I need some help deflating a pompous German...

[Xanthe_2871]

Yo! I have been chatting with a man over the internet for the last several weeks. He's pretty cool in some ways, but he can be quite arrogant. He's constantly insulting the United States and it's citizens. Some points are hard to argue with, in fact I agree the Imperial system isn't all that logical, or that US public schools can be quite lacking, and we do have more fat people than should be acceptable, but other points are just mean spirited. I don't know enough about Germany to counter with areas where the US is superior. 

 

I don't want to be hurtful or mean, I just need some valid points on things we do better than them, to help counter his grandiose self view, and show that he's not so perfect. It's as though it's been drilled into him that Germans are perfect and Americans are oafs. 

 

Some worldly knowledge would be greatly appreciated. And to reiterate, I want constructive criticisms. No Nazi stuff, or unnecessarily hurtful stuff. Just logical arguments, please.

[Fred Castellum]

How about the US space program? Breakthroughs in various scientific fields? 

 

Though honestly I don't think making this a competition is a good idea, if your not harmed by him having the opinion that Germans are superior to Americans then who cares? Arrogance is unattractive, he'll learn that himself someday. 

[flibberdipper]

Just remind them who got their ass handed to them in WWII.

 

Personally I wouldn't bother trying to one-up this guy, because it'll probably just egg him on and make him more of a cunt.

[wasab]

1 hour ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

Yo! I have been chatting with a man over the internet for the last several weeks. He's pretty cool in some ways, but he can be quite arrogant. He's constantly insulting the United States and it's citizens. Some points are hard to argue with, in fact I agree the Imperial system isn't all that logical, or that US public schools can be quite lacking, and we do have more fat people than should be acceptable, but other points are just mean spirited. I don't know enough about Germany to counter with areas where the US is superior. 

 

I don't want to be hurtful or mean, I just need some valid points on things we do better than them, to help counter his grandiose self view, and show that he's not so perfect. It's as though it's been drilled into him that Germans are perfect and Americans are oafs. 

 

Some worldly knowledge would be greatly appreciated. And to reiterate, I want constructive criticisms. No Nazi stuff, or unnecessarily hurtful stuff. Just logical arguments, please.

Germans are perfect? Guess some of them already recover from their WWII Nazi era shame and the eastern half already forgotten their communist servitude to the Soviet Russians. I would like to congratulate them for being able to feel proud again. 

[dalekphalm]

2 hours ago, wasab said:

Germans are perfect? Guess some of them already recover from their WWII Nazi era shame and the eastern half already forgotten their communist servitude to the Soviet Russians. I would like to congratulate them for being able to feel proud again. 

To be fair, East Germany didn't exactly have much of a choice, re: "communist servitude". East Germany was a puppet state, through and through. Frankly it's a miracle that East Germany integrated into mainstream modern German society so well, given the Berlin Wall only fell in '89. The modern German state, as a united country, is only 29 years old. I am older than it is.

 

Though that doesn't take into account the fact that unified Germany kind of just became what West Germany already was - nor the fact that German Culture was still able to thrive, even despite the Cold War conflicts.

[Syntaxvgm]

We have borders. 
We also have a hell of a lot more capacity to take people in. 

[RuffRuffmcgruff]

If you're needing to ask a forum to help you win an argument, you've clearly lost already 

[Nicnac]

7 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

To be fair, East Germany didn't exactly have much of a choice, re: "communist servitude". East Germany was a puppet state, through and through. Frankly it's a miracle that East Germany integrated into mainstream modern German society so well, given the Berlin Wall only fell in '89. The modern German state, as a united country, is only 29 years old. I am older than it is.

 

Though that doesn't take into account the fact that unified Germany kind of just became what West Germany already was - nor the fact that German Culture was still able to thrive, even despite the Cold War conflicts.

Indeed a miracle. We are still paying a considerable amount to the eastern german states, nicely called "solidarity Tax" ^^ and what does the east give us? Yea National-Socialist views and a new political party that openly embraces discrimination and antisemitism. Now, if that's nothing to be ashamed of....

 

@Xanthe_2871 just ask the dude if he is from the East, he probably is. On the other hand I wouldn't bother chatting with people like that. I mean whats the point? You're never going to establish any kind of productive conversation with someone like that.

 

 

[minibois]

Just tell him "at least we have Google Street View here" and drop all the mics.

[Arika]

/b/ LTT is not your personal army.

 

The best thing about the US from the viewpoint of a German is that it's not part of Europe.

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Just tell him "at least we have Google Street View here" and drop all the mics.

Google street view is even in my country, so i cant imagine germany not having it.

[minibois]

9 minutes ago, Some Random Member said:

Google street view is even in my country, so i cant imagine germany not having it.

