It must be the water....

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I remember when looking at a map of the Bush/Gore election that basically Bush captured most of the interior of the country while Gore basically grabbed all the coastline.



Well look at this.



The orange is the counties that voted against the recall versus the green who voted for. Same pattern, water more liberal, no water, more conservative or at least more likely to recall.



What is the deal with water appearing to be the single biggest factor in determining how someone will vote?



Oh if someone can find that 2000 election returns map, that would be cool too.



Nick
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    that's easy.



    most cities were originally established near water. they then expand out from there.



    Democrats typically do well in large cities, Republicans the outskirts.
  • Reply 2 of 21
    smirclesmircle Posts: 1,035member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by trumptman

    What is the deal with water appearing to be the single biggest factor in determining how someone will vote?



    Usually this is a statistical artefact.

    In most countries, rich and large cities are located at the shoreline, in river deltas or bordering to large lakes, not high up in the mountains. This is due to trade requiring ports, industry requiring water for coolant and manufacturing requiring short distances to bulk transport facilities.



    There is a correlation between income and liberal attitudes too. Rich, urban regions tend to be more liberal than rural and poor ones.



    Now combine the two effects and it seems like liberals grow on the shore, conservatives on trees (or rocks).
  • Reply 3 of 21
    pfflampfflam Posts: 5,053member
    Civilizations and civilized peoples need water
  • Reply 4 of 21
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pfflam

    Civilizations and civilized peoples need water



    This actually goes back to a conversation a friend and I were having once about equatorial/temperate climates and industrial development. We were wondering why colder, mountainous regions tend to be more industrialized than milder, more temperate climates (e.g. equatorial areas), and all we could come up with was this: if you live in paradise, you have very little incentive to develop industries.



    This is, of course, an oversimplification, but I'm curious whether anyone can think of an equatorial culture that bucks the trend?



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 5 of 21
    smirclesmircle Posts: 1,035member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by midwinter

    if you live in paradise, you have very little incentive to develop industries.



    While I would agree with that in principle, I believe one should be careful, because what we define as an industrial civilization has developed only once in history: in Europe and the US in the 18th and 19th century. From there, it spread over the world. So, it could be pure chance like astronomers are still at odds if a star of the size of our sun and a planet similar to earth are necessary requirements for the development of life forms or if it would be possible for life to develop in other kinds of solar systems as well. They cannot decide the fact, precisely because they are talking about only one specimen.
  • Reply 6 of 21
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Smircle

    While I would agree with that in principle, I believe one should be careful, because what we define as an industrial civilization has developed only once in history: in Europe and the US in the 18th and 19th century. From there, it spread over the world. So, it could be pure chance like astronomers are still at odds if a star of the size of our sun and a planet similar to earth are necessary requirements for the development of life forms or if it would be possible for life to develop in other kinds of solar systems as well. They cannot decide the fact, precisely because they are talking about only one specimen.



    Certainly. And I don't mean to drag in any of the potential baggage associated with this kind of issue (i.e. it could easily lead to racist claims about inferiority). But I think we can consider the issue generally/broadly in terms of the development of various technologies (ironwork, textile manufacture) that pre-date what we consider to be the modern industrial city.



    I'm really just curious about whether or not some equatorial culture developed anything at all like what northern Europe did and whether or not these kinds of cultural developments are tied to environment.



    I'm also very sleepy, and so I'm not even making much sense to myself right now.



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 7 of 21
    pfflampfflam Posts: 5,053member
    well . . . Italy up to the Enlightenment was the base of 'Western' art and culture as well as the region which probably played the largest role in laying the foundations for the development of the Technologies that enabled Industrialism



    Also, ancient Rome was pretty well along in terms of tech . . .. plumbing, sewer systems, the mathematics that they took from the Greeks (and quickly let fester) . . . Octavian even had an in-door wall-to-wall floor based heating system in his villa
  • Reply 8 of 21
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pfflam

    well . . . Italy up to the Enlightenment was the base of 'Western' art and culture as well as the region which probably played the largest role in laying the foundations for the development of the Technologies that enabled Industrialism



    Also, ancient Rome was pretty well along in terms of tech . . .. plumbing, sewer systems, the mathematics that they took from the Greeks (and quickly let fester) . . . Octavian even had an in-door wall-to-wall floor based heating system in his villa




    Right, and Rome is mountainous, which goes back to my point. It gets cold. It gets hot. It's difficult to get access to certain necessities.



