"Western decadence"? Bad stereotype.

[boofhead]

I am a little tired of hearing non-Westerners and certain religionists from foreign lands accusing the West of being completely decadent. In fact there is some evidence to suggest that the opposite is true.

If you are interested, first look at the table linked below which reveals the number of PCs which exist in each country:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/me...onal-computers

Now many of you would be familiar with Google Trends, a simple tool for analyzing search frequencies on the internet. Take into account the number of computers per country in the table above and consider the following results from Google Trends:

"rape sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=rape+sex&ctab=1&sa=N

"child sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=child...o=all&date=all

"baby sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=baby+...o=all&date=all

"animal sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=anima...o=all&date=all

"nude pics" http://www.google.com/trends?q=nude+...o=all&date=all

"pedo" http://www.google.com/trends?q=pedo+...o=all&date=all

"sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex&c...o=all&date=all

"gay" http://www.google.com/trends?q=gay&c...o=all&date=all (I mention this one not because I think it is necessarily decadent, but the targets of my ire do)

"naked" http://www.google.com/trends?q=naked...o=all&date=all

OK folks firstly I apologise for the search terms used, but I feel they are necessary to prove my point. They are a just a few examples, and I only used search terms which are in accordance with the ToS. Feel free to try searches of a similar nature using more vulgar words, and you will see similar statistics.

Just by way of explanation on how the results work:

When the Cities tab is selected, Google Trends first looks at a sample of all Google searches to determine the cities from which we received the most searches for your first term. Then, for those top cities, Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for your term coming from each city divided by total Google searches coming from the same city. The city ranking you see on the page and the bar charts alongside each city name both represent this ratio. When cities' ratios are fairly close together, the corresponding bar graphs will be roughly the same length, and the exact ranking between these cities is less meaningful.

The Regions and Languages tabs work just like the Cities tab. Google Trends uses IP address information from our server logs to make a best guess about where queries originated. Language information is determined by the language version of the Google site on which the search was originally entered.

Keep in mind that instead of measuring overall interest in a topic, Google Trends shows users' propensity to search for that topic on Google on a relative basis. For example, just because a particular region isn't on the Top Regions list for the term "haircut" doesn't necessarily mean that people there have decided to stage a mass rebellion against society's conventions. It could be that people in that region might not use Google to find a barber, use a different term when doing their searches, or simply search for so many other topics unrelated to haircuts that searches for "haircut" make up a very small portion of the search volume from that region when compared to other regions.

Is it really the West who are so decadent? It seems to me that the very people who chant this never-ending mantra are the ones seeking out such perversions behind closed doors.

Of course any contradictory trends discovered which fit within the ToS are more than welcome.

[Kino]

Ha, look up sheep sex and goat sex. Who's in the top 3?


About this, one thing I heard is that some of the stricter countries have programs that search the web through Google and other sites and block access to obscene or porno sites to protect their people.

So what you might actually be seeing is the anti-porno program's searches. That's just what I heard though and it looks like New Zealand has no excuse.

[Mig el Pig]

Ha, look up sheep sex and goat sex. Who's in the top 3?


About this, one thing I heard is that some of the stricter countries have programs that search the web through Google and other sites and block access to obscene or porno sites to protect their people.

So what you might actually be seeing is the anti-porno program's searches. That's just what I heard though and it looks like New Zealand has no excuse.

for oen strange reason belgium and holland are also in the top 10

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Ha, look up sheep sex and goat sex. Who's in the top 3?
So what you might actually be seeing is the anti-porno program's searches. That's just what I heard though and it looks like New Zealand has no excuse.

Well that wasn't a suprise to me...

Interesting post boofhead, I'm curious about the blockers now as well. I remember reading in Newsweek a few years ago how something like donkeysex.com or the like was one of the most popular sites on the net there...

Edit; by there, I mean Afghanistan.

[boofhead]

Good point re the site blockers. I am open minded about these results, however wouldn't someone have to try and access some kind of porn site to activate said blockers?

I did notice Australia comes up no.1 with "chicken sex" I am assuming this is (a) chicken farmers seeking info on sexing their chicks (b) idiot teenagers looking for a laugh, and (c) smallest group - perverts who actually seek this for their own gratification.

[AngryTitusPullo]

I am a little tired of hearing non-Westerners and certain religionists from foreign lands accusing the West of being completely decadent. In fact there is some evidence to suggest that the opposite is true.

