[thfuran]

The US is a country with hundreds of millions of people in tens of thousands of municipalities in dozens of states. The idea that because outliers exist, they describe the typical experience everywhere in the nation is preposterous on its face.

[rootusrootus]

One place I'd have hoped would be able to understand such a simple concept is HN. Especially with all the Europeans who frequent this site.

330 million people with about the same land area as Europe. Yet people simultaneously think there can be a pretty big difference between, say, UK and Poland, but think that every newsworthy event that happens anywhere in the US is representative of all of the US.

It would be hilarious if it were not sad.

[em-bee]

uhm, not quite. it's all relative. regions in europe for centuries have been separated by national borders and still are separated by languages. as a result, each region in europe is homogeneous, but different from other regions in ways that doesn't compare to the differences in the US. pretty much the only thing that is really the same every country in europe is mcdonalds and cocacola.

yes, there are plenty of differences in the US too, but they are limited to much smaller regions. it is more likely to say that pittsburgh and los angeles are different than the east coast vs the west coast. i have lived in both regions, as i have lived and traveled in many regions of europe. the most stark differences in the US are local, when you compare say an amish town with another town nearby. or chinatown which exists many cities. but for almost any regional uniqueness in the US you can find multiple locations all over the US that share that uniqueness. which is not the case in europe.

the problem is that we tend to overstate our differences. i have lived in europe, the US, and new zealand, and i thought they were all very different from each other, until i traveled to asia and africa, and realized that in comparison all western countries really are pretty much the same.

in the end we all have much more in common than we realize.

[JohnFen]

This was the fundamental point I was alluding to.

The US is huge, and incredibly diverse. I have no doubt that there are places where the sorts of things being reported here happen. I know for a fact, though, that there are many places where such things are unheard of.

As a rule of thumb, any time someone says "this is how it is in the US", they're probably wrong. It may be how it is in some parts of the US, but there are few things that are actually universal here.