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'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

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Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#241
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just about caring how I am viewed for no reason, it's that I have to deal with the culutural differences daily both professionally and personally, but mostly professionally. I keep my politics etc to myself in the workplace, but the coastal elites seem to want to shove theirs down everyones throats, even in the workplace, which is very jarring. It's one of the same reasons I fled the bible belt and went to D…

Ok, but you aren't special in this regard. I work in a red state, in a red county. My boss regularly praises Trump at work. Another claimed that his personal hero is George W Bush and said so in published interview in the biggest trade mag for our industry a few years ago. There are still office debates about the existence of WMDs in Iraq. Most try to shovel their conservative bullshit down my throat. And we haven't…

Based on your tone, it sure sounds like you care what they think.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I moved to Calgary, AB, Canada around 2000 along with a huge number of other Canadians and people from around the world primarily as economic migrants. The city has changed dramatically since then but I noticed that it attracted a lot of people with a similar pioneer style attitude; you had to be willing to move far away from your family mostly for your job, and the companies here had a very western "DIY" approach…

I lived in Calgary around 2008 for a while (and have had family there from the 70's until around 2012), and I know the attitude you're talking about. But I have to say—I saw a lot of posturing that way more than real pioneering mindset. Calgary has been a very developed city for a long time, and no stranger to the exact same comforts and luxuries they associate with the other out east. I didn't encounter the DIY appr…

As someone who has lived in Calgary, I'd chuckle if anyone claimed to be a maverick or rugged for living there. It's a city of over 1M, which puts it in the top 5 cities in Canada by population. And it's relatively wealthy.

That's like someone from New York moving to Denver and claiming they're rugged individualists.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#243
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as long as the romance is tempered with the reality of the occasional house-fire.

It is, but those usually stem from the need for heat in the extreme cold, which is often achieved by the old fashioned method of burning wood in a stove.

Most wood stove fires aren't directly because of the stove, but people who have gone years and years without ever cleaning their chimney or try to slow burn lots of shit wood like pine. And when the chimney builds up with tons of creosote it can then catch on fire and burn inside the chimney, seriously overheating it and causing a fire.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#244
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about the Ozarks? They may not be the most visually impressive mountains, but I would at least consider the St. Francois Mountains in southern Missouri to be part of the Midwest.

The Ozarks extend into Arkansas, and I would say that's sort of where the south meets the Midwest. The people from the Ozarks, from my touring of the area in Arkansas, with the strong folk music tradition and the diet, remind me more of Appalachia than out West.

That’s because our ancestors came from Appalachia - and before that, from the Shenandoah Valley, and before that, from Scotland.

It’s interesting to me to look around and see so much of my local culture influenced by our largely shared Scottish ancestry while simultaneously realizing that so few people here really know much about it.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#245
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a similar way in Canada, and I run long range ubiquiti radios (~12km) to nearest small town. get 150-200mbps and since I have battery backup + generator, usually the only reason it goes down is if the ISP router dies. I get ~1 bar of LTE that flickers to 3g, but with wifi calling it's not an issue. In addition to changing my own alternator, I run a small ISP for my neighbours :)

Where can I learn more specifics about configuring/deploying a similar setup? Thanks.

I run a website about this kind of thing. You might find this page useful: https://startyourownisp.com/posts/backhaul-picker/

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I didn't even know about these radios and how reasonably priced they are for the range!

You might also be surprised to know that microwave is faster than fiber. Not necessarily more reliable, mind you, but faster. There's a reason all of the HFT folks are using microwaves.

Only if by 'faster' you are referring exclusively to latency. In some situations (not all) you can achieve slightly better latency with wireless than fiber, but for raw throughout nothing compares to light in glass.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you mean. Why shouldn't the methods of science be used to tackle these kinds of questions?

Because they lead to a false sense of certainty and inappropriately appeal to authority. These questions are complex. The premises and framing are critical. The surrounding evidence that's not measured is probably much more important than whatever the scientist is able to actually measure. All living beings, including humans, are a mix of strengths and weaknesses in careful balance. If a martian scientist were to loo…

The scientific article summarised in this piece is clear about this. The effect size is quantified. It’s not fake science to look at small effects.

> It should be noted that the magnitude of the effects is generally quite small and the overall explanatory power of the models is modest. However, complex psychological phenomena, such as personality, are likely to be influenced by hundreds, if not thousands, of factors, so small effects are to be expected especially when examined in the uncontrolled context of real-world settings ... our research shows that an increase of one standard deviation in mountainousness is associated with a change of approximately 1% in personality, which may seem insignificant. However, when scaled to hundreds of thousands of people, such an increase would translate into substantial changes ...

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#248
post #123
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sometimes it quite annoys me that those personality traits are so embedded in myself though, because it seems to constantly be a headbutting of cultures that so many Americans on the coastal big cities just don't get or approve of, and love to condescendingly talk about that kind of personality as lesser or barbarous in some way. "rugged individualists" always seem to care a lot about how they are viewed by "coasta…

It begins to matter more when “coastal elites” don’t just view “rugged individualists” a certain way, but also wish to exert power/influence over them via policy.

Middle America (probably more accurate to say rural) non elites wish to exert just as much, if not more power over others via restricting individual’s choices of what they can consume or do with their body.

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#249

Well, to whatever extent this is true, I'd like to know -- 1) Whether this is something very special to the US, versus happens in every country, and is a fact of life in remote / non-city areas, and 2) Does this call for a certain approach to how to effectively govern or design public policy if there is a east/west or city/suburban vs. rural social divide? Attitudes in themselves are not a problem. Inability to have…

The actual article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-020-0930-x Paywalled, so I haven't checked my question 3) Do people from the University of Cambridge underestimate self-segregation due to US population mobility? (FWIW, local politics in my country does anecdotally skew rural/right urban/left, but we fortunately have many other different divisions whose axes are uncorrelated with that particular one. I firml…

The co-authors Gosling and Potter have U.S. affiliations (you can click their names in the above paywalled URL).

Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions

#250

> Now, well into the 21st century, researchers led by the University of Cambridge have detected remnants of the pioneer personality in US populations of once inhospitable mountainous territory, particularly in the Midwest. As a person who was born and raised in the Midwest[1], just where are these mountainous regions they speak of in the Midwest? There's the black hills[2] and that's pretty much it. I wonder what def…

Pretty sure 'midwest' has taken over as a more polite version of 'flyover country' in the minds of many in our more uhh elite institutions. I'm sure we're not worth distinguishing. Outside of the cities, we're all just barbarian backwaters.

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