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 9 of 21
    smirclesmircle Posts: 1,035member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pfflam

    well . . . Italy up to the Enlightenment was the base of 'Western' art and culture [..]

    Also, ancient Rome was pretty well along in terms of tech . . ..




    This is another interesting aspect:

    what exactly is it about the mediterranean that made it such a great incubator for civilizations? Consider:

    - the ancient egyptians

    - the ancient greek

    - the roman empire

    - the arabs and moors that completely revolutionized parts of mathematics

    - the Renaissance that started what later became the modern industrialized culture.
  • Reply 10 of 21
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Smircle

    This is another interesting aspect:

    what exactly is it about the mediterranean that made it such a great incubator for civilizations? Consider:

    - the ancient egyptians

    - the ancient greek

    - the roman empire

    - the arabs and moors that completely revolutionized parts of mathematics

    - the Renaissance that started what later became the modern industrialized culture.




    I wonder if it's a bit of a combination of all this: often rugged terrain inspiring technological innovation; paradisal areas that allow easy access to necessities?
  • Reply 11 of 21
    smirclesmircle Posts: 1,035member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by midwinter

    But I think we can consider the issue generally/broadly in terms of the development of various technologies (ironwork, textile manufacture) that pre-date what we consider to be the modern industrial city.



    I'm really just curious about whether or not some equatorial culture developed anything at all like what northern Europe did




    AFAIK, textile manufacture was invented independently lots of time - including the far east where parts of India, Indonesia, Malaysia are near the Equator. Same for bronze production.



    Not iron works though - and especially no kind of industry, as defined by the highly specialized way goods are produced by dividing the work into a series of small steps.



    I believe it was Michael Moore who featured the nice theory that hard work in the subtropics is only possible if you have an aircon, so maybe that's why



    Seriously, though, I believe it's the special critical mass of

    - christian "hard work" ethics

    - money and interest that make it worthwile to pile up capital instead of spending it

    - a climate where you simply have to try to improve your situation or you will die young

    - several powerful states locked into an ever present arms race (Spain, France, GB).



    that did the trick.



    The romans were quite near, they arrived at a high grade of mass production, but I believe they became too powerful too early and were lacking a serious enemy to reach "industrial thinking".
  • Reply 12 of 21
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Hrm. Now I'm off thinking about Marx's (and later, British art critic John Ruskin's) comments about the division of labor.... I wonder if the absence of ironworks is simply a matter of necessary materials not being readily available?
  • Reply 13 of 21
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Smircle

    I believe it was Michael Moore who featured the nice theory that hard work in the subtropics is only possible if you have an aircon, so maybe that's why



    That would explain the American South. I'm originally a Southerner (Mississippi), and once, a few years ago, someone asked me why everything moved so slowly down there. I simply replied that "It's too ****ing hot to move quickly!"



    I wonder if there a connection between "meditative" cultures and temperature?



    Cheers

    Scott
  • Reply 14 of 21
    smirclesmircle Posts: 1,035member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by midwinter

    I wonder if the absence of ironworks is simply a matter of necessary materials not being readily available?





    To smelt iron ore, you have to reach higher temperatures than you can with the bronze age technologies. You need mineral coal instead of charcoal, bellows, grog that can withstand the heat... quite a technological advancement.



    Iron ore is abundant, as is coal. But you need transport facilities to bring the two together.
  • Reply 15 of 21
    The answer why many people in-land vote republican:



    They are in-breds



  • Reply 16 of 21
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by trumptman

    What is the deal with water appearing to be the single biggest factor in determining how someone will vote?





    The brain can't function properly when dehydrated.
  • Reply 17 of 21
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by giant

    The brain can't function properly when dehydrated.



    Dolphins should vote
  • Reply 18 of 21
    pfflampfflam Posts: 5,053member
    I was going to mention the Division of labor . . .however from a different perspective:

    it is thought in many philosophical perspectives that the 'West' developed a particular technological bent because of its grounding in Metaphysics: meaning that the world for Western Civ is conditioned by an abstract distance that is coterminous with metaphysical thinking: thinking that abstracts an ultimate Ideality behind appearance and the physical. (think of Platos metaphor of the Cave: where teh world of appearance is not the real world only the shadow of the Real Ideal Forms that exist beyond "the Cave" of experience)



    also,

    Some thinkers attribute this tendency to the medium of thought . . . saying that the form of the medium conditioned our experience, and, with that medium being ALPHA NUMERIC script and inter-changeable type: essentially abstract interchangeable elements that combine, and recombine to form concepts. . . . hence conveying an essentially abstract quality to the process of mediated thought (writing) and therefore changing thought and social structures over time . . .

