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Comment by csense | Hacker News Reader

As someone from a place in the Rust Belt that's well in the triple digits of this 150-city ranking, I think I have a little insight.

The problem isn't a lack of smart, ambitious kids. It's not bad schools. There are even multiple universities.

The problem's that the smart, ambitious kids mostly choose to move elsewhere after HS or college. Even for the ones that want to stay, the local economy and job market isn't that great.

We need to improve the level at which you attract/retain both educated people and well-paying jobs for them. How do we do that, given that both are at fairly low levels and it's something like a chicken-or-egg problem?

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I'm asking myself, what's the problem here? The lack of bachelors degree holders working the counter at Starbucks in these cities? The time of universal University education has passed. The middle class is shrinking and has shrunk.

For example, the guy I know who opted for HVAC trade school and started his own company, he didn't get the broad university education, but he's run his own business for 20 years, working with and for people of all socioeconomic statuses and races. University isn't for everyone, this idea that it is just isn't helpful.

> The problem's that the smart, ambitious kids mostly choose to move elsewhere after HS or college. Even for the ones that want to stay, the local economy and job market isn't that great.

Agreed. In fact, I think the entire thing driving the data here is population flow. I grew up in #148 (Porterville) and moved to #6 (Boston) in the list for school. And most of the people I know in Boston didn't themselves grow up there.

A city could have the best education system in the world, but if it didn't have a thriving economy to keep its graduates it would still show up low on this list. On the other hand, a city with a crap education system can still hire in the best graduates of other schools if it has the jobs to draw them.

I'm not even sure what data I'd be curious to see here. I was going to say it would be interesting to look at most educated cities considering only people born and raised there. But someone living in the same place all their life is so rare anymore, I'm not sure how meaningful that would be. Maybe just looking at people who graduated college there would be cool; after you graduate you're more likely to just stick around if you can. If that's the case, I guess the takeaway would be to try to establish strong universities in every city?

As a person who's been about in those areas, I think part of the reason is the mass-delusion that education and sciences is somehow a bad thing.

Far too many common folks out in the country think that education is not worth it, science is not worth learning, healthcare and public transportation is second-class.

It shows in the way they live, the way they socialize, the way they vote. They'd rather spend money on Church than healthcare. They'd rather worry about their individual taxes than on improving schools and teaching critical thinking and sciences.

The really ambitious/educated kids realize that it is a (apologies) shit-hole and get out asap.

Not a chance, that maybe, if you view family and community as a value and realize that all those people going to vanish in the hedonistic accid bath we labeled society will not contribute to either, its your right to withold support to this? Especially if those who turn theire back return to dissolve the livelihood of people without creating a worth-wile replacement?

The fact that these communities basically with education create forces that harass and destroy them, makes the delay in backlash actually quite astounding.

I never once said that liberal coastal lifestyles are the best way to live.

What I was getting at is that the more educated people feel stifled in communities that disregard rational thought process.

People out there are good but they have very little proclivity to critical thinking and desire for educated neighbors.

An example is that they'd rather segregate the poor out than actually work towards building an educated society and uplift the unfortunate.

And in the citys, that happens? The schizophrenic bum below your appartment is uplifted by you? Or rather kept alive by some church/community driven support group?

I grew up in a evangelical high religious environment, with some family members clearly having mental issues, that factored into religion (what you would consider extremism).

Some of them viewed the city lifestyle and tech in particular as "parasites" leaching to religious communitys and countrys, as there society was not able to substain itself. I dislike that viewpoint, but disliking never made that piece of ugly truth go away.

On the other side, these communities live longer and healthier by now- due to non-parasitic tech and as other countrys show, religious conservatism on its own, spirals into a eternal (every second gen) civil war, once all lands/ressources are used up.

Could we agree upon, that both sides need one another- even though everyone in this thread has lovely family memorys.

> Some of them viewed the city lifestyle and tech in particular as "parasites" leaching to religious communitys and countrys, as there society was not able to substain itself. I dislike that viewpoint, but disliking never made that piece of ugly truth go away.

Ugly truth? The major urban metros are the ones subsidizing the rural areas, just look at any state's map of each county's tax revenue generation vs spending.

