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Epic Fail!


Shorty

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you're telling me? read my user title!

EDIT: alrighty I've seen this millions of times :P and here's my two cents.

There are different factors you have to consider which affected these people's answers. Just because they gave incorrect answers at that point when that person was asking them, doesn't necessarily they mean they're dumb or they didn't even know the correct answer.

I remember doing something in social psych that said that people being put on the spot are less likely to think about the question when answering it, or something of the sort! lol I can't remember right now, but I'll look it up! I'm sure the dude who asked them the question had a bit of a hurried tone in his voice, which rushed them to come up with an answer rather than let them think about one.

Although it looks like these people were randomly selected, who knows if they were? I mean what if they're all from the same area of the USA which has a low educational and civic involvement level? not really the fault of the people now is it? I mean not everyone is interested in learning general information or critical thinking, some people are just presented with it.

thing is, if you want to measure the inelegance of a nation, you're better off doing it with pen and paper IMO.

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you're telling me? read my user title!

Did you realise that your user title is spelled wrong as well? :)

There are different factors you have to consider which affected these people's answers. Just because they gave incorrect answers at that point when that person was asking them, doesn't necessarily they mean they're dumb or they didn't even know the correct answer.

I remember doing something in social psych that said that people being put on the spot are less likely to think about the question when answering it, or something of the sort! lol I can't remember right now, but I'll look it up! I'm sure the dude who asked them the question had a bit of a hurried tone in his voice, which rushed them to come up with an answer rather than let them think about one.

Although it looks like these people were randomly selected, who knows if they were? I mean what if they're all from the same area of the USA which has a low educational and civic involvement level? not really the fault of the people now is it? I mean not everyone is interested in learning general information or critical thinking, some people are just presented with it.

:) I'm sure there are people who really don't know the answers to these questions but when you group them together like this...it's all playing a trick on your sense of perception, isn't it? Also say they got 100 samples and 90 of those do give intelligent answers, but 10 do not, and they put the 10 together, they've got a wonderful video that really show only one small portion of the data, and the audience is then mislead to think this is the majority of it. It's all in their purpose for gathering the data in the first place as well. If they set out to ridicule and not getting a real consensus of things (as this probably is), of course they're going to dismiss data that doesn't suit their purpose or get rid of people that would skew up their results. [/too much reading on marketing research and survey strategies]

I do love, however:

Who won the Vietnam War?

We did. Wait, were we even in the Vietnam War?

:P

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Well if I was being patriotic I'd say Vietnam won. :) If I were being analytical I'd say Vietnam still won but American didn't really *lose* either since on one perspective they were only involved in helping South Vietnam fight a civil war, so they weren't really a country *in* the war, if you know what I mean, so couldn't lose. They just decide to take away their help and aid in the end and let South Vietnam fight the war on their own, thus the side that lost was really South Vietnam, to North Vietnam. :P

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I seriously get so ****ing tired of anti-American **** :P . Yes, it's funny and everything but people have to realize that USA's power relies on the majority of the people being stupid, lest we forget USA is by far the strongest superpower and their GDP comprises 1/5 of global GDP - so obviously they can't be THAT stupid. Anyway, those of you who have lived in America will have experienced its ginormousness, know that you don't really need to know about the rest of the world to be a happy citizen. It's almost like a Europe with its countries in the form of states :) and each state has its own culture (they just happen to share the same language). Everything you need is there and cheap, and since everyone seems to hate Americans anyway, why should they bother getting to know the rest of the world that so adamantly despises them? :)

[/rant]

btw, I lived in the US for most of my life and while there are many things I don't like about it, it is still my home. And yes, I met a lot of dumb people but also many fine women :) .

What are the underlying assumptions in my rant? (for TOK peeps :D )

Edited by blindpet
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ya ezex I actually looked at that one as well! but look at the people chosen! a housife (guessing she is, since they're at some amusement park, and why else would a middle ages woman be there in the middle of the day if not taking her kids there?) a chav child (known to be not the brightest in the country anyway) and a farmer!

yes I see general knowledge screaming from those bunch :P

I agree with blindpet, I'm hardly anti-american though I don't agree with a lot of things they do... And I only realized how much Europe is similar to the US when I read about the EU membership for my british politics module :)

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Yeah, this is bias because most of the questions are answered by the same people anyways so it seems that they might have interviewed 100 people but only found about 10 stupid ones and then put them on tv. You also have to think about the type of people that would be willing to do something like that to be put on tv. So, it's not accurate, but sadly I could not answer some of those questions :P , just living up to my name I guess.

