Comment by drone | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drone | Hacker News Reader

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"Civilized is not exactly a well defined term. It's essentially a subjective criticism."

Actually, it is quite well-defined. Here you go:

"1. Having a highly developed society and culture. 2. Showing evidence of moral and intellectual advancement; humane, ethical, and reasonable: terrorist acts that shocked the civilized world. 3. Marked by refinement in taste and manners; cultured; polished."

So, either America has no:

1: Highly developed society and culture 2: Evidence of moral and intellectual development or 3: Refinement in taste and manners

Now, which of those do you think we Americans would take the least offense to, at being lumped into a board category of "uncivilized".

I find it striking that there are people taking the time to make pot-shots at America on a technology site. We need only look back a short period in history to see that civility is a very recent trend in most parts of the world, and especially so in Europe. It would be most beneficial to all of us to politely ask how we can improve each others' lives, rather than goading people into defensive postures.

In my dictionary, "civilized" means "living in cities".

Yes, and "digital" means "done with fingers". Linguistic essentialism is not a very helpful communicative strategy.

Ever heard of a Digital Rectal Exam?

And the origin of the word is very helpful: Behaviours we think of as civilized are precisely those which are necessary in order for cities to function.

Buy a new one.

>So, either America has no: 1: Highly developed society and culture 2: Evidence of moral and intellectual development or 3: Refinement in taste and manners

Well, America is not the pinnacle of western (or any other) civilization, is it now?

Wasn't it like 40 years ago that black people couldn't sit in front at the bus? Or 5 years ago that you elected an incompetent idiot for a president for the SECOND time? Or like 30 years ago when you bombed the shit out of countries in Asia and poisoned the places with chemical agents? Or like 60 years before when you dropped two atomic bombs on civilians? Or like today that you still have the death penalty?

Firstly, I never claimed America to be the pinnacle of civilization, and I don't see anyone else doing the same. I simply stated, that it's rather offensive to come in here and cast all Americans as uncivilized because one disagrees with how one police force operates related to another.

Whether you consider a particular elected official of a nation to be of your measure of specific intelligence quotient you desire does not either speak to the general civilized nature of a particular society. Are we really going to rate individual leaders? Where shall we start in Europe? There's so much wonderful material to work with...

We could talk about each of those incidents you mentioned, and the role that Europe played in each of them, we could play these tit-for-tat arguments that will result in no change. What does that achieve? Will you try forever to make all of us feel bad about where we were born? What's so lofty about that position? Why here, why now?

> So, either America has no: [...]

If I would keep making fun of American exceptionalism I would propose striking the "either". :-)

> It would be most beneficial to all of us to politely ask how we can improve each others' lives [...]

How about stopping to kill people for a start? :-) Civilized countries managed to resist that urge decades ago, why not the US?

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So, don't take these remarks serious. It just amuses me how many people behave as if they are personally offended. C'mon guys, it is just an arbitrary line on a map. :-)

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