If you are interested, first look at the table linked below which reveals the number of PCs which exist in each country:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/me...onal-computers

Now many of you would be familiar with Google Trends, a simple tool for analyzing search frequencies on the internet. Take into account the number of computers per country in the table above and consider the following results from Google Trends:

"rape sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=rape+sex&ctab=1&sa=N

"child sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=child...o=all&date=all

"baby sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=baby+...o=all&date=all

"animal sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=anima...o=all&date=all

"nude pics" http://www.google.com/trends?q=nude+...o=all&date=all

"pedo" http://www.google.com/trends?q=pedo+...o=all&date=all

"sex" http://www.google.com/trends?q=sex&c...o=all&date=all

"gay" http://www.google.com/trends?q=gay&c...o=all&date=all (I mention this one not because I think it is necessarily decadent, but the targets of my ire do)

"naked" http://www.google.com/trends?q=naked...o=all&date=all

OK folks firstly I apologise for the search terms used, but I feel they are necessary to prove my point. They are a just a few examples, and I only used search terms which are in accordance with the ToS. Feel free to try searches of a similar nature using more vulgar words, and you will see similar statistics.

Just by way of explanation on how the results work:



Is it really the West who are so decadent? It seems to me that the very people who chant this never-ending mantra are the ones seeking out such perversions behind closed doors.

Of course any contradictory trends discovered which fit within the ToS are more than welcome.

Well.. For one, western people don't need to google to see all these things... There are all around you. We, the eastern, unfortunately were only told of these decadence but since not all of us can hop in and go to Europe to see these these, we search the web for it..

[boofhead]

Well.. For one, western people don't need to google to see all these things... There are all around you.

I never see any of this stuff. Prostitutes are legal here: don't know anyone who goes to them. Drugs are neither a big influence in my town. There are no sex shops, but about 10 churches. I don't know any married men sleeping around.
I don't look at internet porn (except accidentally ).

As the title said - it is all stereotypical nonsense. Maybe in certain areas of big cities you get all the filth combined in some areas, but in general I don't think the West is as decadent as many non-westerners would like to believe.

[AngryTitusPullo]

I never see any of this stuff. Prostitutes are legal here: don't know anyone who goes to them. Drugs are neither a big influence in my town. There are no sex shops, but about 10 churches. I don't know any married men sleeping around.
I don't look at internet porn (except accidentally ).

As the title said - it is all stereotypical nonsense. Maybe in certain areas of big cities you get all the filth combined in some areas, but in general I don't think the West is as decadent as many non-westerners would like to believe.

The western people aren't the only ones guilty of stereotyping. When our leaders call on us to look at the west, they probably means the level of education, for example in science etc but what what kids here actually follows are the likes of what are potrayed by Hollywood..

p/s: you never been to Hollywood eh ?

[danzig]

Moral of story....stay the hell away from Pakistan. They are like at top of most of those lists

[Saxon Huscarl]

United Kingdom is 4th for "sheep sex", I blame it on the Welsh! (just kidding to any Welsh people here).

Still not as bad as New Zealand, Ireland and Australia though...

[boofhead]

The western people aren't the only ones guilty of stereotyping. When our leaders call on us to look at the west, they probably means the level of education, for example in science etc but what what kids here actually follows are the likes of what are potrayed by Hollywood..

p/s: you never been to Hollywood eh ?

Yeah once to Hollywood as a tourist. We get those 'gangsta' :wub:s over here with the baseball caps and jewellery, baggy pants with underpants showing making stupid hand signs - scrawny little white wannabees. They act more black than the average black guy.

But yeah stereotypes are strange. When I think of much of the Islamic world I think that generally people are of an excellent moral standard, much higher than the West....but the Trends above seem to indicate otherwise. Perhaps the complete lack of titillation for males, hardly ever seeing a woman except for face and ankles etc, is the reason for this unhealthy obsession many seem to have - and with illegal perversions at that. Strange.

In defense of non-Westerners, I somehow think the methodology behind the Trends may skew the answers, but not sure how.

[Sétanta]

Hollywood is a glorified street of movie theatres. I probably live in one of the most decadent regions in the world (half of the people in my town work for Microsoft directly, and the other half work in Microsoft support services), and it really isn't too much. Yes, everybody has a cell phone (except me), yes there is a huge number of teenagers with cars, but other than that, not much more than you would see anywhere in the west.

