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Comment by gyardley | Hacker News Reader

Good article, but it always bothers me a bit when people talk about Americans generically.

Yes, you can make some generalizations, but the country is huge and there are many distinct cultural zones. Attitudes and behavior vary widely between them.

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Germany also has a diverse culture, especially because it wasn't a unified state until the end of the 19th century. So the generalization is on both sides.

> Germany also has a diverse culture

Compared to what?

Compared to Madison Wisconsin, maybe, compared to all of Wisconsin, probably not, compared to Texas or CA, not a chance. Heck, South San Jose is more diverse.

I din't compare anything.

Also, it looks a lot like you never travelled through Germany from north to south. Every piece of Germany has different traditions, dialects and food. I am from a place where I cannot understand people from the next village. Also, all those parts are pretty vocal: I think Germany is the only country that has developed regional Wikipedias (at least Bavaria, Palatinate and Northern Germany).

> I think Germany is the only country that has developed regional Wikipedias (at least Bavaria, Palatinate and Northern Germany).

Different varieties of English could do that, but English tends to center on an American/Commonwealth divide with only the two prestige dialects everyone else sees as the only 'valid' ones.

They _could_. But in Germany, those things are reality, which shows that those groups take these matters seriously. My point wasn't that US culture is not diverse, it was that german culture is very diverse _as well_.

Also that Germany didn't exist as a unified country until 1871.

Alaska and Hawaii didn't become states until 1959.

Arizona, which is on the continent, didn't become a state until 1912.

> But in Germany, those things are reality, which shows that those groups take these matters seriously.

NASCAR and NFL/College football fans also take such things seriously.

Pennsylvania has one, too: http://pdc.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsilfaani

Funny. Its a german dialect :). Good catch, thank you!

> I think Germany is the only country that has developed regional Wikipedias

At least Portugal (Portuguese, Mirandes) and Spain (Spanish, Galician, Catalan, Basque) also have articles added in the supported country languages.

It depends on whether you define diversity as being 'ethnically' diverse or culturally diverse. Obviously, Germany is ethnically less diverse than, say, California, just as much as any American city is ethnically less diverse than London. If we're talking about 'cultural' diversity the regional differences between southern, northern, eastern and western Germany can be extreme, yet maybe difficult to notice for someone who has not lived there for at least a bit.

In my personal experience (I grew up and spend most of my time in different parts of Germany and Europe, but have worked and lived in Boulder, CO) there is a very distinct and unifying American identity that you do not find like that in Germany. A lot of Germans in the south will define themselves first and foremost by their regional identity, the same is true for people from Hamburg - and the differences are striking, as most Germans from who are from one region but have lived in another will confirm.

That said, comparing whole nations in this manner is entertaining, yet rarely a really fruitful enterprise. People in Wisconsin probably share more similarities with people in Meckelenburg-Vorpommern than they do with New Yorkers, the latter being more similar to people in Berlin etc etc.

London is more ethnically diverse than any American city?

Hmm. Los Angeles may have something to say about that.

Apparently Houston is more diverse than LA.

Re London: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jan/21/britishidentity1

I certainly was surprised by how monocultural the US appeared to be when I visited. Most noticeable was the relative absence of people from Africa (I don't mean African-Americans), the Middle East and south Asia.

I was suspicious of the claim that Houston was more diverse than Los Angeles, which has to be based on some weird data.

So looking it up, I find it's a study from Rice University, which is in...Houston. Aha.

London probably is more diverse than LA, but not by a huge amount. Large communities of people from pretty much everywhere in the world.

> I certainly was surprised by how monocultural the US appeared to be when I visited. Most noticeable was the relative absence of people from Africa (I don't mean African-Americans), the Middle East and south Asia.

That says more about what you visited than it does about the US.

Within walking distance of my house, there are communities where Portugese, Thai, and Cambodian are the dominant languages. (Yes, separate communities.) If I was more "sensitive", I'd could identify the lines between the Mexican and Guatamalan communities.

And my area is considered "white San Jose".

I understand that there are "Iranian bars" in Mountain View.

There are relatively huge Humong communities in various places in the midwest. (No, not just the cities.)

Sorry, but you apparently have no understanding for the topic or you would not say that it is a good article. As much as you are bothered that people "talk about Americans generically", it should provide you a slight understanding for how poor this "article" is.

Was that comment truly necessary?

Did leaping, in a hostile fashion, on two words used as a preamble to the point I was making add anything to this discussion not already added by the other comment you made on the thread?

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