How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive | Hacker News Reader

How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive

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230 pointsDiabloD3227 comments

I'm from Utah. I moved to Seattle, then San Francisco. When I had a kid, I moved back to Utah.

One thing I noticed is that Utah is almost all middle class. Some have more money, some have less, but most of them are middle class.

It's relatively easy to go from poor to rich if you're really middle class. I mean that if your parents are well educated but a high school teacher and a stay-at-home-mom in a middle class neighborhood, you're poor but you can become a medical doctor almost as easily as a rich kid.

It's not so easy to become a doctor if you're raised by your high school drop out grandma because your mom's working and your dad's missing and the adults around you are unemployed, going to prison, or working at fast food restaurants. If you can lift up people in situations like that, I'd be much more impressed.

I think the Mormon welfare system is very impressive (and I do recommend that progressives take a look at it) and Utah government is vastly better than California's. But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make mobility look artificially better.

Maybe that is true for SLC. But how would you explain the million dollar houses and mansions in Park City, Provo etc without upper class? I see kids driving brand new cars and trucks that their parents bought to the SLC community college as well. My parents told me to use the bus.

It's only relatively true.

> If you can lift up people in situations like that, I'd be much more impressed.

> But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make mobility look artificially better.

I'm a bit confused. Aren't these contradictory? By not having poverty haven't they achieved the raising people out of poverty bit already?

I'm not sure that achieving a solution is the same as avoiding a problem. And it's not clear to me which has happened.

The thing is, Utah has never had a truly poor population. They aren't raising people out of poverty, but it's growing fast and most of the people who move there are relatively rich compared to the general population.

But also, Utah has the fifth richest bottom quartile of any state, about 40% higher than North Carolina's. So yes, it's much much easier to move from that to the top quartile than in most states.

> The thing is, Utah has never had a truly poor population.

What about when the first destitute pioneers arrived and found a desert?

At the time (1847), they were not the poorest people in North America.

It's not really meaningful to describe people as "rich" or "poor" in the absence of an economy.

Where people are involved there is no such thing as an absence of economy.

The Mormon refugees did not find a desert, they found Native Americans living in the Utah Great Basin and proceeded to steal their land and natural resources: http://www.onlinenevada.org/articles/mormons-and-native-amer...

Mobility is typically defined in terms of moving between income quintiles in the population -- relative, not absolute. If the income range of the quintiles is very compressed (i.e. everyone's income is close to the median) then a small change in absolute income can lead to a large change in income percentile. Compared to places with higher income variance, this tends to overweight the "mobility" of places with low income variance. At the very least it produces a misleading result relative to what most people would define as meaningful mobility.

The same problem applies to comparing mobility between countries. If you have someone with the same (PPP) wage in the lower quintiles in Denmark and the USA, a $20k increase in absolute income in Denmark will cause a big jump in the quintile (and therefore "mobile") and a $40k increase in absolute income in the USA won't even though it is twice the real gain! Simply due to the fact that Denmark has low income variance and USA has high income variance. Income mobility measures that don't adjust for variance tend to produce misleading results when there are significant differences in income variance in the sample population.

If Utah has a relatively low income variance (not a lot of poor, not a lot of rich) then it will lead to percentile based mobility measures that are less meaningful than States with higher income variance.

> But I think the lack of a real lower and upper class would make mobility look artificially better.

I'm not sure that's artificial. Everyone being middle class would mean everyone has the resources available that make it practical to improve.

When I was first about to move to Utah, few years ago, lot of people asked me "why?" and told me a lot about a lot of things. Of course, I didn't even know who the Mormons were (I am not from USA originally). Most of what I heard was wrong. I've met Mormons who have asked me where I am from and not only know where that country is but spoke to me in my NATIVE tougue. I was very impressed.

The key word in the article is the Mormon Church and its not an exaggeration. They do a lot in a lot of different areas (as if helping is ingrained in their blood). I am not sure why Utah has such an odd reputation outside of the state. But I am sure its something to do with the history that I haven' cared to look too deeply into.

The downside of SLC is the smog though. You can feel the burn in your eyes some days. Also, the housing market seems to be booming here. I have seen so many housing complex start and finish and sell all the new houses in the last few years its amazing. I am not convinced it's planned out as best as it can be, though. SLC could do with more parks and trees inserted in some places.

Boise, ID has the same problem with air quality (and it's also in the Mormon heartland). As a non-Mormon growing up in Southern Idaho, it's hard to argue the church isn't very influential politically and also good at social works.

I grew up Mormon in Utah and I love the Mormons in my life. Every leader in local congregations is an unpaid volunteer. Everyone in the congregation has a responsibility to carry out in the community (sunday school teacher, youth mentor, clerk to track finances, etc). As a Mormon kid, I was taught to work hard my whole life for the good of others. I served a Mormon mission in Europe, which was an extremely difficult experience, but I learned the value of persistence and diligent hard work.

There are definitely some interesting positive cultural influences from the Mormon church. There are some negative influences however. A few years ago, I decided no longer to participate in the Mormon church because of its harsh policies/teachings about LGBT people and because I found myself agreeing with agnostic atheism. I told my family and friends that I'd always respect them and their beliefs when I decided to leave the church. I was surprised by the harsh reaction: my Mormon loved ones told me that they were concerned about the future of my children, that I was depriving my family of happiness in heaven, and, as one of my own parents told me, they didn't know who I was anymore.

I think Mormons are extremely kind to non-members of the church and to the church's current members. But if you are a member and you want to leave, sometimes they can be extremely harsh. I also think Mormons are some of the most kind people in the world on the person-to-person scale, but on the group-to-group scale, they can be pretty brutal sometimes. Blacks were denied access to the most sacred temple rituals until 1978, and today LGBT people in long-term relationships or marriages are considered apostates and their children are not allowed to be baptized. Weird mix of super kind and super harsh.

Ah, yes. I have heard similar experiences from ex-Mormons i've come across. Just shows that things are more complicated in real world and you can't take some anecdotal evidence to judge a group/person in any meaningful way. Your side of the story is not something people looking from the outside would normally see.

Isn't it the case with every group with strong identity? Imagine being raised in a long-term Democrat family and declaring that the Tea Party is your thing. (And it's not even about eternal damnation.)

I think that's a very good point. That said, my guess is that, on average, shunning is probably less frequent when family members leave a political party than when they leave Mormonism, but that's just a guess with no backing evidence.

Some Mormon families don't care whether their kids stay in the church or leave. For others, it leads to shunning and disowning. I'd say shunning probably occurs more for Mormon apostates than Catholic apostates, but it probably occurs less for Mormon apostates than Jehovah's Witness or Scientologist apostates.

Let me just make the correction here that "shunning" is not the same as any discomfort/disagreement/broken relationships.

"Shunning" is a real policy advocated by some groups, such as JWs. It's intended to punish the traitor, and the rule is that you are supposed to completely divorce yourself from that person, cutting off all forms of contact. The intent is to cause the person to realize the error of their ways via tough love and come back.

Mormon policy is unequivocally NOT shunning. It could not be more opposite. The Church regularly implores its members to be tolerant and kind to everyone, including family members and friends who've left the Church or quit practicing.

It's true that Mormons are one of the only religious groups in the U.S. that, by and large, continually integrate it into their daily lives and take it seriously. That makes it a bigger deal when someone leaves than in mainstream American Christianity, where "church shopping" is very common, and there is a doctrine of a "priesthood of all believers", i.e., as long as you continue to claim to be Christian you're A-OK. Mormonism does insist that Mormonism is important, and most Mormons believe that.

But I think the parent is correct. This is to be expected whenever you challenge, insult, or disavow the deeply-held beliefs of any group. It's very difficult for everyone when those beliefs are held by close friends and family members.

That many Americans do not care if someone leaves their religion merely demonstrates that they consider religion a non-critical social function instead of a set of core beliefs and practices to guide one's life.

You are absolutely correct. There is no official Mormon policy of shunning. The teachings from the leaders of the church on this matter are very generous and admirable and tend to be along the lines of something like, "reach out in love."

I guess what I was referring to is a kind of informal shunning where close friends or family suddenly cut off contact with you when they learn you have left the church. It would be nice if more people followed the loving teachings from leaders. Many continue to maintain loving relationships, but others want nothing more to do with you, even after years of friendship.

I take responsibility for this relationship shifting to some degree. Sometimes I wish I had never told anyone I had left the church so my friends and family would assume I was still part of the tribe. It's not easy to hide it though since various small hints can give it away, like being seen with a coffee or without your temple garment undershirt. It's difficult.

I sympathize. I think that, unfortunately, it is a larger-scale psychological problem. Many people are fair-weather friends and we don't realize it until certain types of storms come in. The sad reality is that a lot of people are simply disappointing when stressors are applied.

I'm a practicing Mormon and I want to let you know that I have a lot of respect for your experience here. I think it's better than the experience of many who've left the Church and allow what often begin as justified frustrations to turn into resentment, hostility, and occasionally even spiteful, hateful obsession (all aboard the /r/exmormon train CHOO CHOO).

Perhaps more surprisingly, I also think it's better than the experience of many who stay in the Church, but decline to probe, or refuse to be intellectually honest with themselves.

We should inquire into these issues and IMO, it's better to spend some time being honest and sorting it out, which can include withdrawal from activity if one feels that's necessary to be consistent, than to continue to do things to keep up appearances and push yourself into a much more dangerous internal conflict.

I find that those who have these unresolved problems with the Church that truly trouble them, but have attempted to repress them for the sake of appearances or congeniality instead of addressing them responsibly, eventually break down and become the bitter, obsessive types referenced above. That's terrible for everyone, themselves included.

So while we clearly disagree on some religious matters, I think intellectual and personal consistency and honesty are much more important than blindly or desperately clinging to something you can't feel OK about (and I would add that it's my opinion that the Church doesn't want people to do this, either).

Thanks for your comments, I really do enjoy your perspective. I don't live in Utah anymore but I'd love to get a bite with you at some point if we're ever in the same place at the same time. Feel free to email @ gmail if you're going to be in Central Florida.

> ...there is a doctrine of a "priesthood of all believers", i.e., as long as you continue to claim to be Christian you're A-OK.

That's not what that means to a non-Mormon Christian. In fact, as far as behavior goes, it calls for the opposite. Reading 1 Peter chapter 2, it's clear that it says that Christians are all responsible for priestly duties, in the way they behave, the way they speak, and the way they care for the spiritual lives of the people around them.

Even more clearly, at the end of James 2, it says exactly the opposite. It says trust in God is empty if your trust isn't influencing your behavior (faith without works is dead).

The notion of a priesthood of believers is significant in a way that contrasts with the Mormon church, though. Protestant Christians believe that the healthy Christian Church enables and supports Christians (and everyone else for that matter) but that no organizational leadership functions as gatekeepers "the saved", godly marriage, or any other special status.

I don't want to derail this into a big theological discussion, but yes, certainly there are mainstream Christians who take their beliefs seriously and seek to practice them. It was not my intention to mean that there aren't.

I was specifically referring to the Calvinist belief that Christ's grace alone provides salvation to the pre-destined, whom are "unconditionally elected", i.e., chosen for a fixed salvation regardless of their past or future conduct. While stating this theological difference, I recognize that many Calvinists believe that living a conforming Christian life is a necessary signal of this election.

As it pertains to the topic at hand, the point was to illustrate that mainstream Christians are less likely to be concerned over changes in affiliation, or even some changes in conduct, due to this doctrine that the "priesthood of all believers" is active and allows good people to re-affiliate freely. Combined with the Calvinist doctrine of unconditional election, which is widely but not universally accepted in mainstream Protestantism, specific religious distinctions are of little concern to many Protestants.

