The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people

Re:The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people by dalke on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @06:18PM (#6402298)

You've made several assertions which have no basis in fact.

"There are so many cultures here that all get along better here than they do anywhere else in the world"

Yes, there are many cultures in the US. If I use language as a proxy for culture, then according to one reference there are 311 languages spoken in the US.

There are 820 in Papua New Guinea, 742 in Indonesia, 516 in Nigeria, and 427 India. So it seems like there are even more cultures in those countries, and a higher diversity. By your argument, those countries should be economic and culture engines, yes?

Sure, that's not an exact measure since in the US there are many different cultures which use English, but then again Hindi plays a similar role in India. You've made the assertion, so it's up to you to back it up.

Or, if I simply ask Wikipedia for countries ranked by diversity it gives me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_eth... , which ranks Cameroon as the most culturally diverse country.

The US is 84th on that list. Canada is 37th on that list, Belgium is 43rd, Switzerland 53rd, New Zealand is 69th ... and Sweden is 128th.

It does not seems that the diversity of the US is sufficiently enormous or exceptional as to give rise to your conclusion. Eg, India has more people and more diversity, but doesn't have the same economic and cultural influence as the US, so certainly something is missing in your analysis.

Then you say "get along better here than they do anywhere else in the world." What does that even mean? How do you know that the diversity of cultures gets along better in the US than in Canada, or in Belgium? Is it a (provincial) belief of yours, or if not, what is the basis for your analysis?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people by jquery on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @07:15PM (#6402513)

If you take a look at a list of countries ranked by foreign-born population:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-bo...

USA is ranked #1... by a huge margin. The fact we rank so low on your cited Wikipedia page is a evidence to my assertion that we "get along". Unlike so many other countries, we integrate and assimilate our immigrants.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people by dalke on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @07:43PM (#6402591)

You didn't say "foreign born", you said "enormous diversity."

Those are very different concepts.

"Unlike so many other countries, we integrate and assimilate our immigrants"

What does 'diverse' mean to you? Since I don't think it means what you think it means. Assimilation is a process which reduces diversity.

Also, in that list the US is indeed #1 ... in the total number of immigrants. If you re-sort by "Immigrants as percentage of national population" then it's:

    UAE - 83.7% (but I don't include guest workers)
    Saudi Arabia - 31.4%
    Australia - 27.7%
    Canada - 20.7 %
    United States - 14.3%

By all metrics, it seems that Canada has both a more diverse culture than the US and a higher percentage of immigrants than the US. That's the country you should be praising, not the US.

The main factor in all of these numbers is that the US has a high population. Once you switch to per-capita, it drops in the ranks.

Congratulations, there's a lot of people living in the US.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people by subsystem on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @07:51PM (#6402618)

Yes, that really is a useless metric since the US has four times the population of the next most populous western country (Germany). And btw:

    Sweden - 15.9%

http://esa.un.org/unmigration/migrantstocks2013.htm?mtotals

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Norwegian prison where inmates are treated like people by dragonwriter on Tuesday September 17, 2013 @07:56PM (#6402636)

> Yes, that really is a useless metric since the US has four times the population of the next most populous western country (Germany).

After the US, the next most popular country of those generally considered "Western" is Brazil; the US has a little over 1.5× the population of Brazil. Number 3 is Mexico. Germany's number four.

[ Parent | on HN ]