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Mendon, Missouri

seandietrich.com

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Re: Mendon, Missouri

#181

Post by solardev »

rrix2 wrote: post #179
solardev wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Disclaimer: This is just personal knowledge from a casual observer and occasional passenger. I traveled cross-country by Amtrak a few times and loved it, and wanted to learn a bit about its history.) Amtrak isn't quite the giant evil corporation in the sense that Amazon is. If anything, it's more of a dying relic propped up by sheer nostalgia. Congress keeps it on life support with small, occasional injections of fu…

You're right about all of this of course but I assumed the parent was complaining about BNSF who is responsible for these lines and not Amtrak. I'd guess the majority of trains going through these at-grade unprotected crossings are freight, and it's sort of a freak accident that Amtrak happened to find a truck in the way rather than a freighter

Ah, if that is the case, I apologize for my completely irrelevant tangent, lol. I don't know anything about BNSF and won't comment there. Sorry about that.

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#182

Post by tptacek »

mcphage wrote: post #163
tptacek wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. It's a bit of a thing with him.

Well then—I guess that's better than I was expecting, given how often "ordinary Americans" is a dogwhistle. I don't agree that journalism needs more feels good stories... but they could do worse.

He writes very effectively in the voice of a 1980s regional newspaper columnist; you'd have gotten the same take on "if it bleeds it leads" news culture from one of them.

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#183

Post by jessaustin »

bediger4000 wrote: post #154
jessaustin wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would "sometimes bad things happen" be relevant in the least? Missouri is a large state and the two communities aren't close. Besides, you should read the link you posted rather than relying on memory. That story is of a small community defending itself from the predations of a sociopath whom law enforcement could not control. Maybe it's a critique of law enforcement, but it isn't a "counterpoint" to "small town…

How is "sometimes good things happen" relevant in the least? I can flip it that way too. The "Mendon, Missouri" story had as its theme that small town/rural America pulls together. There's nuance to that, and it's a mistake to ignore the nuance. The Skidmore story illustrates that, and it took place in the same rural NW Missouri millieu.

Are you calling the train wreck a "good thing that happened"? I don't think even Dietrich would go that far... We can probably agree that neither this author nor his audience care much for "nuance", which presumably in this context means that each community in some sense "pulled together"? In one case they pulled together for several hours, in the other case it was forty years. In both cases they pulled together for a good cause, so I don't see a "counterpoint"?

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#184

Post by wmeredith »

mcphage wrote: post #52
xbar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a question you are asking in good faith, because I think it is clear that he is not making that claim?

> I think it is clear that he is not making that claim? This is the second last line of the piece, where the author explicitly makes that claim: >> Although we rarely hear about such acts of compassion and lovingkindness within our society, believe me, they happen. Every day. Every hour. Ordinary Americans will astound you with their goodwill. Sadly, ordinary American journalists aren’t interested in being astounded…

I'd actually argue that it's just not astounding, so it doesn't make headlines.

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#185

Post by dangrossman »

mlyle wrote: post #73
exar0815 wrote: post #45

I have witnessed something quite similar. During the flash-floods in 2021 in Germany, locals in the Ahr region absolutely rose to the occasion. Farmers were evacuating people in head-high water with their tractors during the night, local restaurants were already providing hot food and water the next morning wherever they could reach, pharmacies were loading whatever they had available on ATVs to somehow get much-need…

Yes. I think people are good overall. I think the biggest reason people in small towns may be a bit quicker to help is that people in cities are a little conditioned by the bystander effect to assume that people around them, or the authorities, are better equipped to help. But any random individual asked for help in a city is likely to go well beyond their duty and be quite helpful.

There is no bystander effect. It was a theory invented and spread by the NYPD to take the spotlight off the fact that they didn't respond to calls reporting a murder in public.