I'll agree about the changes in affiliation being generally unimportant in practice and culture. Though that's not very theologically sound, either. We can leave that to the side other than to say that reconciliation, forgiveness, and unity are clearly commanded in the Bible.

I was more concerned about the more popular misconception about protestant Christianity: that it mostly involves claiming a label then going to heaven. This does a lot of harm because a lot of "Christians" are more or less untrained, unaccountable, and frankly bad people. And they are the examples often brought up when discussing hard feelings and distaste for Christianity.

I'd also wouldn't blame predestination for the lack of stress on membership and the consequential toothlessness of shunning. It more has to do with the removal of actual priests (i.e., with collars and robes) from any sort of essential role. You don't have to make any particular clergyman or bishop happy to have a birth blessed, a holy funeral, an honorable wedding, or salvation itself.

>Isn't it the case with every group with strong identity?

It's particularly troublesome in Utah because ~60% of the population is Mormon. It's not difficult to imagine a scenario where you lose your job, or an important supplier relationship because you left the church. Yes, it can happen elsewhere, but there aren't too many places in the US where a single religion is so dominant.

It doesn't even have to involve leaving the church. Choosing not to participate in the mission work that most Mormons do after high school, for example, has some shame associated with it.

Southern Baptism is that dominant in many parts of the South.

Across an entire state or city larger than 100,000 population? (not challenging you...just curious)

Depends. There are some maps around by county.

Southern Baptism isn't monolithic in the kind of way that the LDS church is, though. Individual Baptist churches are relatively autonomous, and often differ from each other on details of religious belief or practice.

Every culture has its own baggage, and indeed it is true that some people will make assumptions, or pretend that they're "better Mormons" because they followed more rules. But my experience is that these people are fairly rare.

I'm Mormon and I didn't go on a mission. It comes up rarely, probably not even once a year. Not going on a mission is not necessarily a signal that anything bad happened; some people have health constraints or personal matters that prevent them from serving. Also, tons of people haven't gone on missions, either because they had those types of issues, or they were not practicing around mission age, or the political/economic climate in their country at the time didn't allow it (especially the case around war time), or simply because they were not members of the Church around mission age.

The only sass I've personally received for this is from people, usually people who've left the Church or are on their way out, who've tried to turn it back around on me when I've tried to correct a misconception about our beliefs or teachings.

The Church does not endorse ANY disavowment or disowning of people who fail to practice, change their religious affiliations, etc.

Families are not only advised but expected to remain open and supportive of their family members, whether they go on missions, leave the Church, or whatever. That doesn't mean endorsing behavioral changes that Mormons believe are immoral, it just means not disrespecting or shunning people over such changes. The Church encourages fellowship, not shunning.

Though it's obviously addressed less frequently, the Church would not support someone cutting off a vendor or changing a normal relationship in any way due to changes in religious affiliation.

Many Mormons went through such an affiliation changes themselves when they entered the Church, and endured their own measure of intolerance by doing so. There is no intent to inflict this disrespect and pain on others, regardless of one's personal level of agreement.

This is not to detract from the fact that the Church has significant cultural affects on Utah and that non-members can sometimes feel out of place. Just to clarify that the Church does everything it can to encourage members to be welcoming, supportive, and tolerant. Unfortunately, it won't always work out that way, but that's the goal.

>It's not difficult to imagine a scenario where you lose your job, or an important supplier relationship because you left the church.

By the same token, it's not difficult to imagine a scenario where you lose your job because you live in, say, NYC, and you broke with the sacred values of the left. E.g. revealed you voted from Trump.

This happens all the time. We see it on the large scale in the media quite regularly (e.g. Palmer Luckey, Brendan Eich, etc).

Moral communities are often pretty much the same, whether secular or religious.

I've lived both places. Utah was pretty unique. Religion makes for a tighter niche than just "lots of liberals".

IMHO you got down voted a lot for pointing out an aspect of human behavior many people (including myself) find very troubling.

The "odd" juxtaposition of compassion and community with racial, sexual, and cultural exclusivity and strict taboos is normal. It's how a tribe normally works.

Modern cosmopolitan culture tries to do away with the bad stuff, but many believe this also did away with the good. A major tenet of neo-reaction is that cosmopolitan culture leads to a kind of cold social alienation and lack of identity.

Personally I think there is some truth to this, but I can't embrace it. I find it completely unacceptable. If this is actually hard wired into us then the answer is genetic engineering.

> my Mormon loved ones told me that they were concerned about the future of my children, that I was depriving my family of happiness in heaven, and, as one of my own parents told me, they didn't know who I was anymore.

If they believe that you must be religious or else you burn in hell for all of eternity, then their reaction makes sense. They are behaving that way out of concern for your well being.

You're absolutely right. Whenever I've received a very stern scolding from a Mormon friend or family member over my decision to stop participating in Mormonism, I've tried to respond by saying that I'm grateful for their deep concern, which demonstrates that they care about me.

It would be nice if we could all believe what we want to without consequences to our relationships, but unfortunately that isn't a realistic expectation in many (maybe most) religious communities.

"We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/a-of-f/1.11?lang=eng#10

Mormons do not believe that non-believers will "burn in hell for all of eternity". Mormons believe that the afterlife will be far superior to earth life for virtually everyone.

Only a tiny segment of humanity, who commit "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost", which Jesus described as the unpardonable sin, will have an existence of endless pain and misery. The belief is that very few people are even capable of getting themselves into this arrangement.

Mormons feel serious concern when someone leaves the Church for multiple reasons, but the biggest factor is simple human psychology. Fundamentally, you're rejecting a culture and a belief system into which you've been initiated, accepted, and accommodated for many years, and a set of traditions on which your family has based their lives, potentially for generations.

The fact is, this hurts peoples' feelings, and they're going to have a hard time coping with it, and it's by no means specific to Mormonism. It's applicable to anyone whose religion plays a major function in their lives. If anything, Mormonism's unique redemptive and compassionate doctrine softens the blow.

It should be noted here that, unlike some other groups, Mormons do not have a policy of shunning people who leave. It may be difficult for family and friends to accept the lifestyle change, but the Church preaches nothing but tolerance, outreach, and compassion to everyone, including, and in some cases especially, to those who've left.

Someone leaving an ideology opens the possibility that the ideology may not be founded on solid ground in the minds of those who stay.

Mormons spend a lot of time proclaiming how much they know it's true to each other. I've always believed this to be some sort of a mental trick like "if we just keep saying it we'll make it so". This isn't to bag on Mormons either. Lots of groups do something similar (many of which are not regions). I have to assume it's an essential part of social functioning at some level.

Someone leaving undoes at least a part of this exposing an underlying crack in the carefully constructed reality. Thus it's a threat. Predictably people don't react well (nor understandably are they comfortable around) threats to their essential world views.

There is a lot to admire about Mormonism. But given the theology it has to be a fair amount of work to maintain belief in the face of modern knowledge.

This probably applies to a lot of more intense religions that take dim views of apostates. Or any other belief systems for that matter (i.e. the Silicon Valley echo chamber with apostate Peter Thiel).

A couple of things...

1. I believe leaving an ideology has more to do with the individual that the ideology, especially when the ideology remains consistent. For example, I was born into a Mormon family, baptized into the LDS church, and even served as an LDS missionary in Tokyo, Japan for two years. Then, I rebelled against the religion, for a variety of self-centered reasons, and demanded to be excommunicated. I remained antagonistic towards the Mormon church for many years. A few years ago, I decided to return to it. During all that time, I was the only thing that changed. The Mormon church remained consistent.

2. In my experience, the LDS church does not take a dim view against its apostates. I was one for many years, and they never approached me with anything but love and kindness, even when they were met with my vitriolic attitude. I have nothing but the utmost respect for the LDS church, and their attitudes towards me during my years as an apostate.

I could tell you a very different story but I won't. Vitriol isn't something I have though.

I'm at peace and it sounds like you are too.

I always wonder about the Mormon missionaries.

Did you actually convert anyone? Or is that not even the point?

Yes they do, and that is their main purpose. They also do service projects, etc.

I was a Mormon missionary.

Each missionary memorizes this to drill in their purpose: "My purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end." https://www.lds.org/manual/preach-my-gospel-a-guide-to-missi...

Most of our activities were finding people interested in the LDS church and teaching those people about the LDS church.

I would have 20-30 45 minute in house meetings a week with people that were interested. We spent most of our time knocking on doors and meeting new people to fill up those teaching slots.

For service, probably 5-10 hours a week. Usually set up by the local LDS congregation or people we met on the street (ex. "I'm not interested but I could use help power spraying my roof).

I had an awesome mission experience. It was a lot of fun. I met a lot of interesting people, with tough backgrounds, looking for something new in their lives. Made me really grateful for my middle class upbringing and want to help people less fortunate than me.

Just wanted to thank you guys, met a lot of Mormons all over the world. Great people, can always talk snd discuss things, always recognize you by the n cell clothes you wear and the fact you always speak the local language :)

Hey thank you very much! Very kind of you.

>Did you actually convert anyone? Or is that not even the point?

It does happen, but it's not the point.

A mission is the ideal maturing experience. You get dropped off in what is essentially a random place, anywhere in the world where Mormons are allowed to go (most places). My brothers went to Philly and Auckland. My dad went to Japan. You have to pay a few hundred bucks a month to go, which means you have to save up through your teen years. The missionary program will pay for your apartment and give you a little bit of money for groceries, they'll provide transportation (which is frequently bikes, not cars), and that's it. The rest of the experience is committed to volunteer work; missionaries cannot have other employment.

Once you're there, you're expected to go out and talk to as many people as you can. You spend your time helping people, dedicated to teaching them religion and providing service. Every day. For two years. And you pay for the privilege.

You meet all kinds of people this way, literally anyone who is willing to talk to you. You learn religious fundamentals well and see how it affects peoples' lives. You learn to be persistent and diligent. You learn how to handle rejection; most people don't want to talk to you, and will slam the door in your face. Sometimes people will even spit on you. You develop toughness.

Making a generation of hard-working, committed, and grateful adults, with at least some perspective on something outside of their own comfort zone, is the true point of the missionary program. Utah is an underappreciated testament to how well it works.

I was sent to Europe. On one hand, it was an uplifting, wonderful experience. I taught the missionary lessons to very kind people. Three or four of them joined the church. I became extremely close to the other missionaries.

On the other hand, it was an excruciating experience. Common daily routine for me (I followed the missionary handbook with my whole heart): 6:30am: wake up, exercise. 8am: read Book of Mormon and Bible, take notes. 9am: study the scriptures with your companion. 10am: Study the language. 10:30am - 8pm: Proselyting. This consisted of stopping people in the street, knocking on doors, and going to appointments to teach lessons. Since interest in Mormonism is low in Europe, we taught few lessons, so we spent most of our time talking to people in the street and knocking on doors. We spent most of the day facing rejection. We were yelled at probably daily by someone calling us a cult. Once we were interviewed by a local newspaper who wanted to know more about Mormons. The interview went well, but in the article they called us a cult. It was highly discouraging. We weren't allowed to read any non-church material, listen to any non-church music, or watch any movies or television. Internet access was limited 30 minutes per week to email family. You write down goals for how many appointments you will have each week and how many baptisms you will have each month. There was some pressure to get good numbers. (All of this said, I deeply respect Mormonism and do not consider it a cult at all.)

