[ExI] Some Worldwide reading habits (was: abandoning hope - the queuing experience)

[Amara Graps]

I slightly changed the subject line because I made a mistake with it,
too quick. Of course large parts of the world are still not included.
Also the statistics were from 1999, before all of the new EU member
countries entered. I should have rearranged the rows to include them
properly under the EU heading.

giovanni santost santostasigio at yahoo.com :
>For what concerns the economical ones, for example, it seems 
>impossible that >several 3rd world countries are more "competitive" 
>than Italy.

Which? Its broken infrastructure does not make Italy a modern country.

When was the last time you tried to set up a business in Italy? I looked
into it, and ... it's not very different from trying to get a permesso di
soggiorno in terms of complexity and complications and time. And the
taxes are horrendous. I can set up a business in Latvia in a fraction
of the time I would need in Italy  and the taxes are considerably less.
In Estonia (one of the strongest business climates in Europe now),
I can do it in even less time.

I suggest to visit Turkey to see what an emerging new European country
looks like. Please notice the ease of public transportation in Istanbul,
the high energy business climate, the cleanliness. And I've spent a fair
bit of time in Switzerland (I almost went to Bern instead of deciding to
go go Boulder) in the last few years (have you?), I'm not surprised one
bit by Switzerland's rating.

>About the readings, again, statistics are fine, but believe me every
>European (or anybody from anywhere else)  that comes to US immediately
>notices  how uneducated people in general are.

I already commented on the heterogenity of reading habits in different
US places. (Have you ever lived in the SF Bay area?). My point was comparing
Italian reading habits to other Europeans. And everyone here knows
that I prefer to live in Europe much more than the US, and  why.

>The educated people in Italy, in particular scientists are extremely
>well rounded.

Of the rare few that exist, Yes. Remember too that PhDs
were not given in Italy until early-middle 1980s, so you will never
find an Italian PhD scientist above the age of 50 who earned their PhD
in Italy. And yes, I've already commented some number of times here
and in the  wta list on Italian's education focus in the Classics.
(for example: 
http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2007-June/035945.html)

>And about the common people, well one day I was on a bus with a book of
>Nietzsche and the driver started to talk to me (while I was holding for
>my life to the rail in the front of the bus, lol) and said that he read
>that book.

The waiter serving my colleagues and I in Boulder knew the difference
between several models of string theory (and he wasn't a scientist).
But then I wouldn't have chosen that place (Boulder) to make this particular
big move (It's a recovery strategy from Italy) if I did not know already
very well the highly educated  level of the people in that town.
(I used to live there 25 years ago)

The typical Frascati, Italy scenario is the local 20s something person
who thinks that a truck driver is a more useful and interesting profession
than an  atmospheric scientist studying climatology.. I'm sure that he
could quote Augustus, but he wouldn't know the difference between...,
ok never mind,  that's  another story, and I don't have time.

Ciao,
Amara