Shouldn't come as a big surprise, honestly. There's not a lot out there, the infrastructure hasn't been maintained since it was built during the New Deal era, and the few non-oil jobs have been steadily marching away from the rural areas and smaller cities for decades, so what little there is outside of major urban areas is just... Crippling poverty, rampant opiate addiction, and a population that's so small, spread out, and alienated that most have been living like it's lockdown for their entire lives.
Goddamn. I assumed the natural beauty, and I guess my imagined cozy little towns would counter that, but instead it's actually a typically American dystopia of yeoman culture self-sufficiency. Just the libertarian argument of living of the grid come to life and it turns out that not having community out weighs that, sounds like.
Yeah, unfortunately those cozy little towns are a figment of the imagination. Talking to friends who are from places like this, life in rural America seems to be like, "my neighbours are an oil derrick and a wind turbine. Sometimes I see a cow. I only see another person outside my family when we go to the store which is once a month because it's 60 miles out. My only connection to the outside world is satellite internet. It doesn't work when it's cloudy, it's as fast as DSL on a good day, ping is too high for online games, and I only have 50 gigs a month. A family member or friend dies every 3 months, but I haven't been to a funeral in years. Everyone I knew in high school moved, died, or is on meth."
Surprised the western states are the leaders honestly
Shouldn't come as a big surprise, honestly. There's not a lot out there, the infrastructure hasn't been maintained since it was built during the New Deal era, and the few non-oil jobs have been steadily marching away from the rural areas and smaller cities for decades, so what little there is outside of major urban areas is just... Crippling poverty, rampant opiate addiction, and a population that's so small, spread out, and alienated that most have been living like it's lockdown for their entire lives.
Goddamn. I assumed the natural beauty, and I guess my imagined cozy little towns would counter that, but instead it's actually a typically American dystopia of yeoman culture self-sufficiency. Just the libertarian argument of living of the grid come to life and it turns out that not having community out weighs that, sounds like.
Yeah, unfortunately those cozy little towns are a figment of the imagination. Talking to friends who are from places like this, life in rural America seems to be like, "my neighbours are an oil derrick and a wind turbine. Sometimes I see a cow. I only see another person outside my family when we go to the store which is once a month because it's 60 miles out. My only connection to the outside world is satellite internet. It doesn't work when it's cloudy, it's as fast as DSL on a good day, ping is too high for online games, and I only have 50 gigs a month. A family member or friend dies every 3 months, but I haven't been to a funeral in years. Everyone I knew in high school moved, died, or is on meth."
:doomjak:
Sounds like it might be like this, except worse.