I spent a lot of time writing code with pencil and paper because I missed it. Some of my companions rebuked me for it, but some were compassionate and encouraged it. I often thought about leaving the mission, but there is immense social pressure not to come home early. It can bring shame on you and embarrass your family.

I think Mormon missionaries have a tough life. I love them dearly and always wish them well. It is a difficult situation to be placed in, and many of them behave beautifully and admirably in the face of adversity.

I hope no Mormons here feel that my words are trying to attack them or things they love. I love the Mormon church and find many of its teachings beautiful. However, I'd like to convey what it's like to be Mormon, struggle with the experience, and recognize a desire to follow a different path.

Yes, and a lot of them take wives from whichever foreign land they were in too. Part of the plan to grow the religion.

Do you have a source for both of those claims?

As a Mormon, I can say that from my experience, "a lot of them take wives from whichever foreign land they were in too", isn't true. In fact, if someone does it's uncommon enough that it's noteworthy.. but it's not terribly surprising if it does happen. Also, there's women who serve missions too, and have for a while.

With "Part of the plan to grow the religion.", I've never seen that in the church's plan.

Hmmm, maybe my sampling size is biased, but I do know two from the same family who did. Also a lot of religions have implicit plans for growth. For example, not eating swine could be tied to pork being less sanitary back in the day.

oh wow, i didn't know 25% of missionaries were women...

Anyway, I don't have anything against Mormon missionaries. Just missionaries in general.

Do you have kids? It is much harder for non/ex-mormon kids in certain places in Utah. Once the initial effort to convert you fails, you frequently get treated very poorly. Lots of mormon parents won't let their kids play with non-mormon kids, and an even larger percent won't let their kids date non-mormons.

We live in a fairly mormon-heavy part of Utah, and while I really like our neighbors and don't feel like the religion thing is a big deal at all, both my wife and I look back on our experiences in high school and worry a lot about what life in school will be like for our kids when they start going.

> Lots of mormon parents won't let their kids play with non-mormon kids, and an even larger percent won't let their kids date non-mormons.

As a Mormon, I'd like to let you know something: Those people are assholes. That kind of behavior is rude, and uninviting (literally); two qualities that are opposite what LDS people (Mormons) are taught to be.

Unfortunately, this is a common problem in the Utah bubble. Those parents are well meaning - they just want their kids to fit into a mould they believe to be a better life - yet go about it in entirely the wrong way.

I was lucky enough to grow up in an enigma inside the Utah bubble (an Army base), where that behavior was just not even viable, and therefore scarcely exists (if at all). On behalf of Mormons all around the world, I would like to apologise for that kind of behavior.

> I am not sure why Utah has such an odd reputation outside of the state

Part of it is that Mormon influence. As you mention, there are a lot of positive things they bring to the table. Like any other church, though, it's not all positive.

Because they are a dominant proportion of the state (~60% of the population), their religious views leak into politics, public schools, law, business relationships, media, and so forth.

If your values match theirs, it's terrific. If not, you'll run into issues. The Mormon view on LGBT rights isn't terribly progressive, for example. They also didn't allow black males to "hold the priesthood" until the very late 70's. Note that almost all adult males in the religion "hold the priesthood". Not quite enough time has passed for that stigma to have cleared away.

Isn't that the case anywhere in the U.S. though? Don't local politics always reflect the cultures and opinions of those doing the voting? Isn't that by intentional design?

60% of the population being of one religion in an entire state is unique in the US.

Perhaps, but having 60% of the local populace embracing the same ideology isn't.

> I've met Mormons who have asked me where I am from and not only know where that country is but spoke to me in my NATIVE tougue. I was very impressed.

That's because they send missionaries all over the world to convert people to Mormonism. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but they aren't really interested in other countries, languages, or cultures beyond using that knowledge to impose their own culture and religion on others.

Oh please. Most missionaries return with a real love for their assigned countries, languages, and cultures. Just because you disagree with their beliefs, you don't have to dehumanize them.

All the Mormons I've met are the nicest people you could ask. I've met a lot, in different places. It's a hobby of mine talking with them. I'm an atheist b t genuinely believe if all the people would act like this, world would be pretty damn close to being a heaven.

Hard to combat weather and geography. The inversions in SLC are pretty powerful effects.

Utah is more like what the US used to be like. Demographically, it's like early 60s America. Whiter, higher social trust, more Christian, neighborly, higher work ethic, higher rates of marriage, more kids, fewer illegitimate kids, no grievance industry etc. Many of these factors are looked down on by people of a certain political outlook. Seen as regressive. And yet they're happier in Utah.

The Mormons try harder to keep on the straight and narrow because their religion is less authentic - it's made up by a couple of PT Barnum types, rather than centuries of tradition. You don't need to try hard if you're resting on a thousand years of tradition.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=371&v=7q6brMrFw0E

Perhaps the lesson is that you should join the most absurd religion (or invent your own) and then make up for its absurdity strive to live a good life in order to prove the effectiveness of the religion.

On the other hand Utah has one of the higher suicide rates in the country[1], and leads the country in use of antidepressants[2].

Despite being tongue-in-cheek I think the lesson is not so cut and dry. In my personal, anecdotal experience, a lot of the behavior in Utah is forced to keep up the image of a particular life style.

1: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6345a10.htm 2: http://articles.latimes.com/2002/feb/20/news/mn-28924

Statistics about Utah must always be taken with a grain of salt, even larger than is typically appropriate for gross/large-scale generalizations. People know that Utah stats are seen as a proxy for the success and/or failure of Mormonism and will distort findings to accommodate their agenda.

A quick example of this is that after Prop 8 passed in CA, a "study", using data sourced from a single, unnamed "top 10 pay site vendor" was published claiming that Utah had the highest incidence of online porn use in the US. That myth stuck for a while, but PornHub started releasing state-by-state traffic reports on its blog and have repeatedly and clearly debunked it. By those numbers, Utah regularly ranks in the bottom 10 states for online porn use.

Regarding depression, Mormon leaders explicitly encourage people to seek mental health treatment if/as necessary, and actively work to destigmatize the use of antidepressants, so increased use in Utah should not be a surprise. Leaders have told them it's OK, so they proceed without the guilt that may be unresolved in other areas.

Just conjecture here, but maybe a correlation between suicide and antidepressant use is a signal that antidepressants are inadequate and/or, at least in some cases, potentially counterproductive, rather than a signal that the populace is less happy vs. the baseline.

I've had so many jack-mormon friends over the last 20 years. We'd drink beer and whiskey, and smoke a joint. Anti-depressants are straight-up drugs. It's like removing the fructose from fruit and leaving the fiber. The mormons I've known that were still devout wouldn't even consume caffeine.

Edit: Over the last 30 years my 3 best ski days were at Solitude, Snowbird, and Alta. I just wish you all had more realistic laws for beer and weed.

A joke I heard once is that entering Provo you see a sign: "Have a Nice Day. It's the Law."

My personal experience is consistent with your second point.

But I'd be careful about making conclusions from the suicide/antidepressant statistics. It's shown to be highly correlated to altitude. I've included a couple links from google search to demonstrate the point.

That being said, the Mormon/LDS church does cause some psychological hardships for certain groups such as LGBT and ex-mormons... at least in my anecdotal experience.

suicide rate map: http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2015/03/higher-suicide-rates-o...

altitude map: http://weather.unisys.com/usgs/

How do you account for the uptick in the suicide rate since the introduction of the Mormon policy of excommunicating gays and disallowing their children from baptism? The altitude certainly didn't increase...

As a Mormon, allow me to suggest that the logic underlying your comment re:less authenticity strikes me as kinda PT Barnum in its own special way. I mean, I am used to receiving informed tips on the history of my church from those who know better than me, but the other high-wire mental gymnastics here, well, hope we got a nice net underneath.

Except that teen suicides in Utah are up. Way up. As in it's tripled in the past decade. And one of the factors is the Mormon church's notorious hostility towards LGBT youth: http://kutv.com/news/local/is-utahs-youth-suicide-rate-linke...

Utah has the 5th highest teen suicide rate in the country: https://www.equalityutah.org/issues/lgbt-youth

More: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-knoll/is-the-recent-r... http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/johnwright/utah_s_y...

As far as churches go, the Mormon church does not have "notorious hostility" toward LGBT persons, and does everything it can to give hope to youth who feel they may be part of that group.

It is true that Mormons maintain a doctrine that forbids homosexual behavior. Other than giving that up, they've done everything they can to be welcoming and accepting of gay people, regularly encouraging members to be civil, kind, and sympathetic to those who engage in homosexual behavior, despite disagreements with reference to the propriety of the conduct.

Gay people can and do attend church services, and are included in church activities insofar as their personal compliance with worthiness standards allows. The Church has emphasized repeatedly that homosexual proclivities or temptations themselves are not sinful.

Gay couples even attend church as couples, and the congregation is expected to be warm and non-judgmental.

See https://mormonandgay.lds.org/ .

Well, maybe things are in the process of changing, but gay Mormons will not feel completely comfortable until the doctrine forbidding homosexual behavior is consigned to the dustbin of history. You can't say that the behavior is forbidden without having some residue of the belief that homosexuality is inherently sinful, and that residue has impact on people no matter how much you paper over it by trying to be "warm and non-judgmental".

From the FAQ accessible via your link: Identifying as gay may mean you experience same-sex attraction but choose not to act on these feelings.

Yes, and it might also mean that you experience same-sex attraction which is returned and which you choose to act on gleefully! This page is trying to sound non-judgmental, but it shows its true feelings when it says things like this, without allowing for the obvious alternative. And if you think the subtext isn't heard, guess again!

Mormons also believe that any sexual relations outside of a legal, heterosexual marriage are a sin. I believe in this doctrine. I had many friends who found this doctrine hard to live by between that wanted to act on opposite-sex attraction with glee! I also found this doctrine REALLY hard. I wanted, really wanted, to act with some glee on some people I was attracted to and who were attracted to me. But I didn't. I dated, I got married, and now I have a happy marriage and family.

Would I have been judged? Maybe. Did I have fear of judgement? Maybe. I do know I felt there was a benefit to following this doctrine of celibacy and marriage. Did I judge my friends who didn't follow this? No I did not. Did they feel judged? Possibly, you'd have to ask them. I do know a number of them wish they had followed this doctrine when they did not in the past.

My point is, beliefs by their very nature can make people feel uncomfortable. Beliefs by their very nature can be very hard to live by. Should we remove them all? Where do we draw the line?

> Where do we draw the line?

Beliefs that cause an increase in death by suicide probably need to be looked at to see if they're really that important.

The myth that an external force can drive otherwise-sane people to suicide merely by disapproving of some of their behaviors needs to go.

It is, ironically, perpetuated to shame and humiliate political opponents, by insidiously attempting to saddle them with responsibility for the deaths of the depressed and mentally ill.

Healthy people do not commit suicide, and they certainly don't over issues as ethereal and inconsequential as some religion's disapproval. Just having any religion automatically makes you the target of more condemnation than not, because most religions reserve eternal bliss for their own members.

Furthermore, almost every religion preaches against theft, dishonesty, duplicity, extramarital sexual conduct of any kind, and a range of other basic moral violations that are consistently verboten throughout the history of the human family. People violate these things routinely and, despite the frequent imperatives issued and social pressures imposed to encourage compliance, somehow refrain from killing themselves.

If the argument is that it's about the typical human response to homosexual conduct being so negative that it drives people over the edge, I don't see how the Mormon church, or most other Christian churches, could have any culpability for that, since a universal Christian theme is redemption, forgiveness, and an ability to leave behind a past life of sin and error whenever one commits themselves to doing so.

