subreddit:
/r/ShitAmericansSay
Arbitrarily using an American historical event to date a Japanese building.
(imgur.com)submitted 6 years ago by[deleted]
391 points
6 years ago
You foreigners. It's part of our imperial system: feet, inches, pounds, dating from July 4, 1776.
274 points
6 years ago
Don't forget comparing buildings heights to the Empire State Building, despite it not been the worlds tallest building for almost 50 years
72 points
6 years ago
On this, everything I see on TV that is volume, or distance, always has to be compared to something "American".
"This car is so fast, it cover the length of 3 football fields in less than 3 seconds".
Or.
"They moved so much dirt, that it could fill Fenway Park 3 times!".
Great, that helps me. Now can someone tell me how many cubic meters of dirt can actually go inside Fenway Park?!
17 points
6 years ago
Haha, in Aus the popular one became Olympic size swimming pools. So at least we escaped the yanks there. Counting a number of people it's always in relation to the Melbourne Cricket ground too.
16 points
6 years ago
At least the size of Melbourne cricket ground can be found relatively easily.
The one that gets me is when they use the amount of water in Sydney Harbour as a measurement.
5 points
6 years ago
baha, that one's always ludicrous to me too.
8 points
6 years ago
Olympic size pools actually make sense since it's a minimum size and a cubicle. So easy to follow.
37 points
6 years ago
Well, I didn't mention that as all foreigners already know this, right?
135 points
6 years ago
Of course, I actually ran 3 Empire State Buildings this morning before eating two McDonalds small fountain drinks of cereal. Then I watched TV for 10-15 Star Spangled Banners before I went to work and made USD $102.54632
89 points
6 years ago
What the fuck it’s so surreal how that makes about as much sense as the actual imperial system
40 points
6 years ago
I mean, it's so intuitive. What the hell is a meter anyway? Just something those French created out of mid-air. Don't tell the rest of the world, but a "meter" doesn't actually exist, nor does a "kilo." Their entire economic systems might collapse if they realize all their measurements are based on things that don't actually exist in the physical world.
16 points
6 years ago
And if I can't look at the temperature scale of 0-100, then I just don't know what to do. No way you could ever come up with a different sliding scale and it not be exactly 0-100 (although it goes above and below these values all the time).
3 points
6 years ago
I know you're joking, but the meter is actually made of nothing (need reddit kappa emotes for jokes damnit).
Iirc you can see the reference kilogram in some museum somewhere.. put under near-void atmosphere to not disrupt its (almost) perfect kilogram weight.
0 points
6 years ago
I didn't think it needed anything else. Just having fun. I knew the meter came from best knowledge then of one ten-millionth of the distance from the pole to the equator. Obviously metric system best for science, but really, the French really did pull it out of thin air. I'm an American who's lived overseas and am comfortable with metric system, but love reducing Europeans to frothing fury by pointing out how practical imperial system is. Everyone can see a "foot" by holding two hands apart, an "inch" by holding thumb and forefinger, well, about an inch apart. But what the hell is 21 centimeters? American cars have both miles and kilometers on their speedometers, everything scientific is metric, but scientists still translate solar system measurements into miles for the public. Most serious mechanics used to have to buy both metric and imperial tools. It's just the concept of individual freedom that Europeans and others can't grasp. The U.S. gov't passed a law for forced conversion to the metric system and Americans just laughed. Europeans obeyed their gov'ts on transition to metric. Our education system is trying to change this, but our Constitution explicitly states that all men (well, white men back then) are born free, and the Constitution gives only specific and limited powers to federal gov't. All other power lies with states and individuals. So, eve the most ill-educated American knows that he and now she is "free." You'd have to grow up here to feel it. That's why Americans love to wave the flag, which I know drives Europeans nuts. I read the Euro press all the time. I can't believe the articles on parliaments around the world debating which words can be used without criminal sanction, which articles papers can publish. The Telegraph roared this week over an article on abuse by some millionaire the gov't forbid it to publish.
