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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

#81

Post by hanniabu »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #51

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. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…

There's a town in Alaska where you need to have your appendix removed in order to live there because the nearest hospital is 625 miles away.

https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180810-villas-las-estre...

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

#82

Post by mbostleman »

sandworm101 wrote: post #78
mbostleman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.n…

Yes for sure. Not that it makes a difference, but this is due to 30 minutes of travel at 60ish mph. No traffic delays.

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

#83

Post by 2Xheadpalm »

phobosanomaly wrote: post #51

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. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…

Although the story and your account are United States centric, I live pretty remote British Columbia, Canada and the same mentality, personalty types exists here as well. As the crow flies, I am less then 300KM to downtown Vancouver yet a trip to the closest town center for supplies is a 10 hour round trip in the truck and that is on a good day. I do not leave the house without chainsaw, firearm and various other sundry gear and items as i may have to sleep in the wilderness overnight or repair my truck on the side of a dirt road.

I do all our property maintenance and repairs etc., even if I could convince a 'professional' to come out this way, the expense would be anywhere from 3X to 10X for the same job in town.

Self reliance and self-sufficiency are not new, trendy traits, it is a necessity for survival that has always been that way and it will probably never change for the people living in this part of the world.

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

#84

Post by throwaway0a5e »

remarkEon wrote: post #65
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah the problem with that is all the rich people seem to have plenty of time on their hands to tell you how to live your life.

Yeah but the best part of being a mountain barbarian or a midwesterner is you get to ignore them while you live rent free in their heads.

The problem with ignoring them is that left to their own devices they'll outlaw your way of life directly or indirectly.

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

#85

Post by mbostleman »

sandworm101 wrote: post #78
mbostleman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.n…

Also, for what it's worth, we have really good helicopter support in this region too. Both medical transport as well as short haul / wilderness extraction. So response can be a lot faster if necessary.

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

#86

Post by phobosanomaly »

sandworm101 wrote: post #78
mbostleman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.n…

So, part of that is that even when an ambulance gets there, what happens next?

The nearest hospital in rural areas is guaranteed to not be even a level II trauma center. So it takes 30 minutes for an ambulance to get on-scene, then maybe it's an hour drive to a trauma center (optimistic), or they're going to need to get a helicopter, which can easily be another 40 minutes of waiting.

That urban EMS crew might be shooting to load-and-go with the patient inside of ten minutes. That means even with 20-min response time they can deliver the patient to a trauma center within an hour. Out in the boondocks, the golden hour is laughable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hour_(medicine)

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

#87

Post by eanzenberg »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #36

Can 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…

That’s the one constant with population growth. The remote parts of the world won’t be so remote as time goes on.

On your point about space travel, it doesn’t even have to be that far. The moon or mars aren’t that terribly far on conventional rockets. If we could terraform mars for our arrival, though, that would be cool. Maybe this unlocks another explosion of population growth, similar to the industrial revolution and improvements in medicine?

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

#88

Post by throwaway0a5e »

pnw_hazor wrote: post #74

I 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 p…

My rule of thumb is that if the weather isn't crap a substantial portion of the year than the people are probably crap. Then you take the binary result of that and multiply by the distance to the nearest few luxury European car dealerships to get just how crappy/not crappy the people are. It's actually quite accurate regardless of local population density.

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

#89

Post by nickpinkston »

2trill2spill wrote: post #2

> 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…

They could be referring to some like Appalachia too? That does include the bottom of Ohio near the WV / KY / PA borders (where I grew). I'd believe that these rural places could have the "pioneer personality" they're describing.

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

#90

Post by btilly »

hanniabu wrote: post #81
phobosanomaly wrote: post #51

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. As a result, people have to learn to repair things, make things, use a gun, do first aid, lay shingles, hang drywall, po…

There's a town in Alaska where you need to have your appendix removed in order to live there because the nearest hospital is 625 miles away. https://www.bbc.com/future/gallery/20180810-villas-las-estre...

You mean Antarctica.

But it is a fascinating story, thank you for bringing it up!

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