[blackearl]

Even a completely free piece of land and free housing isn't a substitution for basic infrastructure and diverse local culture. Maybe if you have a growing family or are retirement age, but with the childless 35 and under crowd growing I can't imagine wanting to move to the middle of nowhere.

[COGlory]

>basic infrastructure and diverse local culture

Or, you know, a job.

[dehrmann]

> diverse local culture

They've got both kinds: country and western.

[tjr225]

I can’t think of any sane reason a parent would want to isolate their children from socialization; either. It would be to deprive them from their own nature and it would set them back, probably irreparably.

[vitaflo]

We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize. Lincoln, the town in this article has a population of 1.2k. I grew up in the rural Midwest in a town of 800 before the internet was a thing. I had plenty of opportunities for socialization. In many ways rural communities are more social than urban ones because the community is the only thing they have.

[ryukafalz]

> We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize.

Do we? Online, maybe, but that's no substitute. In large parts of the country, kids can't go see their friends without their parents shuttling them around, in part because the terrain is near-impassable without a car.

Maybe if the rural community is still somewhat walkable - the core of many small town would qualify - but my feeling is that many/most are not.

(That said, this applies to most suburbs these days too, and even many cities. Unfortunately.)

[vitaflo]

Rural communities don't need to be walkable. I would regularly bike 5+ miles to visit my friends in our rural area (all farm country) and did so about as soon as I learned to ride a bike (6 or 7 years old). Kids biking wherever they wanted to go was very common. So was riding ATV's when they got to be preteens.

In rural communities, parents aren't always chaperoning and shuttling their kids everywhere. You're given a lot more freedom as a child.

[pgcj_poster]

How long ago was this? If you had freedom as a child, it might have been because of the time rather than the place. I was a kid in a rural area in the 2000s, and there was exactly one time in my entire childhood when I saw another kid that I knew outside of school without my parents having arranged it and having driven me somewhere. If I went for a walk alone, people driving past would stop and ask me if I was lost and needed help. Actually, that happened last time I was at my parents' home even though I'm in my 20s. I felt lonely and isolated growing up, and I still feel developmentally stunted from it.

[beerandt]

Many states still allow 12 year olds to drive farm trucks on local roads.

[bradlys]

This really only works when you fit in with the local demo. If you’re not white in an all white town - it doesn’t tend to go over well! Same for if your interest are different than the mainstream for that region.

For instance - I wasn’t into guns, hunting, or pickup trucks. Social outcast immediately.

At least in cities there are more groups of people. You might not fit into one group but it isn’t the only group.

The educational opportunities are also a joke. I hear what my coworkers at big tech had growing up even in just plain suburban areas and it’s incredible compared to what I had. I feel like I grew up in a developing country compared to them.

[goodpoint]

> We live in an age where it’s easier than ever to socialize

All the available data from credible sources shows the opposite. Research indicates that developed societies are facing an unprecedented loneliness crisis.

With some good help from social networks.

[kgin]

I have to agree that. In some ways, there is more socialization in a small town than in a large city. The threshold for "having enough in common" is lowered to "we both live here". In a city, people often interact less with others in absolute terms because there are so many people and talking to any one person over another seems arbitrary.

[PKop]

It is debatable whether rural communities provide less opportunity for "socialization" compared to the atomization and isolation that comes from living in a big city, perhaps around people you have no long term ties or roots with.

Take these last two years. Who would you imagine got more socialization: adults/children living in big cities where in-person socialization, schooling was banned to a large degree... or rural places that did not do this?

[watwut]

I would imagine people in the city had more access to socialization.

[pessimizer]

Not in my experience.; in small towns, you get to know everybody. In big cities, you pass through the streets like a ghost unless you make a real effort to escape your comfort zone. Move to a little town, and you're forcibly escaped from your comfort zone as soon as the clerk at the grocery store sees you twice and starts a conversation with you, and you find out his wife is one of your kid's new teachers.

[anonfornoreason]

I did both, moving out of a big city in middle of pandemic. Socialization became 10x easier the moment I moved. Anecdotal etc etc, but people are more friendly and more outgoing where I moved vs where I moved from.

[LanceH]

Visited a friend in a town of 5000 for a month. A week or two in, I was running into people I "knew".

Personally, I put the sweet spot around 15k, in a town an hour away from a city with a real airport.

[ericd]

Having lived in both places with kids during, that wasn’t at all my experience. Anecdotal, obviously.

[hedora]

Yeah; some of the towns in the article are down to zero elementary schools. You're home schooling at that point, and with that few kids, I'm guessing there's no support network for the adults either.

