Why rural Americans are so pissed off • Hacker News Board

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#31

Post by q845712 » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 12:11 AM UTC

cosmiccartel wrote: post #30

poulsbohemian wrote: post #7

My politics are on the left wing of the political spectrum, but as I sit here in my home in rural America (pop 30,000, farm based economy, nearest city of 250,000, 1 hour drive away) it would seem to me that people are mad because: -There are very few high paying jobs -There is limited access to medical care -Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact -Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but r…

> There are very few high paying jobs > There is limited access to medical care > Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact > Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but real struggle to maintain infrastructure (especially schools) Sounds like poor white and poor black Americans face fairly similar issues. > “Traditional” upbringing, often religious based, that breed skepticism toward anything “f…

> "The xenophobia of rural whites is vastly oversold"

I look vaguely non-white in a way that gets interpreted differently by different viewers, and my personal experience has been that I struggle to convince others just how real the xenophobia / racism of rural whites is, unless they have a chance to witness a specific incident/episode. And I still pass as "kinda white" depending on the viewer / situation, so I can only assume that people with darker or more "ethnic other" complexions than I have experiences that pale in comparison to my own. Some of the same "hey you're not _really_ white, are you?" still happens everyplace else I've lived, but it's friendlier and less threatening in places that I'd describe as "more urban" or "having more economic opportunities."

Just my personal experience, but I fled the small rural white town where I grew up as quickly as I could, and every time I return to such a setting I'm quickly reminded why I left.

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#32

Post by cosmiccartel » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 12:34 AM UTC

q845712 wrote: post #31

cosmiccartel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are very few high paying jobs > There is limited access to medical care > Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact > Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but real struggle to maintain infrastructure (especially schools) Sounds like poor white and poor black Americans face fairly similar issues. > “Traditional” upbringing, often religious based, that breed skepticism toward anything “f…

> "The xenophobia of rural whites is vastly oversold" I look vaguely non-white in a way that gets interpreted differently by different viewers, and my personal experience has been that I struggle to convince others just how real the xenophobia / racism of rural whites is, unless they have a chance to witness a specific incident/episode. And I still pass as "kinda white" depending on the viewer / situation, so I can o…

I have a racially ambiguous look and jarringly foreign name, and haven't experienced much other than innocent "what [race] are you" and "what country are you from" questions. The biggest issues I had when moving to the country were cultural.

I grew up in Texas, then Mississippi, for reference.

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#33

Post by secstate » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 1:41 AM UTC

cosmiccartel wrote: post #30

poulsbohemian wrote: post #7

My politics are on the left wing of the political spectrum, but as I sit here in my home in rural America (pop 30,000, farm based economy, nearest city of 250,000, 1 hour drive away) it would seem to me that people are mad because: -There are very few high paying jobs -There is limited access to medical care -Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact -Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but r…

> There are very few high paying jobs > There is limited access to medical care > Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact > Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but real struggle to maintain infrastructure (especially schools) Sounds like poor white and poor black Americans face fairly similar issues. > “Traditional” upbringing, often religious based, that breed skepticism toward anything “f…

Slightly off topic, but to your last point: I've done some thinking about this, and the idea that a civil liberty granting you access to firearms will help in a government coup or if the government really comes for you seems laughable on it's face. Your best bet is not a wild-west style shoot out, but alliances. Local government, corruption in the national guard or local sheriff's dept. When the federal government comes for you, you don't need one (or 15) firearms. You need friends in high places.

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#34

Post by secstate » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 1:44 AM UTC

neo4sure wrote: post #23

legostormtroopr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to the food you eat. Rural is where every ounce of food comes from. There have been huge efficiencies in farming over the past 100 years that have fed the growth of cities. But we should never forget that without rural areas, cities would quickly crumble. The reverse is not true.

In the future food will be grown closer to the city in verticle farms. When that happens what will these folks do?

This a bit like AI. It's 2018. Where are your vertical farms? You want to talk efficiency, soil on the ground will be more efficient than soil in the air for at least the next 50 to 100 years.

Eventually we'll even live in starships and colonize distant planets if we don't kill ourselves first, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that will not be our defacto mode of living in my life time, and the same goes for vertical farms.

