saturday June 29, 2013 @05:07AM (#5961829)

I totally agree, I have been watching this totally pointless discussion about domestic spying all over the net. I was going to write about the topic, but someone did it already. My conclusion is that at least 95% of US population are so bad in geography that they don't know that they represent only less than 5% of world population. After all, it seems that only people who are voting in elections do matter at all. Maybe it would be a good time to vote with our wallets. It's also really funny how scared Americans are about Chinese manufactured hardware & backdoors. I just guess it takes a one to know one. Btw. WatchGuard firewall registration is very revealing, they want to know way too much about what the firewall is being used for.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by dasil003 on Saturday June 29, 2013 @07:28AM (#5962078)

> My conclusion is that at least 95% of US population are so bad in geography that they don't know that they represent only less than 5% of world population.

Uh-huh. You've been watching those candid videos where they interview stupid Americans haven't you? Of course you probably realized that they are always filmed in heavily populated areas and there is always a cut between every interview. You know why? Because you can find ignorant people in any crowded place anywhere in the world. It's just more funny when it's Americans.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by cpursley on Saturday June 29, 2013 @09:33AM (#5962334)

I know from experience that Americans in fact, don't know their geography.

Many couldn't find where they lived if you pointed it to them on a map. I had a neighbor who thought Amsterdam was a city next to Athens, Georgia (US State) and even after explaining where it was, that it was part of Holland, he asked me how the Germany trip was when I returned.

And yesterday, the Indian gas station owner was flabbergasted that I knew about and where his home town was (Goa - relatively well known at least I thought). He actually asked 'how do you know that' and I wanted to say because I'm not a zombie.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by vacri on Saturday June 29, 2013 @10:20AM (#5962451)

To be fair, the US has an internal geographic complexity that other places don't have, though admittedly it is still irksome that so many people support a war when they can't find the enemy on a map.

He actually asked 'how do you know that' and I wanted to say because I'm not a zombie. I occasionally get the similar question 'how do you know these things', and my response is, depending on context of course, 'how do you not know these things?'.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by lttlrck on Saturday June 29, 2013 @10:14AM (#5962431)

I know plenty of people in Europe that would have trouble locating major US cities on a map, but I wouldn't be so bigoted to say Europeans don't know geography.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by cpursley on Saturday June 29, 2013 @10:16AM (#5962439)

I'm not expecting them to find the city on a map (aside from their own), but you'd be hard pressed to find a European that didn't know that New York or L.A. was located in the United States.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by chaz on Saturday June 29, 2013 @10:45AM (#5962506)

The tremendous amount of US culture exported by through movies, TV, and sports makes a lot of American people, places, and things household names around the world.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by dasil003 on Saturday June 29, 2013 @10:03AM (#5962408)

Not sure I see how this is germane. Are you saying your geography is good, but your statistics are absolute shite?

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by cpursley on Saturday June 29, 2013 @10:22AM (#5962454)

I'm saying from general interactions with American neighbors, people on the street and my own family, they don't know geography. Mine's not great - pretty elementary compared to the rest of the world.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by dasil003 on Saturday June 29, 2013 @11:13AM (#5962596)

Okay obviously my reply went right over your head so I'll give it to you straight: neither you nor the GP has any basis to make that claim. In another reply actual data was presented showing that American ignorance of basic geographical facts is nowhere near 95%.

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Re:Why discussions on cyber snooping have been so painful fo... by notimetorelax on Saturday June 29, 2013 @08:31AM (#5962190)

There has been some research done in this area [1]. What interests me more is how does this compare to the other countries, if someone has the link please post it here.

[1] http://www.nationalgeographic.com/roper2006/pdf/FINALReport2...

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