It's the rural, country areas that are mooching, the people living there just don't want to admit that the free market that they worship has abandoned them, because it turns out that effective modern commerce requires population density.

If I'm reading Pica correctly, it seems like you two are talking about different things: Pica is referring to the scaffolding of values (social norms including high trust) and practice (proving services to community members) that 'rural/low income' communities value, and which invisibly support the modern economy on the local scale. Tullius seems to be referring to the economic and technological goods provided by the modern marketplace, which do indeed subsidize rural areas.

I don't think the rural zones actually worship the free market, and that is part of the problem they have communicating their values to the economically successful, who tend to prefer arguments couched in terms of economic benefits rather than the vague social goods (low social friction, multiple status hierarchies, respect for religion, etc.) desired by the rural/traditional communities.

Your last paragraph is interesting. Never quite heard it described that way, but it makes a lot of sense. You drawing from any sources in particular for that?

This is the impression I have reading reportage from writers like Chris Arnade, where it seems like the poor and the majority of those writing about them are speaking at cross-purposes (not Arnade, but others in the genre of 'explaining the left-behinds'). I have heard that a similar argument is made in the book Seeing Like a State, which I have put on my reading list.

> If I'm reading Pica correctly, it seems like you two are talking about different things: Pica is referring to the scaffolding of values (social norms including high trust) and practice (proving services to community members) that 'rural/low income' communities value, and which invisibly support the modern economy on the local scale.

Not sure I follow. How do rural cultural values and practices "invisibly support the modern economy"?

> I don't think the rural zones actually worship the free market

Obviously 'worship' is a bit of hyperbole, but they do tend to vote for representatives that constantly talk up the free market and constantly put down the government.

Your argument hinges on an axis that doesn't exist. There are as many (per capita, there are more on a real basis) religious communities in cities as in rural locations. They form the basis of their congregants lives to a higher degree even.

The modern liberal ideology is based on completely ignoring facts and instead focusing on feels, there's nothing rational about it. I'd also argue the fact that liberals are "educated". The number of STEM graduates per year has basically stayed flat, liberal arts degrees account for almost all the new graduate gains over the last 30 years. The result is the massive elitism seen in liberals despite not really knowing anything of value. Hence the enlightened graduates with 50k+ in debt working minimum wage jobs. But at least they can stroke their ego about being superior to the plumber or electrician making 6 figures with no debt.

>An example is that they'd rather segregate the poor out than actually work towards building an educated society and uplift the unfortunate

SF spent 20 million last year on arresting homeless people and getting them out of the city. It's basically illegal to be homeless in SF, yet they are seen as the paragon of liberal values. Do as I say, not as I do.

SF is largely not seen as a paragon of liberal values from my perspective. Quite the opposite, it's seen as what happens when you let rich people run amok.

WTF does this mean?

It very clearly shows the need for education.

Seems understandable to me: residents of these less educated communities see their kids get an education and that leading them to leave their home towns into the wider society (with its destructive hedonistic culture), and in turn to reject the values of their parents and even advocate for policies that destroy these communities. Hence these older generations resist getting their kids "too much" education.

It's an interesting point, though it reminds me of this satirical ad on GTA SA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XydMKkHBL4

Understandable? It's barely English. And wow, that's absolutely fucking disgusting on the part of the parents if what you say is true (I don't doubt it). Maybe the parents' values should be destroyed then. That is some fucked up shit. Hey, let's hold our kids back from advancing in life because our own stupid, small-minded beliefs dictate so. After all, it takes some real stupidity to judge all wider society cultures (yes, plural) as hedonistic and destructive.

It's just my interpretation of Pica_soO's post, I've never even been to the US.

Oh, I think your interpretation is rather accurate.

You don't get it. These parents aren't trying to ruin their kids' lives (they care about them more than you do - they actually did the hard stuff like raise and support them), they just don't know any better (lack of education) and they want to keep their families together and presumably what is best for their kids.

It's not that hard to understand if you try and put yourself in their shoes and don't assume they are "disgusting, stupid, and small-minded". You aren't any different than them in your judgement of other societies, you just happen to have a potential advantage in education. What is your excuse for such derision?

You act like these people are animals and you aren't ever going to reach them and you are going to exacerbate the same impact you are talking about. Do you have the same view of all poor people embedded in a national culture?