Due to privacy laws in Germany, Street View was not allowed there, but looking at Google Maps' Street View now, I see quite some bigger cities have it nowadays. 

But if you go on the (desktop) Google Maps site, look at Europe, make the Street View guy hover over it and look at what is Street View accessible and what is not, it does paint a picture of Google probably catching up with Street View in Germany now. You see the entire Western side of Europe fully Street View accessible, central to Eastern Europe is kinda half-half (with countries like Belarus and Bosnia not fully accessible too) and Germany is (mostly) a blank spot.

[bowrilla]

Technology and spacefare. Barely anything here to compete with. Or just look at the movie and tv series industry. And then think about class action law suits – there's no equivalent in Germany which is quite bothersome in cases like VW's exhaust manipulation scandal. 

[Unhelpful]

ARPANET, the transistor, the airplane, full automatic transmission, GPS, and dozens upon dozens of other things that you probably can't imagine life without. Germany has some impressive inventions, but it can't come even remotely close.

[AshleyAshes]

How about not wasting parts of your life arguing about such asinine things with strangers on the internet? ^___^

 

Arguments such as this rarely result in one side 'winning' and it only consumes time, time that you could instead invest in doing something of actual value that you'd better appreciate.

[Unhelpful]

41 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

How about not wasting parts of your life arguing about such asinine things with strangers on the internet? ^___^

 

Arguments such as this rarely result in one side 'winning' and it only consumes time, time that you could instead invest in doing something of actual value that you'd better appreciate.

Yeah, and wasting time is for Germans  /s

[Princess Luna]

27 minutes ago, JoeyDM said:

the airplane,

Brazil invented the Airplane.

[Unhelpful]

15 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Brazil invented the Airplane.

Santos-Dumont flew in 1906. The Wright brothers flew in 1903. It's pretty much only Brazil that thinks Brazil invented the airplane. 

[Princess Luna]

10 minutes ago, JoeyDM said:

It's pretty much only Brazil that thinks Brazil invented the airplane.

Not really, at Germany and France they teach at schools it was Brazil, Wright brothers only glided after using a catapult, Santos-Dumont 14BIS plane did the entire take off and flight on it's own.

[Syntaxvgm]

23 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Brazil invented the Airplane.

If by invented the airplane you mean not getting around to their first flight before the wright brothers had flown multiple times, once even like 25 miles, then yea they invented the airplane.

[Syntaxvgm]

Just now, Princess Cadence said:

Not really, at Germany and France they teach at schools it was Brazil, Wright brothers only glided after using a catapult, Santos-Dumont 14BIS plane did the entire take off and flight on it's own.

This is only true is you want to pretend that 1903 was their only flight. They flew several times after that before 1906.

[Princess Luna]

1 minute ago, Syntaxvgm said:

This is only true is you want to pretend that 1903 was their only flight. They flew several times after that before 1906.

So did Santos Dumont, had flights before the 1906 one at the that Paris event. Not gonna argue with US folk about this, a pride battle is always a pointless battle.

[Unhelpful]

7 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Not really, at Germany and France they teach at schools it was Brazil, Wright brothers only glided after using a catapult, Santos-Dumont 14BIS plane did the entire take off and flight on it's own.

Rails != catapult. The Wright brothers had flown several times by the time Brazil got into the air. The Wright Brothers had flown 852 feet. Santos-Dumont flew a little less than 200 feet.

[Unhelpful]

4 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

So did Santos Dumont, had flights before the 1906 one at the that Paris event. Not gonna argue with US folk about this, a pride battle is always a pointless battle.

Hot air baloons and zepplins pre -1906... We're talking about airplanes. He was 3 years late to the party. You literally can't debate it, the Wright brothers flew in 1903 he flew in 1906. And they flew 4x further.

[Tcrumpen]

14 hours ago, Xanthe_2871 said:

Yo! I have been chatting with a man over the internet for the last several weeks. He's pretty cool in some ways, but he can be quite arrogant. He's constantly insulting the United States and it's citizens. Some points are hard to argue with, in fact I agree the Imperial system isn't all that logical, or that US public schools can be quite lacking, and we do have more fat people than should be acceptable, but other points are just mean spirited. I don't know enough about Germany to counter with areas where the US is superior. 

 

I don't want to be hurtful or mean, I just need some valid points on things we do better than them, to help counter his grandiose self view, and show that he's not so perfect. It's as though it's been drilled into him that Germans are perfect and Americans are oafs. 

 

Some worldly knowledge would be greatly appreciated. And to reiterate, I want constructive criticisms. No Nazi stuff, or unnecessarily hurtful stuff. Just logical arguments, please.

Shouldn't make it a competition as that just fuels more conflict however a lot of breakthroughs haven't been done in American from my memory; US Space program maybe; even then it was Russians that won the space race first