I get not knowing that Puerto Rico and Guam and part of the Untied States, maps leave the territories out a lot.

But most maps of the Untied States I’ve seen have Alaska and Hawaii in a little side section. THEY’RE SPECIFICALLY HIGHLIGHTED due to being so far from the other states. I would think this highlight would stand out to people.

  • ickplant@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    My man, I have met a guy who thought we were talking about partying when I mentioned political parties. He has never heard about the democrats and republican parties, I guess. Or if he had, he just assumed they were events with people partying. I’m not kidding.

  • IWW4@lemmy.zip
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    5 hours ago

    Because that information has no application in their day to day lives.

    • isyasad@lemmy.world
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      30 minutes ago

      I took a college class once about early childhood development. We were looking at a map of countries colored based on how much paid maternal leave is required to be provided. There were only two countries on the map with 0 required.

      Person sitting on my right: I should really know the name of that other country [looking at Papua New Guinea]

      Me: Yeah I don’t remember right now but I knew it was just the US and one other country. I really should know the name I just forgot it right now…

      Person sitting on my left: Yeah I’ve never seen it before… Is it part of Canada or something?

      Me: … That one?

      Left: Yeah

      Me: That’s Alaska

      Left: Haha. Wait really? Are you sure?

      Me: 🤨

      True story that took place at a USA university

    • glimse@lemmy.world
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      37 minutes ago

      It really isn’t lol

      It’s almost always making fun of Americans’ ignorance to European geography. But I’ll bet the average European wouldn’t fare much better trying to map out the US - which is roughly the size of the entirety of Europe.

      Turns out locations on the other side of the world just isn’t that important for most people to memorize…

  • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
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    11 hours ago

    One of the biggest problems in the world is the failure of the American education system. It produces a vast amount of ignorance and carelessness.

  • Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org
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    9 hours ago

    How are there people who don’t know Alaska and Hawaii are states?

    Because most of the people you would expect to know about them are uneducated and never care about such topics.

      • Steve@communick.news
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        1 hour ago

        Let me rephrase.
        There are Americans who don’t know New Mexico is a state.

        Most I expect, don’t know that Real Mexico has 31 states.

    • FreshParsnip@lemmy.caOP
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      3 hours ago

      I’m not American. Sorry, I thought it was common for everyone to have seen a map of the Untied States? Is it just in Canada that non-americans are likely to know a little basic American geography?

      I can’t name any provinces in other countries outside Canada but I’ve seen world maps and know the basic shape of Brazil. I would have thought by looking at a map, people, American or not, would notice Alaska and Hawaii being specifically singled out

      • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zip
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        4 hours ago

        Ok, I’ll bite …

        If someone asked a similar question about another country without ever mentioning the country, you would not react like that to that same question.

        I read it as an actual question. Because the answer is very different depending on if it’s asked of USians or of people around the globe.

        It might be a rhetorical question though, meant to make OP think.

        we

        In any case, you have once again proven that us american exceptionalism is a big thing in americans’ minds.

        Do you know how annoying it is to constantly deal with this, just because we all speak English? Oh and that’s not enough, sometimes y’all even complain that there are communities that do not demand English content.

        I’ll grant you one thing though: this is not endemic to us americans, I’ve seen similar behavior in other contexts. Doesn’t make it better though.