Quote:
Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield
You and me, having this conversation. Hell, this entire board... If you think we're the rule, and not exceptions - in several essential regards - I want what you're smoking.
I say this not to kiss anyone's ass, but the conversations here - even the sillier commentaries - are exceptional in comparison to General Main Street America to an extent I'm not sure we can even fathom.
I'll go out on a limb here and suggest I see more Kardashians Watchers and 'Muricans than you do on a regular basis. The slice of people into which you fall is many multiples thinner than you think. That you are paying the bills isn't proof the Luddites had it wrong. It's proof you fall into the upper 30% of society that has a marketable skill set.
You're about as "typical American" are you are female.
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For the last century and a half, upstate NY has been a rural backwater dotted with innovation centers. They've changed over time, but your cameras and copiers came out of Rochester, your fancy glassworks and then your fiber cables came out of Corning, Ithaca was one of the centers of the Green Revolution of the 70s, and Fishkill gave us the big computers before the Route 128 and Silicon Valley settlements took hold. It is possible to get back to more dispersed innovation - the heavy concentrations of SV and Boston really all developed only in our lifetime.
We also know what it takes, because there are a lot of smaller innovation hubs that have developed in the last twenty years. It takes more focus on having a well-educated workforce (the presence of which will create jobs up and down the educational ladder), it takes academic research facilities, especially specialty areas of science and tech research, and it takes more open immigration and a greater welcoming of immigrants. Put these together and the rest flows. But a rural area that's not open to having some immigrants move in, whether from other places in the country or other places in the world, will just isolate that big state university plopped down in a field somewhere, rather than build an economy off of it.
