How is it to live in your country?

[Maedhros]

Freedom is a strange word that can be interpreted in many ways. Take freedom of speech for example - yes some European countries have laws banning hate speech. But that doesn't really affect 99,9% of people, so most people don't feel "less free" by it. However, look at an everyday situation like your workplace. I think you're far more likely to suffer negative consequences (getting fired) from speaking up your mind in the US, than in your average European country where unions and the government protect you more. Your employer is more "free" in the US, but the employee is more "free" in Europe.

 

In terms of general freedom, to give an example: Me and my wife are having a baby in September. When it's born I get 2 weeks of paid holiday, and later on after my wife's done with her maternity leave (15+10 weeks of it I believe), I get 15 weeks paid paternity leave to be with my son. For me that's freedom. Guaranteed by the government.

Edited July 28, 2018 by Thingolfin

[teknoman2]

one thing i cannot stand in many countries, is the (imho) bad habit of dubbing everything. can you imagine living in a place where in your entire movie watching life, never once heard the actual voice of an actor or the famous one liners of old action movies? a place where you never heard Arnie say "i'll be back" or "hasta la vista baby" but only a loose translation of it performed by some local voice actor?

Edited July 28, 2018 by teknoman2

[Maedhros]

Dubbing is ridiculous yeah (unless it's for children's films). It's a large part of the reason why Dutch and Scandinavian people tend to be more profecient with the English language than the German and French.

 

Relevant map:

 

[Gromnir]

 

 

That comes up every now and then, and I'm genuinely curious - what sort of personal freedoms? I kind of want to see if that would be anything that I would care about (so that means leaving out the entire gun debate, that would just derail everything).

 

They keep being told how free they are and how they are fighting for their freedom overseas, so at some point they start believing it.

 

To be honest I very much doubt that is true for Gromnir and given his occupation he was probably talking about certain laws. Freedom of speech I can imagine, for instance.

 

freedom o' speech is indeed different in US. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11254419

 

same goes for freedom o' press and religion.  we always get some person from sweden or similar telling us 'bout how much freedom o' press is respected in their country, then we show 'em case 'bout a journalist being criminalized for writing stories which offended some specific religious or social group.

 

laws regarding government takings and searches and seizures by state agents and dozens o' other examples is just plain different in US and we would literal be able to spend days going into examples and the rationale behind differences.  is difficult to explain to folks how words such as reasonable suspicion and probable cause can mean complete different things in the US than does same or similar words in europe. second amendment rights discussion would, all by its lonesome, reduce this thread to ashes... which we would like to avoid. most significant, powers o' our fed government is far more limited than one sees in europe and fundamental rights is less subject to legislative or Court shenanigans.  even ridiculous mosley case which on its face would seem to be a triumph for those extolling value o' eu privacy, resulted in limits on press as well as there being a recognition o' a complete absence o' any basis for what constitutes protected privacy, so Courts o' non elected persons get to decide just how much privacy is appropriate to protect an orgy o' indeterminate qualities and a similar group o' non elected persons could, by little more than whim, change the level o' protections.

 

am recognizing how for the ordinary citizen, liberties is not gonna be a big deal.  most people live quiet and social conscientious lives and never come into genuine heated conflict with neighbors or government save unlikeliest o' unlikelies.  only criminals and ne'er do wells is concerned with what they can get away with, yes?  "what 'bout my right to security or the right to be free from being offended?" even utilitarians such as mill would turn over in their grave to hear how personal liberties could/should be sacrificed to protect individual desire to avoid being uncomfortable.

 

*shrug*

 

is a major tangent from the substance o' thread, but starting from basic structure o' US Constitution which promotes government gridlock, to individual bill o' rights protections, the US is different... but we have this same discussion every couple o' years with folks from sweden or austria or some country whose name we cannot pronounce and need look at a map to make sure we ain't confusing with moldova. 

 

every nation in europe gots free speech and protection from unreasonable police searches or from inappropriate government takings.  words in those laws protecting citizens is often the same, but US protections is actual very different.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Maedhros]

 

 

 

That comes up every now and then, and I'm genuinely curious - what sort of personal freedoms? I kind of want to see if that would be anything that I would care about (so that means leaving out the entire gun debate, that would just derail everything).

 

They keep being told how free they are and how they are fighting for their freedom overseas, so at some point they start believing it.

 

To be honest I very much doubt that is true for Gromnir and given his occupation he was probably talking about certain laws. Freedom of speech I can imagine, for instance.

 

freedom o' speech is indeed different in US. 

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-11254419

 

same goes for freedom o' press and religion.  we always get some person from sweden or similar telling us 'bout how much freedom o' press is respected in their country, then we show 'em case 'bout a journalist being criminalized for writing stories which offended some specific religious or social group.

 

I'm not a Swede, but "similar", so gonna butt in here.

 

How many examples of that can you find? I bet not many, compared to other countries. Sweden (and Scandinavia in general) are always at the top of any "press freedom" list.

 

https://freedomhouse.org/report/table-country-scores-fotp-2017

 

https://rsf.org/en/ranking

[Gromnir]

gotta love lists.  

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=cartoon+sweden+hate+speech&rlz=1C1CHFX_enUS699US699&oq=cartoon+sweden+hate+speech&aqs=chrome..69i57.6247j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

is more than one example just for cartoons.  peruse at your leisure.

 

 

 

 I bet not many, compared to other countries. 

but you are aware o' journalists being criminalized in sweden for offending religious or other social groups, yes?  so compared to US where such is verboten...

 

am not getting how this can be so complicated for some folks.

 

and hey, let's not forget 'bout the wonderful new law which goes into effect january 1, 2019: the Fundamental Law on the Freedom of Expression.  bit o' a misnomer, eh?

