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Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#231

Post by TulliusCicero »

refurb wrote: post #209
TulliusCicero wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Subsidizing agriculture isn’t a “rural” subsidy, it’s a “population” subsidy. It's both, actually. Just like if the government started paying for free, say, cloud storage, regardless of where anyone lives, that'd be a population subsidy on the consumer side, and an area/industry-specific subsidy on the producer side. > Cities literally can’t sustain themselves without outside inputs - food, building materials, ener…

I'm not arguing if it's a subsidy , I'm arguing who benefits . You can't grow enough food for a city within city limits. So if a subsidy goes to a rural area to grow food, that's not a subsidy for rural people , that's a subsidy for everyone .

As I already said, it's a subsidy for everyone on the consumer side, and a subsidy for that industry (which is located in rural areas, largely) on the producer side.

And the benefit is debatable. Yes, it lowers prices a tiny bit, but you could lower all kinds of costs through government producer subsidies, and yet not all of those would be of great or even net benefit.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#232

Post by usrn »

bradlys wrote: post #178
celdon25 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever actually lived in a rural area?

I have and literally everything they've said is extremely accurate to my experience and those that I've talked to. Moving to a rural area is very much greener grass syndrome. Once you have to deal with the meth heads and associated issues with rural communities (low education, low opportunity, etc.) you will move the fuck out. Obviously if you don't plan to have children and live a semi-hermit lifestyle then whatever…

I grew up in a rural area and moved back now that we're remote. The only time I've met a meth head was when a friend of a friend came back from college and you could tell he was doing meth (based on descriptions of what meth does to you from the internet anyway.)

You have to be picky, the area has to have an old culture that's still intact and hasn't been through some serious economic problems. If you go to eg West Virginia you're going to be dealing with meth heads. The general impression I get from this site is that people here won't like it because that means embracing religion.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#233

Post by throwawayboise »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #167
tristor wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you've never visited any rural area. I grew up in a rural area and most of the people I know from growing up ended up in a city at some point in their life because of the lack of opportunities in the rural area, but very few people fit the stereotype you're putting forth. The place I grew up was a farm town, and my family were also farmers, everybody in my family went to college even though we weren't wel…

> I would strongly challenge your belief that rural people are uneducated and unintelligent, it's mostly the exact opposite. Please don't twist someone's words or strawman their position here. They never said rural people are uneducated, but rather less educated, which can be verified with data -- as they clearly meant formal education (high school, college, etc.). And they definitely didn't say unintelligent. I woul…

> What we know from data is that people in rural areas tend to identify more as conservatives and vote for the more conservative party (in the US, the GOP).

That's because there are very few viable candidates who run as Libertarians. GP is right about the sentiment, though.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#234

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

nitrogen wrote: post #211
TulliusCicero wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's bizarre how often you see people arguing as if a lack of rural or farm subsidies would suddenly mean food disappearing.

Consider this scenario: 1. The US drops all agricultural subsidies and tariffs. 2. The US begins importing most of its food from elsewhere. 3. "Elsewhere" goes to war with a US ally and stops selling food to the US. 4. The US then wishes it hadn't given up its abilty to grow food.

The prime growing areas will just move north where there is already plenty of rural land not being used.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#235

Post by scythe »

engineer_22 wrote: post #139
mdasen wrote: post #48

> I've heard that people tend to be very different to those you find in a city In a lot of cases this is true - and it's not just about tech. Rural communities are often more religious, more conservative, lower income, lower educated, and have a lot less access to opportunity. Cities also mean that there's often a critical mass for many interests and minority groups. Are you LGBT? Are you a religious or racial minori…

>I'd argue you need to think about climate change and whether the US will continue to subsidize rural life. Not to fault you, but you're a seriously urban-centric thinker. Rural productivity is vital to urban concentration. Raw material does not come from the depths of the subway system, nor do the land and seaports magically produce goods. Food, fiber, fuel, etc come from the rural reaches. Flip this on it's head an…

>Not to fault you, but you're a seriously urban-centric thinker. Rural productivity is vital to urban concentration. Raw material does not come from the depths of the subway system, nor do the land and seaports magically produce goods.