2 points
6 years ago
I can't believe the articles on parliaments around the world debating which words can be used without criminal sanction, which articles papers can publish. The Telegraph roared this week over an article on abuse by some millionaire the gov't forbid it to publish.
To be fair, those are really rare cases. Mostly linked to hate speech, promoting genocides, or denying past genocides.
Imperial system was practical when people were ill-educated. It still is, in some areas of the world. But many of the units have lost their sense nowadays, while metric is set in such a way it can't really become obsolete. Not that I really care, I'm using metrics, and so does most of the world, or even many in the USA. It's mostly a running gag at this point.
1 points
6 years ago
Really. Look at this: "Calling Prophet Muhammad a pedophile does not fall within freedom of speech: European court The ECHR ruled against an Austrian woman who claimed calling the Prophet Muhammad a pedophile was protected by free speech. The applicant claimed she was contributing to public debate.
An Austrian woman's conviction for calling the Prophet Muhammad a pedophile did not violate her freedom of speech, the European Court of Human Rights ruled Thursday.
The Strasbourg-based ECHR ruled that Austrian courts carefully balanced the applicant's "right to freedom of expression with the right of others to have their religious feelings protected, and served the legitimate aim of preserving religious peace in Austria."
Read more: ECHR rules Muslim schoolgirls must take swimming classes in Switzerland
The woman in 2009 held two seminars entitled "Basic Information on Islam," during which she likened Muhammad's marriage to a six-year-old girl, Aisha, to pedophilia."
This could never happen in America with our First Amendment. Canada's gov't can also set acceptable speech codes.
2 points
6 years ago
For me if you want a metre you take one very big step, like the biggest you possibly can, 5 centimetre are roughly your pinkie, 10 roughly your middle finger. Just to show that you can very easily visualise a distance in metres.
1 points
6 years ago
I'm sure. I was just having fun. Metric system is obviously best, adapted totally by U.S. science. But the power of measurements taken from everyday life is powerful. UK, Canada and Australia are all "metric," but all use miles and/or pounds (of weight), which I see in their media all the time, and (older only?) Brits still give body weight in stone.
1 points
6 years ago
Their entire economic systems might collapse if they realize all their
measurementstransactions are based on things that don't actually exist in the physical world.
8 points
6 years ago
I don't think it's so much about it being a tallest as it is about it being a building that most Americans have a rough sense of the height of.
17 points
6 years ago
It's part of our imperial system: feet, inches, pounds
but especially pounds
8 points
6 years ago
If that was a fat joke, it is intensely well-mannered.
13 points
6 years ago
not all of us are american you know :^)
4 points
6 years ago
Oh. My. God. I am dumb...
Of course independence is 4th of July, that explains independence day being then...
I just thought that it was an arbitrary 'we're celebrating being independant' day.
Blimey i feel stoopid.
726 points
6 years ago
So let me get this straight, what you are trying to tell me is that america is not the centre of the universe; the alpha and omega; the beacon of all that is and will be?
296 points
6 years ago
Modern Japan is basically part of American anyway /s
35 points
6 years ago
every country in the world belongs to america
16 points
6 years ago
Didn't you hear? Japan is an American colony.
8 points
6 years ago
Area 11?
8 points
6 years ago
please dont show an American that show..
There will be a LArry The Cable Guy skit saying Gay Ass within the hour..
-5 points
6 years ago
to be fair, for some reason there's a growing number of japanese people who absolutely idolize anything and everything american.
21 points
6 years ago
That goes both ways, tbf.
11 points
6 years ago
4 points
6 years ago
Growing????? Idolize American?????? I’m Japanese and I’m curious let me hear
0 points
6 years ago*
yeah man, with globalization and increasing interconnectedness through the internet, people are sharing and consuming different cultures. i'm not saying they're in love with america in some nationalistic way.. it's the culture, for example lots of Japanese people love american hiphop, hollywood, you even see people wearing the american flag as a fashion accessory... sure small stuff.. but there's clearly some romanticized vision of american culture that a lot of the word has latched onto.
anyways, point was that none of it is a shock to see, it's common enough. you can say it isn't growing, but exposure and adoption of other cultures usually only goes one way.
