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Poll: Which country currently is the biggest laughing stock?

As per title.

  • Russia

    Votes: 16 55.2%
  • USA

    Votes: 10 34.5%
  • North Korea

    Votes: 5 17.2%
  • Afghanistan

    Votes: 1 3.4%
  • China

    Votes: 2 6.9%
  • UK

    Votes: 7 24.1%
  • Iran

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Pakistan

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Israel

    Votes: 2 6.9%
  • Saudi Arabia

    Votes: 2 6.9%

  • Total voters
    29

VoidCat

Pronouns: he/him/they/them
That’s an admirable quality
We a big joke to ourselves and the rest of the world.

Might as well laugh

Edit: hell there's a youtuber his whole stick is making fun of the US and he's an American. Ben Brainard. Makes fun of all the states and government. He's also on tiktok
 

Debater Slayer

Vipassana
Staff member
Premium Member
I didn't vote for any country: the way I see it, each and every single country in the world can either be a good example or a laughing stock depending on which aspects of governance, society, and state law one chooses to focus on.

The U.S. has poor health care but great higher education. China has an abusive, despotic regime but a great work ethic and industrial prowess. Saudi Arabia is a despotic theocracy but has relatively good health care.

Instead of looking at a list of countries to laugh at or mock, I find it much more useful to focus on learning how to avoid the various shortcomings that different countries have and also learning how they achieved their better qualities. Pointing fingers often leads to complacency and a false sense of superiority at the cost of introspection and self-improvement.
 

Yazata

Active Member
Why isn't France on your list of choices? Here in the US, France is probably the one we laugh at most often. Canada too.
 

Heyo

Veteran Member
Three choices available - as feeling generous. :D
Thanks, that made it a bit easier.
With the qualifier "currently", Russia had to be on the list, getting their arse kicked by a former little appendage.
The US is always a classic, not because they are so ridiculous, other countries can beat that, but being ridiculous while thinking they are a first world, industrialized, sophisticated country.
The third choice wasn't that easy. Saudi Arabia who are stuck in the 8th century and North Korea who are stuck in a failed monarchy were choices but the UK ultimately made it. With the latest blunders, as already named, being Brexit and Boris.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
I voted U.K. because you can’t really laugh at any of those other places in the poll; their circumstances are too tragic to warrant ridicule, whereas we Brits have always been frankly ridiculous. But at least we know it. The fact we don’t take anything too seriously is our one redeeming national characteristic imo.

US comic Doug Stanhope hit the target when he reacted to news that the U.K. still has a monarch with incredulity, asking “what else you got? A wizard? Unicorns?” We do have a unicorn, on the royal coat of arms.
Even if I would like to see the monarchy gone, this is hardly that abnormal around the world, and the Brits have been laughing at themselves for too long for me to label them over others, but Brexit clearly made them a close option. :oops:
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
I didn't vote for any country: the way I see it, each and every single country in the world can either be a good example or a laughing stock depending on which aspects of governance, society, and state law one chooses to focus on.

The U.S. has poor health care but great higher education. China has an abusive, despotic regime but a great work ethic and industrial prowess. Saudi Arabia is a despotic theocracy but has relatively good health care.

Instead of looking at a list of countries to laugh at or mock, I find it much more useful to focus on learning how to avoid the various shortcomings that different countries have and also learning how they achieved their better qualities. Pointing fingers often leads to complacency and a false sense of superiority at the cost of introspection and self-improvement.
Ridicule is safer though than lobbing grenades. :oops:
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I'm a little uncomfortable calling someone's country a 'laughingstock'. In my mind, to do that, one is probably equating a country with its politics and politicians, and that is unfair to the people living there, and ignores the beautiful landscapes and cultural richness each of these places has to offer.

Ignore the windbags in office(because its a cold day in hell you find a politician who is not a windbag). Hear a folk song from one of the countries voted for. Try a recipe. Learn a story. See a picture of the land. Basically, just try to see these places as homes for real people, like oneself.

Lighthearted jokes are great. I simply try not to throw stones at folks who are probably just as unhappy with the governments as the rest of the world.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
I'm a little uncomfortable calling someone's country a 'laughingstock'. In my mind, to do that, one is probably equating a country with its politics and politicians, and that is unfair to the people living there, and ignores the beautiful landscapes and cultural richness each of these places has to offer.