This is a thread about someone who wants to do computer work remotely in a "rural tech community". I have a hard time seeing what that has to do with farms.

Small towns can be sustainable. The problematic sort of development is the purely residential carscape built just outside of town but driving in to use any services. See e.g. Wattsville, VA with attendant gated community Trail's End, featuring half the local population and one small overpriced convenience store.

https://postimg.cc/vx4Ws884

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#236

Post by TulliusCicero »

bombcar wrote: post #214
TulliusCicero wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call them "unsustainable" because even though I disagree with the subsidies I think they're pretty easy to sustain. But your reasoning makes no sense. You don't need subsidies to have food. Here's a study on farm subsidies that found that removing them would increase prices only slightly for most goods: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.agri-pulse.com%2Fa... > The impact of premium subsidies – whic…

The argument is you can’t have cities without rural areas supplying what they need. To disprove that you need cities that are self-sufficient. Subsidies don’t matter in that question.

Uhh no, who was arguing that you can have cities without anyone in rural areas? This just looks like another ridiculous straw man.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#237

Post by TulliusCicero »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #183
DaltonCoffee wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasingly, many of these rural primary industries will need on site tech workers as well. Rural Canada is where I'm located at the moment. I tend to agree with GP that cities are an inevitable migration towards efficiency and that rural life is increasingly an unsustainable welfare state.

Cities are the centers of knowledge work and financialization, not heavy industries and agriculture people need to survive. Humanity could live without cities, we did before, but it couldn’t live without what makes cities possible from afar.

Somehow I doubt that GP was arguing that literally 0% of the population would be outside of cities.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#238

Post by TulliusCicero »

throwawayboise wrote: post #233
TulliusCicero wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would strongly challenge your belief that rural people are uneducated and unintelligent, it's mostly the exact opposite. Please don't twist someone's words or strawman their position here. They never said rural people are uneducated, but rather less educated, which can be verified with data -- as they clearly meant formal education (high school, college, etc.). And they definitely didn't say unintelligent. I woul…

> What we know from data is that people in rural areas tend to identify more as conservatives and vote for the more conservative party (in the US, the GOP). That's because there are very few viable candidates who run as Libertarians. GP is right about the sentiment, though.

I doubt it. "I just want the government to leave me alone" is a common sentiment across the American political spectrum, sure, but when you drill down to specific issues you suddenly find that people are actually okay with or supportive of the government doing all kinds of stuff. People don't always tell the truth.

For an example on one issue I'm very familiar with: zoning. America tends to have hyper strict zoning, and the most ardent supporters of it tend to be those who very loudly are in favor of the free market and "against government intervention." It's just that, when it comes down to their principles vs their lifestyle, lifestyle wins.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#239

Post by analog31 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #183
DaltonCoffee wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Increasingly, many of these rural primary industries will need on site tech workers as well. Rural Canada is where I'm located at the moment. I tend to agree with GP that cities are an inevitable migration towards efficiency and that rural life is increasingly an unsustainable welfare state.

Cities are the centers of knowledge work and financialization, not heavy industries and agriculture people need to survive. Humanity could live without cities, we did before, but it couldn’t live without what makes cities possible from afar.

Try tilling 40 acres with a horse. Imagine getting sick, or giving birth.

We lived without cities, but with a vastly lower population and quality of life. Things like knowledge work and financialization are what made possible great ventures such as energy distribution, transportation, mechanized farming, medicines, and so forth. I'm not sure agriculture would even sustain the existing rural population without the infrastructure of a complex modern economy.

We're all in this together.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any rural tech communities?

#240

Post by hunterb123 »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #175
renewiltord wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of the condescension you have attributed to the post appears to not be present in it. Population statistics are not individual statistics. Perhaps he is wrong about the population statistics but your existence doesn't invalidate that. Note how "Children are more often shorter than adults" is true despite the existence of Sophie Hollins of Southampton and Peter Dinklage the actor. That isn't an insult to children…

A lot of posters here aren't interested in discussing the actual data. They're personally offended, and responding off of that.

Go ahead and source the data and we'll discuss it.
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