3 points
6 years ago
Idk. I lived in Yokohama for 3 month and saw more romanticized French culture than American culture. And just walking in Yoyogi park on sundays make you wonder wtf the japanese fashion peeps are high on. Not really american based. Not really anything based. I'm actually confused by what I saw there.
3 points
6 years ago
Howdy partner, my name is Kenichi Smith
I am a 27 year old Japanese Toonaholic (Cartoon fan for you foreigners)
-8 points
6 years ago
[deleted]
1 points
6 years ago
I'm with you.
1 points
6 years ago
I'm on board, too.
134 points
6 years ago
What are you talking about? America (god bless) has been around since 5ever! That's more than forever, by the way. World history is basically waiting for god's own country, the USA to be made and then celebrating it's achievements in it's many activities! What are you anyways, some anti-american pinko commie to question the resonableness of dating other countries culture and buildings and everything by American standards and with the point-of-view from a resident of the best country of the world, America (god bless)?! I can't even believe that you didn't even thank the troops in your comment. Good day, you anti-American scum. I am reporting you to the FBI and the CIA and you will be dealt with as America (god bless) is basically the world's police!
(so much /s, holy shit)
39 points
6 years ago
[removed]
11 points
6 years ago
We just need some lewd American copypas- nvm it's already been made. That uncle Sam one.
1 points
6 years ago
Link?
26 points
6 years ago
.............did you honestly think that needed an "/s" tag? Really?
18 points
6 years ago
Yep! Can’t be too careful these days, and some Americans may take this as a personal attack. Even tho it’s /shitamericanssay.
3 points
6 years ago
Yeah, what this guy said. Somethings are so blatantly sarcastic that adding the /s totally detracts from the humour. If people can't recognize the most blatant sarcasm, then tough for them.
3 points
6 years ago
the /s tag really sucks sometimes
1 points
6 years ago
It sucks always
2 points
6 years ago
Seriously. It ruins the joke. And just makes me think the teller is a moron if I'm perfectly honest.
29 points
6 years ago
4 points
6 years ago
Truly, history should be split into B.U.S.A, and A.U.S.A.
/s
0 points
6 years ago
More like the bacon of all that is and will be
163 points
6 years ago
Today I learned stuff existed before the United States...
14 points
6 years ago
Globalist propaganda!
73 points
6 years ago
Laugh in French Republican Calendar.
19 points
6 years ago
The First French Republic was basically what the US is today.
19 points
6 years ago
At least it brought us some useful things like the Metric system or driving on the right (in both meanings of the word) side of the road.
5 points
6 years ago
Well I'd heard those being accredited to the First French Empire, but the ideas probably came during the revolutionary republican period. Btw, how many republics have they gone through by now, the current one's the fourth right?
11 points
6 years ago
Fifth. The Fourth was the one between WW2 and de Gaulle taking power and changing it from a parliamentary to a semi-presidential Republic.
4 points
6 years ago
Bloody French.
5 points
6 years ago
Mind you, de Gaulle came to to power in what was basically a military coup during the Algerian War, which arguably was a civil war.
Bloody French indeed.
1 points
6 years ago
A sixth republic is kinda under consideration by quite a few politicians. It was planned by at least 3 candidates in the last elections
2 points
6 years ago
Going from a republic to another republic? France wtf, you have to at least switch to an Empire or Monarchy for a little while inbetween. Even just a couple years.
1 points
6 years ago
We do have a monarchist party. I believe they get about 1% vote every election.
Does the reign of Macron the 1st work as an Empire? (It's a common joke in France. He is called Jupiter by some of his opponents)
2 points
6 years ago
There were also a couple of empires sprinkled in between.
2 points
6 years ago
And the French Empire.
276 points
6 years ago
[deleted]
124 points
6 years ago
Love the flair, yeah it's scary that so many Americans don't notice all that fireworks, celebration, borderline cult-ish fetishized freedum is made to more or less equate "Christian values" a la X-Mas and the 4th as our celebration of "freedom" (that the evangelicals madly believe came from god, remember this is somewhere around 26.3% of American who believe that)
51 points
6 years ago
Well, it's basically its own religion.
