[lunarlull]

> Imagine what the vibes would be on the West Coast if there was a huge set of policy changes that decimated and liquidated the high tech industries. All those software and engineering jobs just vaporize in a span of 20 years.

> Then the media makes you the butt of jokes. Calls you “flyover country.”

The people in your analogy are not the same types suffering from rust belt rage. One group is willing and very wanting to learn and grow and build, and the other is openly antagonistic to any sort of growth.

That's why they became flyover country. I don't think that would happen on the west coast if your scenario were to occur because of the different culture.

[api]

What can I say except: I don’t buy that at all. I lived in Los Angeles for 8 years and Boston for 5. There are some cultural differences but the people there are still just human.

When a region and a culture declines, it gets more nostalgic and reactionary. The arrow of cause and effect goes that way. Places like Detroit were innovation centers and much more culturally open before their entire economy was rug pulled.

If California were rug pulled you’d end up with a culture that lives permanently in the shadow of its boom times and rages at the world.

[fragmede]

Damn. Because California has been rug pulled. The underground weed economy was responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in black market revenue. That money's now gone to Oklahoma because the legal cannabis laws are more favorable there, leaving a absolutely gaping hole in California's economy that can't be replaced by growing alternative crops like saffron, or, in keeping with the illegal theme, poppies/heroin or coca/cocaine. Because it was illegal before legalization, there are scant few stats on just how large it was, but where'd growers used to get $4,000/lb, they're now getting $400/lb. (I have this conspiracy theory level theory, in that San Francisco used to be home to illegal grow ops which forced pg&e to upgrade transformers and substations to support pre-led grow lights, which were massively power hungry. since that power is now no longer needed because those grow ops are no longer viable thanks to legalization, but the upgraded substations remain, the rise of electric cars isn't quite the emergency it should be.)

So much of the arts and Burning Man and entire communities in the Emerald Triangle were propped up by that money, and it's gone.

Time will tell how things go for California. I remain hopeful, but there's just no real data about the black market thanks to its very nature, so it's hard to know just how large that gaping hole is.

[lunarlull]

LA and Boston are both centers of creativity, curiosity and learning, without religion encroaching on every day life of guiding peoples thoughts.

None of that is true for the rust belt or bible belt.