Which other country/region is the most different from America?

[Cory]

To answer that question, one must first define America. A few things that come to my mind:

2.) Second world: Immigrant tradition, pioneer spirit, high mobility, comparable low respect for local traditions and heritage (though that seems to be gradually changing): Obviously puts most other second-world countries, i.e. Latin America (with the possible exceptions of Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala), Australia and New Zealand, off the list.

Seriously?

[Franknburger]

To answer that question, one must first define America. A few things that come to my mind:

2.) Second world: Immigrant tradition, pioneer spirit, high mobility, comparable low respect for local traditions and heritage (though that seems to be gradually changing): Obviously puts most other second-world countries, i.e. Latin America (with the possible exceptions of Bolivia, Ecuador and Guatemala), Australia and New Zealand, off the list.

Seriously?

Yes - though the correct term that I was thinking about is "New World", not "Second World". But there are substantial cultural differences between the Old World and the new World. The whole fracking stuff, for example, is a no-go in most of Europe, where you will find a medieval church every 10-20 miles.  The following links might give you a better idea of what I mean:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staufen_im_Breisgau
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/Geothermal_sector_faces_heat_of_public_scrutiny.html?cid=8022548
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/04/france-geothermal-energy-debate-when-is-fracking-not-fracking

Note: Please look at the links from a cultural perspective. Any technical discussion would IMO be better placed in a separate thread.

[Хahar 🤔]

I do not understand the logic that colonization by a Western European country automatically makes a country more like the US than a country that never was.  Pakistan and Sudan were once part of the British Empire.  Does that mean that they are more similar to the US than Japan is?  I do not think so.  Japan is closer to (though certainly different from) American social values than Pakistan and Sudan are.

Turn on a television in Pakistan and see how much American programming you get.

[Franknburger]

I have come across the World Values Survey that tries to answer the question in an empirical way. Based on survey launched every five years, they organise countries in a 2-dimensional matrix:

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This is the resulting map for 1999-2004:


Some of their placements run counter intuition (compare e.g. Austria's position vis-à-vis Great Britain and Germany). I also tend to think that the survival / self-expression scale may rather capture a country's current situation than underlying cultural values, as changes by half a point or more from one cycle to the next are quite common. [Questions here include neighbourhood security & pollution, environmental taxation, "maintaining order" vs. "free speech", confidence in the police, the parliament, and government, etc.). Moreover, I don't think that "party membership" is an adequate measurement to conclude on survival / self-expression values when comparing between the US, Western Europe, post-communist countries and China.  The fact that more than a third of respondents in Germany and Japan never use a computer raises some doubts on representativeness.

Nevertheless, here is their latest 2005-2008 map (next update will come in 2014):



So, what is their result on which countries were most different from America in 2008 (sum of absolute differences on both scales)?

1. Taiwan (4.91)
2. Hong Kong (4.75)
3. Bulgaria (4.71)
4. Japan (4.58)
5. South Korea (4.56)

In 2004, the Top 5 were Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Estonia and Moldova.

Oh, and the closest one in both 2008 and 2004 - surprise, surprise: Canada. 

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

LOL, Japan isn't THAT anti-traditional.