Was this really necessary?

[funkyj]

I saw a segment on The Daily Show about kids being taught Chinese and how the district thought it was making them communists... Really??? Middle school agents to China?

Considering how much US debt China holds I think learning chinese is a good idea.

Huānyíng bàzhǔ

BTW, even in China communism is dead. Communism is an economic system of collectivization, not to be confused with the police state civic. Obviously the district quoted above hasn't played Civ4 and therefore does not distinguish between governmental civics and economic civics.

Imagine the great leap forward of intellectual sophistication if playing Civ was a required part of the school curriculum. Suddenly it would be difficult to conflate a government system (police state, democracy) with an economic system (free market vs communism).

 

[pleasenoname]

We have a terrible history education, we don't even have a good American history education. After all, the natives were peaceful until we got here, what with the scalping and the warpath and all, and don't get me started about meso-america.

Scalping was actually introduced by Europeans, as proof to receive a bounty.
Initially many of the bounties were on Native Americans:

"During "Dummer's War" (c. 1721–1725), British colonial authorities offered £100 per Indian scalp – which adjusted for inflation would be about US $20,000 (£14,000) in present-day money; explorer John Lovewell is known to have conducted scalp-hunting expeditions to gain this generous bounty. Other examples of the payment for scalps are those issued by the government of Massachusetts in 1744 for the scalps of Indian men, women, and children; Governor Edward Cornwallis' proclamation of 1749 to settlers of Halifax of payment for Indian scalps; and French colonists in 1749 offering payments to Indians for the scalps of British soldiers.[citation needed] In Canada, a 1756 British proclamation issued by Governor Charles Lawrence offering a reward for scalps has yet to be officially repealed, although it is not in effect anymore.[5]"

The Aztecs were the worst, it wasn't that bad with the Maya. The Maya actually abandoned the larger cities and that more negative aspect of society.

I've read the Spanish chronicles (through Ronald Wright's book). Cortes actually met the Maya first, and picked up a Spanish priest that had been living with them. The priest was actually given charge of the kings wives, because he was so devout to his vow of celibacy. The priest spoke mayan. There was a Mayan woman who had escaped slavery, from the Aztecs and she spoke Nahuatl(Aztec language). Cortes spoke to the priest in Spanish, The priest spoke to Marina in Mayan and Marina spoke to the Aztecs in Nahuatl.

Everyone seems to forget that the meso-americans hated the Aztecs; they were a terror.
30,000 Meso-American natives streamed to Cortes to ally with him.
30,000 natives fought with him (of all ethnicities/tribes).

 

[Hypernova]

I admit the American geography line was a jab at America and was perhaps ill thought out. But it is so silly that people are getting so infuriated by it and suddenly claiming Firaxis is anti-American (and apparently anti-Ottoman, and anti-world WTH?). This was a very light jab so I do worry for the people who get so infuriated, maybe one day they'll read a serious criticism of American foreign policy and their head will explode from pure fury . This jab is nothing out of the ordinary, I've seen other such jabs in the Civilopedia towards other countries (including inaccurate ones), but no long forum threads for them. This I can only put down to the comparatively very high levels of American "patriotism" (i.e. nationalism).

 

[Ergo Sum]

I admit the American geography line was a jab at America and was perhaps ill thought out. But it is so silly that people are getting so infuriated by it and suddenly claiming Firaxis is anti-American (and apparently anti-Ottoman, and anti-world WTH?). This was a very light jab so I do worry for the people who get so infuriated, maybe one day they'll read a serious criticism of American foreign policy and their head will explode from pure fury . This jab is nothing out of the ordinary, I've seen other such jabs in the Civilopedia towards other countries (including inaccurate ones), but no long forum threads for them. This I can only put down to the comparatively very high levels of American "patriotism" (i.e. nationalism).

This is basically my assessment. Reading about/reading some Noam Chomsky eliminated the last bits of nationalistic devotion I had to America.

 

[Naokaukodem]

nothing

 

[mattkaru]

I admit the American geography line was a jab at America and was perhaps ill thought out. But it is so silly that people are getting so infuriated by it and suddenly claiming Firaxis is anti-American (and apparently anti-Ottoman, and anti-world WTH?). This was a very light jab so I do worry for the people who get so infuriated, maybe one day they'll read a serious criticism of American foreign policy and their head will explode from pure fury . This jab is nothing out of the ordinary, I've seen other such jabs in the Civilopedia towards other countries (including inaccurate ones), but no long forum threads for them. This I can only put down to the comparatively very high levels of American "patriotism" (i.e. nationalism).

It's because they know it's true. Many of us Americans can get ridiculous when attacked from outside, but laugh at ourselves for our collective ignorance on many issues; see 'Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?'

Totally agree with that last sentence as well.

 

[Schuesseled]

From the Ottoman civ description on the Civilization V site:

"Many Americans know very little about the Ottoman Empire (it occupies the blind spot Americans have for pretty much everything between Greece and China)."



EDIT: The entire description has been changed to:

"The Ottoman Empire was born in Anatolia (in modern Turkey) at the start of the 13th century. It expanded into three continents and thrived for some six centuries."

ha haaaa, brilliant.

 

[pleasenoname]

Here is the part of the description that could be misleading:

"with a population that probably never exceeded 20,000, lacking a written language and possessing no manufacturing base at all,"

Population:

The population figures expressed for the Iroquois are most likely under valued.
There are various political reasons for it, suffice to say when Louis and Clark reached the west coast of America, they said that there was as many Native Americans there as there was white people on the east coast.