Ignore the windbags in office(because its a cold day in hell you find a politician who is not a windbag). Hear a folk song from one of the countries voted for. Try a recipe. Learn a story. See a picture of the land. Basically, just try to see these places as homes for real people, like oneself.

Lighthearted jokes are great. I simply try not to throw stones at folks who are probably just as unhappy with the governments as the rest of the world.
I did add some info, so as not referring to the people in general but the regimes in place - given I have nothing against people anywhere. And it was more aimed at how nations fit in or don't as to overall world progress.
 

JustGeorge

Not As Much Fun As I Look
Staff member
Premium Member
I did add some info, so as not referring to the people in general but the regimes in place - given I have nothing against people anywhere. And it was more aimed at how nations fit in or don't as to overall world progress.

My brain is foggy when I wake up(I just did).

Its still a hard call, though. Maybe one could find policies they dislike now... but things change so fast.

What I think must be crazy would be to be an old woman in a place like Afghanistan... to have one time worn a miniskirt, and now have to grapple with a burqa...
 

Viker

Häxan
Given that so many countries that have much less impact on world affairs might be so. :oops:

Some info that might or might not be relevant:

Top 10 Most Hated Countries in the World | TopTeny.com
Ranked: most corrupt countries in the world

Three choices available - as feeling generous. :D

PS Perhaps give reasons as to why, and of course add any that you think should be here. Also, this is of course more about any regimes in charge rather than the inhabitants in general.

Mine were Russia, North Korea, and Afghanistan, and all three mostly displaying the arrogance in some sort of belief, and where such tends to cut them off from most other nations of the world.
I don't usually laugh at large groups of people that can kick my butt. However, I will stand up for myself and will criticize them when needed. All of them. :D
 
Last edited:

exchemist

Veteran Member
Voted for my country, the UK

Any country that can ...
  • Vote Brexit - i.e. imposed sanctions on yourself
  • Elect Johnson - total liar
  • Allow Russia to fund the ruling classes
  • Have a Royalty
There is more, but you get the point
I thought about that but decided that right now it has to be Russia. What a huge series of blunders and own-goals! Invasion a total failure, but which has Forced Sweden and Finland into NATO, while causing implosion of their economy. My only doubt is that I hardly feel like laughing, when they have unleashed so much barbarous destruction.

Perhaps in that sprit the UK makes a more suitable object of derision. Another series of own-goals, with an untrustworthy buffoon as premier, presiding over a government mostly of 3rd rate idiots and lickspittles.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
UK is the best to laugh at.
- The royals
- Lucas Electric
- Dentistry

France (though not on the list) is good too.
- Mimes
- Cheese under their fingernails
- Going on strike at the drop of a hat
- Heavy cream sauce on snails
Lucas Electric? Dentistry?
 
Last edited:

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
Given that so many countries that have much less impact on world affairs might be so. :oops:

Some info that might or might not be relevant:

Top 10 Most Hated Countries in the World | TopTeny.com
Ranked: most corrupt countries in the world

Three choices available - as feeling generous. :D

PS Perhaps give reasons as to why, and of course add any that you think should be here. Also, this is of course more about any regimes in charge rather than the inhabitants in general.

Mine were Russia, North Korea, and Afghanistan, and all three mostly displaying the arrogance in some sort of belief, and where such tends to cut them off from most other nations of the world.
Not sure I've got the vibe here. The only country that seems a "laughing stock" to me is the UK. I could vote for some of those countries on the poll, but not because they make me laugh, if you get my drift...
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Not sure how Afghanistan is a laughingstock. They beat everyone who ever tried to pummel them, the UK, USA, USSR, and now they have installed their own government despite 20+ years of being cowed.

I don't agree with their regime, but they're definitely no laughingstock.
Bringing back the burqa is one reason. And please note:

" Afghans are estimated to be facing starvation as their aid-fed economy has collapsed. When the Americans left last August, about 40 per cent of the economy was propped up by foreign aid."

Afghan veil covers a multitude of miseries - The Statesman

They won and are now effectively committing suicide. They are more pathetic than a laughing stock.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
For "laughingstock," it is hard to compare with US politics.

"It's all a bloody circus, and the clowns are in control," - Kris Kristofferson.
Though far from perfect we have had a massive improvement. It is time to hand over the crown to the new king Great Britain. Let's hope that they do not hold on to that title for too long..

I would have North Korea up there, they are like Afghanistan more in the pathetic mode, though they have the excuse that their dictatorship was not self imposed. It was imposed on them. Afghanistan does not have that excuse.
 
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