[chmod600]

Are you saying that cities are the more natural environment for children, and that rural living deprives them of their nature?

[PKop]

"Childless" cohorts are irrelevant if you mean to imply these people intend to remain childless. They will not have descendants nor create lasting communities. They are a dead end.

The future is made by those that procreate.

What is the necessity for a "diverse" culture, as opposed to say a cohesive culture, or at least one that promotes healthy and strong values (such to cultivate healthy, strong people)?

[prutschman]

If existence is pointless except for procreation, what is our children's purpose? To have children, in order to have children, in order to have children? This is unbounded teleological recursion, unless you allow for a basis case in which any given life also has meaning for its own sake.

Myself, I hope for more for my own two children than just that they have children of their own some day, just as my parents didn't have me only in order that they might someday have great-great-grandkids they'll never meet

Culture and ideas transmit through channels parallel to heredity. Celibate monastic orders are one obvious example.

I want to live in a diverse culture for a reason analogous to why I'm wary of agricultural monocultures: All it takes is the right virus to come along, and all of a sudden we don't have any bananas anymore. There are some tragic failure modes associated with strong, cohesive, anti-"diverse" cultures.

[cobber2005]

Can't those who don't have children still influence other's children? Famous childless people include Rosa Parks, Arthur C. Clark, the Dali Lama, Edwin Hubble, Oprah, Angela Merkle, Bill Hicks, Dr. Seuss, T.S. Elliot and George Washington. Surely they influenced the future.

[blackearl]

Plenty of people have their reasons for not having children and to simply call them a "dead end" is pretty heartless.

By diverse culture I mean more than one local bar and one local diner. As much as I like apple pie, I'd begin to hate it if it were my only option

[betwixthewires]

I wouldn't call it heartless, just a fact of life. I don't think the above comment meant that they are worthless or that people shouldn't be able to do it, only that you can't build a community around people who have no children beyond 1 generation. I don't get the jump to defensiveness, there are perfectly good reasons to not have them, and you need no reason at all, but one thing that will happen is that a community of the future won't include you or your descendants.

[PKop]

Politically and culturally they are though, which matters in the context of long term migration patterns and political fallout.

I'm not making a moral judgement of those that cannot reproduce despite their desire to, and I have full heartfelt sympathy for them.

>more than one local bar

Valid, there are certainly less of these things. There is more diversity of space, nature, perhaps even social interactions with extended family that may live in one location.

[CogitoCogito]

> Politically and culturally they are though...

I don't even know where to start in trying to understand this statement. Are you saying that you will only leave a political and cultural legacy in your children and no one else? People not having kids could very well be leaving a _larger_ legacy than those who do. They do have more time after all. That's just a thought experiment, but far from implausible. Frankly I find your point here to be utter nonsense.

[fells]

> What is the necessity for a "diverse" culture, as opposed to say a cohesive culture, or at least one that promotes healthy and strong values (such to cultivate healthy, strong people)?

Strange to pit "diverse" against "cohesive" and "healthy and strong values" as if they are opposites.

[Lammy]

Lots of people cite this paper from the author of “Bowling Alone” claiming pretty much just that https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/benediktsson2013/files...

Anecdotally I’ve experienced this to be true, but I still think diversity is something we must strive for. I even kind of hate the word “diversity” since to me it carries undertones of “existing separately, together” versus empathy that will make us truly one people.

It may be easy to feel safe by default in a community of people who all look like me, but I think that’s my survival-focused animal brain just not wanting to be killed or eaten. There are just as many stories about families/communities sweeping all sorts of awful abuse under the rug in the name of cohesion, and I would rather push through the eumemic struggle and try to truly understand all types of people than be happy in a lie where we have to force a happy face every Thanksgiving when Uncle Touchy comes over or whatever.

Southern Hospitality is definitely a real thing though, and it feels so nice to greet people on the street, wave at others and have them wave back, have off-the-cuff conversations with strangers, etc. Way better than walking around San Francisco where lots of people (I’m guilty too!) try to stare at the ground when walking by each other, not that you’d be able to see their face if they were holding their head up anyway.

[PKop]

Certainly "diverse" was present by OP as opposed to something yes?

And since we agree on what actually matters (the other terms in this list) what is exclusive to diverse communities do you think?

[cowsandmilk]

Someplace diverse, where I want to raise my kids, allows them to explore a wide variety of possibilities. They should be able to see the arts via museums and theaters while also being able to explore the outdoors. There should be paths to dive deep in the areas that spark their curiosity, whether it be varsity sports, science and math olympiads, becoming a ballet dancer, or becoming an expert woodworker.

