I would love to see this type of study on Florida.
Florida is almost entirely flat, so you aren't going to be able to correlate much against "elevation relative to the surrounding region". :)
'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
71–80 of 307 posts
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Besides the fact that the University of Cambridge is in England, the whole story is about distinguishing a personality difference among those who live at higher elevations. Furthermore, the assessment it makes is largely positive.
The actual results of the study should be considered separable from the criticism of the linked article's geographic nomenclature, which is the target of the parent's critique, and which I extended with my snark. While I did miss the university behind the article, the article indicated an international team of researchers, including at least one American.
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#73In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…
Last night I was on my way home on a relatively remote stretch in eastern Idaho that's 30 minutes from the nearest EMS and came upon a head on collision that just happened. Several others not involved surrounded the scene pretty quickly and started assessing the injured. I literally finished my Wilderness First Aid certification Saturday afternoon.
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#74I graduated HS from a mountain town in NE Washington and recently have been developing a property/homestead out there again.
My wife usually remarks how nice the people are out there in the wild west compared to here in Seattle.
Politics is polarized out there too -- with old timers and hippies clashing readily. But, nobody lets it get in the way of being friendly and helpful. One friend remarked that it is because people need each other more so politics is kept in better perspective.
Some counties in NE Washington have formally recognized the "Code of the West".
"The Code of the West was first chronicled by the famous western writer, Zane Grey. The men and women who came to this part of the country during the westward expansion of the United States were bound by an unwritten code of conduct. The values of integrity and self-reliance guided their decisions, actions and interactions. In keeping with that spirit, we offer this information to help citizens of Ferry County who wish to follow in the footsteps of those rugged individualists by living outside city and town limits."
[PDF]: https://www.ferry-county.com/PDF_Files/Commissioners/Code_of...
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#75The early settlers of North American were in some sense selected by personality. It must have taken a certain sort of risk-taking personality to give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey to a vast and mostly uninhabited land. The people who arrived in America and decided to take it one step further by moving away from the crowded cities of the east into the vast and…
> The people who arrived in America and decided to take it one step further by moving away from the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.
The consequences of this are not always 'positive' as the book Fantasyland argues:
> In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, “fake news” moment we’re all living through—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.
> Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies—every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35171984-fantasyland
An hour-long talk by the author:
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#76Can anecdotally confirm. 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. I love the mountains and freedom they offered me, the lessons t…
Same here. I moved to eastern Idaho 3 years ago from a lifetime in northern Ohio (born and raised). Oddly I immediately felt more at home here and still do. It just fits me and seems to be the opposite of the industrial / Motor City region of the Midwest. Of course, the coastal elitism that you're referring to is aimed at Midwesterners too, but I think my clash was with the collectivism of the unionized blue collar culture.
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#77In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…
> In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. That's pretty far out; I think that's pretty extreme. At least in Idaho/WA IMO (different geography and settlement pat…
I'm thinking California East of the Sierras. Mono County, Inyo County, San Bernardino County, slivers of Riverside County, and Imperial County.
If you're in Amargosa, Shoshone, Tecopa, Wonder Valley, Lanfair Valley, Kelso, Amboy, Cadiz, Fenner, etc., it's a long way off from anything.
Pop open Gooogle maps and try to find the nearest dispatch location for an ambulance to Fenner, and then put that into perspective with the amount of traffic on the I-40 corridor. CHP can call an airship, but I've seen burn patients sit dying for an hour while waiting for a helicopter to become available for dispatch.
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#78In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…
Last night I was on my way home on a relatively remote stretch in eastern Idaho that's 30 minutes from the nearest EMS and came upon a head on collision that just happened. Several others not involved surrounded the scene pretty quickly and started assessing the injured. I literally finished my Wilderness First Aid certification Saturday afternoon.
>> 30 minutes from the nearest EMS
In even the most developed inner cities of the US, a 30-minute response time is not unusual. A car crash with injuries, blood on the street, would certainly be top of the 911 priority list other factors like traffic often mean delays.
"In July 2019, it took the NYPD more than 20 minutes on average to respond to all of its 911 calls. This July, it was about 18 minutes."
https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2020/08/25/nypd-re...
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#79In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…
> In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. That's pretty far out; I think that's pretty extreme. At least in Idaho/WA IMO (different geography and settlement pat…
I lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains for a while and had a tolerable commute into San Jose. A 911 call would yield a response no sooner than 30 minutes. So, not very far out at all, but definitely a set of circumstances that encouraged self-reliance.
Re: 'Wild West' mentality lingers in modern populations of US mountain regions
#80In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…
> In many parts of the United States when you call 911, you're lucky if anyone shows up within an hour. It's a couple hours to get to a Wal-Mart or a store. It's difficult to get anyone to drive 40 minutes outside the nearest town and navigate unmarked dirt roads to do basic plumbing or home repairs. That's pretty far out; I think that's pretty extreme. At least in Idaho/WA IMO (different geography and settlement pat…
Another important factor is not just distance geography, but the population density's impact on taxes and funding for Police/EMS/Fire. Maybe from a geo perspective someone can get there faster, but if there are only a couple "someones" and they are already dealing with something else...
Statistically, less people, fewer emergencies, but that's not much comfort when you're the one having a statistically unlikely emergency!