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Look up the “theory of American exceptionalism”. In short there is a very strong belief here that America is one of a kind and things that may work for others simply don’t apply here.

Explains why the US stocks a 12hr clock, messed up month/day/year mission, imperial measurement and a ton of other things that any foreigner will find anywhere from quirky to infuriating.

IMHO the exceptionalism theory is a b.s. lazy way of keeping things conservative and unchanged and shutting down any discussion of uncomfortable progress.

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Blamemeta@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
“American Exceptionalism” also known as “Europeans are obsessed with America and can’t understand why American’s don’t follow their orders, meanwhile the Danes count like Barbarians and the UK hasn’t picked a system”

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- lepthesr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I could give a shit about following orders, it’s a lot easier dealing with international business/trade/politics.
  
  If everyone is on the same page, things are easier. I like the metric system. I’m a mechanic and my life is often hell because of the differences.
  
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- DrQuint@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Ah yes, the two halves of the world, America and Europe.
  
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  - Blamemeta@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    On the english-speaking internet? Pretty much, plus the Aussies and Canadians.
    
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- Turun@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You can make a “I hate you so much” “I don’t think about you at all” meme out of it if you want, but the fact is that American media, most notably Hollywood has an immense cultural impact in the western world. People are often confronted with the weird system that Americans use, but not the other way round, let alone come across something like the danish numbering system. It’s less obsession and more unpleasant regular occurances that lead to such strong opinions about the American system.
  
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  - Blamemeta@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Well then make your own movies and shows then. Im not really seeing the problem.
    
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    Honytawk@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    We are, and plenty of em.
    
    They just aren’t in English.
    
    So if we look for English content, we encounter fantasy metrics where you guys measure in the feet of a long dead king, and the idiotic AM/PM system that goes from 11 AM to 12 PM.
    
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SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
It’s not even imperial measurements - the US has its own customary units.

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ricecake@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
There was a theory I read at one point, that for the life of me I can’t remember the name of, that basically described a generalized form of exceptionalism, but for different categories.

Basically, the “most something” countries in any particular category are going to have exceptional circumstances that make what other countries do not always apply.

India, having the largest population, faces demographic problems that solutions that work in the Netherlands just can’t address.
Same with Russian transportation infrastructure, and ultimately American economic issues.

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governorkeagan@lemdro.id ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Thank you for sharing that! I’ll have a look into it.

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