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Comment by taurath | Hacker News Reader

Coming to a city from one of the depressed regions this rings true for me. People want themselves and their communities to matter - the cold hand of capitalism and progress hasn’t done them any favors in the last few decades. All it takes is a drive to the (non-coastal) countryside to see. There’s a reason voters there are more interested in being against something than for it, and our political discourse has devolved to troll tactics and attention grabbing on the rural right.

We may be past the point of even being able to listen and change anyone’s mind - the solution needs to come from within the right, or a major real reworking of the economic state to include rural prosperity somehow.

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I wouldn't count on any "major real reworking of the economic state".

The reality is, lots of people have been asking for just that for a long time, and it's not come to fruition because it is an extremely difficult thing to do.

Consider Native Americans. They wanted change for years, and essentially had to start casinos to begin making headway. Even now, a material number of tribes and reservations are still racked by poverty, and are unable to participate in the vast majority of legal industrial activities at scale. The system has not changed for them, some of them have simply been forced to find a method of adapting to the economic system that we have.

Blacks are another example. They're a group that has agitated for change for what seems like an eternity. It's similarly doubtful that the system will change for them either. The ones who have found success are the ones willing to leave their neighborhoods and participate in the larger economy not on their own terms, but on terms set by that larger economy.

I actually would like for a new economic state to take hold that would include people who concerned thinkers have termed "those left behind". It's just that, given the interests embedded in the current system, I can't see how it will change. As I pointed out, many groups have tried previously, and tried for a very long time, yet we still have the same system in place. The best we seem to be able to do, is to allot a few set asides for the purposes of elevating a chosen few of "those left behind". I suspect we'll follow a similar path in the instance of rural "left behinds". But my suspicion is that the inertia in our system will mean that wholesale change to accommodate the majority of "those left behind" is not likely to occur.

It hasn't come to fruition because the people they vote for have no intention of living up to their publicly stated goals.

Their implicit goals are “we are going to win at all costs against the other team” and at that point they’ve succeeded enough to have a huge amount of ongoing support.

> Blacks are another example. They're a group that has agitated for change for what seems like an eternity. It's similarly doubtful that the system will change for them either.

What sort of change are you referring to? Surely by any metric the situation for black Americans has improved tremendously?

Economic situation is not great for black Americans on average: https://jacobinmag.com/2017/12/obama-foreclosure-crisis-weal...

TLDR: Obama is responsible for the housing bubble.

Which is absurd.

Right, but it's undeniably better than it was, which indicates change is possible if hard.

> include rural prosperity

The United States has just shy of one billion acres of farmland. In 2014 The United States had an agriculture export surplus of almost 40 billion dollars. The current Farm Bill, and the historical trend, pushes the market towards consolidation and mono-crops. In 2014 we produced 54 billion dollars of corn, and our 10th biggest crop (barley) was 0.9 billion dollars. The median farm income in 2014 was $-118.

If you want to increase the wealth of rural America I suggest looking for ways to make small to mid sized farming profitable. We are literally covered in farmable land, and rural areas will be better at it then urban areas for a long time.

Why? Small to mid-sized farming is inherently less efficient than large scale farming. Yes, there's a market in designer kale, but it's tiny. Farm efficiency is a great achievement. In 1820, about 77% of US workers were in "farm occupations". Today, 1.5%. Now that's productivity.

Efficiency is a lousy primary metric to run a society by.

Efficiency isn't an absolute good. It can, in cases, be an unambiguous bad.

If, for example, we're going to premise a society on "having jobs" then efficiency-ing those jobs out of existence might not be the wisest move, all in — especially if, to The Fine Article's point, we do so in a manner that adversely affects some regions disproportionately.

(Yes, there are always alternative jobs. They may not be palatable, or the society in question may not offer meaningful forms of skills transitioning. Or people might be stuck where they are for reasons beyond their control. "But efficiency!" isn't very comforting to someone who's out of work and starving.)

EDIT: phrasing.

> Yes, there are always alternative jobs.

We have no proof of this, and the "gig economy" suggests quite strongly to the contrary.

Given that the "gig economy" generally represents jobs of last resort, what happens when we automate those away?

You're right; I spoke hyperbolically, to fend off pointless counter-arguments of the "the invention of cars put buggy-whip manufacturers out of business, but look how many jobs that created!" sort.

In the short-to-medium term, there aren't enough jobs to go around. Automation is only making that worse, and we haven't yet come up with a meaningful alternative for the folks who are being displaced. As for the long term, my crystal ball doesn't work too well, that far out.

Maybe we will come up with something for them, but the alternatives I've seen tossed around suggest everyone will end up trying to market someone else's products, or services jobs. It doesn't strike me as readily apparent there will be enough of those jobs to go around, either.

So, it's perhaps more accurate to say "there are always alternative jobs, but probably not for everyone", which really just reinforces the point that efficiency-ing away this thing we've predicated the functioning of our society upon doesn't ultimately serve us very well.

Sane definitions of "efficiency" don't mean that the people producing food have an average income in the negative numbers, nor that they're forced to use crop choices and fertilization methods that kill the land over time. That's not efficient, just exploitative and brittle.

Maximally efficient is minimally robust.

Perhaps we should prioritize food supply reliability over maximal efficiency.

If shipping around the world suddenly stopped (perhaps due to war), our food supply would become very unhealthy with very little choice until we had a growing season or two to rediversify.

I think that ship really has sailed, as there is no longer the expertise and it would be a considerable downgrade in supply to switch back to smaller farms (though I support lessening the burden).

The idea of call centers and "remote" workplaces come to mind frequently - in theory anywhere with an internet connection should be able to find people cheap to do any digital work that needs doing. We need to find a way to not concentrate all the wealth in cities.

Re "We need to find a way to not concentrate all the wealth in cities." You have the crux of the matter right, but the goal might be unattainable in practice.

Urbanization is currently a strong force in all economies. In the developing world, it mostly isn't a bad thing because it improves conditions for migrants from rural areas.

It's an open question whether it's a bad thing in developed economies, especially if it reduces the kind of residual racism and intolerance that brews in the countryside. It's not just economic poverty that is reduced by urbanization.

In other words, the calls for understanding "flyover country" and healing the rural economy can prove to be futile. If they are futile or unrealistic, what then?

It certainly could be, but the jury is still out - plenty of things could come in and change the calculus. I’m not of the opinion that it’s a foregone conclusion, but I also don’t have a whole lot of ideas as to how to make that part of the country support the people living in it.

Call centers and remote offices under perform their Head Quarters counterpart. The best building to work (for your career) is almost always the one where the C-suite has their offices.

Of course they do, but do they underperform to the point that the cost difference means nothing? I’d argue there’s plenty of room for lower efficiency but at vastly lower cost. If you have an office of 1000 employees making $60k vs $100k you’re saving at least 25% (after benefits/healthcare), let alone real estate. You could operate offices at 75% productivity and still come ahead, no? I ask out of actual curiosity.

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