OT- No Chicago 2016 Olympics
Just announced- Chicago was 4th out of 4 in first round of voting. Will not host the olympics.
http://sports.espn.go.com/chicago/news/story?id=4525513
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:25 PM ^
ThWard you are exctly right. In Europe a most workers are given nearly a month off for summer holiday plus regular holidays and other PTO. While here in the States most people are given 10 days or so at best annually. A MASSIVE difference.
Just getting to some far off places can take you a full day or days to get to or from and if you only have 10 days a year TOTAL how is that going to work exactly? It's just not practical.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:07 PM ^
But your anecdotal experiences (and mine, for that matter) are meaningless. I'm not going to disagree that Americans usually are unwilling to say "Fuck it, let's go to Machu Pichu!" but then again I doubt there are too many Swedes making the same trip.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:22 PM ^
Why are my anecdotal experiences meaningless? I lived in Chicago for 9 years. That certainly makes me more qualified to have opinions Chicago than, say, San Diego, a city I've only visited once. Similarly, I've spent multiple years of my life living in and visiting developed countries. Does that not at least give me a little insight as to what I'm talking about?
Funny you should mention Swedes in South America. About a third of the travelers I've encountered in South America have been Scandinavian. So yes, there are Swedes making the same trip.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:24 PM ^
Well, all anecdotal evidence is meaningless, isn't it? I'd say Americans and Japanese far outnumbered any other group on my trips to South America, but I'm not going to claim that as any sort of proof of anything.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:29 PM ^
It's meaningless if it's isolated. It's not meaningless if it's based on the cumulative observations of multiple years of immersion in the exact type of countries we're discussing.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:37 PM ^
Because when compared to macro-level data, they are far less accurate at predicting large-scale trends. (I can't believe I am explaining this.) Ever take stats in college or a social sciences course? It's the same kind of logic of "Everyone I've run into who's X is Y, therefore all X are Y." You aren't god. Nor did you conduct a scientific study. Therefore, your anecdotal experiences are fine for your own experiences, but please don't try to extrapolate those to some larger concept, because it's faulty logic.
Example: Let's say you've travelled to many places, and met, hell, 3000 different foreign travelers (I doubt it). Given the fact that I am sure TENS OF MILLIONS (if not hundreds of millions) of foreign people travel EVERY YEAR, unless your 3000 experiences (again, doubting you've had in-depth conversations with 3000 different foreign travelers, but let's just assume you have) is completely useless unless it was a specifically targeted study of those 3000 people to demographically match up with the population of the world. And even then, it would be too small a sample, with error. So, again- your experiences are your experiences. They are not some sort of basis for bold proclamations. Sorry.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:43 PM ^
So, based on your post, we should never form opinions or hypotheses unless we do a large-scale targeted study? Shit, I guess we just debunked 99% of MGoBoard. It's over people. There's not point to us being here anymore.
I didn't say "all" or "none". I said more than comparative populations in other developed countries, specifically those in Europe. And I sure as heck never claimed to be God. Where in the world did that come from?
This is not, "I went to such and such a country this one time for a few days and there weren't many Americans there so clearly this means Americans are scared to travel."
This is, "I've spent significant periods of my life abroad and my observations, combined with those of hundreds of other travelers and locals I met, indicated a distinct trend in the way Americans travel (or don't)."
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:02 PM ^
But I read your post to be you saying that your experiences mean more than just being your experiences, and you think others should grant them some credence than being more than your experiences- as if I am supposed to learn something from your experiences. And I explained to you (multiple times) why I will not do so, nor should other people. They are anecdotal. They are no more informative re: the attitudes of people abroad on a macro level than would the information gleaned from someone regarding race who says something racist and says "I've met 3000 people of race X, and they're like Y." (I'm sorry if that's an extreme example; I'm just trying to get you to see where I'm coming from.)
And, umm, analyzing the performance of sports teams is a little different than social science proclamations about nations of people. Sorry. Opinions on why U of M should play player X or run play Y are a lot different than stating something authoritatively about the attitudes of groups of millions of people based on your personal experiences.
October 2nd, 2009 at 4:45 PM ^
No, Mr. Intensity (you really are intense, aren't you), I do not think "others should grant them some credence than being more than (my) experiences". What I think is that others should grant the exact amount of credence appropriate for the experiences I've had. My OPINION, based on extensive time spent in developing countries, reactions received from Americans when they learn about the places I've been, and conversations with people in the tourism industry the world over - people who interact with thousands and thousands of tourists every year, is that A) as a proportion of population, Americans don't travel nearly as much as people from many other (not all) developed countries, and B) that ONE of (not the only) reasons for that is that many (not all) Americans have unsubstantiated fears about safety in developing countries.
Look, I'm not saying anything revolutionary here. Enough with the veiled insults and contrived exasperation.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:55 PM ^
But why is Colombia the most striking example? Because you have an anecdotal experience?
Honestly, it's time for Occam to opine.
Is it possible that Americans aren't "paranoid about travel" but, rather, just travel less due to working more hours? Couldn't the simpler explanation be that, yes, while we anecdotally have experiences of being abroad and surrounded by traveling non-Americans, that we shouldn't confuse cause/effect? (i.e.- cause - Americans vacation less, effect - Americans travel less... vs. cause - Americans are paranoid, effect - Americans travel less)...
