Are Europeans smarter/ more responsible than Americans?

[nicky g]

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Visit the UK/Ireland and then tell me Europeans are more intelligent or responsible about alcohol than Americans.

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How do these countries polices and practices compare to the other contries' policies and practices in eastern and western europe with respect to alcohol?

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Higher drinking ages, more restricted bar opening times. But yeah, the British and Irish drink like lunatics. I've heard that the French actually consume more alcohol than the English. But the difference is they space it out, whereas the English binge drink and then fight and vomit in the streets.

[Bjorn]

I'll refrain from answering the question as posed in the topic. As for the drinking bit I'm pretty sure that there is a strong correlation between alcohol "abuse" and which beverage is the drink of tradition.

I.e. countries where hard liquer is the traditional alcoholic beverage (russia, poland, nordic countries etc) in general have more problems than beerdrinking countries like britain or germany who in turn have more problems than winecountries like france, spain or italy.

It should also be noted that previously northern europe has been typicaly "binge drinking" and southern europe been "everyday drinking". However it seems like increased european integration is leeding to both becoming BOTH in the future.

/Bjorn

[ojc02]

I lived in England for 18 years and have lived the past 8 years in the US. One thing that really bugs the hell out of me is when someone posts a vid on youtube of an American doing something really stupid and then a bunch of Euros will say: "OMG, Americans are so f-ing stupid". My family and friends in England also seem under the impression that Americans are in general stupider than Europeans. Hell, there's probably a lot of Americans who think Americans are dumber than Europeans.

As someone who has lived in both places I am personally convinced that the distribution of general intelligence is virtually exactly the same. Dumb Americans just seem to get a lot more exposure in the media and on the internet than dumb Europeans. It also doesn't help when the president can't string a sentence together.

For the alcohol issue - binge drinking and alcohol abuse are rampant in the UK (I can't really speak for the whole of Europe). I have no evidence for this but it wouldn't surprise me if Europeans drank significantly more per capita than Americans.

[Mickey Brausch]

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Colder climate--> rather more alcohol drinking.

Warmer climate--> rather less alcohol drinking.



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Do you have any facts on the warmer/colder climate theory?

[/ QUOTE ] Pure speculation, on my part.

I would think, colder climate --> needs more quick fixes for warmth. Drinking should be more widespread among southern populations but alcohol abuse should be more common in nothern climates.

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IIRC, alcohol abuse is more widespread in the southern part of Europe than in the northern part.

[/ QUOTE ]Well, I looked it up. It seems that southern Europeans drink more wine per capita than their northern brethren. But I associate wine with mostly moderate drinking on social or family occasions, and less often with alcohol abuse. While the northerners consume per capita more beer than southerners :

<font color="red"> WINE </font> BEER kilos/per year/per capita for 1984-86

W Germany <font color="red">24.9 </font> 195.8
Denmark <font color="red"> 19.2 </font> 127.0
UK <font color="red">10.2 </font>109
Ireland <font color="red"> 3.4 </font> 78.3
Norway <font color="red"> 5.1 </font> 48.2
Sweden <font color="red"> 11.4 </font> 39.5
...
France <font color="red"> 76.5 </font> 38.9
Italy <font color="red">74.4 </font> 21.5
Portugal <font color="red"> 67.7 </font> 37.5
Spain <font color="red">48.5 </font> 56.8
link

But we gotta go beyond mere arithmetic averages. Here's what a 2001 World Health Organisation paper had to say:

"The eight countries with the lowest rates of abstainers are northern European countries (Baltic or Nordic, and Ireland and the United Kingdom). These countries are often regarded as having a “wet” drinking culture – that is, consumption of spirits is rather high, and binge drinking is quite common. The majority of women also drink alcohol, perhaps because they work outside the home. Among the countries with the higher percentages of abstainers are those in southern Europe, mainly wine drinking countries. These countries have a “dry” drinking culture, where drinking wine is an integral part of the diet, but drinking alcohol to intoxication is regarded as socially unacceptable."

link


Mickey Brausch

[boracay]

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It's since they have a low drinking age people are more responsible with alcohol.

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So are they smarter than us and/or more responsible than us for having a low drinking age? If not, how else do you explain it?

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the question is not served in the best way.
the reason is simple: governments/public/teens, everybody accept that teenager becomes an adult at age of 18. at that time he/she should be responsible for all his acts. this include (and is not limited to):
- voting
- gambling
- drinking alcohol (in several countries that is lower; 15 or 16) + when kid caught drunk that is not a crime of course
- driving licence (18 in most countries, somewhere at lower, but only under supervision)
- hunting licence (18)
- joining army (18)
- lethal weapon permits (18)
- going into jail (18)

IMO those rules are good. it's not that our kids are smarter or more responsible than yours, but when we think it's time for them to become fully responsible for their life/acts.

can't imagine the situation when our goverments would raise an alcohol drinking age (or gambling age) to 21, when our kids are joining army (= getting leathal weapons in control or even going into war) at 18 or when they have 7 years of legal sex experiences already. where do you need more responsibility? that would sound funny here.

[Copernicus]

The internet, without which there would be no web, has its genesis in packet switching techology invented by the Rand Corp., and adapted by the DoD (ARPA, the Advanced Research Projects Agency) into a 4 node network called ARPANET designed to maintain computer control of defense resources in the event of a nuclear attack.

[TheRock69]

Leonard Kleinrock invented networking so he could be called the inventor of The Internet. Why does Al Gore think he invented The Internet anyway?

John von Neumann invented the personal computer.

[top13]

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can't imagine the situation when our goverments would raise an alcohol drinking age (or gambling age) to 21, when our kids are joining army (= getting leathal weapons in control or even going into war) at 18 or when they have 7 years of legal sex experiences already. where do you need more responsibility? that would sound funny here.

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[OrangeCat]

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What is a high tech thing that an European invented and is used world wide?
The internet

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Wrong.

The first internet node was established at UCLA in 1969.

[pvn]

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Indeed, the web isnt the internet.

My point is the guy prolly thought that when he heard the web was created by an english dude (as you say) he thought it meant the internet.

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Oh, I got confused. I replied to you thinking you were surftheiop (who originally posted the "europeans invented teh intarnet"). I got mixed up because I'm travelling, using slow dialup (so avatars are turned off) and a small screen (I have to scroll the screen over to see the entire post and can't see the usernames).