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#35

Post by RickJWag » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 2:21 AM UTC

cosmiccartel wrote: post #28

wjn0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a bigger problem is the unholy conflation of fiscal and social conservatism, by the interviewer, possibly by the author, and quite likely by the people being studied themselves. It is one thing to support fiscal conservatism. The very nature of these towns lends itself to the ideology, and it has its merits - cf. tech leaders who supported Trump. It is quite another to have "outdated" (for lack of a better wo…

> It is quite another to have "outdated" (for lack of a better word) moral beliefs There are plenty of better words. "Unfashionable" works. > anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti- I find it interesting that the left think of the right as the "anti" crowd, while the right think the same of the left. > to _know_ that the majority of the country does not agree, and still somehow _expect_ that these views to be enforced in thei…

Indeed. A majority of Americans support making late-term abortions illegal. (With good reason. It really is a baby human that's being slaughtered.)

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#36

Post by RickJWag » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

secstate wrote: post #33

cosmiccartel wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are very few high paying jobs > There is limited access to medical care > Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact > Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but real struggle to maintain infrastructure (especially schools) Sounds like poor white and poor black Americans face fairly similar issues. > “Traditional” upbringing, often religious based, that breed skepticism toward anything “f…

Slightly off topic, but to your last point: I've done some thinking about this, and the idea that a civil liberty granting you access to firearms will help in a government coup or if the government really comes for you seems laughable on it's face. Your best bet is not a wild-west style shoot out, but alliances. Local government, corruption in the national guard or local sheriff's dept. When the federal government co…

Ask an American Indian how that worked out for them. They had treaties, after all.

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#37

Post by RickJWag » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 2:25 AM UTC

poulsbohemian wrote: post #25

kolpa wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can a small town become more entrepeneurial, competitively against a city, or without becoming a city? The past 300 years shows that rural is simply not economically highly-productive.

I'm not sure I completely agree. There are economic advantages to being in a city. Lots of friction is reduced when you have easy access to resources, like talented personnel and capital. That said - on a place like Hacker News we talk openly about being able to work from Chiang May (for example) but we don't point out that it would be just as easy to work from somewhere in rural America. If you can build a software…

Nothing, really. Except business guests really like to have a nearby airport to fly into.

I know this as I used to work for Acxiom, headquartered in Conway, Arkansas. (Population: about 30k then, an hour from the Little Rock airport). It really was a restriction.

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#38

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 2:40 AM UTC

cosmiccartel wrote: post #30

poulsbohemian wrote: post #7

My politics are on the left wing of the political spectrum, but as I sit here in my home in rural America (pop 30,000, farm based economy, nearest city of 250,000, 1 hour drive away) it would seem to me that people are mad because: -There are very few high paying jobs -There is limited access to medical care -Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact -Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but r…

> There are very few high paying jobs > There is limited access to medical care > Local government ineptitude has a very real daily impact > Small tax base means surprisingly high taxes, but real struggle to maintain infrastructure (especially schools) Sounds like poor white and poor black Americans face fairly similar issues. > “Traditional” upbringing, often religious based, that breed skepticism toward anything “f…

> It's that the rights of citizens to defend themselves against a tyrannical government _should one arise_ is important enough to be included in our Bill of Rights

The model of protection from tyranny embodied by the second amendment was one in which the protection wasn't from the mere right to keep and bear arms, but from the dependence of the state on the militia created by the citizenry being so armed for its basic security and defense functions. The professionalization of armed law enforcement and military forces (to the point where even significant international armed conflicts and domestic security crises are addressed by the state without conscription or summoning citizen posses, relying on professional—even if not always permanently active—volunteer forces alone) has destroyed that model entirely.

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#39

Post by mcherm » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 2:53 AM UTC

jcizzle wrote: post #20

mcherm wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you are WRONG, exactly, but the article (poor as it was) represented the results of actual research. Do you have anything to back up this claim?

Did it though? It really sounded like a persons opinion. Maybe I didn’t read it carefully, but I don’t recall any numbers or data backing any of the claims he made.

Line 1 of the article:

> Robert Wuthnow, a sociologist at Princeton University, spent eight years interviewing Americans in small towns across the country.

Now, that isn't peer-reviewed research, and it doesn't necessarily prove anything, but it's a decent start toward being authoritative (even if I find it quite unconvincing).

Re: Why rural Americans are so pissed off

#40

Post by warmcat » Wed, Mar 14, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

neo4sure wrote: post #23

legostormtroopr wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell that to the food you eat. Rural is where every ounce of food comes from. There have been huge efficiencies in farming over the past 100 years that have fed the growth of cities. But we should never forget that without rural areas, cities would quickly crumble. The reverse is not true.

In the future food will be grown closer to the city in verticle farms. When that happens what will these folks do?

Are you sure it will be sustainable for feeding ~8 billion people (Yes, I am talking about the world in general)? Agriculture also creates ecosystem needed to sustain the planet. Not just feed people.