It seems I have been ignored...

Welcome to my world.

To be honest I'm proud to be the 2nd best nation of the world.
I don't know why people can't be happy when they have something great but there's something better. It's still great.

I think Norway is the real winner. It had 23 medals (to the US's 37, Germany's 30 and Canada's 26). It also has a population of six million, to US's 300 million, Canada's 33 million and Germany's 82 million. It's program is several times stronger than the others, in relative terms, which is, I believe, what really counts. I'm sure that if China ever starts beating the US, people will point to the population ratio there. (as opposed to the current they cheated stuff)

Huh, we only pwned the last record of number of gold medals won ;o
USA SUCKS!
We were so fucking -dominating- you guys the whole match!
And may I simply mention the fact that your bronze medal on the Speed-Skating relay course was really pure luck since the Korean got disqualified... you were like 5 minutes in our back. -.-

Wait, wuts that? We broke the record for having the most GOLD medals... Ever???
I'm sorry, nubs.. we just Rock that much....

It's tough luck that 15 of your guys who could've won Gold just didn't have enough balls to do so.

All in all tho, amazing game.. we got scored against in the last 24.4 seconds... My nails were nearly entireing bitten off by overtime.

All this gloating and boasting and being defensive.

zzz

You do realize that medals are not awarded for average skill per person of a country but to a country as a whole?

Or in diplo terms: What does it help you if your country was overrun by a larger army and you argue "Well, if we had just as many citizens as your country we would have won - so surrender, we are clearly better!"? -.-
Right, nothing.

I'm not arguing that the US didn't win the Olympics; I'm arguing that the Olympics showed that Norway, Canada, etc did significantly better than the US relative to their respective resources. I'm not saying that Norway deserves more medals. In your example, if the smaller country had significantly lower relative casualties, I'd definitely call them the better fighters, even though the entire country is weaker.

Quote from Centreri

I'm not arguing that the US didn't win the Olympics; I'm arguing that the Olympics showed that Norway, Canada, etc did significantly better than the US relative to their respective resources. I'm not saying that Norway deserves more medals. In your example, if the smaller country had significantly lower relative casualties, I'd definitely call them the better fighters, even though the entire country is weaker.

So Protoss are better fighters than Zerg?

You didn't refute his point, you just reiterated yours.

If you do not understand the difference between relative and absolute, that is not my problem. Norway's Olympics program is per capita stronger. The US's is absolutely stronger. There is no simpler way to put this.

This is about correct.
What I was trying to say is that he may be correct but that it's irrelevant.
It may be nice to know you're relatively better but doesn't help you if you're absolutely worse.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 3 2010, 2:23 pm by NudeRaider.

We felt bad for you guys for being Canadian so we let you win. :3

Nude, depends for whom. In that Olympics, I'd rather have been Norwegian than anyone else. Norway got five medals for each million people; the US got one for each eight million. Of course a country with the resources of all of Europe can get the most medals. I don't consider that a feat of athletics, but a feat of... being one country. That individual European countries like Norway, Austria or, to a far lesser extent, Germany, can successfully compete with said Europe-sized country, that's a real accomplishment.

In my view, at least. If you value the absolute over everything, that's your prerogative.

Also, Russia did horribly.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Mar 3 2010, 9:33 pm by Centreri.

Your theory assumes that Norway's medals would scale linearly with population growth. It would not. And say luxembourg had won one gold. Does that mean Luxembourg did the best because they won the most golds per capita? No, they did far from the best.

No, I value the absolute when the absolute matters. The olympics aren't a contest of populations, they are a contest of individuals.