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Comment by marmaduke | Hacker News Reader

> I've driven across the US three times. American culture is

not found on its interstates? Driving cross-country is not a qualification to make such a negative statement.

No, the interstates are a bigger joke. You'll see nothing, but make great time. What I've seen as someone originally from Ohio that's lived in NYC and Seattle the last 10 years is much of the culture is diluted because people move around and communities receive more outside influence than they did pre-WW2. I've seen too much to list here. The rural areas like where I grew up and the farm I was raised on are familiar. It's the faces of people and culture are familiar to me. And people do cling to religion and sometimes guns.

I've also lived in the wealthiest zip code on the upper east side and listened in on elitist ramblings as people discuss international finance in the corner Starbucks. Oblivious of the wider social impacts such topics have.

My day today is spent working in a technocracy that unfortunately over estimates merits and the ability of anyone to simply advance beyond their circumstance.

The culture exists, but it has Americanized over the years. Polish, Irish, German, Swiss, etc it all gets diluted from the European versions after 5 or 6 generations.

You could argue that interstates are actually a very specific part of "American culture". Certainly they had a large impact on the way of life for many Americans over the past 60 some odd years (or however many it's been). Motels, those clusters of shops around the interchanges, certain kinds of diners and truck-stops, not to mention the ubiquity of semi-trucks ("18 wheelers"), etc., are tightly tied to the emergence of the interstates and are iconic in American culture.

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