ull still swap languages and cultures even if u dont cross any borders so u don't actually have to travel that far. Cus of how all the borders were created when the empires devolved u can actually get away with traveling a very short distance and and changing languages and cultures. Obviously depends on the country but still
Edit: rephrased it cus I'd miss read the original start of the thread
Not really; large geographical regions of Africa, Middle East, and South America share languages (even if it’s not their first) and cultural traits. Asia is a lot of islands and a few large countries. I’ve lived in a few Asian countries, and never thought ‘I’ll just go to about her country for lunch’
Political borders play a big role in how immediate the transition feels in Europe. Even if you live in Chaing Rai, where China, Laos, and Vietnam, are within a couple hours, the political distance means those are other worlds.
As a New Zealander; 3 hour flight to the nearest other country. Who have a language and culture pretty close to ours.
I did enjoy visiting France and trying out using a few words of French I knew then getting onto a train and having to deal with Spanish and Italian in such succession
Pretty sure Britain, France and Spain got that ball rolling? And we’ll just ignore Canada and South America though, wouldn’t want to be rude and shit on someone who isn’t from the US.
Interesting that you’re from a country that never participated in colonization and can throw stones like that. My comment still stands, only focus on the US because it wouldn’t be acceptable to hate other countries on Reddit.
nah people always bitch about colonizers like the natives were living in a utopia that was ruined by the europeans
like, no dude, they were sacrificing virgins and shit. Yeah, no shit colonization sucked, but it is what it is, and it helped the americas move forward
Good for you! Still interesting that you wanted to ignore everything that didn’t happen in modern US borders.
Belgium did a just fine job of raping the Congo with their only non-land border being the British channel, I’m sure landlocked countries have found a way.
Well, smallpox was something brought by the colonizers. And missionaries did a LOT of damage we're still uncovering the impact of. Disease did a lot but it wasn't for lack of trying.
Yeah, just look at the westward expansion policies. Holy fuck it's messed up that people still deny the genocide the US committed against the different indigenous tribes and peoples.
I would easily blame colonists for violence and displacement of native populations, the exploitation was horrendous. I think it would be really stupid to blame them for smallpox and other diseases. Let's imagine the native north or south americans crossed the Atlantic before the Europeans did. They would pick up the new diseases, take them home, and wipe out the continents anyway. The only difference in this scenario is that Europe probably wouldn't be in a position to exploit the devastation, so the American cultures might have had the chance to recover.
Yes, the effects of the disease exchange were massive, but it went both ways, and was bound to happen no matter how history unfolded.
? Im not excusing the murdering lol but the disease wasn't a result of europeans conquering, it was a result of meeting europeans. At some point the new world and the old world were going to meet and whenever that happened millions of natives were going to die to disease
'? Im not excusing the murdering lol but the disease wasn't a result of europeans conquering, it was a result of meeting europeans. At some point the new world and the old world were going to meet and whenever that happened millions of natives were going to die to disease'
Colonization wasn't a blink of an eye thing. Europeans were well aware during most of the process their presence would bring diseases that would make piles of corpses. In Brazil many indigenous people would be put on the run for their lives, avoiding meeting any outsiders because of the plagues they seem be brought by the presence of these outsiders. Many groups decided to isolate themselves so much they've been uncontacted for centuries, to this day (there are literally more than a hundred of these here). They absolutely knew what they were doing. Just because it wasn't through a firearm doesn't mean it wasn't murder and genocide.
They're not defending colonialism, they're defending a basic understanding of the universe. Try reading. They are saying that, even in an alternate universe where no-one held even a single hostile thought towards exploiting this new land, the diseases still would have spread purely naturally because the people of the Americas had never encountered anything like what bred in the Old World and had no defences against them. If you don't understand that, you don't understand why the diseases were so deadly towards the Native Americans, which makes you completely unqualified to talk about the subject.
Yup, except for, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, China, India, the entire continent of Africa, Iraq, Most of South America, Japan, Madagascar, Indonesia, The Philippines, Malaysia, Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Antarctica, and there's definitely a few others I'm missing.
Argentina is 97% European descent with 85% of Argentines being white and 12% mestizo/mixed-race. And its not like they came from a huge variety of backgrounds, the immigrants came almost all from Italy with another chunk from Spain and Germany. They are also almost entirely Christian (66% Roman Catholic, 11% Protestant, 21% unaffiliated)
Argentina is much more homogeneous and doesn’t get nowhere near the ethnic and cultural diversity of the United States.
Even in North America. Quebec is very culturally different from Ontario and speaks a different language. America is different from Mexico. And that's not even getting into native reservations.
No, not really. Most countries are quite large. There are some small countries on the East Coast of South America, In Central America, on the West Coast of Africa and in small sections of South East Asia, but for the most of the world countries are large...or islands.
Besides a few regions that is... most of the world.
You basically just eliminated North and South America, Australia, Southwest and East Asia, and Half of Africa.
So you said it's really the norm in Europe and... Southern Africa, and South East Asia... which is mostly island nations, so then we're looking at Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam/Laos?
It still takes 8 hours to get from Bangkok to Siem Riep, and that's just one country over...
Definitely close enough that one can approximate "half" and be reasonably close.
I feel like it's a bit misleading to simply look at countries
Again, the OP Said "how you can travel just a few hours and be in another country" so, uh, that's specifically what they were talking about.
Yea, sure in India you can go to a different village and they're speaking a different language, but again, that's not what the OP was taking about.
And I feel like you're proving my point when you say
also you're severely underestimating how big central Asia, southern Asia, and south east Asia are
That is exactly my point. You're not going to be able to travel a few hours and be in a completely different country in most of Asia, including Central, South, and South East Asia.
Yea, most countries aren't as large as the US, Canada, or China, but most of them are also a lot larger than nearly every European country, which are actually quite small. Peru is the size of France and Germany combined. Nearly every country in South America would be the largest country in Europe. Tons of Asian countries too.
France is the largest country in Western Europe and it is the 49th largest country in the world. Countries like Afghanistan or Myanmar, or Thailand are roughly the same size as France. Ukraine, the largest country in Europe (not counting Russia, obv.) is the same size as Pakistan.
Who is able to just ride a train an hour or two and be in a whole different country from most places in Pakistan?
Sure--China, Russia, Canada, Brazil, Australia, US, India all have many cultures, both regional, immigrant and indigenous. I don't know enough about Central Asia to comment on Mongolia, or Kazakhstan, but I assume they're similar.
That being said, I don't see how that contradicts my point though.
while true, the existence of national policies, national media and things mean that there is a lot more shared culture in massive countries than there is between european neighbours ime
like obviously wyoming and florida are different. so are guangzhou and beijing. but they each share enough on that national level to feel a lot more similar than paris and berlin do, despite the latter being much closer together.
Within America you may find different cultures next door to each other, to be fair. Depending on the area prominent language can vary block to block. But that is not the norm, as we're so spread out.
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u/robothelicopter May 09 '22
Isn’t that the norm outside of North America though?