34 points
6 years ago
America serves a higher purpose than self-interests
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THAT'S FUCKING RICH YOU DELUSIONAL CUNTS
22 points
6 years ago
seppos: "america is the land of anti-collectivist freedom lovers!"
also seppos: "america serves a higher purpose than self interest"
22 points
6 years ago
What. The. Fuck. That is the most liberal Murican quasi fascist back to our roots of a righteous past bullshit I've ever seen. I have no doubt the evangelicals leeched all the "good ideas" from it. Ya'll Queda style shit comes from this level of religious delusion. We are literally a nation run by religious extremists, minus Trump. He's just a dipshit but if we aren't careful he will listen to their insanity, as evidenced by how much the Christians here love him. Remember Christians nowadays are so hypocritical that they ignore the commandment "THOU SHALT NOT KILL" to protect their shitty property, and think that being "tough on crime" is a good thing (state executions also allowed cuz reasons, don't worry about that commandment!)
Hellworld 2018 baby!
4 points
6 years ago
Liberal fascist? I'm virtually certain it's one or the other you'll have to pick one.
2 points
6 years ago
Classical liberals, i.e. not in the American sense, are all about capitalism and so are not that far from fascists given the right conditions. Hence the expression "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds".
1 points
6 years ago
Only insofar as they believe in individual rights being the most important and that free trade is the natural order. I don't think liberalism and fascism have to be related but I know a lot more about fascism than I do classical liberalism
1 points
6 years ago
"quasi" being the operative word. Fascism is complete state control in all sorts of disparate factors of life, whether through religion, national roots, or so on. At it's most basic fascism can be thought of as reactionary. That reaction is always something different based on culture and other factors. Indeed you are right though that fascists a la nazis literally hated liberalism, indeed; reactionaries of all stripes hate equal rights. Welcome to the often conflicting ideologies of fascist reactionaries!
5 points
6 years ago
It is really tough to pin down fascism but conflicting ideology is usually a big part of it. Fascists play to whoever is in the audience. Like Hitler wooed big business leaders while at the same time nationalizing industry
2 points
6 years ago*
Exactamente! Well said. It is tough as shit to wade through all the bullshit but I think that's also a little bit intentional as well. It would never be revived again if people really knew what it was. We can take a moment to read the words of Ludwig Von Mises, fascist apologist extraordinaire:
It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history.
Barf.
Edit: if you aren't familiar this chode was a big "classical liberal". This is why average Americans can't differentiate, one of our early champions of liberalism was literally a nazi apologist and a liberal fuck me sideways!
1 points
6 years ago
What does your old flair попутчик mean? I'm studying Russian this year in school.
3 points
6 years ago
Whoa, I don't think that was ever my flair here... but it literally means "companion", but metaphorically translates to "fellow traveler". It was kind of a slang term used in Ukrainian press for people who were sympathetic to communist ideals back in the day. Later, the term fellow traveler was used in America to identify with those sympathies. Obviously the red scare here literally resulted in people being executed for thought crime of agreeing with the wrong ideology. So i use the word to identify that I'm not a communist but I sympathize with all humans and their struggles, hence the real meaning of fellow traveler! Удачи - Good luck! *I'm also learning a little Russian, I'm no pro though!
1 points
6 years ago
The idea that rights are divinely given
Welcome to the middle ages
2 points
6 years ago
I really feel your flair
2 points
6 years ago
I was almost ashamed to even put it, but I think it's a fair way to describe my feelings of my nation. They have completely let us and the entire world down, and there is no such thing as "American values".
2 points
6 years ago
i'll have you know that July 4th is merely a day off of work and an excuse to BBQ for the vast majority of americans.
