If most civilized and developed countries are Bilingual/Trilingual, why do we in USA are educated monolingual?
Because the second language people around the world learn most often is English. English is the international language of business, science, and aviation. While it's often a good idea to learn another language, someone who is a native-born English speaker isn't usually in a position where they HAVE to learn another language to succeed in most career fields. But someone who is a native born speaker of Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese or whatever often will learn English so that they can get a better job, no matter where they live.
How can we make China a civilized and developed country?
The way Mainland Chinese behave are largely due to the "by-products" of Mao's reign. Mao and his team only spent years to totally destroy and wipe off one of the world's excellent, civilized cultures esp the Confucius beliefs which have been deep rooted in the Chinese civilization for thousands of years. Scarcity of everything (like N Korea) used to be another serious problem in the Mao's days which resulted in the people's eagerness and hunger to grab whatever they could they could get hold of; good manners and good behaviours are completely out of the question when one is always dying of hunger and cold. One last reason why many Mainland Chinese spit (with a loud voice deliberately), urinate, take off their shoes and lie around on the ground in public, these gestures especially the loud spitting were about the one and only one thing they're allowed to do and/or say aloud in public and at their own accord during the hardgrip days. Hong Kong was among the first poor victim to have tolerated all the above-mentioned. There're many stories that Mainlanders jumped queue or shouted loudly in the public and then took to their fists barbarianly whenever they're asked to behave and/or stand in the line. Poor Hongkongers!! The one quick way to discipline them to behave properly is by strict law enforcements. There're actually laws inside China that forbide people spitting and urinating in public but no person is ever fined. The reasons why Hongkongers, Singaporeans and Taiwanese behave in such orderly manner is because their law enforcement is very strict once a law is passed, everyone will automatically comply with the social norm. I hope Mainlanders wont feel offended, they're very nice people but it's just sad that they do not know that their manners are not being accepted in the world's general standard.
Because those country’s governments understand that their country has a borders where the jurisdiction of their secular, liberal and just law ends. You cannot force other people in other countries outside of your border to follow your country’s law even if your country’s laws are objectively better and more just toward women, minorities and LGBT compare to their countries. Not to mention right now we have an international law that put sovereignty and government stability of each countries and the country’s surrounding neighborhood higher than human rights.Case study: look how high the resistance toward 2003 US’s invasion of Iraq was. They don’t care if Saddam was a bad man toward the Kurds or Shia. All they care was Iraq’s sovereignty had to be respected. We can still remember how many McDonalds, Starbucks, KFCs and American Embassies being thrown bricks and rocks by protesters and American tourists and International students being harassed during the course of the war.Thus any smart government of those civilized and liberal counties understand that outright military invasion is not the answer. So they used any non-military way in their disposal to push those countries to change their laws that hurt minorities, women and LGBT and it’s much slower. They either used their NGOs, foreign aids, lobbying, and any other channel that isn’t military invasion.Conservative in the west need to understand that just because a country being ruled by Islamic Shariah law doesn’t mean that those country can lose her sovereignty. Just because an oil rich Islamic country use her oil income to buy palaces and Mosques covered in gold and promote Islamic missionary activities instead of funding science research while western countries are struggling with science funding doesn’t mean you can take their oil money. It sucks for the minorities and women but the consensus of international community (at least for now) is sovereignty and stability is above human rights.
A lot of people I've met while I'm travelling tell me that Australians are racist. I find this mortifying as I have so many lovely and tolerant friends, but I also acknowledge that there is a faction of racism within our society. I'm not sure how you measure such a thing. This study is all I have found so far, but I would be interested to know if anyone knows of any good articles or research (as opposed to anecdotal evidence) on this topic? It's important to fight racism irrespective of this. I am just not sure if painting the whole of Australia this way is helpful towards moving us towards being a more tolerant society? Maybe a fuller picture of that includes tolerant groups might help?Page on monash.eduA fascinating map of the world’s most and least racially tolerant countries
What percent of the worlds population live in the developed world?
Sebastian is correct about China. While there are some wealthy people and a burgeoning middle class, the vast majority of the people still live in poverty. Some might ask how can that be since China has become a huge market for iPhones and other luxary goods. That is all in the numbers. With 1.3 billion citizens, if only 19% were middle class, china would have as big a middle clas as the US. China is not quite there, so perhaps they have 12% middle class. That still leaves a vast number of people in the lower class, many of whom live in abject poverty.
How come no major civilizations developed along the Mississippi?
