[Evan]

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i really don;t think it's that outrageous - it's just memorization - like knowing the 7 dwarfs or something.

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Yep, your right one of them isn't more significant than the other or anything......

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Not that I disagree, but what was the last time you had to know all the continents. I'm pretty sure I've more recently been asked to name all the dwarfs.

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Huh? It's not that you have to know all the continents - just that not knowing shows a fundamental ignorance of the world in general. I really will never understand such a person.

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I agree. I can't imagine having any type of conversation on world events with anyone who was having problems with naming the continents. At a minimum, I think anyone with a clue about what is going on the world should know some basic geography, climate, socio-economic, culture, etc info on most parts of the world (i.e North America, South America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Middle East, South Asia, to name a few.)

In fairness to the young College kids, though, I think this knowledge predominatley comes with age and having an interest about what is (and what has been) going on around you.

I'm 46 years old, watch the news and read papers everyday, and really don't expect the average 21 year-old to understand the history or nature of the recent conflict in Lebanon, for example, in the same ways I might. First of all, they are not even old enough to recall some of the previous conflicts.

However, on the other hand, they should know much more about areas in mathematics, physics, chem, etc than I can recall at my age.

So while I think they should know the continents, I too agree that the more important indicator is what "not" knowing them speaks to.

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This, along with the fact that some people just don't care much about world news/events (and despite some people's inflated sense of self worth, that's okay), makes it really hard for me to see why anyone would draw such harsh conclusions from someone not knowing all the continents.

Like I said, I think it's certainly weird, but ultimately consequence free. Would you think I was stupid id I didn't know how many representatives my state has? I don't, I think it's 33, but I certainly wouldn't take an even money bet on that. There's all kinds of trivial facts people get excited about knowing because they think it makes them worldly and intelligent and whatever, but they're all just as trivial as the other crap they don't know.