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Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

nytimes.com

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Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#211

Post by danans »

badpun wrote: post #198
danans wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I’m interested in though is the objective reality of this matter, i.e. whether or not diversity is beneficial for child’s development. There isn't an objective reality. Depending on what you personally value, diversity could be a cost, benefit, or neutral for your children. You may not even know the results until much later, and even then it will be hard to discern the causal factors, though you may try to pos…

There certainly is an objective reality. It may be very hard to determine what it is, but it nevertheless exists. In this case, as long as you define developmental goals (ex. the child develops into kind, responsible, emotionally stable adult etc.), the policies/circumstances, such as being raised in a diverse environment, being allowed to watch TV, studying a lot, always wearing black socks etc. will or will not hav…

> There certainly is an objective reality

An objective reality with child-rearing? Apart from obvious things like not ignoring or abusing a child, there isn't one in my experience, but as they say ... whatever works for you.

> the policies/circumstances, such as being raised in a diverse environment, being allowed to watch TV, studying a lot, always wearing black socks etc. will or will not have impact (positive or negative) on those goals.

At best, perhaps raising kids in diverse environments allows them to be resilient in diverse environments as adults. At worst, it could cause them to harbor resentments against others nearby who are different than them. You can find kind, responsible, emotionally stable adults who were raised in both diverse and non-diverse environments. And you can find the opposite in both types of environments.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#212

Post by lubujackson »

sunshinelackof wrote: post #87

The only solution that will save small towns is dismantling some of the industrialisation that freed people up to work in the factory or mill that no longer exists. It's a trivial example, but ban preservatives in bread and now they need a bakery that can deliver bread everyday. Bread that lasts two weeks on a shelf is an optimisation for communities that support advanced professions. Heavy industrialisation is a mod…

There is a bit of this idea emergent in some small towns. I know a chef in Vermont who focuses on foraged ingredients, smaller farm-sourced produce and getting everything fresh and local. Which is also much a fad in places like SF! It is one area where small towns can actually show uniqueness via their geographic differences. And if it continues to develop naturally as a choice (rather than a ban on preservatives...) it could contribute to giving small towns a reason to persist.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#213

Post by danans »

badpun wrote: post #210
danans wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we are just not exposed to races other than ours, so it pretty hard/weird to be a racist). The US is not mono-racial by any measure, and has a long and troubled history with race relations. So even taking the questionable argument that Poland isn't "very racist" at face value, it's wouldn't be applicable to the US anyway.

The part about Poland was just a tangent to my main point, which was - as long as you’re raising your child to not be a racist, your child is ptobably not losing anything by not being raised in a diverse envirnoment.

> as long as you’re raising your child to not be a racist

How do you know if you are successfully doing that, if they (or you) never encounter someone of another race?

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#214

Post by chrisco255 »

nimbius wrote: post #130
cgoecknerwald wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I absolutely agree with your call-out. If a company has to have a "good culture" to attract talent, then so does a county, city, or state. Since I no longer have to live in a state that fights against my rights, I may very well choose to live (and therefore work) in other states for the rest of my life. However, I do wonder if we are over-conflating "rural" with "conservative." Certainly, they are correlated, but I c…

I agree. And its not like im here to bash conservatives, its just looking at all these super tech companies like google and apple, its hard to imagine Tim Cook seriously considering locating his business in a state where his ER surgeon could refuse service to him because he is gay. most of our effort to get into the fast lane of "silicon valley" has been a thinly-veiled attempt at doing something, anything, to reduce…

You're just going overboard with spurious trash talk of other states. No ER surgeon is turning down ANY patient ANYWHERE in the U.S.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#215

Post by robocat »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #93
hopefulengineer wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest problem for small and medium communities is brain drain. It's a vicious death spiral because the smart and ambitious kids basically have to move away to large cities to get quality jobs. The only solution I can think of is incentivizing remote work so people don't have to be concentrated in cities. You might not even have to incentivize it because it's a tremendous advantage as a tech company to be able t…

The only incentivizing needed is to provide fiber to the home so everyone has ample connectivity to compete on a level playing field, and then businesses will figure out which mix of remote and in office employees works for them and allows them to best position themselves in the market.

You can watch whether this is working in real time: just watch NZ which has rolled out fiber to the home: NZ could be looked at as a rural area.

From what I have seen, for most people it means Netflix, and it has had very little impact upon NZ software development (certainly not a billion dollars worth).

Truely rural areas don't get fibre (too expensive per household) and often have no ADSL either (more than 5km from exchange).

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#216

Post by chrisco255 »

badpun wrote: post #197
soundwave106 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more the "reaction to diversity" that's the issue, in my opinion. Some areas unfortunately are not terribly friendly to non-white or non-Christian people. This sometimes is reflected in certain laws and may reflect in other cultural ways. This probably is not something any international-oriented company would look positively on, since international companies will have employees from a wide variety of cultures. I…

That cnn article sure is interesting. Poland is supposedly one of more Christian countries in the world, but nothing even close to the stories from that article (losing job or customers after coming out as an atheist) ever happens here. I wonder how common such incidents are in the US.