"The International Labor Organization reports that the average American worked 1,815 hours in 2002, well above the comparable figures for France (1,545) and Germany (1,444), for example. (The average South Korean, on the other hand, worked over 2,400 hours.)"
How many South Koreans did you see in Columbia?
Not being antagonistic, just looking to chip away at what you've admitted is a very broad generalization. Those numbers are stark - American workers work on average 270 more than Germans in 2002 (note: there's probably an updated study - if someone finds it, and the ILO has found crazy different numbers, negbang away)... assuming a 40 hour work week... that's over 6 weeks less....
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:16 PM ^
Certainly there are myriad factors involved and paranoia is not the only one. Your argument about working more is a valid one, but then we could go further and ask, what are the underlying reasons behind this working hour discrepancy? Perhaps if we were more interested in travel we'd have a society that placed a higher premium on vacation days and, consequently, our working hours would be more comparable. I'm not saying Americans don't value vacation days, but we clearly don't place the same import on them that someone from, say, France does.
To your first question, Colombia is a striking example for a number of reasons. First, because it's so close to America. It's easier for us to get to, it's cheaper for us to get to, and yet it's filled with non-American travelers. And yes, of course it's anecdotal - it would be silly for me to include example of countries I don't have experience with. I'm not the only one with that opinion of Colombia, however. I have friends who have lived there and they've made the same observations.
Colombia is far from an isolated example, however. In my travel experience, which includes close to 50 countries and multiple years of my life, I've met very few fellow Americans. When I'm back in the States, the first question I receive when I tell people about my travels is not about the food, or the culture, or the history. It's about my safety. "Weren't you worried about getting robbed/kidnapped/shot/something else bad?" I'll reiterate. A disproportionately large population of Americans are paranoid about travel outside of developed countries. This is my overarching point.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:28 PM ^
Americans are less likely to be inclined to travel in general, but there's another good reason for that. We live in a huge country that offers a wide variety of attractions, environments, and cultures. There's less incentive to travel outside of the country when you can downhill ski, swim in an ocean, climb a mountain, hike in a desert, etc all in one country. There are all kinds of cultures, entertainment, and cuisine to try out. This in addition to our geographic isolation, more hours worked per week, and that fact that yes, Americans are targets in some places. Regarding Columbia, its poor reputation was well deserved for a long time. Now that it's improved, Americans will get around to checking it out. At least after we're done overrunning Costa Rica.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:49 PM ^
Also, just because people won't ride a bus at night doesn't mean they might not be willing to travel to Rio. Hell, there are buses in Chicago I'd be damn hesitant to ride after midnight. That didn't stop me from being willing to Sudan, Sri Lanka, or Kashmir. Harboring some fear or caution isn't a bad thing. Overreacting to it is.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:58 PM ^
Amongst my group in London, I was the only non-African or Indian who had been to those continents. The idea of traveling to a developing country was as foreign to my white, middle class English friends as it would be to my friends in the US.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:25 PM ^
I don't doubt that. I still find the English to be one of the best traveling groups of people around. Almost everyone there takes a gap year between high school and college to travel. Although if you really want to talk about well-traveled populations, the Irish take the cake.
October 2nd, 2009 at 1:51 PM ^
The majority of students spend their gap year doing work placement. The number who travel farther away than France or North America is quite small.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:02 PM ^
Small, but still significant and far larger than the number of Americans who do the same.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:08 PM ^
How many American universities offer students a place a year down the line to enable them to do such a thing? A lot of newer universities even offer students money for their gap year if they commit to going there.
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:57 PM ^
That said, the last civilian murders associated with the Olympics occurred in Atlanta, from Eric Rudolph's bombs.
October 2nd, 2009 at 2:37 PM ^
The in-laws of the US men's volleyball coach were murdered while in Beijing (actually in one of the touristy places outside the city I think) for the 2008 Olympics.
October 2nd, 2009 at 3:35 PM ^
It was a tourist area.
October 2nd, 2009 at 5:57 PM ^
Doh. I knew I forgot something.
October 3rd, 2009 at 9:16 AM ^
One of the advantages of a mostly ex-Communist but still highly authoritarian government is that it keeps the crime rate down.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 AM ^
The plans looked spectacular, and, unlike Rio, I am pretty sure Chicago was actually going to DO what they said they were going to do in their bid. If Rio gets it, you watch- it will be a fiasco with a bloated budget, their rail system won't get completed, etc. They're already royally fucking up their World Cup responsibilities. I guess, in my opinion, Rio DOES deserve them because no nation in South America has ever hosted, but color me skeptical that they will be able to properly pull it off. See: Montreal, 1976.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:37 AM ^
Rio qualifies as new and exciting. The Olympics have never been held in South America.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:41 AM ^
Rio also qualifies as slum city of the world. not sure if i really want to see the olympics in a city that can't afford to help house people. yes this is getting political but isn't that what the olympics are all about as of late.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 AM ^
Uh, any standard I know of Brazil has a significantly higher standard of living than China.
October 2nd, 2009 at 11:49 AM ^
It's Michael Jordan's fault.