Mormonism in particular, as described in the parent comment, makes an effort to be civil and polite, and to encourage families to fellowship and associate with their children and friends regardless of one's level of agreement with their personal choices, including their sexual choices.

That doesn't mean that one must endorse, accept, witness, or accommodate any and all behaviors, but it means that one should remain respectful and polite, treat others with dignity and decorum, and continue to have contact in a positive manner to the fullest extent possible.

The Church is compassionate and welcoming to sinners [read: humans] of all types. No special scrutiny or shame is applied to persons who are inclined to sin by engaging in homosexual behaviors vs. those are inclined to sin differently. Any type of sexual misconduct, heterosexual or homosexual, is forbidden by the Church and regularly preached against, and I guarantee you there are many more adulterous husbands feeling guilt and shame over the much-more-frequently discussed topic of marital fidelity than there are homosexuals feeling shame on the rather rare occasion that homosexuality is broached.

> The myth that an external force can drive otherwise-sane people to suicide merely by disapproving of some of their behaviors needs to go.

It's not a myth.

It's reasonably well established now that LGBT youth are at increased risk of suicide, and that the rates of death in LGBT youth are higher in areas that have lower acceptance of LGBT youth.

The rest of your post is full of inaccuracies about suicide. You need to read some more modern research. Here's a good place to start: http://research.bmh.manchester.ac.uk/cmhs

BTW: That "committed" word? That's a big signal.

Restating the point does not constitute a rebuttal. I understand that there is a myth along these lines. The myth, of course, specifies that homosexuals feel oppression, which causes them to commit suicide.

I also understand that people have published documents to attempt to give support to this myth that suicide is correlated with the quantity of social approval.

This has several loose ends, like "How are LGBT youth identified, and is that method reliable, particularly with reference to the effect of puberty and hormonal changes on sexual inclinations?", "Are there other regional factors that are better explanations for the increased teen suicide rate? [e.g., areas with 'less social acceptance' for LGBT may also have increased poverty, decreased access to mental health services, etc.]", "Do we see this affect of suicide motivated solely by social approval among other groups, including those whose oppression and/or isolation is much more serious or intense?", and so on.

As with most publications dealing with controversial issues in the soft sciences, there is plenty of room for disagreement, and on inspection, it usually becomes clear that the publication is intended to promote a particular agenda or conclusion rather than to break through to new objective understandings or research. This is true across the spectrum, and it's why you have both left-wing and right-wing "think tanks".

This myth is a transparent political device intended to humiliate and silence those who'd disagree, and we've had weak enough backbones the last 30 years or so that we've allowed it to work.

EDIT: Your edit is a good example of the lecturing, elitist tone used in shame-based political opposition. It's funny that you single out the term "commit suicide" as some type of indicator, like we're to believe that suicide is not something that someone does, but rather a random accidental event.

Again, I fully understand that there are people who will wrap such absurd conclusions in dense, self-indulgent academic babble and pretend like this grants it credibility, but most people have a sense of connection to reality, a limit on their willing suspension of disbelief invoked by the academic credential, that disallows such disconnected, convoluted logic from taking hold.

The funny thing here is that the purveyors of these theories hardly realize the vast amount of religiosity that goes into their willingness to believe not just the unfalsifiable and supernatural, but the clearly hysterical and nonsensical conclusions that these groups and organizations emit.

> This myth is a transparent political device intended to humiliate and silence those who'd disagree

No, it really isn't.

Try to imagine what it's like to be a teenager and realize you're gay. What if you had been gay? How would your parents have reacted? Your grandparents? Your friends? Wouldn't they have let you know, however subtly, that you had let them down, that you were no longer the same person to them, no longer someone they could feel proud of and close to? Even if they all made an effort to be outwardly polite -- and it would be remarkable if all of them did -- can't you see how that would make it even worse? Wouldn't you feel ashamed???

Shame is indeed what this is all about.

> Healthy people do not commit suicide, and they certainly don't over issues as ethereal and inconsequential as some religion's disapproval.

You don't really seem to think your religion's tenets are "ethereal and inconsequential".

> If the argument is that it's about the typical human response to homosexual conduct being so negative that it drives people over the edge, I don't see how the Mormon church [...] could have any culpability for that

Then I encourage you to read more about the phenomenon.

>You don't really seem to think your religion's tenets are "ethereal and inconsequential".

Surely I do. Religion deals with the tangible only indirectly. It is focused on the supernatural. Religious condemnation, to the extent it occurs, is not material in reality.

If one truly believed they were doomed, they would want to live as long as possible and put off the anticipated divine punishment.

>Then I encourage you to read more about the phenomenon.

As you say, "shame is indeed what this is all about". The assumption that one is an ignoramus based on their disagreement with a popular belief is an attempt to humiliate people into silence.

I know the argument well. They are always variations of "the Church told me not to do something that I wanted to do. I told them that I couldn't help it, so I was going to do it anyway, and they said, 'Sorry, it's still against the rules.' This caused me untold anxiety and has made me suicidal." I'm not ignorant to such arguments; I simply do not find them credible.

> Beliefs by their very nature can be very hard to live by. Should we remove them all? Where do we draw the line?

A fair question, and one we must each ultimately answer for ourselves.

I'm glad your choices worked out for you. I had a number of sexual relationships before I got married. While there are certainly some particular encounters and entanglements I regret -- more the ones where I caused pain than where I felt pain -- there were also several I look back on fondly. Even though we weren't right for each other for the long run, we loved, we shared, we grew, and they are part of who I am now. I love my wife very much, but I'm still glad to have known others.

Yeah, I mean, there is no doubt that there is a fundamental disagreement about homosexuality between Mormon doctrine (and religion in general) and the popular contemporary understanding.

The Church condemns a set of behaviors, not a state of being, mind, or attraction, so regardless of one's opinion on the origin or fixed condition of sexual attraction, there is no need to feel guilt for inclinations, inherent or no.

There is already ample theological justification for proclivities toward any sinful behavior, which we all have: Earth is a "fallen world", a testing ground where temptation must be presented to all and adequately resisted. This covers forbidden sexual activity, which is not limited to homosexuality, just as well as it covers any other inclination toward sinful or negative behaviors.

Unlike other issues that brought Mormonism into conflict with the prevailing social dogma, this is not flexible and should not be expected to change.

Despite all this, far from hunkering down and drawing exclusionary barriers, the Church is trying, as best as it can, to communicate that everyone is welcome in the "hospital for sinners" that the Church comprises.

Everyone fails to meet the standards that the Church defines along some axes, since Christ literally commands men to be perfect [0]. The goal is to get people accelerating and proceeding toward the ideal, and to provide support in their attempt to do so. Everyone is welcomed to that effort, with as much participation as they are willing to give.

[0] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5%3A48&...

The idea that desires and attractions must be acted on is an incredibly immature position, sexual or not. Determining if, when, how much, and in what way you should act on your appetites, attractions, or desires is part of what being a mature adult is about. You also seem to be suggesting that disordered attractions can't exist, as if they are infallible, unquestionable, even divine in origin, or that you've somehow given same-sex attraction dispensation that does not extend to other attractions regarded as disordered. People do distinguish between same-sex attraction and the gay lifestyle and there are plenty of people who have the former but do not live out the latter because they believe that pleasure, consent, and social approval do not determine whether something is morally good or not (note that this is not an intrinsically religious question, but one belonging to ethics).

It is unfortunate that subjects such as these cannot be discussed in a dispassionate and reasonable manner and that arguing or holding that the gay lifestyle is morally wrong is somehow an act of hatred or bigotry. If youths with same-sex attraction are indeed committing suicide at high rates in Utah, it makes sense to find out why and address that. It does not follow that they are committing suicide because the Mormon church holds the gay lifestyle as wrong and that therefore the church must change its position. If the moral (again, not religious) principles are true, then they aren't the problem.

> "the gay lifestyle"

There's only one, is there? Stereotype, much?

I know several committed gay couples. Is that "the gay lifestyle" that you have in mind?

For one of them to cheat on their partner would be destructive, that's true. That applies independent of the genders involved, doesn't it?

As for singles who have made no commitments but still have sex with one another, is that more immoral if they're gay than if they're straight? I don't think it's immoral in either case, but if you do, I still don't see how gender preference enters into it.

So a gay couple is OK now as long as they don't actually do anything... gay? This must be new.

I guess Evergreen is done with then?

I think claiming that the LDS church hasn't been hostile toward LGBT people is pretty disingenuous, much like claiming they haven't been historically explicitly racist towards black people.

One doesn't have to much more than a google search for "Lds gay quotes" to find a long history of negative teachings from church leaders about gay people. The church recently expended a ton of time and effort to attempt to block gay people from being able to be married. The church had policies about gay behavior (even non-sexual in nature) at its universities until recently. It has had a role in forced gay conversion therapy, which is a horrendous practice.

Even setting aside official teachings, church members in Utah have been incredibly hostile towards gays in the past. I grew up Mormon, and I heard all the things people said about gay people. I worked at the LDS church, where I overheard 2 other employees bemoaning the fact that it was 'probably illegal' to bring a machine gun to a planned gay rally in SLC and mow down all the gays there. Others who were there just chuckled and mumbled about political correctness. I wish I could say that attitudes like that were the exception, rather than the rule.

I appreciate that the church leaders are trying to take a much more moderate approach, and I know there are a lot of church members who work hard to treat LGBT people appropriately and work to make it more accepted by others, and it is really encouraging to see some of the changes over the past 5 years. I do think, however, it is wrong to pretend that the LDS church hasn't contributed to the problem, and I think even the current teaching of "hey, so god decided to tell us that you actually can't change your sexuality, so it is cool if you are gay, but we still think it is kind of icky, so don't do gay stuff" is really hard for someone in that situation. Can you put yourself in their shoes for a minute, and think about how you'd feel in that situation?

The issue is that "hostility toward" is interpreted differently.

I want to be clear that I am not pretending, and do not intend to pretend, that the Church condones homosexual behavior. Nor do I intend to pretend that the Church ever will condone homosexual behavior, because I think they're doctrinally forbidden from doing so (whereas there was no explicit doctrinal barrier re: priesthood eligibility or plural marriage).

The difference is that Mormons do not consider themselves more hostile toward homosexual behavior than they consider themselves hostile toward other types of sinful behavior, and as detailed above, the leadership goes to lengths to try to ensure that everyone understands that those who practice homosexuality should be treated with the same civility and respect to which anyone else is entitled.

Pro-gay activists, however, interpret "hostility" to mean any disagreement whatsoever with their activities and demands, up to and including disagreement with the demand that these activities enjoy state sponsorship via marital benefits.

We have to accept that there is a basic moral disagreement here. No one is trying to hide that or say it doesn't exist, or imply that it is going to disappear.

The difference is that Mormons are trying to maintain friendly and civil relations despite that, and trying to encourage people to be sympathetic to the homosexual POV without abandoning their moral standards. Meanwhile, the activists on the other side do everything in their power to lay the blame for suicide, death, and many other massive social malignancies on religion, history, culture, politics, and anything else that disagrees with them.

As an obviously-biased Mormon I'm not sure the conclusion follows.

Certainly there are fantastical elements to my religion (as there are to all religions I know of), but we don't do what we do to compensate for that. We do what we do because we believe it.

Perhaps not to compensate, but to validate. You would never feel compelled to act in a certain way because the sky is blue, or because water is wet. But if you have a political or religious belief, however absurd, you feel a compulsion to act.