 

yeah, compared to other eu nations, sweden is better, but is not same as US. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps (edit) we did predict how this thread would go sideways and off-topic by responding.  wanna discuss further, should do in a newish thread. 

Edited July 28, 2018 by Gromnir

[Guard Dog]

As Gromnir said this conversation would derail what has been an enjoyable thread. So I'll keep this short and will not follow up any further.

 

As Gromnir pointed out most of the nations of Europe, indeed the better part of the world are "free" to one extent or the other. When such freedoms are intruded on it is done so in a narrow way most of the time. But the ability to make the intrusion is absolute and often enough the citizens can do little about it. That is what makes the US different. The ability to intrude on certain inalienable rights is curtailed right in our founding document. I've commented before that our friends across the pond have a trust in their governments to behave with wisdom and temperance that I find strange, even alien. Generally we are mistrustful of our governments here and that has been handed down since the founding of the country and ratification of our Constitution. The governments of other nations often CAN with impunity intrude on the liberty of it;s citizens. Those citizens just hope that they won't. Here there are things our government CAN'T do. 

 

Ironically they try to do them anyway and far to often have been successful. But most of the time they are not. 

[Sarex]

one thing i cannot stand in many countries, is the (imho) bad habit of dubbing everything. can you imagine living in a place where in your entire movie watching life, never once heard the actual voice of an actor or the famous one liners of old action movies? a place where you never heard Arnie say "i'll be back" or "hasta la vista baby" but only a loose translation of it performed by some local voice actor?

 

That is how you protect your culture and language. It's done deliberately especially in case of kids.

[Blarghagh]

I can see that being true. I grew up with parents preferring 'subs before dubs'. My Dutch is mediocre and I don't care for Dutch 'culture' one bit. So here's some anecdotal evidence of correlation for your claim.

[Guard Dog]

totally agree. I'd much prefer subtitles. 

[Hurlshort]

Well as someone with a wife and daughter who deal with dyslexia, I can tell you subtitles are simply not an option for them. Considering about 1 in 5 people deal with some level of phonemic awareness, I'm pretty thankful when there is a dubbing option available. The proliferation of audio books has also been a big boon to my daughter as she looks to expand her cultural horizons. 

[Blarghagh]

Even people with dyslexia get used to subtitles here. But then I've noticed our basic subtitles on everything here are about a hundred thousand times more legible than any subtitles or closed captions I've seen on international products. I dunno what it is, but font design seems to be completely beyond English speaking production designers. Some of them use serif fonts! Half of them put giant square blocks around low res letters. Ugh.

[teknoman2]

 

one thing i cannot stand in many countries, is the (imho) bad habit of dubbing everything. can you imagine living in a place where in your entire movie watching life, never once heard the actual voice of an actor or the famous one liners of old action movies? a place where you never heard Arnie say "i'll be back" or "hasta la vista baby" but only a loose translation of it performed by some local voice actor?

 

That is how you protect your culture and language. It's done deliberately especially in case of kids.

 

shows for children are one thing but movies for older audiences are a big turn off for me if its dubbed. however at times its also the quality of the dub that matters. almost all english dubbed anime for example make me cringe so hard that i want to remove my ears but italian dubbed anime when i watched them in my time in Italy sounded really natural (maybe because the VAs didn't force themselves to imitate their japanese colleagues)

[majestic]

Oh, English dubbed anime has more problems than just the quality of the voice actors. They're often censored and have parts re-written, or in cases like Bismark even have replaced entire episodes with newly created ones that fit better into the new narrative.

[Sarex]

shows for children are one thing but movies for older audiences are a big turn off for me if its dubbed. however at times its also the quality of the dub that matters. almost all english dubbed anime for example make me cringe so hard that i want to remove my ears but italian dubbed anime when i watched them in my time in Italy sounded really natural (maybe because the VAs didn't force themselves to imitate their japanese colleagues)

 

Personally I dislike dubs too, but that another matter entirely.

[Gfted1]

Whenever I have to watch something thats beed dubbed, I find myself focusing on the text and missing parts of the show. 

[Azdeus]

Whenever I have to watch something thats beed dubbed, I find myself focusing on the text and missing parts of the show. 

 

That would be because you're not used to it or the subs are low quality

[Sarex]

Uh, guys dubbing is different from subbing. Dubbing is replacing the voices in a media with a localized version, subbing is adding localized text.

[Gfted1]

Yeah, I meant subtitles.

[Azdeus]

I read between the lines.

[Malcador]

Oh, English dubbed anime has more problems than just the quality of the voice actors. They're often censored and have parts re-written, or in cases like Bismark even have replaced entire episodes with newly created ones that fit better into the new narrative.

In one case the English dub is better, Black Lagoon as they are supposed to be speaking English anyway. Makes the season when they are in Japan odd

[Sarex]

I read between the lines.

 

Of the dub or the sub?

[Azdeus]

 

I read between the lines.

 

Of the dub or the sub?

 

It was definetly the subtext.

[Katphood]

Just updating right now that in the past few weeks, Iran has become the weakest it has been in the past 40 years and it is absolutely disasterous to live here. It's basically becoming impossible to live in this country anymore, prices go up by the minute...

 

 

Congrats, Trump! You did what no other U.S president could have ever done in their wildest dreams, now do that sword dance one more time with the prince of saudi arabia and this time, why don't you invite bibi, too since you are already planning on an Arabian NATO! *chuckles* ....'Arabian NATO'

 

 

Guess the people who voted for Trump really knew what they were doing.

Edited July 30, 2018 by Katphood

[Gfted1]

^Something to do with the price of oil?