I grew up in a rural part of Florida, and while I do remember atheism having a stigma about it in high school, it was more of a mild distaste people would share about it (mostly based on predispositions about it). That being said, religion is a Federally protected classification, so no one can fire someone over atheism and not risk a lawsuit in the U.S. Some of these articles are written by people who are as far removed from rural American life as they are from Poland...and I would take such articles with a grain of salt.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#217

Post by cmorgan31 »

jriot wrote: post #109
cmorgan31 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's fair to say this person is shutting down entire communities. Isn't the market doing that? The reality of the article is not every town has a flourishing future in the economy. Although the way it is phrased suggests, they are going to pick you up and walk you out of town even if you disagree. Do we subsidize their lives as some have suggested with UBI? Do we try to revitalize industries that failed…

In all honesty, the biggest issue particularly in the south (Hawaii as well) is that most people are content with their lives. They aren't trying to move up the corporate ladder, learn the latest tech etc... They are happy with their jobs, culture, families, and traditions. This mindset clashes with the rest of America, particularly the West coast, were having a family, culture, and traditions are seen as negative to…

Yes, that's likely the best way to solve it by tackling it locally. I grew up in a rural town in Georgia, and I am all too familiar with the "southern gentleman's pride" which is just a polite way to say my family is stubborn to a fault. I know we will need tradesmen for the foreseeable future so I always try to take that approach instead of the almost cliche "go into tech!" advice. Let's say we could change the narrative, so folks don't depend on the federal level to solve their woes. Would rural America want to change or accept the assistance?

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#218

Post by state_less »

HarryHirsch wrote: post #188
ghaff wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose if your criteria is that you need to have world class ballet where you live, that does indeed restrict your options.

What I'm saying is that having high-speed Internet is not the same as being close to culture. It also doesn't put pressure on the corrupt sheriff to straighten out or insist that the school district provide an actual education for the schoolkids. For all that you need a critical mass of interested people.

A high-speed internet connection can and hopefully more so in the future, put you close to nature. All I meant to say is that working remotely doesn't necessarily imply needing or wanting a more cultured city. It depends on what a person values. Some of the most moving times of my life have been out in nature.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#219

Post by ryanwaggoner »

badpun wrote: post #210
danans wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we are just not exposed to races other than ours, so it pretty hard/weird to be a racist). The US is not mono-racial by any measure, and has a long and troubled history with race relations. So even taking the questionable argument that Poland isn't "very racist" at face value, it's wouldn't be applicable to the US anyway.

The part about Poland was just a tangent to my main point, which was - as long as you’re raising your child to not be a racist, your child is ptobably not losing anything by not being raised in a diverse envirnoment.

You only do so much raising of your kids. Their friends, their teachers, and the broader culture also have a huge effect.

Re: Trying to ‘Save’ the Rural Economy

#220

Post by ryanwaggoner »

badpun wrote: post #203
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it’s not that Poland is not racist, but more that you haven’t had the opportunity to prove it until recently: https://m.dw.com/en/poland-racism-on-the-rise/a-36812032 I think any kind of tribalism-oriented bias or skepticism about “the other” is probably something we’re all oriented towards from an evolutionary standpoint. And so getting over that takes “brainwashing”, just like many, many other positive things…

Regarding the DW article - it’s not really racism (not to mention that these incidents are very rare). Racism is a belief that your race is inherently superior or that the other race is inferior. While it’s probably not an uncommon belief in the US, very few people in Poland believe that. These attacks were about xenophobia - fear of the others - in this case fear that the others will spread terrorism. Of course, it’…

Yeah, I thoroughly disagree.

I’m skeptical of your assessment that Polish people just aren’t racist at all, and I disagree with your splitting hairs between racism and xenophobia.

But beyond that, I’m baffled as to how you don’t see that in a discussion of the benefits of living in a diverse culture, xenophobia based on ethnicity being linked to a religion and then unfairly conflated with terrorism to justify mistreatment is the exact kind of problem I’m concerned with.

Diversity doesn’t just mean racial diversity, though it appears that Polish people aren’t as comfortable with that either as you’d like to believe.

wouldn’t it be enough to explain to children that racism is just an unscientific, morally abhorrent belief

If history is any guide, no.

Your example about the mathematicians makes me wonder if we’re even talking about the same thing. I don’t want my daughter seeing women mathematicians because I want her to believe their presence will make any team that they’re a part of better (even if true). I want her to see women who are mathematicians so she internalizes the idea that it’s a viable option. The “just tell her it is, even if the world around her tells her the opposite every day” is a recipe for failure. I want her to see it.

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