I don't see why that's a more logical conclusion than "I believe God wants me to do x therefore I do x"

You're missing a fundamental part so I'll add it in, but even so, it's still incredibly simplified so as to push a certain derogatory view.

"I believe God wants me to do x because y therefore I do x because y and/or z"

The y in that is the supernatural stuff - the story. I wouldn't go to see a movie if it didn't have a good story. I wouldn't go if it was just a list of facts. But that's what the dull modern atheists types want me to do in life.

Funnily, my intent was to show that y was the dull stuff. Maybe another addition would be "I believe God wants me to do x because y, in the context of s, therefore I do x because y and/or z"?

For example, take a thing Mormons are commonly known for—not drinking alcohol. It came about in what we call the 'word of wisdom' [1] [2].

s := The story part would be "In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forewarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation—"

x := don't drink (and other health related things like eating meat sparingly)

y := to be healthy in both body and mind/spirit

z := I have faith (faith is effectively trust in someone who has shown that they're trustworthy) in God

[1] https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/89?lang=eng

[2] https://www.lds.org/topics/word-of-wisdom?lang=eng&old=true

I read the linked religious texts and the story doesn't seem compelling enough for me to stop drinking the Leffe at my elbow. The fictional story has to to good enough to resonate as a truth. Aesop had the right idea.

Lot's of religions have the "I believe God wants me to do x" component without their followers then actually doing X. Non of the Catholics I know, for example, are particularly catholic or overly christian in their day to day behaviour, while all the Mormons I know try very hard to be, well, Mormon.

I'd guess that one of the differences comes in what we believe; specifically, Mormons believe that God still commands us and communicates with us today through chosen leaders - the Prophet and Twelve Apostles. We hear from them once every six months in what we call General Conference (curiously enough it concluded a couple hours ago). So they can add a level of recency and organization to commandments that might otherwise be more vague and ambiguous - e.g. "God wants each member to not eat one meal a week and donate that money to the poor" is a somewhat of a commandment for Mormons, and extends from God. Announcing that five new temples are to be built came from the Apostles today. For Catholics I don't believe most exact/actionable things are quite as direct.

To be fair PT Barnum types from thousands of years ago should be no more believable than PT Barnum types from 150 years ago.

True, but history produces a variety of personalities so a longer established religion will be more rounded. Schools of thought will generate opposing schools of thought etc. Like if you throw a tennis ball hard into a circular room it will end up going pretty much everywhere.

> The Mormons try harder to keep on the straight and narrow because their religion is less authentic

What you're saying goes against the premise of the church—it being the ancient religion that was lost, and then restored, hence ".. in latter days". In fact, this pattern is common throughout scripture (Bible, Book of Mormon, etc.) where the people fall into what's called apostasy, things are lost, and then it's returned again.

Someone else has already commented on your line about the absurdity, otherwise I would've said something similar.

> Mormons try harder to keep on the straight and narrow because their religion is less authentic - it's made up by a couple of PT Barnum types

This would be outrageous to day about Jews, Lutherans, Muslims ... Mormons are not a special case. At the least, if criticizing other people's religion, offer something that demonstrates thought and contributes value, not just a cheap insult, and show some respect.

Mormon's origin stories are no more unbelievable than other religions', full of angels, the voice of God, ascensions to heaven, reincarnation, etc. People just give more the other stories more leeway because they are the status quo.

> Whiter, higher social trust, more Christian, neighborly, higher work ethic, higher rates of marriage, more kids, fewer illegitimate kids, no grievance industry etc. Many of these factors are looked down on by people of a certain political outlook.

This is a great example of a common problem of political dialog and ideas. It's not real.

Which "people" does this refer to, specifically? Can you name one? Can you cite specific statements by a popular group that corroborates what you are saying? These "people" created in the mind of the commenter, who then criticizes figments of his/her own imagination.

I'm not saying that to pick on the commenter, but to point out that everyone has the tendency of creating somewhat paranoid, imaginary representations of the "other" - 100% dogmatic adherents to political ideologies, hyperbolic, incorporating all the bad things we hear about these other people. Real people are complex (and not even internally consistent), generally good willed toward you, and don't object to things like high marriage rates and kids with parents.

A few observations as a resident of Utah for the past 6 years

(1) Fantastic for outdoor activities: skiing, mountain biking, hiking, camping. Has some of the most popular national parks in the United States (Arches, Bryce Canyon, Zion). 2/3 of the state is federally preserved.

(2) Software industry is huge. Both historically (Novell, WordPerfect) and nowadays. If I had to find a SE job right now, it would take a week, because I'm picky.

(3) Geographically, most of the population lives in a 60 mile stretch along the Salt Lake Valley in the north. South Utah is warmer, more rural, and attracts retirees.

(4) Cost of living is relatively low. Two years ago I bought an older 5 bed, 3 bath, 2000 sq ft, 2 car garage, 0.19 acre house 10 minutes from downtown Salt Lake for less than $200k. Utah is growing fast, so that is changing a little. Still, my income is 33% less than what I could get in SV, and housing is a fifth the cost.

(5) The culture is hugely influenced by Mormonism (similar to say, South America and Catholicism or the South and Baptists). This means industrious people, larger traditional families, more sobriety, and conservative government.

I've seen people come here and hate it, and others come here and love it. The gist of the article is correct: it depends how much you like the traditional "American dream."

I live within an hour of the Utah border and there is great outdoor opportunity. Unfortunately, it's easier to have four wives than smoke a plant.

1) Distance of the SE Utah playground is just as far to SLC as Denver. So it's a moot point.

I can also confidently say the drive from Denver to SE Utah trumps the drive from SLC to SE Utah

Don't disagree, but SLC is insanely close to the Wasatch mountains. Colorado has mountains too, though they're a ways away from Denver, Colorado Springs, Bolder.

I have co-workers that go skiing in the morning, and come in around 10:00am.

Reason for those close mountains, the active wasatch fault line!

Yes if you are bigely into the ski resorts. Denver's overcrowding is a downside.

> For a girl raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, Salt Lake City is a very weird place. I went to Utah precisely because it’s weird. More specifically, because economic data suggest that modest Salt Lake City, population 192,672, does something that the rest of us seem to be struggling with: It helps people move upward from poverty.

By this criterion, should Salt Lake City be so weird to a New Yorker?

Upward Mobility in the 50 Biggest Cities:

1. San Jose 12.9%

2. San Francisco 12.2%

3. Washington DC 11.0%

4. Seattle 10.9%

5. Salt Lake City 10.8%

6. New York 10.5% ...

50. Charlotte 4.4%

Source: Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Hendren, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/documents/

Salt Lake City is not much better than NYC making the article very disingenuous. A map makes the trends more clear: https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/25/the-complex-st...

The difference between good and average is not much, but the difference between average and bad is huge. The traditional 'south' is vastly worse of than most of the US.

PS: Further, when comparing NYC vs Midwest is what it means to be upwardly mobile. NYC the top 1% is vastly higher than the 1% in SLS.

I wasn't able to glean it from the website (on mobile) but what method is used to distinguish between the phenomenon of "the income distribution of the generation living here now is more than the previous generation" vs "for this specific family, the children make more than the parents"

It's seems to me that if a government instituted policies that in effect make it so that poor people cannot survive given the other economic pressures (for example: restrictive new-housing permitting in SF) that that phenomenon could lead to a fallacious inference from "the income distribution of SF citizens has gone up!" to "this generation of SF citizens is earning more than their parents"

Additionally, how meaningful is it to a child that their income is ~10% higher than their parents if their cost of living has increased beyond that. Essentially all the surplus has been consumed.

Edit: it seems that the intergenerarional method is potentially sound

"Linking Children to Parents Parent(s) defined as first person(s) who claim child as a dependent Most children are linked to parents based on tax returns in 1996 We link approximately 95% of children to parents"

Salt Lake City feels like very much an outlier, though, based on the slides -- look at slide 46, Upward mobility (Y_25) Adjusted for Differences in Cost of Living.

Because the cost of living in places like San Jose and SF are much higher than Salt Lake City, even the upper-middle class are relatively poor.

My guess is that kids who grow up in these supercities and get college educations tend to move to other supercities, where even though they might make low 6-figure incomes, they spend a large fraction of that on housing.

edit: Also, parents at the (cost-of-living-adjusted) 25th percentile in more expensive regions make more than parents at the 25th percentile in cheaper regions (and are hence more likely to be college-educated, I'd guess).

Conjecture: the number one driver of a city's upward mobility is fraction of foreign-born population. Poor foreigners move to US with few skills, and then their children do fine. Note that this mechanism has nothing to do with the differences between social services in different cities.

Let's check: Out of the 50 largest cities, here are where those high-mobility cities rank by percentage foreign-born.

   3. San Jose 38.1%
   4. New York 37.7%
   5. San Francisco 34.1%
   21. Seattle 17.1%
   30. Washington DC 12.0%

and Charlotte is #25 with 13.7% foreign born.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b...

So I'd say this conjecture looks pretty good for explaining cities that have the very highest mobility.

(I could not get foreign-born data on Salt Lake City because it's population is less than 200k. I don't understand why your source would list it as part of the "50 Biggest Cities in the US," since the US' 50th city is Arlington, TX with ~380k.)

Your conjecture says nothing about the people already living there.

When you only take people who meet the H1-B requirements, of course it is the case that the percentage of foreign-born people is strongly correlated with upward mobility; all of the foreigners move upwards.

The whole point of my comment is that looking at raw mobility data doesn't tell you much about social service effectiveness because raw mobility is dominated by immigration effects.

The Spearman rank correlation of your two sets is 61% (after dropping cities that are not common to both).

https://gist.github.com/hughdbrown/94016d0f477b855a893514131...

Sadly, Salt Lake City is dropped from the set because of the missing foreign-born data.

Cool, thanks!

If we were to dramatically over-simplify by assuming a city's economic mobility is a simple sum of independent Gaussian variables, is the following correct?

(1) Pearson and Spearman rank correlation are the same.

(2) Percentage foreign born is more important than all other variables combined (since they would contribute 39% of the total variance)

> Pearson and Spearman rank correlation are the same

I don't know what this means -- like you'd get the same value if you calculated the correlation by Pearson correlation and Spearman rank correlation?

Or are you saying there is something called the Pearson rank correlation and asking how it relates to Spearman rank correlation? I have no knowledge of a Pearson rank correlation.

I used Spearman rank correlation because it is applicable to this situation: it "assesses how well the relationship between two variables can be described using a monotonic function." [1] Pearson's correlation would be appropriate if I was looking for a linear relationship between two numerical values, which I don't have here.

> Percentage foreign born is more important than all other variables combined (since they would contribute 39% of the total variance)

Hmmm. I think that it is the r-squared that is the proportion of variance in Y that is accounted for by X. Accordingly, the Spearman correlation of 0.61105258893120507 means that 37.3% of the variance in Y is accounted for by X, so really there is 62.7% of the variance still to be accounted for by other variables. There could well be another variable that explains the relationship better. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearman%27s_rank_correlation_...

[2] I am assuming here that the relationship of correlation to variance for Pearson correlation works the same as for Spearman. I think they should, since Spearman rank correlation is just Pearson correlation applied to pairs of ranks.

> I don't know what this means...

I mean: under the stated assumption that the data is given by a sum of independent Gaussian variables, would the Pearson correlation of the Gaussian data be equal to the Spearman rank correlation of the corresponding ranked data.

One can check from the definition that the answer is "yes".

> Hmmm. I think that it is the r-squared that is the proportion of variance in Y that is accounted for by X.

