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

Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 99 posts

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#81

Post by hotpotamus »

23B1 wrote: post #77
hotpotamus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, when their own TV network calls them "dumb, cousin-fucking terrorists"[0], you'd think they'd have a hard time trusting them, but it doesn't seem that way. Still, I'd think don't smoke and take your vaccines would be relatively uncontroversial basic public health information these days, but I guess not. [0] https://twitter.com/Eric_Alterman/status/1634971075334508544

“Their own TV network” I don’t know many Louisianans working at FOX NEWS HQ in NYC…

Yes, they'd never be allowed to work there for reasons mentioned in my previous comment. However, you may find that they view it as their side in opposition to the mainstream media. But of course you know that and are simply playing a game of your own (and I suppose I'm indulging in it a bit myself).

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#82

Post by lapcat »

23B1 wrote: post #76
okaram wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I more or less agree... But, does it make it any less true?

No it absolutely does not change the facts - but I’d be willing to bet people are more likely to change their minds (about policy, politics, their way of life) if folks didn’t look down their noses at them. Of course everyone knows this, but grace and empathy is much harder than condescension and schadenfreude.

It goes both ways though. "Woke" has now become almost exclusively pejorative. And they're pulling "Communist" out of retirement lately, despite the fact that Russia and China are both capitalist now. What about the contempt for gay people? The contempt for "hippies" in 1960s?

I doubt that anyone is innocent of condescension.

Here's an article about "No-Respect Politics" from 20 years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2002/07/26/n...

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#83

Post by lern_too_spel »

23B1 wrote: post #9
dfxm12 wrote: post #2

I saw all the doom and gloom tweets, but didn't realize most of the cause boils down to policy decisions. Call your elected officials and tell them you don't want to die an avoidable early death.

Sure seems to me like any time the technocrat/commentariat/coastal crowd point out the various problems with the American South, it's always with this patronizing schadenfreude vibe. "Haha guys look at the poor dumb hicks who don't know what's best for them"

I have direct experience with non-coastal people doing things bad for their health because somebody told them it was bad for their health, not because they think the person who told them was wrong, but because they want to show that they can exercise their right to be stupid anyway. Everything from eating things they didn't really like just because they were unhealthy to modifying their cars to be dirtier. This was a frequent enough occurrence to be noticeable.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#84

Post by newfriend »

reducesuffering wrote: post #63
fooker wrote: post #36

For those who are immediately thinking of the political angle, compare Utah and Oregon.

Umm... There is a strong political correlation here. Even the one exception you're thinking of, doesn't buck the trend, as all the Democrat/Blue parts of Oregon and Utah are high life-expectancy and the Republican/Red rural parts are not.

> Umm... There is a strong political correlation here.

Umm... No, there isn't. Look at the entire midwest/central US. See these two maps:

* From the OP: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsuBjJeaQAAv8EE?format=jpg&name=...

* 2020 presidential: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/20...

It's much more correlated with:

* Poverty rate: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2018/comm/acs-...

The color choices of the original map appear to have intended to lead you into thinking a certain way, which appears to have worked.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#85

Post by 23B1 »

lapcat wrote: post #82
23B1 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it absolutely does not change the facts - but I’d be willing to bet people are more likely to change their minds (about policy, politics, their way of life) if folks didn’t look down their noses at them. Of course everyone knows this, but grace and empathy is much harder than condescension and schadenfreude.

It goes both ways though. "Woke" has now become almost exclusively pejorative. And they're pulling "Communist" out of retirement lately, despite the fact that Russia and China are both capitalist now. What about the contempt for gay people? The contempt for "hippies" in 1960s? I doubt that anyone is innocent of condescension. Here's an article about "No-Respect Politics" from 20 years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.…

Evidently you missed the part about grace and empathy?

"But they started it" "They do it too" "They are meaner"

'They they they' is the problem.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#86

Post by corbulo »

23B1 wrote: post #9
dfxm12 wrote: post #2

I saw all the doom and gloom tweets, but didn't realize most of the cause boils down to policy decisions. Call your elected officials and tell them you don't want to die an avoidable early death.

Sure seems to me like any time the technocrat/commentariat/coastal crowd point out the various problems with the American South, it's always with this patronizing schadenfreude vibe. "Haha guys look at the poor dumb hicks who don't know what's best for them"

Viewing every woe as a policy issue is actually very technologist/authoritarian.

The South obviously has a unhealthy diet, but the inner cities are dramatically poorer than blue state cities with even more crime to match (St. Louis in particular). It's not a blue/red thing. It's more income and culture driven.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#87

Post by vaidhy »

kolanos wrote: post #67
ethanbond wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the other explanation? I presume it’s not the enormous amount of asymmetric financial assistance that pours into the south every single year from the “patronizing” coastal elites? The South ties its wagon to the wrong horse year in and year out. No one forces them to do that. Fixating on the patronizing tone is exactly the type of error that gets these outcomes.

> I presume it’s not the enormous amount of asymmetric financial assistance that pours into the south every single year from the “patronizing” coastal elites? No, this is largely a myth. [0] [0]: https://mises.org/wire/no-red-state-economies-dont-depend-gr...

It is interesting that so many states are tagged blue when I would have tagged them red or purple at most. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_state_le...) there are 19 democratic states and 28 republican states. Your source almost splits the country into two halves which is misleading.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#88

Post by vaidhy »

23B1 wrote: post #85
lapcat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It goes both ways though. "Woke" has now become almost exclusively pejorative. And they're pulling "Communist" out of retirement lately, despite the fact that Russia and China are both capitalist now. What about the contempt for gay people? The contempt for "hippies" in 1960s? I doubt that anyone is innocent of condescension. Here's an article about "No-Respect Politics" from 20 years ago: https://www.washingtonpost.…

Evidently you missed the part about grace and empathy? "But they started it" "They do it too" "They are meaner" 'They they they' is the problem.

Grace and empathy only go so long. You cannot be tolerant of the intolerant over and over again. There needs to be some amount of reciprocity.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#89

Post by twosdai »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #50
ModernMech wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember this when they say they want to raise the retirement age.

Is it reasonable to raise the retirement age in California (where people live longer) and lower it in Texas where they don’t live quite such a long life? It feels off, I think, people will then move to Texas because they can retire earlier.

My guess would be no. Since social security is federally accessible, so I could easily see people just move to Texas a few years earlier from California to get around the age difference.

Re: Life expectancy in the U.S. varies greatly by region

#90

Post by reducesuffering »

newfriend wrote: post #84
reducesuffering wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Umm... There is a strong political correlation here. Even the one exception you're thinking of, doesn't buck the trend, as all the Democrat/Blue parts of Oregon and Utah are high life-expectancy and the Republican/Red rural parts are not.

> Umm... There is a strong political correlation here. Umm... No, there isn't. Look at the entire midwest/central US. See these two maps: * From the OP: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FsuBjJeaQAAv8EE?format=jpg&name=... * 2020 presidential: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fb/20... It's much more correlated with: * Poverty rate: https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2018/comm/acs-... The co…

While it looks like poverty rate is more correlated, idk how you look at those maps and see anything but an obvious political correlation, albeit not perfect. What do the stats say?

"Among 3110 U.S counties and Washington, D.C., change in life expectancy at the county level was negatively associated with Republican share of the vote in the 2020 Presidential election"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8209240/

Post reply on HN