My favorite thing is that Europe is spooky because it’s old and America is spooky because it’s big
“The difference between America and England is that Americans think 100 years is a long time, while the English think 100 miles is a long way.” –Earle Hitchner
A fave of mine was always the american tales where people freaked out because ‘someone died in this house’ and all the europeans would go ‘…Yes? That would be pretty much every house over 40 years old.’
‘…My school is older than your entire town.’
‘Sorry, you think *how far* is okay to travel for a shopping trip?’
*American looks up at the beams in a country pub* ‘Uh, this place has woodworm, isn’t that a bit unsafe?’ ‘Eh, the woodworm’s 400 years old, it’s holding those beams together.’
A few years ago when I was in college I did a summer program at Cambridge aimed specifically at Americans and Canadians, and my year it was all Americans and one Australian. We ended the program with a week in Wessex, and on the last day as we all piled onto the bus in Salisbury (or Bath? I can’t remember), the professors went to the front to warn us that we wouldn’t be making any stops unless absolutely necessary. We’re headed to Heathrow to drop off anyone flying off the same day, then back to Cambridge.
“All right, it’s going to be a long bus ride, so make sure you’re prepared for that.”
We all brace ourselves. A long bus ride? How long? We’re Americans; a long bus ride for us is a minimum of six hours with the double digits perfectly plausible. We can handle a twelve hour bus ride as long as we get a bathroom break.
The answer. “Two hours.”
Oh.
English people trying to travel around Australia and wildly underestimating distance are my favourite thing
a tour guide in France told my school group that a particular cathedral wouldn’t interest us much because “it’s not very old; only from the early 1600s”
to which we had to respond that it was still older than the oldest surviving European-style buildings in our country
China is both old and big. I had some Chinese colleagues over; we were discussing whether they wanted to see the Vasa ship (hugely expensive war ship which sank on it’s maiden voyage after 12 min). They asked if it was old, I said “not THAT old” (bearing in mind they were Chinese) “it’s from the 1500s.” To my surprise they still looked impressed, nodding enthusiatically. Then I realised I’d forgotten something: “…I mean it’s from the 1500s AFTER the birth of Christ” and they went “oh, AFTER…”.
My dad’s favorite quote from various tours in Italy was “Pay no attention to the tower – it was a [scornful tone] tenth century addition.”
My last boss was Chinese, and she said when her parents came to visit her from Beijing they pronounced Chicago “A very nice village.”
This post keeps getting better
European problems include:
- Missing a turn and now you need to cross the border;
- Towns built 500 to 800 years ago with really small roads where cars can barely fit;
- That road/parking lot/etc they were building is gonna take twice the time to finish because they found Roman ruins AGAIN!
I love this post but also hate it because people never acknowledge the structures of native and indigenous people in America and Canada. We literally have pyramids here in Illinois that are thousands of years old.
There is stuff here from the Aztecs, but since it wasn’t made by settlers people think that America is only as old as when Europeans came over.
The population that got wiped out and displaced by Europeans is still here and needs to be acknowledged. America and Canada aren’t “young” and have more history than most ppl acknowledge.
RT only for the last post.
[Image description: headlines of WWII bombs either exploding unexpectedly in European towns and cities or being found during road works. /ID]
I went walking on some public footpaths in England and everyone was like “oh this one was a Roman roads, these are so ancient!” and I ended up cranky because there are ancient or at least hundred of year old roads in the Americas, we just don’t pay attention to them because Colonization.
To be clear - I don’t have any issue with OP’s statement (or even any of the reblogs). Im just cranky at the US educational system. And boomers, a little.
Where do you think the
oldest shoes in the world are?
China? Greece? Iraq?
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
Everyone- eat the rich! everyone on the Titan was a self entitled rich person (except that poor kid rip)! They shouldn’t have exploited the victims of the Titanic!
News sources everywhere-
Why do I keep seeing James Cameron all over my news (I know these are both Insider, but I have been seeing James Cameron in the news for days from several different outlets, I’m just lazy) Listen, I know he did the time and made the movie but how is he any different? Rich white guy? Profited off of the exploitation of the tragedy of the Titanic? Self entitled expert? Bleh I’m over seeing his crusty wannabe Saruman face all over my phone. Go back to the Avatar movies and think about what you’ve done.
Image descriptions- two news articles, one titled “James Cameron estimates he’s spent more time with the Titanic than the ship’s actual captain after 33 voyages to the wreckage” and “The Titan sub was likely trying to surface and the passengers probably knew the hull was starting to crack before it imploded, James Cameron says.”
A news article titled James Cameron on Titanic Submarine Loss: “Struck by the Similarity of the Titanic Disaster Itself” and a lovely hands rubbing meme with the text “James Cameron eyeballing the opportunity he never thought would come: Titanic 2”
...I'm writing this under the assumption that you don't know any better, because hoo boy is this a bad take
James Cameron legitimately numbers among the small handful of people most qualified to talk about the Titan disaster. The reason why is because being a filmmaker is almost a side project compared to his very real contributions to submersible design, oceanography, and undersea exploration. Cameron has spent decades in the field of undersea science and submarine engineering. He co-designed a submersible called Deepsea Challenger which he personally took to the Challenger Deep, the lowest point of the Marianas Trench and the lowest point on Earth, alone; the first and to date only person to have ever done so solo. His hyperfixation is not the Titanic, it's submersible engineering and undersea exploration in general.
Here's him being presented the Nierenberg Prize (for contributions to oceanography) in 2013:
Note that in the above interview he literally says that he made Titanic essentially just to get the funding to go to the wreck site (and to have the funding to continue to do so decades onward). He's made 33 dives to the wreck of the Titanic.
The reason why he appears in the news is not because he wants to talk about the disaster. It's got little to nothing to do with him having made Titanic (though that is tangentially related). It's because everyone knows that he is an actual, legitimate expert on the issue of submersible engineering (as well as both diving and diving to the Titanic wreck in particular), and so they bombarded him with interview requests and requests for comment. He specifically did not respond to any such requests until after the deaths of the passengers had been confirmed, because he knew that the sub had imploded and they were all dead, and he didn't want to be insensitive and drown everyone's hopes by telling everyone that the search and rescue was pointless. Here's him on ABC News next to his friend and associate Dr. Bob Ballad, the man who discovered the wreck of the Titanic, who is probably the only other person more qualified than Cameron to talk about the recent disaster:
TL;DR: James Cameron is not being interviewed because "he made Titanic"; he's being interviewed because he's a well-known and verifiable submersible engineering and undersea expert.
#probably not what op is referring to but i keep thinking about those thinkpieces that are like #'straight cis men HATE astrology because they are all obsessed with facts and logic and reason and rationality >:( #meanwhile women are intuitive and spiritual and emotional and have a better grasp on astrology <3' THIS IS TRAD SHIT. THIS IS MISOGYNISTIC #YOU'RE SAYING THE SAME SHIT CONSERVATIVE MISOGYNISTS HAVE SAID ABOUT MEN AND WOMEN FOR CENTURIES AND JUST TACKING ON 'AND WOMEN ARE GOOD'
“I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?” - Ursula K. Le Guin
Tony Hawk’s Twitter is a gold mine honestly
We Stan this San Diego Man
C o m e d yy
i’m wheezgJmf stoP
Honestly every time this thread just makes me laugh. And new additions…excellent.
Tony Hawk’s Twitter is a gold mine honestly
We Stan this San Diego Man
C o m e d yy
i’m wheezgJmf stoP
Honestly every time this thread just makes me laugh. And new additions…excellent.









