    Whereas other cultures tended to use Ideographic or Pictographis forms of writing . . .



    this abstract quality or writing and thus thought leads to a kind of thinking prone to taxonomy, catagorization and analysis: "Rationalism" and therefor, as it disseminates to the social sphere, to the Division of Labour and various forms of increasing specialization nichification (not Nietzscheification!)



    Other thinkers say that this "metaphysical" propensity of Westerrn thought also leads to a form of Nihilism as well as to a form of loss of "essence" in what one thinker calls the Wests increasing 'Oblivion of Being'

    . . . also, that this frame of mind leads to a profoundly anti-nature way of being where the world becomes merely 'stuff' at a distance from our Being which in turn starts to find its place beyond this world and yet nowhere: the world becomes "standing reserve" to be used and ouur Being Oblierates to nothing
  • Reply 19 of 21
    midwintermidwinter Posts: 10,060member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by pfflam

    this abstract quality or writing and thus thought leads to a kind of thinking prone to taxonomy, catagorization and analysis: "Rationalism" and therefor, as it disseminates to the social sphere, to the Division of Labour and various forms of increasing specialization nichification (not Nietzscheification!)



    Other thinkers say that this "metaphysical" propensity of Westerrn thought also leads to a form of Nihilism as well as to a form of loss of "essence" in what one thinker calls the Wests increasing 'Oblivion of Being'

    . . . also, that this frame of mind leads to a profoundly anti-nature way of being where the world becomes merely 'stuff' at a distance from our Being which in turn starts to find its place beyond this world and yet nowhere: the world becomes "standing reserve" to be used and ouur Being Oblierates to nothing [/B]



    And combine that with the notion that there's a biblical mandate involved...



    Much of all this is in line with Ruskin's thinking on the division of labor, which he says destroys the production of art by removing the craftsman from the process. The result is mass production with no connection to anything, no spirit, no soul. In this sense, the drive toward industrialization leads directly to the death of "craft" and national taste (for Ruskin).



    I don't know that we need limit the metaphysical to Plato, et al. It's built into Christianity, too. I would argue that one of the central messages of large chunks of the NT is that this world doesn't matter; what matters is the afterlife.



    I wonder, though, how cultures like India and China, both of which have religions similarly interested in the afterlife, didn't wind up with the same kind of industrialist binge that Europe did?



    Cheers

    Scott



    PS

    This is a really interesting discussion!
  • Reply 20 of 21
    pfflampfflam Posts: 5,053member
    Christianity found ripe soil and survived often in the form of Neo-Platonism



    now as far as Ruskin . . . I kind of think that he is wrong in that there is one area where the Division of Labour always existed and that was in the craft guilds . . . back in ancient Greece the crafts and the plastic arts were thought of as a form of work . . . they were not given the kind of near sacred value that they are today . . . they were a craft fit for Artisans ('art'-isans). . . and that that level of society was not held in high regard



    Hannah Arrendt (who is also thinking along the lines of the metaphysical-technological stuff) points out that Artisans did not partake in the realm where the highest values were at play: the realm of "Action" . . . action did not work according to a Template:

    as in making a chair based on a template of a Chair, or a plan, or an idea of 'necessity' or an ideal . . . pragmatics was not the detirmining factor of 'Action'



    AND



    that this kind of craftmanship, according to Arrendt, actually lead to Metaphysical thought . . . where the world was the reflection of a template

    She saw this as leading to the rise of a form of thought (as I outlined above) that is subject to analysis and rationalism, and, she believed the loss of the realm of "Action" which she equated with action in the Polis and Public life



    She made a distinction between ;'Public life' and the 'Social" the latter she associated with taking care of the necessities and with craft . . . so, thought according to templates: metaphysics



    So, for her, the crafts of Artisans (as well as the metaphysic of Platonism and Post Platonism) was part of a shift to the loss of Plublic Life and the value and realm of "Action" (which is hard to describe: something like spontaniety and freedom and erete) in favor of the "Social" and Totalitarianism and the rise of calculation and analysis
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