Whenever a forester speaks in favor of clear cutting forests, they always claim how there was so many natives in the old days that there never was the primordial old growth forests.

I am inclined to believe there were at least 200,000 to 2 million Iroquois.
Perhaps the population was whittled down by unauthorized border incursions and disease.

Writing:

Also I disagree concerning the written language, according to a document I looked at, the Iroquois appeared to sign there name in their own language:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ratification_of_Toronto_Purchase,_1805.jpg

If Pictographic/phonetic script is not considered writing, it can be claimed that the Japanese, Chinese, Egyptians and others have/had no writing.
Also there were was an English letter system available for them to use, if needed, so Europeans could read their names.

Manufacturing:

There is evidence of the production of smelted metals by Native Americans. Cabeza de Vaca spent 8 years among the natives and mentions it to the king, in his report.
The harmful environmental effects of the smelting process most likely kept the natives from mass producing on a large scale, because of different cultural values.

There is evidence in some places of ore extraction. However rather than making weapons, they used the ore for brightly colored paint and chemistry(British redcoats were made with an originally Aztec product).

Also there were wheels and plumbing confirmed in the south:

http://www.precolumbianwheels.com/

http://www.livescience.com/history/...cecom+(LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed)

 

[ICNP]

I still would rather have the Mongols in than the Iroqois, One happened to do a lot more in history than the other.

 

[pleasenoname]

I agree with your signature, that nukes should harm/destroy cities.

 

[tom2050]

I admit the American geography line was a jab at America and was perhaps ill thought out. But it is so silly that people are getting so infuriated by it and suddenly claiming Firaxis is anti-American (and apparently anti-Ottoman, and anti-world WTH?). This was a very light jab so I do worry for the people who get so infuriated, maybe one day they'll read a serious criticism of American foreign policy and their head will explode from pure fury . This jab is nothing out of the ordinary, I've seen other such jabs in the Civilopedia towards other countries (including inaccurate ones), but no long forum threads for them. This I can only put down to the comparatively very high levels of American "patriotism" (i.e. nationalism).

If anyone thinks that anyone was being serious when they said Firaxis was Anti-US or Anti-Ottoman or Anti-World or Anti-Universe (the last 2 should have filled the person in) or w/e, than those need to step back and enjoy the fresh breath of air of bad sarcasm. I was going on about it because I have never really liked 2K, so I'll give 2K jabs at any chance, even if it's 100% completely unrelated to them.

 

[Shorlin]

Are Americans' egos so warped that you can't have a laugh at yourselves? You should try it once in a while it will do you good.

 

[tom2050]

Are Americans' egos so warped that you can't have a laugh at yourselves? You should try it once in a while it will do you good.

I'm Italian and I was going on about it for kicks and giggles. What do you think about Italian egos? And what fine country are you from?

 

[Isikien]

In other news, all English people have terrifically bad teeth and drink tea. Elizabeth also begins every sentence with 'we'.

Also, the VAs for each of the civ leaders seemed to be incredibly underwhelming, like someone typed in a phrase into babelfish and read it back as best they could. Arabia sticks out in my mind as particularly rubbish. England was god oh so lacking

The only thing that was good was Monty, in true psycho fashion, standing in front of hell itself and regaling to the viewer god knows what kind of inhumanities he had performed prior to meeting you.

 

[need my speed]

Yeah, and the accents are wrong too. Iulius (is it him?) sounds Italian and not Roman (and has stupid word order, not that the word ordr matters in Latin, but 'si te amica Roma' or whatever he says would never be used in Rome). Alexander also has a wrong accent, he even says his own name wrong.

 

[Yared]

Oopsie.

 

[PreLynMax]

Sounds like a bunch of anti-American idiots that wrote that one. Whoever wrote that has a blind spot in their brain. I would say the same thing if it mentioned any country.

Amen to that.

 

[Zack]

Are Americans' egos so warped that you can't have a laugh at yourselves? You should try it once in a while it will do you good.

For some reason I don't find it hilarious when some guy posts an insult to the US in his description of a country featured in a highly anticipated computer game. Weird, I know.

 

[Tavenier]

I am just back in Holland from a long trip to the US (5 weeks) where I travelled from San Francisco to Alaska. And I met some Americans saying "Amsterdam and Holland are close to eachother, right?" and "Holland is next to Sweden, right? No? Oh, yes, England is next to Sweden!". But most of the people I met did know a thing or two about my small country, to my surprise. And I had very interesting conversations about history, world politics and things like that. And most of them hated that they didn't get a lot of history other then American history at their schools. But they did know quite a lot which they read themselves.

Oh, and the dumbest thing I heard was from a Canadian couple.
Canadian lady: At my kids school they teach that Russia is the biggest country, like it is still the Soviet Union.
Me: Russia is still the biggest country, even without the Ukraine etc.
Canadian lady: I don't think so..
Me: I am 100% sure.
CL: Well, could be, but in the future more land will be gained by waterworks and all.
Me: Russia is about the size of North America...

Canadian lady looked at me as if I was a child saying I wanted a pet dinosaur...

 

[need my speed]

Yeah, education there seems to be a bit stupid...Which isn't to say that in the Netherlands there is a perfect education system, but at least we learn about nearly anything we could possibly want. *Runs and hides*