Maria Wells14 said:Perception is a tricky thing.
Most people don't actually experience things firsthand—they just pick up vibes based on what everyone else is saying.
If people aren't talking about the everyday reality of a place, you end up with a totally warped view. You might hear a country with massive crime rates described as a safe haven, or vice versa, just because the narrative is off.
Then you’ve got the general "image" factor to deal with.
Take Sweden, for example. If you were to walk up to random people on the street and ask whether Sweden or Canada has higher crime rates, 9 out of 10 would probably point at Canada.
Granted, Canada actually does have a significantly higher murder rate—but, for instance, our Canadian colleague Attila disputes those figures from the U.S. Census Bureau and the UN by using official Canadian statistics. You can check out Attila’s posts and my own in the thread regarding Canada where we are trying to clear the air: ,
as well as the related thread I quoted above—which I actually started yesterday specifically to try and improve the self-perception held by Americans:
The real question is how much that nominally massive crime rate in Sweden is inflated by their bizarre way of handling rape evidence. Perhaps that will change soon, because that strange stance of theirs is exactly what dragged Sweden into the pursuit of Julian Assange—an ordeal that left Sweden looking quite foolish for absolutely no reason.