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Comment by bediger4000 | Hacker News Reader

Just as a counterpoint to this, here's a murder in small town Missouri, not too far from Mendon: https://www.google.com/amp/s/fox2now.com/news/true-crime/mis...

Nobody said anything about it in 40 years. There's a lot more nuance to small town people pulling together than the train wreck shows.

I grew up outside of Kirksville MO. I've even taken the Southwest Chief from La Plata one or two stops NE of Mendon, to Newton KS. Idealizing small town or rural life is a mistake. The issue is more complicated than "rural Americans pull together, urban Americans do not".

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I do not enjoy that every good hearted story needs to have a top comment with a clickbait counterpoint.

Given that I grew up near there, and remembered the Skidmore murder story, what would you have me do? Not add material to the discussion? Arm I supposed to just stay silent about some things? If so, how should I know whether or not to stay silent. Give me a method, and I'll use it next time.

How would "sometimes bad things happen" be relevant in the least? Missouri is a large state and the two communities aren't close. Besides, you should read the link you posted rather than relying on memory. That story is of a small community defending itself from the predations of a sociopath whom law enforcement could not control. Maybe it's a critique of law enforcement, but it isn't a "counterpoint" to "small town people help out in emergency".

How is "sometimes good things happen" relevant in the least? I can flip it that way too.

The "Mendon, Missouri" story had as its theme that small town/rural America pulls together. There's nuance to that, and it's a mistake to ignore the nuance. The Skidmore story illustrates that, and it took place in the same rural NW Missouri millieu.

Are you calling the train wreck a "good thing that happened"? I don't think even Dietrich would go that far... We can probably agree that neither this author nor his audience care much for "nuance", which presumably in this context means that each community in some sense "pulled together"? In one case they pulled together for several hours, in the other case it was forty years. In both cases they pulled together for a good cause, so I don't see a "counterpoint"?

Just ignore the haters. As a fellow Missourian, I appreciated the additional context.

Your comment was relevant and on-topic.

Having lived in both areas, cities make people crazy. Everyone spends so much time trying to stand out. Look at my fashionable clothing. Look at my exotic sexual identity. Nobody is comfortable in their own skin. There are no consequences to bad behavior because people are disposable and reputation is unimportant when there are 10million other suckers that don’t know you’re a dirtbag.

I don’t think we’ve evolved to live among millions of people.

Hey,me too! I grew up near Mendon, spent the last 35 years in city of Denver! I'm qualified too!

I say the opposite: most urban dwellers just take it easy. You don't have to conform to whatever ideals your small town holds. There are freaks, but they don't demand your participation in their freakery. Live and let live! Living in a small town is suffocating if you're at all different.

Having lived in both areas, small towns make people crazy. Everyone spends so much time trying to fit in. Look at how I go to Church with the community every weekend. Look at how I partake in gossip and publicly shaming freaks. There are severe consequences to even harmless behavior that's abnormal because people don't have enough going on in their lives when there aren't more than 10 other suckers that are smart enough to move out of a toxic area.

I don't think we've evolved to live in small groups.

Wow, strange to read of other folks from the Kirksville vicinity. I didn’t grow up there but spent my first seven years of adulthood nearby, and rode the Southwest Chief that’s being discussed in the article dozens of times.

Rural folks have lots of positive things going on. But they’re also mostly shrinking towns, and I’ve had teenagers try to run me (on my bike, they in cars) off the road for fun on a Saturday night.

I wouldn’t want to be a teenager in rural America. But there are some nice things about being a kid and an adult.

> This content is not available in your country/region.

Seriously.

What kind of century are those people from?

The century of adtech, which the US doesn't bother to regulate.

This is the same problem with authoritarianism.

Communities aligned to a single goal can do amazing things, the downside is just that sometimes that single goal is “protect a murderer that we all like” or “commit genocide”.

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