[extropy-chat] The Bible Belt Paradox

[Damien Broderick]

At 11:15 AM 1/15/2007 -0500, gts wrote:
>
>red states, especially in the deep south, have lower per capita
>incomes (and higher poverty rates too, if I remember correctly) than blue
>states. So the higher crime rates in red states may be better explained by
>ordinary economic factors than by factors relating to religion.... 
>[and] perhaps higher crime rates are a cause of higher
>religiosity, not the other way around.

Given that internal migration within the States is not difficult if 
you have the money and get-up-and-go to get up and go, I expect 
there's been a slow, steady attrition of talent, intelligence, 
impulse control and imagination from the "red" to the "blue" regions 
(roughly speaking). Smart people are less likely to adhere to 
bible-thumping, and less likely to get into violent mischief of a 
personal order--but once you arrive at the WoMD scale, I think 
there'd be fewer godbotherers among the nuclearti and weapons-grade hackers.

Just a hunch.

Damien Broderick