Oh, and stop bashing Americans! We are just like everyone else.

Edited by Tyro
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Thank you Lc and Tyro for your American support and non-media influenced and unquestioned hatred for an otherwise awesome country.

These types of 'surveys' illustrate a dilemma in general psychology. How do we define stupidity? For that matter, how do we define intelligence so that everybody agrees? I have to share that the original creator of the IQ test used it to test for mental retardation not a measure of intelligence. What is even more problematic is that general knowledge is largely based on your line of education. Take this example: a child is abandoned at birth in the forest yet manages to survive and learn the ways of the wild (such children are called feral children). (S)he is able to survive in the jungle, communicate with animals and find food and shelter. Now consider that knowing where France is or the Irish currency is completely useless in survival techniques. I happen to be pretty good at math and can't understand why people can't do basic algebra, yet they are able to analyse works of art which i write off as 'just art'. So obviously these videos are biased, but they are still funny to watch, yet hardly so for viewers who cannot answer the questions themselves!

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well obviously the guy who did the british one was trying to imitate the American one. Problem was that he wasn't as skilled as the first guy who did it. All in all, they are both really funny but they shouldn't be targeting ALL americans and all the british. It's wrong to target everyone like they did...maybe Mexicans, its fine to target them and always really funny :P

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And plus, the British ones had these trick questions that are supposed to be answered wrong by most people. The American one isn't very accurate either, because they can choose to not have people who answered the questions correctly.

Either way I think I saw this video 2 years ago :P

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Hahaha i think everyone's taking this a bit too seriously. The guy who did the americans are NOT stupid one is from the chasers war on everything. You know the guys who pulled that stunt at the G8 summit. Its just typical aussie humour. We give everyone a hard time, not just the americans. I mean you'r talking about guys who'd dress up in a police uniform and give fines to people who named their babies funny things. Of course they took out the people who gave correct answers, because if they were left in there, it wouldnt be anywhere near as funny. I do understand all your arguments and everything but this wasnt made to be taken seriously :P

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well obviously the guy who did the british one was trying to imitate the American one. Problem was that he wasn't as skilled as the first guy who did it. All in all, they are both really funny but they shouldn't be targeting ALL americans and all the british. It's wrong to target everyone like they did...maybe Mexicans, its fine to target them and always really funny :)

lol hey keep away from the Mexicans! they make great food! they're good capice! lol

and the British one was at the same level as the American one imo, he was just trying to prove a point :) and I think he did it very well by choosing those people. I don't know much about the less intelectual in America (well, other than California beach babes :) ) so can't really point out why those people were chosen other than because they opened their big fat mouthes :)

Oh' date=' and stop bashing Americans! We are just like everyone else.[/quote']

but it's fun :(

Spoiler - Click me!
:P

[Close]

Fair enough Lorenzo :) and I did find it funny the first time I saw it, but there are so many people out there who misunderstand these things when they're put up on youtube and treated as a video on its own without understanding what you just said about the people behind it. So it's definitely causing a misconception :P

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I've seen this video a lot of times, and still find it funny! What has to be looked at tho, is that the general aura given off by Americans is similar to the people in the video sometimes. Before anyone jumps on me, I've been to America twice, and I know what I'm talking about when I call Americans a paranoid race of people. This doesn't mean that all Americans are like that, couple of my really good friends are Americans.

And stay off Mexicans! They'd probably know more that some of their neighbours up north. Btw, hope you weren't being serious when you said that it's all right to target Mexicans.

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I'm sure he wasn't Aboo... wow me and you should start a Mexican support group :) I got some of that vibe when I was in LA as well :) but I still don't find it as funny... dude you need another pass time!

Past-time? Who me? :P :P Yeah, funny isn't what I meant. Prolly remarkable and unbelievable, because really there are people like that.

My best friend is Mexican, so I gotta support her!

Edited by Aboo
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I saw this when it first aired on channel 2 in Australia like 5 years ago, lorenzo said that they are the chaser's war on everything, but this was actually from a different show, called CNNNN, which they did before the chaser's war on everything. The show is satire so it is meant to be funny and not taken seriously as lorenzo said.

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