calumetregion

Fascinating opportunity for introspection.

Existing

I went to school in the Midwest and a good example of this is if you had a hybrid/remote job in Louisville or Cincy, it would likely be much better for your health to live in Madison, Indiana. It's not far away but feels like a different world, much more low key and with a community focus. You could always drive into the city and book a few days if you had that desire.

It's a fascinating subject and one I love to "argue" about when I'm traveling for work and at a bar in the city, people get really fired up! We all dig in to support our life choices.

People in the city tend to be younger and higher income - both skew the numbers. Access to health services - advantage city vs rural. But the stress level is off the charts higher in a city. This is terrible for you.

There is some evidence that suburban or exurban might be the sweet spot, where you get the benefit of access to care and less daily stress.

Walking and movement is important too, so if you can combine income with small town living (community) in an active way you may be way ahead of the game.

Driving in a city, absolutely.

(Although I rarely had a stress-free morning on the DC Metro)

Driving in rural areas or across the western US - piece of cake and even relaxing.

I definitely chose my phrasing by design: "less healthy"

I have no doubt there are vigorous academic arguments happening whether there are ways to mitigate the stress of population density and be healthier than would be expected. I'm open to that concept and ideas.

Yet the research on urban living and mental health is overwhelming - your chances of schizophrenia, mood disorders and anxiety skyrocket in cities. I was born in a large metro and lived on both coasts in huge urban areas, and I wish this weren't true because I like the energy of a city.

But you get a couple of whiskeys in me at dinner and I'll flat out say there's almost zero way to make a city healthy. People on top of each other, tremendous noise, light pollution and bad air quality leads to poor health for many people, as well as conflict.

Highly online life leads to instability. It's like living your life in a packed subway car. Stress response. This is why cities are less healthy for you as well.

It is not an issue of depth. Wikipedia is a hive of mimetic scapegoating, and it doesn't hold the patent on that problem. And this usually, ultimately, leads to real world violence.

I made no mention of notability, it's such an obvious point that it doesn't need to be made.

The Shen Yun Performing Arts people are pre-Communism traditionalist Chinese. Which is on the outs culturally, I get it. They're just people though, ultimately.

Do you not see the "weirdos vs normal people" problem that permeates media in essentially all cultures? This technique is on its face illegitimate, as it is designed to get you to not dig deeper into contentious issues. I don't care what side or "wing" is doing it.

You're making my point for me.

Because of a different thread I thought of another subtle, yet similar example. Look at the Wikipedia entry for The Verge. It's a media product, a tech news site, all good. But it's a "left wing" site on the merits. Not a single mention of that in the Wikipedia article. There's a little bit of discussion about tabloid-style content on the Talk page, but it doesn't go anywhere. Even the Vox Media Wikipedia article makes no mention of this being a lefty business. Wild, isn't it?

Goes hand in hand.

Just because it is propaganda doesn't mean it won't have actionable information within it. It just means that you cannot shut off your brain and consume any of it - ever. Every last creator has an angle, even your good guys.

I'll use the Postman questions, because they apply to every piece of media, which is always at its base a technology:

1. “What is the problem to which this technology is the solution?”

2. “Whose problem is it?”

3. “Which people and what institutions might be most seriously harmed by a technological solution?”

4. “What new problems might be created because we have solved this problem?”

5. “What sort of people and institutions might acquire special economic and political power because of technological change?”

6. “What changes in language are being enforced by new technologies, and what is being gained and lost by such changes?”

You can ask these questions about every Wall Street Journal or New York Times article or opinion piece - or Vox or The Verge, wherever. It's not always a clean answer to each question, but the consideration itself is important. What is this person's argument, and how may this person or institution sponsoring this argument benefit from presenting this information this way? And it's not a "wing" thing - these questions need to be asked about your favorite writers and thinkers as well.

Why would anyone have "no idea" about this? We're literally surrounded by women - moms, sisters, friends, wives - our entire lives. This is not some secret knowledge that men cannot grasp. Men know the score here, and have even intervened for our sisters or nieces when needed. I see stuff like this all the time online, it's absurd. Who do you think I spend most of my time with? Women. I came from a woman.

Media is and has always been propaganda. All of it. You have to start from there to make sense of the world.

We ran into trouble at some point with critical thinking. I believe prosperity and comfort for three generations in the West may have led to this type of thing by default, unfortunately. To flip it around...you can also make an argument that PR and propaganda itself has led to prosperity and comfort. Or at least it was something to do that filled time and created some cool apps and fashions. Which is awesome until you realize you're not safe from war.

Does this non-profit media also believe in a technological society? Perhaps with an allergy to challenging the concept of this type of science in the first place?

Agree, but this assumes humans would ever had used it for anything else.

Please read all of Neil Postman's work immediately. It's much bigger than the oven. Thank you.

Or you could see it as "poisoning the well" - an approach so common and accepted that neither of you see it, apparently.

Although clearly a lefty news organization, I don't see the NY Times as a "wing" on that easy left-right spectrum we all seem to love. NYT has had many writers and done some excellent work along the way. In the aggregate their ideology is more in support of population density (cities), industrialism and technology - with some hostility towards more pastoral living, herding animals for food, etc.

Many people asking for examples.

For an easy one (among millions) just compare The New York Times Wikipedia article to the article for The Epoch Times. "Oh, but The Epoch Times is right wing, so..."

How can I compare the Ochs-Sulzberger family to the Falun Gong? Well I just did. They're both made up of humans with opinions.

Have you heard of negative interest rates? This is so real that it is real.

Also real: the wild "insanity" that is the picture painted by the writer of this Harper's piece is also exactly the same "insanity" that is present in, well, everything that involves the US dollar.

Money is so tenuous worldwide at this stage that entire central bank policy is designed so that you won't want to keep it anyway. You must spend! We really are jacked directly into the machine. It's pretty wild if you compare it to just a blip ago, historically.

Large cities would not exist without agriculture. Agriculture is a technology. I understand why it's not popular to talk about this stuff. We're pretty much stuck with all of it, I get it.

It is much different. People who live in more dense environments experience more stress, and stressed people behave differently, they interact (or don't interact) with people differently. You are 2X more likely to have schizophrenia in a city, and this signal is much stronger than genetics. More than a third of all schizophrenia cases would be prevented if people were not born and raised in cities. And the higher the population density, the higher the prevalence. What causes this? Environmental toxins? Noise? Too much stimulation? You have a 70% higher risk of a psychotic episode in a city. I've lived all over the place, including DC, Chicago and LA. I like the energy, but res ipsa loquitur.

The anti-woke train has a lot of steam because humans are great at recognizing patterns over time, and are evolved to do this, which is why this stuff eventually reaches WaPo, NYT, et al.

Win!

This is well laid out, but it absolutely freaks me out that we even have to explain to very smart people why free expression of ideas is important. I know it's human nature to persecute, but I hate being reminded of it so often.

"It’s really painful to see people draw moral and ethical lines over episodes of a guy bullshitting into a microphone being removed. It’d be nice if your ire and indignation were directed at an issue that would objectively improve the world, like exploitation of children, food inequality and starvation..."

The free expression of ideas is more important than what you listed here. And see if you can figure out why it is directly related to said issues.

"inefficient and unfair; they favor expensive modes over cheaper modes, and impose large external costs"

Why? Freedom of movement. Curious animals.

There are no solutions, only trade-offs.