Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–249 of 249 posts

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#241

Post by paulddraper »

jordache wrote: post #238
paulddraper wrote: post #101

A few observations as a resident of Utah for the past 6 years (1) Fantastic for outdoor activities: skiing, mountain biking, hiking, camping. Has some of the most popular national parks in the United States (Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion). 2/3 of the state is federally preserved. (2) Software industry is huge. Both historically (Novell, WordPerfect) and nowadays. If I had to find a SE job right now, it would take a week…

1) Distance of the SE Utah playground is just as far to SLC as Denver. So it's a moot point. I can also confidently say the drive from Denver to SE Utah trumps the drive from SLC to SE Utah

Don't disagree, but SLC is insanely close to the Wasatch mountains. Colorado has mountains too, though they're a ways away from Denver, Colorado Springs, Bolder.

I have co-workers that go skiing in the morning, and come in around 10:00am.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#242

Post by jordache »

paulddraper wrote: post #241
jordache wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Distance of the SE Utah playground is just as far to SLC as Denver. So it's a moot point. I can also confidently say the drive from Denver to SE Utah trumps the drive from SLC to SE Utah

Don't disagree, but SLC is insanely close to the Wasatch mountains. Colorado has mountains too, though they're a ways away from Denver, Colorado Springs, Bolder. I have co-workers that go skiing in the morning, and come in around 10:00am.

Reason for those close mountains, the active wasatch fault line!

Yes if you are bigely into the ski resorts. Denver's overcrowding is a downside.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#243

Post by waderyan »

angry-hacker wrote: post #195
waderyan wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Mormon missionary. Each missionary memorizes this to drill in their purpose: "My purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missi... Most of our activities were finding peopl…

Just wanted to thank you guys, met a lot of Mormons all over the world. Great people, can always talk snd discuss things, always recognize you by the n cell clothes you wear and the fact you always speak the local language :)

Hey thank you very much! Very kind of you.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#244

Post by sedachv »

ythn wrote: post #53
skywhopper wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, Utah has never had a truly poor population. They aren't raising people out of poverty, but it's growing fast and most of the people who move there are relatively rich compared to the general population. But also, Utah has the fifth richest bottom quartile of any state, about 40% higher than North Carolina's. So yes, it's much much easier to move from that to the top quartile than in most states.

> The thing is, Utah has never had a truly poor population. What about when the first destitute pioneers arrived and found a desert?

The Mormon refugees did not find a desert, they found Native Americans living in the Utah Great Basin and proceeded to steal their land and natural resources: http://www.onlinenevada.org/articles/mormons-and-native-amer...

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#245

Post by jordache »

paulddraper wrote: post #138
jordache wrote: post #16

If the american dream means sucking down some of the worst polluted air in the country, then yes SLC is that realized. http://www.sltrib.com/home/4762483-155/utah-will-welcome-201...

You are not wrong, but to bring some context to this: this is not because Utah doesn't care. Since moving to Utah from Florida I've often grumbled at the strict yearly emissions checks. Utah has emissions checks, has very functional public transit, and pushes for reductions. The primary reason is geographic. SLC is an urban area in a valley, which traps the smog.

the geography is a huge enabler of this, but the government is also complacent in not doing anything to ensure this issue doesn't bubble up to the extend it currently is.

With the recent disastrous handling of the OR show. It is clear how the the Utah government prioritizes.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#246

Post by cookiecaper »

ScottBurson wrote: post #222
cookiecaper wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth that an external force can drive otherwise-sane people to suicide merely by disapproving of some of their behaviors needs to go. It is, ironically, perpetuated to shame and humiliate political opponents, by insidiously attempting to saddle them with responsibility for the deaths of the depressed and mentally ill. Healthy people do not commit suicide, and they certainly don't over issues as ethereal and incon…

Shame is indeed what this is all about. > Healthy people do not commit suicide, and they certainly don't over issues as ethereal and inconsequential as some religion's disapproval. You don't really seem to think your religion's tenets are "ethereal and inconsequential". > If the argument is that it's about the typical human response to homosexual conduct being so negative that it drives people over the edge, I don't…

>You don't really seem to think your religion's tenets are "ethereal and inconsequential".

Surely I do. Religion deals with the tangible only indirectly. It is focused on the supernatural. Religious condemnation, to the extent it occurs, is not material in reality.

If one truly believed they were doomed, they would want to live as long as possible and put off the anticipated divine punishment.

>Then I encourage you to read more about the phenomenon.

As you say, "shame is indeed what this is all about". The assumption that one is an ignoramus based on their disagreement with a popular belief is an attempt to humiliate people into silence.

I know the argument well. They are always variations of "the Church told me not to do something that I wanted to do. I told them that I couldn't help it, so I was going to do it anyway, and they said, 'Sorry, it's still against the rules.' This caused me untold anxiety and has made me suicidal." I'm not ignorant to such arguments; I simply do not find them credible.

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#247

Post by crestedtazo »

How do you reconcile your ability to use and understand complex technology like computers and the internet, but at the same time legitimately believe it is possible for some dumb hick to find some golden tablets that were literally made by God that only he could translate into English and which had to be hidden forever when he was done so that his claims could never be proven?

I just find it fascinating that an educated (or at least semi-educated) human being in 2017 can believe such nonsense. Your mind must be a massive battlefield riddled with the corpses of logic and reason.

Thank you for your comment!

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#248

Post by coryfklein »

thedevil wrote: post #229
Dobbs wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand Utah has one of the higher suicide rates in the country[1], and leads the country in use of antidepressants[2]. Despite being tongue-in-cheek I think the lesson is not so cut and dry. In my personal, anecdotal experience, a lot of the behavior in Utah is forced to keep up the image of a particular life style. 1: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6345a10.htm 2: http://articles.latimes.com/2…

My personal experience is consistent with your second point. But I'd be careful about making conclusions from the suicide/antidepressant statistics. It's shown to be highly correlated to altitude. I've included a couple links from google search to demonstrate the point. That being said, the Mormon/LDS church does cause some psychological hardships for certain groups such as LGBT and ex-mormons... at least in my anecd…

How do you account for the uptick in the suicide rate since the introduction of the Mormon policy of excommunicating gays and disallowing their children from baptism? The altitude certainly didn't increase...

Re: How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

#249

Post by dang »

crestedtazo wrote: post #247

How do you reconcile your ability to use and understand complex technology like computers and the internet, but at the same time legitimately believe it is possible for some dumb hick to find some golden tablets that were literally made by God that only he could translate into English and which had to be hidden forever when he was done so that his claims could never be proven? I just find it fascinating that an educa…

We've banned this account for repeatedly violating the HN guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do this with.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14018359 and marked it off-topic.

Post reply on HN