They should be exposed to large enough cohorts of people with different backgrounds and interests that stereotypes are pushed away and when they meet new people, they instead form relationships by getting to know that person instead of assuming things about them.

[Arainach]

The opposite of diversity is not coherent, it is myopia. Groups lacking diversity lack fresh insight and allow opportunities for stereotype and intolerance to grow. I've encountered exactly this in dozens of Midwestern suburbs. I grew up in a town and school district where our class had "the black kid", "the Latino kid", "the Vietnamese girl" and so on surrounded by hundreds of white kids. The misinformation was real, and the opportunity to talk to someone and dispel those beliefs was low. University offered a chance to fix some of that, but my former classmates who never left town are bye and large a bunch of bigots. On the other hand, people I knew who were raised in diverse areas learned much broader perspectives and manage to incorporate new view points more easily.

[PKop]

There is a spectrum, can we agree on that?

We are programmers yes? Is a monolith better or is mass distribution better? Depends yes?

In business and operations do economies of scale exist? Or is it always better to be separate individual groups not operating under a larger shared structure? Depends.

"Diversity" taken to the extreme is entropy. Obviously extreme entropy is incoherent.

Politically, socially, culturally, mass diversity is correlated with decline of social cohesion, loyalty, trust, common sacrifice and rise in tribal and political conflict.

There are advantages for sure to exposure to broad viewpoints and new information. Having a cohesive and generally homogeneous society (and this can be defined along many axes don't forget.. not just "race". How about social values, political views, ethnic culture, shared historical experience etc) does not preclude one from learning and being curious and open to new perspectives. But it does eliminate petty conflicts that can waste time and energy and get in the way of real progress and collective power.

When you hear about companies strongly promoting their "company culture", aside from the requisite amount of skepticism about this being marketing and hot air, is there a kernel of truth to the idea that everyone being on some degree of the same page helps that organization work together better to achieve shared goals?

Would it be better for, say, a military unit, a sports team, a corporation to have all their members having very divergent viewpoints, cultural values, philosophies, mission statements, purposes, motivations etc? Not always. Can we at least say that... not always?

Team building, creating elements of homogeneity, shared purpose, and loyalty, wouldn't be a common endeavor (not that it is perfect) for all of these entities if so.

>and so on surrounded by hundreds of white kids

I absolutely agree that life is harder for a minority amongst a divergent majority. This is possibly an argument against putting people in this situation. Is it better for them? Your statements sound like it is not.

[watwut]

To me, all historic associations with goal of "strong people" have "conquest and domination" attached to it as real goal.

In that context, it makes sense for it to be opposed to diversity. Just part of it stays unsaid.

And thinking about it, "strong values" tend to imply conservative. People don't say that about radical social justice proponents doing sacrifices for their cause. Nor about LGBT couple deeply faithful and in love. It gotta be religious to be called that.

[PKop]

If historically strength means conquest and domination, weakness must mean being conquered and dominated yes?

"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".. this is observably true throughout history no?

In that case, why would a people/nation not want to be strong? Why would they not do what they can to ensure they are not conquered?

>"strong values" tend to imply conservative

Exactly. Then what is the appeal of not-strong values? How are these to be sold to people that don't want to be run over by the strong?

>People don't say that about radical social justice proponents doing sacrifices for their cause

Perhaps because they don't make the nation strong?

>it makes sense for it to be opposed to diversity.

Does being opposed to diversity enable your nation to be the conqueror or the conquered?

"in that context"... the context to which you agree is historically true?

[watwut]

> If historically strength means conquest and domination, weakness must mean being conquered and dominated yes?

No politician or populist ever promised to "build the nation of weak people". That just does not exists.

> "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must".. this is observably true throughout history no?

Not really, no. That is expression of spefic ideology in which might is right and no other moral values apply. It is not accurate description of human behavior in either large or small scale. It happens with ideologies like Nazism, sure, but they are not all that ever existed.

> Exactly. Then what is the appeal of not-strong values? How are these to be sold to people that don't want to be run over by the strong?

There is no such thing as someone promoting "not-strong values". Such rhetorical point does not happen to be used

You are confusing propaganda and euphemism with real thing. The "strong values" is slogan, euphemism or propaganda, take your pick. Nothing to do with actual strength or actual values.

> Does being opposed to diversity enable your nation to be the conqueror or the conquered? "in that context"... the context to which you agree is historically true?

Neither of those. Simple, the political groups being opposed to diversity are the ones who currently happen to be close to movements that in fact want to dominate other nations or races.

It does not have to be like that, other combinations could happen. But currently, things are aligned this way.

[mrtesthah]

>The future is made by those that procreate.

Let me guess. Your idealized society doesn’t have room for gay people either, does it?