True enough. Remote workers moving to non-Asheville Appalachia and some related tech companies could have interesting outcomes for the region. I worry about whatever you call Ozarks gentrification though. There’s a lot of cheap land away from the mining/coal environmental issues that the locals have a lock on right now but decent RSU grants more than pay for.

The discrimination based on accent is obvious to me but the food surprises me.. what kind of food from that region is looked down upon on the coasts?

It isn’t necessarily the food itself, it’s just that the food marks somebody as lower class. For example, not knowing how to order sushi or use chopsticks. Maybe a better example is not knowing anything about wine. People will think you’re stupid or have bad taste. What would you think of a coworker bringing bologna and ketchup sandwiches to the office?

Nothing. I would think nothing of it, because I am not a low-classed, stone-aged, rocked-brained imbecile judging people by superficial nonsense instead of the content of their character & quality of their work.

You can have all the money, power, and authority, but it doesn’t change the contents of your character. This type of judgement is indicative of low-class at a soul level — if such an impoverished soul makes judgement, it means absolutely nothing in the cosmic scheme of things.

What does it mean to judge someone on the content of their character? It can be just as easily superficial as choosing to bring in a different kind of sandwhich to work.

Taking food down to a homeless man on the side of a street and filming it, is noble and worthy of praise but has limited practical impact on your ability to judge the person accurately. He could be doing it for the wrong reasons. He could be doing it for reasons that do not reflect his character.

Someone who is willing to change for his/her colleagues and practically improve the work enviroment is easy to judge favourably. Superficially and cosmically valid or not, a well oiled ship runs on aligning a lot of little 'superficial' parts.

You think it is a good thing for people to change for their colleagues? “i see you are offended by my bologna sandwich, forgive me, I will switch to filet mignon in order to make you feel more comfortable.” Ridiculous.

A well oiled ship has not a thing to do with superficial parts. People need to lose this ego & trying to control every little thing about those around them. It is a job, not a church or a dictatorship.

Do the job, be accepting and friendly. And eat your bologna sandwich if you damn well feel like it.

Also, filming yourself doing a good deed like taking food to a homeless person is embarrassing, and completely invalidates the “good deed.” You can easily judge that person. They are exploiting an under-classed human as a tool to further their social status, which anyone with a brain can easily recognize as low-class behavior.

I forgot how pointless online discussions are. My mistake.

'Anyone with a brain' is not the compliment you think it is.

I grew up and got a CS degree in the northeast. Then worked in tech in Seattle and the Bay Area

I can tell you that a lot of coastal techies have stereotypically unrefined tastes in food and wine and they're still successful.

Ours is also a trade in which many are stereotyped as lacking various social skills.

I would assume they were frugal and trying to pay off a massive student loan debt.

But I’m also from the Midwest and don’t know how to order sushi.

> I’m also from the Midwest and don’t know how to order sushi.

So was I, and everyone thought I was a barbarian.

Scrapple.

Spam.

Iceberg lettuce.

Caste is the wrong word for what you describe. Yes, those are cultural markers that clearly identify a person belongs to a certain group, but it's not nearly the same thing as caste.

In my experience that's not true at all. People from all strata of society wore those red hats. It's not a signal of class or 'caste' or anything similar. I've never met anyone who'd open carry an assault rifle, but again, I doubt you can really tell much about their background like whether they're rich, poor, working class, elite, or whatever else from it.

I've also never seen a work environment where you could open carry anything. (Though I have been to a church that had a small sign in the parking lot, asking that people not open carry in church. And no, that was not what you would consider to be a "redneck" church.)

The first is political affiliation, and the second is simply being an idiot, neither of which are markers of caste nor protected classes.

Are you trying to imply that discrimination against rural/southern people is ok because they have unacceptable political views? I don't know how else to read your reply. If so, you've done a great job of illustrating GP's point.

That's not really caste because it's not based upon any immutable characteristic. Political affiliation is not caste.