Asklemmy

43340 readers

2067 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

307

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

27 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A few reasons (which I pulled out of my ass. I'm not a social scientist. I am a person who fled some pretty ass backwards areas in the US):

Feelings of hopelessness. Maybe it's the people in power. Maybe it's the culture. Seeing cops act a fool and get zero punishment, or voting and watching some corrupt folks refuse to accept the results really does a number on people.
Allowing morons in charge. During the pandemic, I watched the neighboring state put a lot of COVID denial policies in place. Psychopaths were literally running into hospitals making demands. Healthcare professionals left to work somewhere less hostile. Expand that to other industries, groups of people. You now have real smart people who are leaving - shrinking the conversation pool even more. I didn't even bring up police.
General culture. I was told to "Go back home" or "This place isn't for you" just walking around living my life. That country song "This won't happen in a small town" which is filled with inaccuracies just strengthens the belief that small towns are for a certain "type" of person.

There's a lot of other factors.

So you have all those issues, followed by being pretty low/the lowest in ranking for many things like education and quality of life.

The shining stars are college towns who are much more active at change. But I'm not going to expect much