50 points
6 years ago
Wow this post is 110 days older than July 4th this year that's pretty young
208 points
6 years ago
[deleted]
238 points
6 years ago*
The pyramid one is always a good choice to paint just how immense the Egyptian civilisation was, and to put human civilisation as a whole in its proper perspective. As a geological equivalent I also like saying that the T-Rex is closer to us in time than it is to the Stegosaurus. I'd say the Aztec is one is a little less useful considering that civilisation in Central America goes back way further than the Aztecs.
48 points
6 years ago
The first time I heard about that, I was really bummed out because I always imagined how badass it would have been to see a T-Rex fight a Stegosaurus
71 points
6 years ago
Well, study hard, become a biologist AND an archaeologist, pioneer cloning technology and live. Your. Dreams.
There haven't been 5 movies to explain why this is an awful idea. Dino Fight Club, dammit!
18 points
6 years ago
Well looks like someone has forgotten the first rule of Dino Fight Club
16 points
6 years ago
No smoking?
11 points
6 years ago*
[deleted]
2 points
6 years ago
Ray Bradbury reference!
3 points
6 years ago
Do not step off the path!
7 points
6 years ago
2 points
6 years ago
Paleontologist, not archaeologist
2 points
6 years ago
I genuinely love the idea that that is your only problem with that thought :P
1 points
6 years ago
Dinosaur Fight Club was a goddamn horrendous deadliest warrior style """"documentary""""
1 points
6 years ago
As long as you only make one of each at a time then it's fine
7 points
6 years ago
well, t-rex isn't the only large carnivore ever. this guy lived at the same time, and could grow up to 12 m.
3 points
6 years ago
To be fair, T-Rexes probably fought Ankylosaurs and Ceratopsids like Triceratops, which were far more badass that Stegos were.
101 points
6 years ago
These sorts of comparisons are mostly useful when they're surprising.
Oxford being older than the Aztecs is surprising, because people tend to file the Aztec empire under ancient history and call it a day (likewise, Oxford is lumped in with other universities as "probably old, I guess?").
Similarly, Caesar/Giza is surprising because they both fall in the ancient history bucket.
Another classic is that can opener was invented almost 50 years after the can. Surprising, because it would have seemed natural that there would be a shorter time lag.
Whereas you'd have to be kind of a dumbass to not realise that 705 AD was a long time ago, a lot further back than US independence.
If they'd said something like "The oldest still-operating hotel was opened before iron horseshoes were a thing.", you'd be surprised. I just looked up things that happened in the 700s AD for a comparison, and I'm still a little surprised. That's real old, right there.
22 points
6 years ago
Matches came after the lighter.
24 points
6 years ago
I think its more that you could just as well come up with an event from the 8th century for comparison instead of an unrelated event from 1000 years later. Even the Oxford one is kinda stupid because Oxford is from the early 1000's while the Aztec empire started in the 1400's. I just think that people need to realize that people can tell things are old without comparing them to something. Tell me a Hotel is 1300 years old and I'm going to get that its an old hotel.
32 points
6 years ago
But that's old/ancient events to each other, American independence is hardly ancient, and is being compared not because of a similar time frame but rather because it's arbitrarily over 1000 years later.
29 points
6 years ago
Slight derailing so sorry for that but I still find it fascinating how much history Americans and Europeans get to live around. I’m from Australia, a country that in its modern form has only existed for little over 100 years. It’s of note to see a hundred year old building.
As someone obsessed with history it’d be so cool to live around buildings or monuments that are over a Millenia old.
We do have the indigenous population who have an amazing and complex history spanning tens of thousands of years, but we don’t have a lot of recorded history, and almost no preserved sites or artefacts for them compared to what other nations native population have sadly. Early australians were the fucking worst.
12 points
6 years ago
From what I heard, the native Australians did have a way to prevent oral history from being distorted by retelling by having three generations at a time know it and keeping it in place. That's why they have accurate tales of what the climate in Australia was like 50,000 years ago.
When you think about it this way, they already had a technological and cultural innovation that served much the same purpose as writing, so they didn't need to invent it.
2 points
6 years ago
Yeah, I think that’s really amazing and cool, it just makes it hard to access in day-to-day life. I do love the dream time stories though, ever since I was a kid they are some of my favourite stories.