It's a lot more complicated than you realize. If the subject really interests you I can suggest two books that will fill in the details: "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by Charles C. Mann The Moundbuilders civilization was indeed vast and successful. There may have been multiple reasons why it began to deteriorate before major European expansion into the New World. Some have suggested that European diseases to which aboriginal Americans had not resistance were introduced as early as the Viking settlements in maritime Canada in the 11th century and gradually passed inland over several hundred years along trade routes. Deforestation of the surrounding plains by the demands of the huge urban centers coupled with decades of natural cycle drought could have seriously impacted the cities. As Diamond's book illustrates, the horizontal exchange of technology (farming, shipbuilding, metal smithing, writing, warfare methods) that was possible by Europe and Asia's east-west orientation created more innovation than was possible in the north-west oriented New World, where extension and upopulated physical barriers separated most of the more advanced societies. The Mediterranean Sea, the much smaller area and higher population density of Europe and the Middle East and the long established central Asian trade routes enabled massive exchanges between developed groups in the Old World. Such contact was severely limited in the vast geography and more sparse population of the New World. I have no doubt that if the Native American populations had not been almost wiped out by the epidemic diseases brought by the Europeans but had, instead, been allowed to obtain and adapt the Old World technologies of domesticated animals, steel, mechanical devices, written communication and ship-building, they would have rapidly progressed to meet or even outperform the technological levels of the Old World.
Actually, Aboriginal Australian people have lived for millennia in places where the cities now are e.g. see this article Aboriginal history in relation to Sydney. In some places, some managed to remain despite European settlement.In other places (see the chapter ‘Pity him Stranger’ in Lorna McDonald’s book Rockhampton - a history of city and district, University of Queensland Press, 1981), Aborigines were all but exterminated as the result of frontier warfare. In Queensland, survivors were moved to reserves by compulsion.In places less attractive to Europeans, more Aborigines survived the frontier wars, and many still live in these areas. In Queensland, where the reserve system lasted until at least the mid 1970s, Aboriginal residents were not allowed to move to urban areas unless they were able to obtain exemption from the laws under which their lives were rigidly controlled by public servants.Since the end of official controls over the lives of Aboriginals, those who want to move have the same right as other Australians to live where they wish.
Thanks for the A2A. Thanks also for placing “civilized” in quotation marks given the subjectivity of this term.Statistically speaking, people living in high income, economically developed nations on average suffer higher rates of chronic non-communicable diseases such as heart disease, hypertension, type II diabetes, and various cancers vis-a-vis those societies that are least integrated into modern society.Look at the results of this study comparing the leading causes of death between indigenous and non-indigenous (mostly European descent) Australians as an example.Notice how the cancer rate is significantly lower among the Aboriginal community as opposed to the non-Aboriginal, while concurrently more indigenous Australians die of external diseases that were not present in Australia before colonisation.The rate of heart disease is almost identical but this can largely be explained by genetic factors that predispose the indigenous population to cardiovascular diseases, and also explains their significantly higher rate of diabetes.Also noteworthy is the lower rate of death from strokes among the indigenous population given that the diet of the average person in this cohort is lower in saturated fats and cholesterol.So which is ultimately healthier?The answer varies by context. Indigenous people who have remained entirely (or almost entirely) uncontacted by the modern Western world tend to die mostly from communicable diseases, accidents and injuries, and other related “natural causes” especially below the age of 5. However, they have much lower rates of cancer and other chronic diseases.Modern “civilised” societies have vastly reduced deaths related to communicable diseases, in particular in newborns and children under 5, but diets that are high in saturated fats, sugar, and cholesterol coupled with sedentary lifestyles, high levels of social anxiety, and exposure to environmental carcinogens means that they suffer from more types of chronic non-communicable diseases.If you classify “healthier” as the lower rate of cancers and other chronic illnesses, and are willing to forego access to modern medicine in the event of an accident, serious injury, or disease brought on by pathogens or parasites in the environment, then on average indigenous communities would be healthier in this sense.
Why most civilized countries in the world are officially Bilingual but the USA reminds anglo-monolingual?
Because the second language people around the world learn most often is English. English is the international language of business, science, and aviation. While it's often a good idea to learn another language, someone who is a native-born English speaker isn't usually in a position where they HAVE to learn another language to succeed in most career fields. But someone who is a native born speaker of Spanish, French, Russian, Chinese or whatever often will learn English so that they can get a better job, no matter where they live.
There is no established convention for measuring a development of countries that would be accepted by UN. However, the most common development measure used in recent times is Human Development Index (HDI) which has become de facto standard for measuring country's level of development. Countries are put into four classes of development by HDI: very high (1-0.8), high (0.8-0.7), medium (0.7-0.55), low (below 0.55). There are 49 countries with very high HDI (above 0.8). Those countries roughly match the category of countries commonly known as developed countries. Total population of those countries, by 2015 estimates, is 1.2 billion out of total 7.3 billion in 2015, which makes 16.44%.