most unknown country Game of Empathy

28 replies. Last post: 2006-03-10

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most unknown country
  • BIG BAD WOLF at 2006-02-27

    most unknown country

    This one is interesting. Most unknown, but yet at the same time - known enough for others to also write.

  • Ed Collins at 2006-02-27

    Yes, very interesting. My thoughts exactly.

  • Iluvatar at 2006-02-27

    Too well known to be unknown or too unknown to be known, that's anyones pick :)

  • magicode at 2006-02-28

    So if you pick really obscure countries that no one else picks, and have a really low score, do you win? :)

  • Carroll at 2006-02-28

    Most of these are so unknown I don't even know how to spell their names !

  • Carroll at 2006-02-28

    Any guess for best score ?

    If we get 10 different for each 100 players that is 1000 unknown countries…

    I believe best score will be under 100 (mine below 10…)

  • BIG BAD WOLF at 2006-02-28

    I believe there are only around 157 or so countries in the world - but then again, many of them are officially called things like “The Republic of ….” and such, which could also lead to people picking the same one but writing different things.

  • Carroll at 2006-02-28

    No I think the number is between 189 and 194, but please do not name the ones that do this difference not to cheat.

    Territories should not be considered as countries who should have their own administration if not money, stamps …

    The United Nations only includes 191 countries.

  • CleverHunk steven cullum at 2006-02-28

    unknown countries…I assume by definition that this excludes unrecognized countries

  • CleverHunk steven cullum at 2006-02-28

    most of the hoodrats staggering around this neighbourhood couldn't spell BW

  • MichaeI X at 2006-02-28

    Nothing is excluded by definition (Except plurals) , that's the game ;)

  • Syl at 2006-02-28

    From Donald Rumsfeld :

    “Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.”

    ;-)

  • Iluvatar at 2006-02-28

    I saw the list over unknown countries… France, USA, Japan, China, Italy!!! Pitcairn Islands and Tokelau must be quite well known :-)

  • Henrik Sjøl at 2006-02-28

    139 countries got 2 points or more (in fact, the numbers are slightly smaller, because some countries appear with different spellings)!

    I wonder how many countries got 1 point…

    It looks like almost the whole world is unknown… ;-)

    I see that some of the former Soviet republics got “a lot” of points. I did not take the chance to “nominate” these, because I know that these countries often are spelled in different ways.

  • Rohitha Fernando at 2006-02-28

    Well one wonders IF the winner SHOULD have been the one who got the least nominated countries as by definition they are the least known by those that played this game.

    Also this game should be NOT taken too seriously and should be taken for the fun it is as I did read accusations of cheating etc and as I think TIm (Shih) has mentioned in another thread it is best we all exhibit some niceties when dealing with one another on this site which I DO enjoy.

  • pulsifer at 2006-02-28

    add india, mexico, and korea to the list to get indignant about.

    i did however find humore in the inclusion of atlantis.

    kudos to the few people who thought of that.

  • Ed Collins at 2006-02-28

    First I pulled up a list of all of the countries of the world, and randomly picked 10 that I was unfamiliar with.

    Then, many hours later I figured that method was nothing more than a crap shoot. So I then did a Google search on “most unknown country” and entered countries that were mentioned on the first page, hoping that others would be doing the same thing.

    Then, a few hours later, I thought… “No one else is going to do that!” I figured many people wouldn't be able to think of any countries at all, and so they might just start entering the first country they thought of… the united states, canada, mexico, france, japan, etc. So for the most part, that's what I ended up doing… not because they were unknown, but because the game is empathy… trying to figured out what others are going to do/write.

    Although this type of an expression was interesting, obviously it's not quite suitable for this game. (least known song? Most obscure actor?) My preference would be to not see any more of it.

  • BlackLab at 2006-02-28

    I thought people WOULD look up countries that they were unfamiliar with, so that's what I did…then I just tried to spread them out evenly over the different continents.

    So, it was somewhat of a crapshoot…but I am unfamiliar with almost

    every country I listed.

  • Paavo Pirinen at 2006-03-01

    Yes. These kind of expressions are quite format bending. I would say game's rules go about “Write ten expressions you think others will write too.” There is expression working as a seed, but that's just it. I don't take question any more normative than expression like “I will go swimming today.” or “bliNG !!11 BloNGG”. I just try to guess, what expressions others will be writing.

    So I don't think anything as totally unsuitable. Some expressions are really hard to play with. Some expressions (like this under discussion) make people think there are more rules than there really are, and that really is unfair. I hate to play with looser rules than many other players, but I'd also hate to react to this kind of question as normative. Then this game would become just another kind of poll.

    In a way it would be interesting to play (but let's not) with expression like “names of ten closest relatives of yours?“. Would people still try to conform to question?

    I had Timbuktu on my list although it is a city. I had Australia and I nearly put China, Japan and Russia too (and wouldn't have been ashamed at all). I did have Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Nauru and Liechtenstein though I don't think even they are that unknown - I thought they are funny sounding but quite unfamiliar, so others might pick them too. I did try 'Never Never Land' and even 'unknown', but should ofcourse have known better. People don't try answers like that.

  • Figilano at 2006-03-01

    Hm. I don't know most of the top 10 countries! ;-D

    Too bad I couldn't write them down because I didn't knew them…

  • ypercube at 2006-03-01

    Protest! I submitted Greece and got only 1 point! Which proves that it is one the most unknown countries (you can also check that Athens got only 6 points in the most known cities) and should have given many more points. :(

  • Iluvatar at 2006-03-01

    I think the citation from Donald Rumsfeldt sums it up pretty well. “…there are known unknowns… But there are also unknown unknowns.” Some countries are too unknown to be known as unknown :-)

  • Henrik Sjøl at 2006-03-01

    yper, you should be happy. Since you were the only person submiting “Greece”, all other players seems to know about your country… :-) Or at least, everybody thinks that Greece is too known to be counted as unknown by the other players! May be everybody had “Greece” on their top 10 list of most unknown countries, but didn't submit it because the thought that nobody else would “vote” for it…

    Norway got 2 points, which indicates that Greece is (slightly…) more known than Norway…

  • ypercube at 2006-03-01

    I would very much like to see the 1-point country list.

  • KPT at 2006-03-01

    ahhhhhhhhhhhhhg !!!!

  • MichaeI X at 2006-03-01

    > I would very much like to see the 1-point country list

    Me too.

    And to loose all of any sympathy: You're idiots, voting for China, USA etc. ;)

    Unfortunately, I forgot to think about Atlantis myself, which is now a good candidate to my personal list of “unknown but heard of” countries, and I'm very disappointed that my favorite Antarctica is obviously one of the 1 point candidates.

    There must be another one, as I got only 8 matches in the list of 2-points and above, and that one is so highly unknown that I do not know it any more myself.

    Another idea: to get higher scores in the future: what about a round on

    “My favorite digit” and lets discuss first if only decimal digits are allowed or if hex numbers count as well.

  • Judy at 2006-03-04

    My list of unknowns were so unknown, I didn't know them. I think my 10 blank spaces should have counted for something. LOL

  • Bill Collins at 2006-03-10

    I don't know all I know about this topic.

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