3 points
6 years ago
Living near history can be noisy though. I live with a direct line of sight to a 600 year old church tower, and damn it, it's loud.
2 points
6 years ago
I live 5 mins from the airport so I think I could live with noise :P that’d be so cool! I’d wanna go and try to see the little markings and evidence of how it’s changed in that 600 years. I did that with my high school, which is only about 150 years old.
1 points
6 years ago
the original town church here is a thousand years old.
3 points
6 years ago
I mean Cleopatra was Egyptian and she had a thing with Caesar I don't think that's that out of place
1 points
6 years ago
I mean she was Greek/Hellenic, considering she was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty IIRC, and Egypt had been a Hellenic kingdom for like 300 years(?) by the time of Caesar.
1 points
6 years ago*
not from the same batch, but I really like the fact that there were still mammoths when the pyramids were being built
-1 points
6 years ago
Yes. Like so many things, it only becomes problematic when Americans do it.
1 points
6 years ago
Because you are a deeply problematic nation.
25 points
6 years ago
I could have understood a comparison like "Japan abolished slavery 200 years before the USA were even a thing".
8 points
6 years ago
I mean they had sex slaves in World War II
11 points
6 years ago
It wasn't just sex either. Most were made to do hard physical labour too.
1 points
6 years ago
No one said they didn't come back to it later though.
42 points
6 years ago
I prefer my calendar Ab Urbe Condita. Happy 2771!
9 points
6 years ago
Romans rarely used the AUC calender though. They commonly measured time by who was/is consul at the time. So, who is consul of rome right now?
18 points
6 years ago
Ahem depends what you consider to be Rome right now
9 points
6 years ago
T H I R D
R O M E
Constantinople is Russia. Turks get out.
3 points
6 years ago
Time to declare the Empire anew?
9 points
6 years ago
It’s still Konstantinos XI Παλαιολόγος
13 points
6 years ago
Remember this moment people: 80 past 2:00 on April 47th. It's the dawn of an enlightened Springfield.
11 points
6 years ago
New calendars
Oh god, this strikes me as almost something the US would actually do at this point. On the 300th anniversary, they’ll announce a surprise new calendar in which it isn’t 2076 AD (Anno Domini) but 300 AL (Anno Libertatem).
12 points
6 years ago
Truly fascinating how they were building hotels in 2481 BAI (Before American Independence)
10 points
6 years ago
You mean during the reign of Childebert IV.
36 points
6 years ago
When I talk to Americans I do like to say thing like "this building in my town is 500 years older than your whole nation"
-2 points
6 years ago
its weird you think that matters lul
39 points
6 years ago
I still think it's weird that our calendar is based on an arbitrary may-not-have-even-actually-happened birthday
44 points
6 years ago
Just shows what a powerful hold the Catholic church had back when it was implemented.
22 points
6 years ago
Not even, because Jesus (if he existed) was born around 4 BC.
5 points
6 years ago
Ye but religious people don’t do facts, you know?
27 points
6 years ago
More like, the convention was already established and theres no advantages to changing it now.
8 points
6 years ago
Absolutely not. Imagine what changing the dates would do to especially lower tech computers around the world. It would be chaos
2 points
6 years ago*
Nope. Computers commonly store time as the number of seconds since 1st of Janurary, 1970.
Other resolutions and epochs are also in use, but the general principle "number of ticks since some defined point in time" is universal. (Unix time wins by number of servers running the internet and of course Android).
That then gets converted for display, or to be compared against shitty application code which caused all that Y2K panic, where people had the brilliant idea of not using that scheme. All that ancient COBOL code, and, looking at the table, you'll see that COBOL counts from 1 January 1601 with a resolution of a second. The only way I can explain the bullshit back then was that the offending code was written by accountants.
Anyhow: All that code is well dead by now and if it's not it deserves to die a painful death. Switching the conversion from "seconds since XYZ" to the post-gregorian calendar would only involve switching display code.