Yes, you're right, I needed to square this number. So, assuming Gaussian independent variables, 37% of the variance in mobility is explained by percentage foreign born. It would be pretty surprising if there were even an larger effect independent than this, so I'll self-grade my conjecture as "plausible".

I'm not sure about the "few skills" part - is there a way to verify that? Seems like there are a fair number of educated immigrants who have to take lower-paying jobs due to language and cultural barriers.

Conjecture: economic growth is correlated with social mobility.

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-economic-case-for-soc...

Growth and social mobility are the things Salt Lake and San Jose have in common.

The economic engine of San Jose relies on recruiting immigrants to drive a young, skilled labor force. In Salt Lake they manufacture their own youthful workforce by having the highest fertility rate in the land.

Think of the baby boom -- the last time both growth and mobility were high in the US.

The mechanism is irrelevant, but I'll point out that both Salt Lake and San Jose are running pyramid schemes. Eventually you run out of places to put people and then your population ages and then you have a problem. See Japan. Also, the bill is coming due for San Jose sooner and for Salt Lake later but that's another story.

Oh, and I completely reject that Mormon institutions (while perfectly admirable) and lack of ethnic diversity (questionable at best) have anything to do with Utah's recent economic pop.

As a Utahn, the most disappointing thing about this article is the racial homogeny. It's true - nearly everyone is white. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some diversity. When my father was a Mormon bishop, he would dole out orders for the Bishop's Storehouse to everyone just the same, whether they were white, black, Latino, or Asian - Made no difference to him. They got the same food, but also had to live by the same requirements - coming to church and serving in the community.

I recall one day after my dad was diagnosed with cancer. Out of the blue one of those families my dad had prepared an order for brought over a casserole for our family out of gratitude for what he did - not only for the food, but for helping him get back in their feet. And this was one of the latinix families.

My point is that I wish there were data on what this experiment would be like with the racial diversity of NYC, DC, or elsewhere. While there are Mormon congregations in these places, with the same bishops storehouses, they aren't nearly as pervasive in their communities as In Utah, so it's hard to see the effects of their efforts.

I wonder how much the missionary movement helps counteract the homogeneity. A benefit of diversity is an exposure to different ways of thinking, knocking on strangers doors will give you plenty of that.

I'm a white Mormon in Silicon Valley. We had the missionaries over for dinner last night (we generally distribute the responsibility of feeding them). One is from the Philippines, one grew up as an Ethiopian refugee in Kenya.

I served a mission in eastern Ukraine and speak Russian fluently. My wife served a mission in Peru and speaks fluent Spanish.

Iirc Matz (of Ruby) is Mormon. I've always wondered what the Mormon roots are like outside of the continental US and how they took hold and continue to be.

There are more Mormons outside of the United States than there are in it.

I am not a Mormon but my understanding is that there has been a strong push for conversion in Africa and Asia.

He is. He was even a bishop in his church for a while. I've met him a few times. He's probably the nicest guy in the entire world.

> nearly everyone is white.

That's a bit of an overstatement, eg There are a lot of Hispanics, especially in West Valley, but not totally wrong either. Rural Utah has a high percentage of white people (except for native American reservations). That fact stems from the same factors inherent in any rural community: Most of Utah was settled by white Europeans. Those people have historically had, add continue to have a culture of large families.

These sorts of comparisons inevitably don't mean much because there's just too many factors that are different between Utah and the states the author compares them to. It helps upward mobility if you start out better off, and Utah has the the fifth richest bottom quintile in the nation (See http://scorecard.assetsandopportunity.org/latest/measure/sta...) in a place where household expenses and housing costs are probably lower than three or four of the states with a higher bar for being "bottom quintile". It also helps if you don't have entrenched poor communities, and are extremely culturally homogenous (meaning that those with power and money are far more likely to identify with and support the bottom quartile of people since they mostly share the same cultural and religious identity). In other words, Utah is so different than the counterexample states that making facile comparisons of "education spending per pupil" and concluding that "big government is not the solution" is a ridiculous argument to make.

It might be ridiculous but not for the reasons you state. All those differences are the result of culture and governance.

Two points:

1. You're wrong about it being just culture and governance -- history and geography play a big role in why we see things developed as they are.

2. Even if it were, your comment is useless. You claim it's culture and governance, not just governance. With part of it being cultural homogeneity (as the GP said...), which is itself a quirk of history and geography, it doesn't follow that changing governance to match would lead to the same outcomes, since cultures wouldn't match (and likely be less homogeneous).

> It also helps if you don't have entrenched poor communities

Even still, the article does address this - "another economics professor at Brigham Young told me that his church ward had recently deliberately expanded its boundaries to include a nearby trailer park."

I think this is a key ingredient to effective upward mobility: mixing of social classes. If you have setting multiple times a a week (church) where entrenched poor (trailer park) can mingle and interact with middle and upper class, that's a huge boon for the poor. Simply giving money to the poor in the form of an impersonal government check on the other hand is very ineffective.

If the result of a successful anti-poverty program is not wealthier people at the bottom, then what is it, with respect to your claim that the result is actually the cause of the anti-poverty program success? What does it mean to "solve poverty" while not having the folks at the bottom have more money?

I live in a racially homogeneous (Euro-American), neoliberal, resolutely secular, generally well-off small city in Massachusetts. I think it's fair to call the city's culture a post-Calvinist post-Christian monoculture of striving upper middle class white people. Most of our kiddos have two married parents. The majority can expect middle class economic success in their lives.

I volunteer in a drop-in center for kiddos in the public housing project for families, where our Euro upper middle class monoculture isn't visible. People come from other parts of MA to live in our public housing project for all kinds of reasons. Many households contain just one parent. Many are disfunctional. Many kids don't have enough structure in their home lives to get their schoolwork done. Lots of the poverty is multigenerational.

The purpose of our drop-in center is to try to give these kiddos a vision of what it would be like to get out of housing -- to be socially mobile. Statistically, I suppose the phrase "get out of housing" means "move from the bottom quintile to some other stratum." But "get out of housing" is more tangible. And it's very difficult in my city. Why? Because we antipoverty activists get a lot of positive liberal lip-service but not much tangible support from the majority. Most of the kids in town are insanely busy -- music, dance, rock-climbing gym, sports. But, the kids in housing have very little to do; they don't feel like they fit in.

It would be GREAT to have a bishop or two cracking the whip and saying, "Look, suck it up. Welcome these neighbors into your lives, and treat them like neighbors." "You're going to Cambridge to check out Harvard and MIT? Take a friend along." etc.

We have some small victories: a few families a year stabilize, get jobs, and move out. But we have some defeats too. It's all about keeping at it. But to me the metaphorical grass in SLC sounds pretty green from this article.

I can't see how 20% is a 'perfectly just world'. It is not a perfectly just - it is a perfectly random world. If it was 20%, it means that person from every family (wrt. parent's incomes) has equal chance to end up rich or poor, meaning that there is nothing that parents could do to help their child. It means nothing but a totalitarian, concentration camp society, because even if education, healthcare etc. are perfectly equal and free for everyone, there is still a personal example and values taught to the person by his parents that define a lot of his future. If i could not do anything at all to help my children succeed, i'd call it anything but fair.

Of course, reverse - 0% chance - is called a caste system. It is also completely unjust.

Middle ground - 10% - sounds about right.

> If it was 20%, it means that person from every family (wrt. parent's incomes) has equal chance to end up rich or poor, meaning that there is nothing that parents could do to help their child.

That's not true. It would just mean that the parents' financial circumstances have no bearing on their ability to help their children.

You could have equal chance to end up in the top quintile when measuring income, and still do things to help your kids succeed. It would just mean that those things wouldn't depend on the family income.

E.g. people whose family is more educated than the average would have better chances to end up in the top quintile by income, regardless of how much money they make.

What's the point of being more educated if you don't make more? Fancy way to waste time?

Intellectual satisfaction.

But you can ask that question about anything, really. What's the point of being stronger, if you can't just go and take other people's stuff? What's the point of being faster, when the first place prize is the same as the last?

That's what it is for me. I spent five and a half years slowly doing a masters in mathematics in my own time, evenings and weekends, for the pure thrill of it.

Now I'm learning Japanese just for the sake of being able to read, write and speak Japanese. Wnet all the way to Tokyo in December for five mornings' worth of Japanese lessons (and some tourism stuff around it); just for the pleasure of learning something of interest.

As you say, a fancy way to waste time. I understand some people do other things to the same ends; movies, television, music, socialising, drugs and alcohol, dancing, art, reading, writing, building things, making things, running, climbing, swimming, on and on and on. Oh, the range of things we humans do as fancy wastes of time.

"Utah is a deep red state, but its conservatism is notably compassionate"

Or maybe conservatives are not ruthless towards the poor ?

A lot of progressives think that if you oppose government welfare programs, then you are being "ruthless" (even if you have a different solution in mind)

Not just a lot of progressives, accusing people who oppose "government welfare program to support X" to be against X has been a thing for the left that's been going on for centuries. Frederic Bastiat already said in 1850 in his famous quote:

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

In general, conservatives tend to regard poverty as a self-inflicted state, or at least that remaining in poverty is a failing of the individual by not escaping it, and thus addressing poverty should be left to that individual.

Liberals think of poverty more as a systematic social condition that individuals bear little responsibility for, either getting there or remaining there, and thus addressing poverty should be undertaken by formal social support systems.

It's not ruthless as much as different views of why poverty exists and how to address it, and like many issues, not all conservatives hold 100% conservative views. It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement.

One of these views is more factually valid and supported by data.

I would like to see your citations

Actually it is rather obvious, that is HAS to be social structures and not the individual. Look at any statistics about any aspect of a persons life, and it is almost always determined by that persons environment or genes. Evidence from the last years point towards that there is no such thing as free will. Studies show e.g. that we make our decisions way before we are conscious of it. Our rational for the choices we make, are most of the time post-rationalization. We makeup reasons after the choice has been made.

Put a random person from a bad neighborhood in a good one and they will almost always radically improve. You can look at IQ studies, correlation between IQ and genes is very high for a middle class, but very low for the poor. Hence middle class children reach the full potential of their genes while the environment is holding back the poor.

Look at the difference between West-Germany and DDR or North and South Korea. Huge difference in the outcome of each individual, yet it has nothing to do with personal traits but everything to do with the different society structures imposed on the people.

Focusing on the individual instead of society is also rather pointless as one can change society through policy but there is no way of changing an individual directly.

So, no citations

That is the usual narrative, but conservatives contribute more to charity than liberals.

I don't think that is given. My home country Norway is mainly liberal but we give a lot to charity.

But as a liberal myself, I don't really favor charity. I favor government solutions. I'd rather pay more taxes than pay to a charity directly.

The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent collecting donations.

By comprehensive solution I mean that a lot of poverty is caused by complex set of factors. E.g. the person might lack job skills and have a mental health problem. Thus they need mental health care and a job training program. Putting together something like that is something a modern welfare state is quite capable of doing, while charity doesn't really have a solution. Charity is for giving you food when you are hungry or giving your emergency care.

Charity is poorly suited for having a long term medical follow up e.g. of high risk groups. E.g. Norway has one of the worlds best statistics for infant mortality. A lot of that is because there are extensive checkups through the pregnancy. Everything related to a pregnancy is completely free. For other health care there is usually a minimum fee. The US in the contrast has terrible infant mortality rate and that is mainly due to poor checkups. Charity in the US has been unable to solve that problem. All they can do is give hungry people food or patch them up.

Charity can't solve systematic problems.