> Philpot et al. (2019) examined over 200 sets of real-life surveillance video recordings [across 3 countries]...they found that intervention was the norm, and in over 90% of conflicts one or more bystanders intervened to provide help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#186

Post by rrix2 »

solardev wrote: post #181
rrix2 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right about all of this of course but I assumed the parent was complaining about BNSF who is responsible for these lines and not Amtrak. I'd guess the majority of trains going through these at-grade unprotected crossings are freight, and it's sort of a freak accident that Amtrak happened to find a truck in the way rather than a freighter

Ah, if that is the case, I apologize for my completely irrelevant tangent, lol. I don't know anything about BNSF and won't comment there. Sorry about that.

I think it's a "yes, and" -- that is, amtrak is more or less hobbled by the state of the long-haul routes and congressional funding, AND they're limited by the whims of profit-seeking rail corporations under-investing in line infrastructure :)

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#187

Post by mlyle »

dangrossman wrote: post #185
mlyle wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I think people are good overall. I think the biggest reason people in small towns may be a bit quicker to help is that people in cities are a little conditioned by the bystander effect to assume that people around them, or the authorities, are better equipped to help. But any random individual asked for help in a city is likely to go well beyond their duty and be quite helpful.

There is no bystander effect. It was a theory invented and spread by the NYPD to take the spotlight off the fact that they didn't respond to calls reporting a murder in public. > Philpot et al. (2019) examined over 200 sets of real-life surveillance video recordings [across 3 countries]...they found that intervention was the norm, and in over 90% of conflicts one or more bystanders intervened to provide help. https:/…

Citing wikipedia, and cherrypicking one of the few pieces of research that partially argues against the effect in the massive article, is dubious.

The study you cited, indeed, doesn't deny the bystander effect that each person becomes less likely to help as more people are present. It just argues that in the most dangerous situations, the odds of someone intervening goes up slightly as the number of people increase. See https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/134891/1/Would_I_be_He...

I can tell you, my probability of intervening is lower the more people that are around. The total probability of someone intervening may go up or down based on a lot of circumstances. This is consistent with many individual research findings and meta-analyses, e.g. https://asset-pdf.scinapse.io/prod/2107050526/2107050526.pdf

As other people point out, it is rational and even helpful to be less inclined to intervene when more people are around and are likely to be able to help.

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#188

Post by draw_down »

soared wrote: post #130
bediger4000 wrote: post #128

Just as a counterpoint to this, here's a murder in small town Missouri, not too far from Mendon: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fox2now.com/news/true-crime/mis... Nobody said anything about it in 40 years. There's a lot more nuance to small town people pulling together than the train wreck shows. I grew up outside of Kirksville MO. I've even taken the Southwest Chief from La Plata one or two stops NE of Mendon, to Newt…

I do not enjoy that every good hearted story needs to have a top comment with a clickbait counterpoint.

No post body was provided.

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#189

Post by andrepd »

exar0815 wrote: post #45

I have witnessed something quite similar. During the flash-floods in 2021 in Germany, locals in the Ahr region absolutely rose to the occasion. Farmers were evacuating people in head-high water with their tractors during the night, local restaurants were already providing hot food and water the next morning wherever they could reach, pharmacies were loading whatever they had available on ATVs to somehow get much-need…

Indeed. Any cursory observation of human behaviour will disprove the Thatcherian maxim that people only ever do anything for their own selfish interest.

Re: Mendon, Missouri

#190

Post by mercutio2 »

bediger4000 wrote: post #128

Just as a counterpoint to this, here's a murder in small town Missouri, not too far from Mendon: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fox2now.com/news/true-crime/mis... Nobody said anything about it in 40 years. There's a lot more nuance to small town people pulling together than the train wreck shows. I grew up outside of Kirksville MO. I've even taken the Southwest Chief from La Plata one or two stops NE of Mendon, to Newt…

Wow, strange to read of other folks from the Kirksville vicinity. I didn’t grow up there but spent my first seven years of adulthood nearby, and rode the Southwest Chief that’s being discussed in the article dozens of times.

Rural folks have lots of positive things going on. But they’re also mostly shrinking towns, and I’ve had teenagers try to run me (on my bike, they in cars) off the road for fun on a Saturday night.

I wouldn’t want to be a teenager in rural America. But there are some nice things about being a kid and an adult.

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