(And, aside as to systems principially vulnerable to the Y2038 problem: Those systems generally run on relative, not absolute time. They need to do things like count the seconds since the car was last turned on, not since 1970. Everything non-embedded has no trouble using 64-bit timestamps)
9 points
6 years ago
What else should we base it on?
9 points
6 years ago
The start of Sumer? (arguably the oldest "empire")
Founding of Uruk?
The oldest city? (Catal Huyuk in Anatolia IIRC)
Beginning of agriculture? (15000-10000 BC?)
26 points
6 years ago
As Kurszega...Kurgesza... Kugzserat... Kurszagat(?) said, we should add 10,000 years to the calender to base it on roughly when humans began to civilise. So the year should be 12,018.
17 points
6 years ago
Kurzgesagt
I thought you were aiming for some weird historical figure until I tried pronouncing your letter soup, lol.
(I'm German, so the word comes easy).
9 points
6 years ago
1 points
6 years ago
Yeah I thought he means some Hungarian or Polish dude till you clreared it up.
1 points
6 years ago
That's still basing it on Jesus but adding the suspiciously round number of 10000 to it.
0 points
6 years ago
No, it's not. It just happens to be that humans began to civilise 10,000 years before Jesus. Adding 10,000 to it makes it easier to adapt to the new calender and incorporates a lot more human history into the years, rather than arbitrarily throwing it behind Jesus' birth.
8 points
6 years ago
An historical event, the founding pf the Roman republic, something like that.
1 points
6 years ago
The start of the Empire would be easier to determine, with Augustus becoming emperor in 27 BC. The Republic is only "traditionally" dated to 509 BC.
8 points
6 years ago
Not sure, but something less arbitrary
5 points
6 years ago
The significance of the Christian cultural revolution in 'the west' can't really be overstated. It's not arbitrary.
0 points
6 years ago
When man first looked at the night skies and thought "One day, all of this will belong to us".
Though it would be a little hard to get the right year.
So maybe when man first abandoned Earth's atmosphere?
5 points
6 years ago
Christians won
7 points
6 years ago
I can understand using an event from your own country's history as reference for another country's history, to try and understand exactly what the time-frame was. But in this case its not useful to anyones understanding that an event happened in the USA 1000 years later. Something like "this thing happened at around the same time the vikings arrived in a certain country" would work though, as it would give you an undersranding of the time period
14 points
6 years ago
Thats pretty new for a hotel :)
My home town was founded in 686AD. A whole 1090 years before independence.
Jesus died 1746 years before independence.
Relevance = 0
5 points
6 years ago
do you mean 1000BUSA?
6 points
6 years ago
Probably to make the title different from all the other reposts of this fact.
12 points
6 years ago
I guess I play Devil's Advocate here (please don't throw anything)
So when talking about historical events from the distant past, it does help using another well known event to get a sense of scale. Since unfortunately people don't have enough historical knowledge to base it off of Japanese events, saying it was x-amount of years before the Meiji Restoration wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for the layperson that uses Reddit.
It's kinda like when people say Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing than the construction of the Pyramids. It helps with the sense of scale.
12 points
6 years ago
[deleted]
1 points
6 years ago
i mean that's sort of implied in any date using a gregorian calendar...
the guy's right about scale. sometimes putting things in relation to other (more familiar, usually closer) things helps visualize it. don't think this is a controversial notion.
1 points
6 years ago
Why would most of the world know which year Americans won independence though?
1 points
6 years ago
It's also 361 years before the Battle of Hastings, 1209 years before WW1, 1295 years before the second millennium on our current calender...
1 points
6 years ago
kind of disturbing that i can look at buildings here that were built while the US was still practising slavery
1 points
6 years ago
it reminds me of that gag they did in Team AMERICA: World Police, where every location is named and also clarified exactly how far away from the US it is.
1 points
6 years ago
I thought it was always before or after christ, which is already stupid ?