You can't blame the west for having money. I think the whole decadence thing is just a bad case of economic inferiority complex.

[Sadreddine]

Well the main problem I see in "western society" is the excessive frivolousness and the lack of self-control, slaveness to immediate desires no matter what and disrespect to any form of law or formal authority. Don't take me wrong: humanity is frivolous by nature, but in the "west" this trend is specially worrying.

People have more money to spend, but the way they spend it is in many cases despicable. Too much self-complacency, specially when applied in global level in a society, leads to a corrupt "soul", which will end as a result in decadence and demise.

My opinion has been forged by reading, daily personal experience and individual reflection on the state of things in my surroundings. A "google trend" is not going to convince me otherwise, since I can't test the validity of such a study.

[boofhead]

Well the main problem I see in "western society" is the excessive frivolousness and the lack of self-control, slaveness to immediate desires no matter what and disrespect to any form of law or formal authority. Don't take me wrong: humanity is frivolous by nature, but in the "west" this trend is specially worrying.

People have more money to spend, but the way they spend it is in many cases despicable. Too much self-complacency, specially when applied in global level in a society, leads to a corrupt "soul", which will end as a result in decadence and demise.

My opinion has been forged by reading, daily personal experience and individual reflection on the state of things in my surroundings. A "google trend" is not going to convince me otherwise, since I can't test the validity of such a study.

I agree totally with the Western frivolousness side of things. However I do not see this as a recipe for inevitable "demise". The Western world has gone through terrible periods of orgiastic hedonism and within a century swung back to Victorian era stuffiness and morality. It seems the West is a swinging pendulum when it comes to morals and family - you have Roman orgies one moment and Puritan floggings the next.

But to the point. No I can't validate exactly how Trends transmits its data to me, the user, either. But I take note that they have a disclaimer and also make a slight effort to explain how the results are formulated. Hence you may have noticed my uncertainty in making any definitive conclusion.

I would suggest though, that even if "porn blockers" were involved in many of the search-term hits, and that even if the results were talled on a per capita basis rather than a total PC basis, then the divergence between Westerners looking at such filth and non-Westerners is extreme to say the least.

Pakistan with 500,000 or so PCs outdoes the USA, with 161 million PCs on almost every sexually related search term. That could be equated as over 300 hits per PC in Pakistan to every PC in the hedonistic US.

Again it brings me back to the idea that maybe those countries with the greatest restrictions on looking at a woman's body have the greatest primal outburst of sexual lust - mentally at least, for many (not all), and privately not publically.

As I said, I am not sure of this, just contemplating.....

[Sher Khan]

Excuse me, internet tough-guy coming through. Allow me.


Certainly, an interesting topic! And one that uses Google is bound for even more lulz.


Now, from what I understand, the city/region rankings are ratios - ratios of the selected term to the total number of searches from that city or region. The list is ranked according to the highest ratio.

So what does all that mean? Well, frankly, not much. Let's use Pakistan for an example. See, they have a high ratio on a few terms, but what does that spell out? All it says that their ips have a higher PERCENTAGE of searching for these kinds of things compared to the general ip population overall.


The worst part? There are no freakin' numbers. No numbers! I can't tell if Pakistan with 500,000 pcs has 10,000 perverts or 499,999 perverts. All I know is, it's a high ratio (but compared to what?).


Now let's look at the U.S. With 161,000,000 pcs, there could be 100,000 perverts and it'd barely make a respectable percentage. Let's make it 1,610,000 perverts - 1% of the PC population in America. Now, that's a tiny ratio, If the Google ratio thing has 'high' ratios, than certainly they're somewhat higher than 1%. Possibly 50%.


So, the U.S. with 1% would probably not make the high list on the Google trends for sexual terms searched, but Pakistan with 50% would.

But 1% for the U.S. makes that number 1,610,000, while Pakistan's 50% gives them 250,000 perverts. In this scenario, the West is far more horny than the rest of the world right?




Can't be sure, at least, not with this way of testing. There are no numbers to use, and thus it's inconclusive.

However, having spent some time on the net, I can guarantee you that no other nation on Earth could compete with the online sexual debauchery of the U.S. and Japan, Google Trend data be damned.