The problem I see with government welfare programs is that (1) they must provide comprehensive solutions with legal obligations, making the system prone to abuse (2) vulnerable to the "give me everything I want or I'll take it by force" problem (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent on re-election, playing politics, and dodging budget cuts.

> The problem I see with charity is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as much resources needs to be spent collecting donations.

The problem I see with government solutions is that (1) they can't provide comprehensive solutions, (2) vulnerable to the free rider problem, (3) inefficient as many resources need to be spent collecting and distributing taxes.

> ...conservatives tend to regard poverty as a self-inflicted state...

Conservatives see poverty as being at least partly a social problem. They just don't see bureaucratization as a healthy solution to the problem.

It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement.

> It's common to refer to conservatives who have a more liberal view of poverty as "compassionate", but it's just a word, not a judgement.

Let's flip this around and see how it sounds: "It's common to refer to liberals who have a more conservative view of poverty as 'intelligent liberals'". Point being, "compassionate conservative" comes across judgy, no matter how it was meant. George W. Bush coined that line during the 2000 presidential campaign and was criticized along these lines back then, too.

If the american dream means sucking down some of the worst polluted air in the country, then yes SLC is that realized.

http://www.sltrib.com/home/4762483-155/utah-will-welcome-201...

Yupppp. and it seems like the government here doesn't care as long as it brings in profit.

Our governor cheered Trump rolling back anti-pollution laws, because clearly the cause of the nasty inversions we get here is not enough pollution.

Meanwhile, our legislature is focused on the real public health crisis in Utah - porn.

You are not wrong, but to bring some context to this: this is not because Utah doesn't care. Since moving to Utah from Florida I've often grumbled at the strict yearly emissions checks. Utah has emissions checks, has very functional public transit, and pushes for reductions.

The primary reason is geographic. SLC is an urban area in a valley, which traps the smog.

the geography is a huge enabler of this, but the government is also complacent in not doing anything to ensure this issue doesn't bubble up to the extend it currently is.

With the recent disastrous handling of the OR show. It is clear how the the Utah government prioritizes.

It seems that a big factor is empathy, something that many politicians don't have. Meanwhile in a few Places in Florida you get arrested if you try to feed the homeless.

> Meanwhile in a few Places in Florida you get arrested if you try to feed the homeless.

Can you please provide some source for that? Not that I doubt you, but that is very surprising (and I wonder what could possibly be their reasoning)

It made a lot of headlines in the last few years:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2014/12/0...

http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article1253...

http://www.naturalnews.com/047802_feeding_homeless_illegal_c...

And

"In More Than 70 Cities, It's Illegal to Feed the Homeless"

http://blog.lowincome.org/2016/08/more-than-70-cities-illega...

The $20K per year per pupil that NYC (and other large cities) spends is skewed because of the enormous costs of special education. I don't know the numbers for NYC, but from an article I saw about Philly: cost to educate non-special need child: $10K, moderately special need: (7% of students) $20K, severe special need: (another 7% of students) $40K.

I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs students.

Still, we spend an enormous amount of money on K-12 education in NYC and other large cities.

Just raw per student spending without adjusting for cost of living is silly also. If a Manhattan school is spending 14k per student, and a school in the middle of Iowa is spending 12k per student... do some COLA adjustments and you may find Manhattan is a "deal".

"I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs students."

Why do you suspect that?

I'm not sure of your overall point, but are you implying it's bad to spend more on special needs students?

> I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs students.

But one could assume the ratio stays the same, and thus so does the average (modulo the notes of other commenters e.g. cost of living).

That however might not be the case, for various reasons cultural (does one population tend to homeschool special needs children more?) and "technical" (do parents of special ed children go to big cities for treatment/infrastructure?).

Anecdote: I suspect if you're the parent of a special needs kid and you're not filthy rich and you want to have access to the best specialists and, frankly, access to other special needs kids then it makes sense to move to the East Coast. This may be changing but for a long time East Coast schools were the only place where your kid could spend any quality time with an autism specialist. Part of it, I think, is just the fact that a lot of the research and the teaching colleges happen to be on the East Coast so there's a kind of knowledge community effect at work and this leads to better infrastructure. It's a situation where you need all the help you can get.

Everything costs more in the largest cities because it's so expensive to live there.

What, that sounds like a tautology?

No. A car costs the same, but you need to pay much more for parking. Your housing costs are much, much higher, and so you need a higher salary. Everyone needs a higher salary to afford to live there, so labor costs are higher. The cost to build a school is higher (both real estate and construction costs) and you need to pay all your staff more so that they can live close enough to work at your school.

> I suspect Salt Lake City has a much lower amount of special needs students.

With less abortion I'd guess there's a higher prevalence of, for example, Down's Syndrome.

http://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/test/ci_13891834

Special education is a self perpetuating bureaucracy everywhere. Not to say the programs don't offer super valuable services to those in need, but my experience is it's really hard to get your kids out of special ed when they are ready to mainstream.

In my daughters case they fought us for two years, we eventually moved her to a charter school that mainstreamed her immediately. 2 years later she's made the honor roll twice.

> "2 years later she's made the honor roll twice."

:-)

The article makes many good points about how upward mobility works. These points generally fit with what I understand: That stable marriage is one of the best ways to become and stay upper middle class; that poor neighborhoods with too few middle class people have much more serious problems than poor neighborhoods with X percentage of middle class residents; that spending on education is not the most critical metric for education effectiveness. etc.

It's a really good piece. The conversation here, not so much.

I am not hugely familiar with Mormonism myself, but I grew up in the Deep South, a place full of hellfire-and-brimstone Christians. That does not mean all Christians are like that. I am not personally fond of Christianity, but there is a line in the bible somewhere where someone tells Jesus "People will do terrible things in your name someday" (or words to that effect) and he replies "I will say I did not know them." (or words to that effect). Christians behaving in a way that gives Christianity a bad name is not definitive proof that Christianity is an inherently evil organization. Ditto Mormonism.

I am somewhat disappointed that so much of this discussion is about Mormonism and so little about upward mobility. I am deeply disappointed that the topmost comment here is one that outright mocks Mormonism. Bad enough it was said, but then multiple people apparently upvoted it. Ugh.

Go ahead and visit Salt Lake (I am comparing to Colorado). I think they either don't have the money or out of principle do not maintain their roads.

That's the economy. The geography is not favorable either. Salt Lake sits in a bowl surrounded by dark hills with little vegetation. The hills are all dug by mines and open pits. They have the whole range ("on the other side") that is essentially one big mine. The winter is cold and the temperature inversion traps cold air in the bowl and the air quality becomes worst in the nation (you can't even run outside). There's no chinook winds in winter, so it's colder than the other side of the Rockies.

The political landscape is very bleak. This is the most conservative state in the nation. Utah hates their environment so much, that they are working on shrinking or destroying several National Monuments (Escalante and Bears Ears). Their congressmen are loathsome Trump toads like Chaffetz (who investigated Park Service for making a folder with maps for a new monument, but refused to investigate anything about Trump).

The anti-environment stance in Utah has become so bad, that the Outdoor Retailer Show (the prime event for multi-billion outdoor industry) has left Salt Lake. Patagonia, Arcteryx and many others initiated it.

The only redeeming quality in Utah is the ski areas nearby. 15 miles vs 40-60-70 in Colorado. And the snow is better.

BTW, the Salt Lake is empty in winter, in prime ski season. Never seen motels and hotels so empty and so cheap. Good for skiing, not good for the economy.

Mormons are nice people for the most part.

> The political landscape is very bleak. This is the most conservative state in the nation. Utah hates their environment so much, that they are working on shrinking or destroying several National Monuments (Escalante and Bears Ears). Their congressmen are loathsome Trump toads like Chaffetz (who investigated Park Service for making a folder with maps for a new monument, but refused to investigate anything about Trump).

Utah is also home to some of Congress' most anti-Trump members. Sen. Mike Lee, Rep. Mia Love, among others.

At the 2016 GOP convention, the Utah delegation was one of the groups trying to overthrow Trump's nomination (along with Colorado's delegation). They failed, of course, but Sen. Lee was instrumental in getting those efforts off the ground.

Almost as if a broad generalization isn't an accurate picture...

... still as anti-environment, pro fossil fuels, etc. Others?

It's interesting the situation was so bad McMullen ran and had a shot at winning the state, IIRC.

I count any third party candidate getting 20% of the vote as a good situation.

Comments on the climate and economy are reasonable here -

But your moral judgmentalism reminds me of a Bible-thumping racist talking about how horrible SF is because of all the godlessness and miscegenation.

Yes, people in Utah have different political values. Judge the results of those values, don't just say it's a horrible place because so many people have evil in their minds.

Isn't that exactly what he's saying? That the Republicans they overwhelmingly elect generally vote for policies that damage the environment?

Utah differs from other Republican states in a number of significant ways. They are generally pro-immigrant, so much that some hardline Republicans have started referring to SLC as a "sanctuary city". With so many Mormons who've gotten to know the poor inhabitants in foreign countries while they served missions, there is a great deal of sympathy for migrants and less regard for the technicalities of their status.

They care a lot about civility and decorum; Utah did go Trump, but it was the reddest state in presidential elections since Bush 1, and it was only light red in 2016. Some people were calling it a toss-up state after McMullin entered the race, and he did end up taking double-digit percentages, far better than any other third-party candidate.

Like other state's reps, Utah's delegation has struggled in figuring out how to approach Trump. It's a tough situation for everyone. Chaffetz has flipped on Trump a number of times, endorsing, un-endorsing, and then re-endorsing. As another commenter points out, other Utahns in Congress are firmly anti-Trump.

The state has a pragmatic streak and has installed a state-funded light rail to reduce pollution. They're building new homeless shelters. Despite the harsh climate, SLC is a common destination for panhandlers because it's easy to get help there.

Yes, it's true that Utah is conservative, but it doesn't have quite the same edge you find in other largely-conservative places, like the South.

The inversion sucks and is definitely one of the worst things about Utah (another reason not to be there in winter), but it's usually only a problem for a few weeks (usually in January). I'm not sure how you propose resolving that. The state can't just snap its fingers and force everyone to drive zero-emissions cars, and they've already installed a light rail that is quite accessible throughout the metro. SLC and other cities in the area have strict anti-idling ordinances.

Opposing Obama's recent annexations of land (most prominently, Bear's Ears) into the National Parks system should not automatically be interpreted as being anti-public-land or anti-environment.

SLC suffers from inversion, and this article fails to address it... Would never live there. Worst air quality in the nation during the winter.

I'm sure the author didn't research enough to make this realization.

Also, lower oxygen levels in the air have been linked to higher depression and suicide (not just Utah, but everywhere near the Rockies).

Maybe because it doesn't have anything to do with the topic of the article? And SF can be cold and foggy.

I live in Utah, and there are many reasons as to why breaking out of poverty is easier here than other parts of the country. I just want to mention one though: The Mormon church is a huge power in welfare in this state, and while they do focus on feeding, clothing, and housing the poor, their welfare program really pushes self-reliance, education, and breaking the cycle of poverty in people's lives. They spend a lot of money to train people with marketable skills, and they give interest-free education loans to their members, in poverty-stricken countries, in an effort to help elevate the conditions and opportunities in those countries. As part of the help they give, they encourage people to donate and volunteer themselves, to help others in need, as they break out of poverty themselves.

A lot of people complain about the Mormon church, over a variety of issues, but this is one thing they do incredibly well, I think.

Most Utahans are of Northern European descent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah#Demographics. Northern European culture stayed with them with Mormon religion.