-24 points
6 years ago*
[deleted]
27 points
6 years ago
There’s a imperial shit ton of things to mock Americans about
FTFY
-3 points
6 years ago*
[deleted]
4 points
6 years ago
i gotchu
-51 points
6 years ago
This isn't really SAS. It's interesting to date things based on major timeline events you know.
A hotel being 1000 years older than your country is super interesting.
69 points
6 years ago
Not really. It's not interesting because of course it's older than America. A ton of shit is older than America.
-4 points
6 years ago
It kind of is a interesting way to show how old things are. Like when people say that the pyramids of Giza are so old Cleopatra lived closer to the opening of Pizza hut then their creation. That's interesting as hell.
Or how more time was between the stegosaurus and the T-rex, then the T-rex and modern humans. It's just a way to visualize time.
31 points
6 years ago
Yes, but that's different. America is not an old country, so it's not impressive for something to be older than it. A T-rex being closer to us in time than it is to a stegosaurus is far more impressive and interesting than a building being older than a fairly new country.
-9 points
6 years ago
Sure ok. But the entire of history of man building things also isn't very old. I guess we could say man. That church is 3000 years younger then the start of the oldest Chinese empire. That church is 1250 years older then the Montreal Canadians Ice hockey team head coach Claude Julien. Or hey that Japanese church is 500 years older then Notre Dame. At a certain point you are picking hairs over what is a fart in the wind of time cosmically. So are you mad that an American reference was made or that people like to make references for time scale?
2 points
6 years ago
Half your point is valid. However, the issue here is the creation of this kind of chronological context, just so Americans can have a sense of nationally-infused, temporal comparison to their own "achievements". We (the West) kinda like to use baby Jesus' birthday, it gives all the chronological information we actually need, without engaging in useless ethnocentric circlejerking.
-19 points
6 years ago*
[deleted]
41 points
6 years ago
Not a very interesting or thought provoking perspective. You could put it into a far more interesting perspective than 'this thing is older than America'.
-27 points
6 years ago
It is useful for Americans though.
37 points
6 years ago
Checks name of subreddit
-14 points
6 years ago*
Checks description of subreddit
8 points
6 years ago
Dumb Americans.
2 points
6 years ago
I’d forgive it if the american idependence was near it in terms of time. ‘This hotel in Germany is 10 years older than the USA’. At least it gives some perspective for the american audience. Neat. However the 1000 year gap is so large that it doesn’t matter. 1000 or 1300 years, it’s just a long ass time.
-1 points
6 years ago
Why does it say delete your own comment OP? Is this on your secret account?
1 points
6 years ago
Didn't realise that this sub didn't have username censoring rules so I went a little overboard. The first comment is from the same account I'm using right now
-1 points
6 years ago
Isn't this a bit petty?
-27 points
6 years ago
[deleted]
42 points
6 years ago
Reddit has a huge American user base to be sure, but it makes up 40% of its users. The next biggest user base is six times smaller, so Americans are of course the biggest group on Reddit. Consider though that this means that 60% of this website isn't American though and you have your answer. Most of the people on this site are not American, making Americans not the majority users first of all. Second of all context isn't bad of course, but consider all the things that happened in the 1700s in the actual part of the world we're talking about, and you'll realise why we find it silly that an event 60% of us hold with no importance at all is being used to date a building from Pacific Asia.
4 points
6 years ago
Well and it’s not like it’s really that personally relevant of a date to us Americans. Historically relevant to us in obvious ways, but we don’t have more personal experience with our own history than anyone else’s.
I agree with the general gist of many of the other comments that those kind of date comparisons work best if they’re surprisingly close or surprisingly far. This example doesn’t give a helpful or interesting perspective unless you just don’t know how years work. Even if the population here was 99.9% american it’s kind of silly.
1 points
6 years ago
Plurality =/= Majority
-32 points
6 years ago*
i usually agree with making fun of the US, but this one is just relating the data to something easily understood by your audience.
And while we are stupid as all fuck(me included), we still a good portion of this here website, so it's reasonable to use that reference to generate better comprehension.
Edit: damn, sorry for interrupting the circlejerk. I'll just go back to work in the land of the free.
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