I have the same view of anyone who tries to hold anyone, especially their kids, back from getting an education and having a decent life because of their own stupidity. Stupidity is disgusting in a society that provides opportunities for education and betterment like the US does. They may not be the best opportunities or all that abundant in some places, but those opportunities exist. This isn't about poor people at all, it's about stupid people who choose to stay stupid. Plenty of poor people strive to not be stupid and strive especially hard for their kids to not end up stupid and to have a decent life. I do, however, deride those who have opportunities to do so but do not take advantage of them and try to promote their own stupidity and actively prevent their children from taking advantage of opportunities because they think their stupidity is somehow part of a culture worth preserving. It's not. Such "culture" of stupidity is indeed quite sick to me and forcing something like this onto children borders on abuse. I never said such people couldn't be reached, however, nor that this is a trait of those in poverty. In fact, there's plenty of people far removed from poverty that hold tight to their own stupidity to the detriment of their children all over the world. Doesn't make it any less disgusting.

The discussion is not about caring and supporting the kids. The parents' best intention is not questioned but rather the method on how to apply the best intentions on their children.

As I was born in a conservative background and I found my way out in a long journey in a totally different country, I agree that people with the conservative background regardless of any country have a tendency to see the education, tech, big cities or most of the new things as poisonous to their core values. So that, they are trying to hinder their children to have access to these just because they love them and care them. They just want their kids to be happy and stay in the family as themselves who were kept by their parents.

In my opinion, this is not a new thing. This has been going for a very long time throughout the history. I understand that the change is scary from the conservative point of view. This is why; I try to not to judge anyone. But, I just see it as a puny fight against the windmill in the long run.

> They just want their kids to be happy and stay in the family as themselves who were kept by their parents.

The most important choices in parenting are mutually exclusive "good" options.

Poor people? I don't think that demographic is being discussed. They're not poor, they're assholes. That's the common thread.

It is exceedingly hard understand their point of view, because their point of view is inconsistent and their beliefs are phantasmagoric. Derision against this kind of willful ignorance is the minimum.

A whole lot of the satirical political ads in GTA are downright creepy in terms of how on-point and relevant they are. It's genuinely unsettling.

This comment reads like the output of a Markov chain text generator.

Not a very kind way to dismiss the point of someone who might not be a native speaker, yeah?:

That is to say it's understandable.

Speaking as another former rust-belter: none of this is untrue, but you're speaking as though this anti-authoritarian and anti-education attitude materialized from the ether, and it didn't. For decades the coastal cities have projected at every single turn in nearly every form of media (other than radio really, which is why it has such a strong presence in the rural areas) about how much better the coasts are, how much better the people are, and taken every single opportunity to thumb their nose at the social and community values that rural areas treasure.

Combine that with the last 9 years or so, including the economic collapse and ensuing recovery that left any population center under several million basically to freeze and die, and the attitude of rural America is pretty easy to explain. You never gave a shit about what we had to say; why should we give a shit what you have to say now?

That's not to say of course that I agree with this attitude. I'm just saying it gets really old to watch all my liberal friends scratching their heads like "Why don't they like us?" after you spent the last several decades pissing them off at every turn, like a college kid who just got their own apartment and doesn't have to live by Mom and Dad's rules anymore.

And just like that sort of arrangement: the cities need the rural areas a hell of a lot more than the rural areas need the cities. So you know, keep that in mind.

I want to preface by saying that I'm not arguing against the need for coastal cities to treat rural populations better. "I don't need you therefore I can mistreat you" is a shitty position that I would never take.

> And just like that sort of arrangement: the cities need the rural areas a hell of a lot more than the rural areas need the cities.

They may need the rural areas, but do they really need the rural population? I assume you're talking about farms, for food, fuel, etc, but from what I understand, most of that is produced by big farms, using mostly immigrant workers (legal and otherwise)[1]; not necessarily "big corp", but still, a relatively small percentage of the population[2]. In fact, most small scale farmers earn more money from other occupations[3].

It's not clear to me that cities actually need the non-immigrant rural population.

[1] https://www.voanews.com/a/us-farmers-depend-on-illegal-immig...

[2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/big-farms-are-getting-b...

[3] http://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2017/01/importance-non-fa...

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