My stock joke about it is that when you land at SLC and are waiting at the baggage area it's like you're surrounded by cheerleaders--and that's just the moms. Seriously, I'm not Mormon but I feel that they've got a ton to teach most of the rest of us. Bloomberg article quantified it effectively.

All the California transplants should take not before they become politically active and turn it into the kind of place they left.

Would love to see how much Utah residents end up spending on poverty efforts, including donations and taxes and volunteer time. I believe there are inefficiencies in the current system, but by and large poverty reduction costs money. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative may not be feasible when you do the math

They do cost money, but by not lumping all of the programs into a single lumbering bureaucracy, you can get a lot more fast moving and need specific operations running, in this case probably at the parish level.

It seems to be feasible in Salt Lake City, though. If the community picks up where the government is lacking, the work still gets done and the poorest of our society get the help they need.

My perspective is that the government can operate that way, but the church seems to be the opposite: socially conservative but fiscally liberal. Hence the emphasis on nuclear families as well as giving freely to the poor.

I'm a Mormon (grew up in Utah, served a mission in eastern Ukraine, speak Russian fluently, now live in the Bay Area).

I often think of the way the Mormon church works as a distributed system, and the way it operates is not unlike most open source software. It works because everyone knows their role, is dedicated, and willing to sacrifice.

In the ward (congregation) I'm in now I teach the fourteen-year-olds on Sunday. My wife teaches the 16-year-old girls in the third hour of church. In our last ward I was the eleven-year-old boy scout leader, and would take one night a week to teach them self sufficiently, how to camp and fish and hunt, knot tying, etc. We'd also go camping four times per year.

Both my wife and I fast (don't eat) one day/month and donate what we would have spent on food (in reality a lot more) to the poor. We also donate 10% of our income to the church, a lot of which goes to the poor. We feed the Mormon missionaries once a month (we did so last night; one grew up as a refugee in Kenya, the other grew up in the Philippines). My wife and I each served a mission (me - Ukraine for two years, her - Lima, Peru for 18 months).

The organization is what makes it work, and is really top notch. If there's an emergency we know exactly what our role is. When we come across someone who is struggling we know exactly what to do. There are volunteers assigned to be employment specialists, to help with food, over shelter, educational resources, funds earmarked, etc. (For both members and non-members). Every once in a while calls for extra funds or materials come out during a natural disaster or refugee influx, though most of the time those are stockpiled and ready to ship long in advance.

There are weekly leadership meetings where needs of the people in our area (mostly concerned with members, but we'll discuss on-members as well), and each member is supposed to have an in-person visit each month to make sure they're not doing OK. I'm assigned three families, and if anything is wrong we report back and it's taken care of. In my teens I volunteered once a month teaching in a prison and once a quarter helping out in a nursing home.

Growing up we served on the church farm, my parents frequently volunteered at the canning facility, and we took people into our home that were struggling to get by.

There are a lot of problems within the Church, and things we need to work on and fix. But, I think, as an efficient caregiving and charitable institution, there are few in the world that rival it.

I would love to contribute to a system like the one you describe that was not based on fealty to any particular system of belief. That being said, I'd argue that the belief (especially the affinity of shared belief) is totally fundamental to the system at any sort of scale.

My own beliefs [0] are unfortunately not easily evangelized.

[0] https://jimleff.blogspot.com/2013/06/apprecianity.html

I think you're right.Not sure how to replicate that outside of a shared system of belief.

Candidly I think there are many who aren't believing but are there for the social impact.

Powerful description, thanks. Can one serve w/out being LDS?

The simple answer is, absolutely yes. As a member of the LDS Church I have been able to serve along side a number of people who are not members of the church and are not interested in our beliefs at all. Often this is at places like Bishop Storehouse's (which is like a food bank), at a church run farm, at church run non-profit stores (known at Deseret Industries, and are a lot like Goodwill's), and other places. It's honestly not easy managing all of the help that is given out and we will take all the help we can get!

Fantastic, thank you

I am not convinced that people in the bottom or top have the same dream as the rest; and I am not convinced the article title is the best one for the content.

Her comment: "Salt Lake City is a very weird place." made me think more. Having experience in nearly all the states, SLC is truly unique. It is easy to imagine myself in almost all of the US, but SLC is hard for me, and thus I would agree with her statement.

HOwever - UTAH is probably the best state for national parks and state parks. If you had to choose just one, I would choose Utah.

In other words, the left and the right are both wrong.

The left is wrong because it focuses too much on money and entitlements rather than real help. It also uses big government only, which crowds out local solutions, churches, and NGOs. Beyond that, many on the left are actively hostile towards religion.

The right is wrong because they scale back government without doing the hard work to build alternative solutions, and leave people stranded.

(Obviously these are caricatures and not to be taken personally.)

Sounds like the people in Utah have somethibg figured out.

You can think of the Mormon Church as a second government in Utah that levies a 10% gross income tax on nearly everyone in the state and spends a portion on welfare programs.

While a majority of Utah is technically Mormon, only like half of those are active in the church. So in practice, you're probably looking at like 30% of households paying tithing.

No. You don't get thrown into jail if you don't tithe.

A church is not a government. Governments have special powers that churches do not.

Because it has those powers, government has an incredible burden to be fair. That doesn't sound so bad, but really limits how effective it can be at many things.

> A church is not a government.

A church can be nothing like a government, very much like a government, a de facto government, or a de jure government.

In practice, relevant to the specific situation at hand, a religion which is both dominant in a region and possessed of a strong centralizee heirarchy often acts a lot like a government, though it's direct sanctions are generally social (though potentially very powerful in effect, including economically) and often also has substantial influence with the formal government.

Simply a kinder, gentler power structure. Not anything the US government hasn't pretended to be working toward for years. All it is is treating citizens as "one of your own" instead of as one of the "them". No great mystery, when power doesn't act quite as much as monstrous assholes people have a better time. People need to stop pretending like a little concern for your fellow man is some difficult, complicated, magical system design based on some secret power. When governments let people help those around them they will. Just get out of the way and give up a little control. All its ever taken for people to build a better system here is just for the Government to get out of the way.That's how the west was won, and built.

As a Norwegian who has spent a lot of time in Utah visiting distant relatives and having them visit Norway, I made a lot of thoughts about Utah in relation to the Scandinavian society model.

This article is a nice addition to my own experiences. I admit I felt at first somewhat envious and impressed by the community sense, they have in Utah. Family and neighbors seem quite close. People are very smiling and positive. As a diehard atheist, meeting mormons made me really have to contemplate the role of religion. It seemed to make many mormons happy and create a tight knight society. And despite being anti-religion and atheist I actually wanted to live there for some years just for the experience. I loved my time there despite it being so much at odds with values in many respect.

Mormons deserve a lot of praise for what they have accomplished. Yet after staying longer I think it became clear to me that there was a dark side to what looked like paradise at first glance.

Too me it is a bit funny to see Americans praise the Utah model, when it is a far more extreme case of homogeneity than any Scandinavian country typically dismissed as a viable model for America for just that reason. To me people in Utah live a complete bubble world, with little idea of what the real world is like or what other people think about stuff. They seemed very confused when speaking to a non-mormon or non-religious person like myself about particular subjects. And if you didn't fit the narrow path designated by the mormon church, you were pretty much screwed.

I honestly think the Scandinavian model scales a lot better when it comes to tackling societies problems than the Utah model. It allows for a lot more individualism and ethnic mix. It doesn't rely on the majority being strongly religious and doing huge amounts of volunteer work. In a way Utah is really just doing the same as Scandinavian welfare states are doing. Citizens are contributing a lot of resources towards helping the less fortunate. The difference is that in Utah it happens through volunteering through the church, and a strong social pressure to do so. In Scandinavia it happens through high taxes. I realize that in the US the Utah approach is more palatable as it is strictly speaking not required to contribute, while you can't skip taxes in Scandinavia. However in practice there is a a strong social pressure that means it isn't really an option not to.

It is interesting though that creating social mobility and reducing poverty follows very similar receipts in Utah and Scandinavia. E.g. avoiding that welfare becomes a way of life has a pretty strong tradition in Scandinavia as well. The Norwegian labour party's old slogan was "Do your duty and demand your right!" The welfare system has always been generous but also quite a lot more pushy on getting people back into work than what has been the case in many other countries. But the ability for the system to work has also rested on a lot of trust between people as in Utah. I believe in Norway 68% say you can trust your fellow man, while in the US in general would around 30%, while in e.g. Brazil it would be 2%. That is one of my strongest believes about society. One of the most important things for society to succeed is trust.

I have a couple of girlfriends who moved to/from Utah from/to a costal city. They think it's backwards as hell.

For future reference, generally your posts are better accepted if you explain the reasoning behind your main point, especially if they are controversial. Controversial posts are generally well received on this site as long as they are logical and thought provoking.

Meh, not really thought provoking. Poll any women or non white person who lived in Utah and has experienced big city life.

I used to be a Mormon, my family converted when I was young. At no point did I believe their teachings. Like many cults being required to believe something obviously wrong keeps the normies out and clearly defines who is in the 'in group' and who is in the 'out group'. Just by saying you believe it signals to others that you are willing to lie in order to belong.

I really enjoyed my time in the church. There is huge pressure to conform in one area but this means your free to be yourself in others. I was a nerd and constantly tormented for it outside the church. (The US is much nicer to nerds than those in my country where it considered a civil duty by other children to beat it out of you). Inside the church I was treated like a normal person. Similarly, Dijkstra had to leave Europe to escape a 'religious' academia and found refuge in 'backwards' religious Texas.

There is a natural human tendency, an emergent behavior, to self organize into 'religious' groups. I see the same behavioral patterns in environmentalism, veganism, feminism etc. By keeping 'religion' to religion there is less of for it in others areas.

I left the Church quite young because I didn't need it anymore and thought the church was stupid. I still liked the people in it.

Obviously if I was gay I would have a different story.

> Similarly, Dijkstra had to leave Europe to escape a 'religious' academia and found refuge in 'backwards' religious Texas.

Do you have a source for this? Seems like an interesting story and I couldn't find mention on his Wikipedia page.

I don't have a direct quote on hand. It is my understanding of the situation given the EWDs that I've read as well as his Dutch documentary.

The following addresses his reasoning on why Texas isn't as backwards as would be expected; https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/OtherDocs....

And I think the Dutch TV show goes into specifically why he had to leave europe in order to pursue his ideas.

"Like many cults being required to believe something obviously wrong keeps the normies out and clearly defines who is in the 'in group' and who is in the 'out group'."

Its the same game played with politics instead of religion in academia, "coastal tech", soft sciences, mass media... Under static ruleset conditions, I donno, mid 60s to 2010 "boomer generation" lets say, its sort of an intelligence test to see if you're smart enough to observe others then play along, and whats more important than action is the social signalling to show you can be a trustable follower. If the players are willing intelligent players the game works really well and results will naturally be good. When people grow tired of the game or are too dumb to play or actively dislike the entrenched ruleset, you get periods of political turmoil, "populism" etc. People get very angry that their hard fought position in the game is wiped away with a new ruleset. "Polarization" especially politically is just the future being here but unevenly distributed, and the legacy ruleset isn't going to be deprecated or sunset quietly especially while those about to be obsolete still have a legacy voice.

"Obviously if I was gay I would have a different story."

The analogy with the above is white people starting to abandon the Democratic party, resulting in Trump, etc.

lol, this is comical. White people are not persecuted by a major US political party run by and composed of mostly whites. Sure, some people perceive it so because they have a narrow...argh...different understanding of the world.

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