• Schwim Dandy@lemmy.zip
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    11 days ago

    <Seattle goes up in smoke because foreigners don’t understand the difference between Washington state and Washington DC>

    <Trump starts selling gold-plated Space Needle statues with his head on top>

    • Geodad@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      Foreigners know the difference. It’s Americans who are dumb. I can’t tell you how many Americans think New Mexico is not a state.

      • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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        10 days ago

        There’s a tweet going around a little while ago about an American who didn’t know that Rome was in Italy. Apparently there’s a Rome in the US and she only knew about that one.

        Do American schools teach their kids literally anything at all? How can you not know where Rome is.

        • burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de
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          10 days ago

          Lol, I think I remember a trivia question where texas had more foreign states in it than the ussr. Americans get off on naming cities/areas after foreign nations.

      • Jess@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        I wish this wasn’t true. My teen thought this for a few minutes and I had to correct her. I thought she was gaslighting me at first.

      • tobis@lemm.ee
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        10 days ago

        When I moved away from Alaska, the first person I spoke to in Georgia was a fast food cashier who asked about my day, and they asked “How are you liking the states?” No variation of “Alaska is a state.” would get through to him, he just kept saying “Sure, but I mean like a United States state.”

          • tobis@lemm.ee
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            10 days ago

            He did not, I asked specifically. I even said “Alaska is the 49th of the 50 states.” and he chuckled and said I was confused. Thankfully that wasn’t the standard, but I did meet a few more similarly confounded people over the years.

            Also the number of people that think Alaska is small because of how it’s shown on many maps is staggering.

    • Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works
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      11 days ago

      I mean, you wouldn’t be too far off. There’s an Air Force base about 20-30 minutes from my house. I imagine it would be a military target if a war was ever waged stateside.

      • Soggy@lemmy.world
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        11 days ago

        There are several high-value sites in the state, and I-5 is an obvious target just generally. JBLM, Whidbey Island Station, Everett Naval, and major power infrastructure like Hanford or Grand Coulee.

      • Jikiya@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        There’s an AFB or navy base by a lot of bigger cities. The army takes their crazy off into a corner of a state though, so they can play in the field alone.

    • Echo Dot@feddit.uk
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      10 days ago

      I guarantee that a random Italian living in a tiny nowhere village knows more about the US than your average US citizen knows about Italy. I don’t know a single person who doesn’t know the difference between Washington state and Washington the city.

      I have however spoken to Americans who couldn’t point to the United States on an atlas.