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Comment by briga | Hacker News Reader

The early settlers of North American were in some sense selected by personality. It must have taken a certain sort of risk-taking personality to give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey to a vast and mostly uninhabited land. The people who arrived in America and decided to take it one step further by moving away from the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.

You can still see some of these early mountain towns today--some are practically unchanged from what they looked like 100 years ago.

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>> the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.

The cities were not what we would call safe. If you are living in total poverty inside a city without access to any real services, that empty field doesn't seem so bad. The "free land" thing was also a plus. Rather than risk-takers, they were more akin to desperate opportunists.

Well the coastal cities at least had a steady source of food for the poor as long as they were willing to dig for it [0].

[0]: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/oysters-new-york-city-...

You can trace the famines and wars in Europe between 1700 and 1900 by going to any town and finding the "X national historic center" and looking when the town was founded. People didn't just leave their family and friends in Europe for the fun of it. Most left because life was downright deadly back home and so staying was not an option no matter what they went into.

Getting to America was no easy. Families of 5 kids would leave, 2 would die on the way (if you got a cold on board the sailors would throw you overboard to ensure it didn't spread), then a third would be sold as an indentured servant (only slightly better than a slave, and it would only last 7 years - but no way to contact them after the 7 years were up). Then you have to find a place to live...

> if you got a cold on board the sailors would throw you overboard to ensure it didn't spread)

Curious, do you have a source for this?

Great question, no.

We know that a large number of families left Europe with more kids than they arrived with, and disease was a problem. But I'm not enough of a historian to know how to find a source for any of that.

So I moved to Calgary, AB, Canada around 2000 along with a huge number of other Canadians and people from around the world primarily as economic migrants. The city has changed dramatically since then but I noticed that it attracted a lot of people with a similar pioneer style attitude; you had to be willing to move far away from your family mostly for your job, and the companies here had a very western "DIY" approach as well as something to prove to the more established Eastern "genteel". Some of this is gone now but many people and organizations still display it regularly.

Moving across the country ain't what it used to be--now pretty much anyone with money for an airplane ticket can do it with little to no risk. Calgary is a very cosmopolitan and modern city today, but I imagine it was pretty wild pre-1900. Alberta is still in its early stages of development, so you can definitely still find pockets of the Western mentality left

>> Alberta is still in its early stages of development

WTF? Early stages? The highways have been paved. The electrical lines have been run. Modern military bases. Highspeed internet. Cellphone coverage. Universal healthcare. Universities. Alberta is well past the "early stages" of development.

I guess you could look at it in a relative sense. Compared to Beijing, it could be argued that Los Angeles is in the early stages of development.

"Early" suggests a timeline, a progression from one state to another. Most people in alberta would probably take offense to the suggestion they are somehow 'behind' Beijing. They in many ways see their economic and societal development as far 'ahead' of Beijing.

The history of modern Alberta doesn't go back much further than about 150-200 years. When you compare it with all the civilizations that have been around for hundreds or thousands of years it is certainly still in its early stages.

Half the province is still uninhabited wilderness. The parts that are developed are rapidly expanding--certainly nowhere near what they will be 50 or 100 years from now. Compared to Europe or China there is still a lot of room for growth

>> "...is still uninhabited wilderness."

Again, lots of people don't see that sort of development as inevitable. There is even a movement in Alberta specifically to return land from a developed to a more natural wild state, particularly the tar sands. Alberta is is not "still uninhabited", rather other parts of the planet still have yet to protect their wild areas. "Development" and progress can mean reducing human impact on the land.

I lived in Calgary around 2008 for a while (and have had family there from the 70's until around 2012), and I know the attitude you're talking about.

But I have to say—I saw a lot of posturing that way more than real pioneering mindset. Calgary has been a very developed city for a long time, and no stranger to the exact same comforts and luxuries they associate with the other out east. I didn't encounter the DIY approach you did. Most were contented to take large payouts from the oil industry and its waterfall spending and take that as validation. I grew up with tales from family members who moved there about how adventurous they were and described themselves as "mavericks" while reality was a lot of three-martini lunches in upscale restaurants. I saw more of an enterprising, DIY spirit in people working in the film industry here in Toronto than I did in Calgary. (And that's not me praising Toronto). Being of ... "lower means" in Calgary isn't as fun. Hell, if I hadn't made friends with some bartenders I might not have been able to get out for a few beers as often when it was ~$8-$10 a pint back then. And then there's NE Calgary... of which Fubar† is not an entirely exaggerated depiction in my experience. Then again, that character is pretty much the same as my experience growing up in rural Ontario.

I say that with a kind heart because I met some great people while I lived there, and I miss the place. Calgary is a great town, but I just didn't see what you described there. I saw shadows of it at best—mostly in murals and ornate cowboy hats. Though—I do appreciate the pride in it.

Now, people from outside the city—that's a bit different. One funny story about that: I had a buddy/coworker from Pincher Creek who'd fed himself during college in Lethbridge by hunting a couple of bucks with his friends and getting steaks and sausages made up, and froze them for the year (because I'm pretty sure the only other grocery they bought was bad whiskey and a lot of beer). Smart guy, too. He could have got along anywhere. Maybe he is now. Not sure where he's at.

† the films

As someone who has lived in Calgary, I'd chuckle if anyone claimed to be a maverick or rugged for living there. It's a city of over 1M, which puts it in the top 5 cities in Canada by population. And it's relatively wealthy.

That's like someone from New York moving to Denver and claiming they're rugged individualists.

Your American example is exactly what occurred. Working for Gulf/Shell, downtown real-estate holders, and Cooper factory owners in Toronto, moved to Calgary to continue at Gulf/Shell. Claimed to be mavericks.

One had their trials and strengths moving from Derry, NI during the troubles but mavericks they were not!

the vast and dangerous interior of the continent

Sounds romantic but is it the truth? I understand that immigration was spearheaded by entrepreneurs who published guides to the new land and advertised in the homeland. You can see some of the spirit in foreign graduate students - they follow recommendations and usually have a very good idea what they are getting themselves into.

>> who published guides to the new land and advertised in the homeland.

Most of which were full of lies and criminal exaggerations. That's why "Springfield" is the most popular town name in the US. What else would a new farmer want more than a field with its own water supply?

You better believe the interior was dangerous before railroads and highways and air conditioning, especially the mountains and deserts of the American southwest. It's only comparatively recently that many of these places have been able to support large populations

> You better believe the interior was dangerous before railroads and highways and air conditioning, especially the mountains and deserts of the American southwest. It's only comparatively recently that many of these places have been able to support large populations

Very. In fact many books about the rise of new migrants into the Mid-west are documented with immense amounts of violence at the hands of native plain tribes, specifically the Comanche [1] who were no joke the most well refined killing force on horseback on Earth not seen since the Mongolians in their peak.

It a really fascinating, and bloody history. I live in Colorado, which is where the Arapahoe tribe was centered and much is named after them to this day. After I arrived I looked into who they were and what they did which was marked with a before-and-after with an alliance with the Lakota, Dakota, and Cheyenne tribes who only together were able to push the Comanche back to the Southern Plains as the Comanche did not care who they raided and everything was fair game.

Its pretty insane to think that not that long ago this mainly raiding nomadic tribe had the influence they did on this continent, and many Western settlers were lured into the Midwest/South only to suffer a hapless fate as so many and were captured, killed, raped, enslaved. And acted as a sort of buffer kill zone while settlement further south in Texas was taking place.

While I'm not trying to marginalize the plight of Native Americans, I even actively directly helped them with my fintech startup as my co-founder made it a priority to do so, I cannot help but think that this current political atmosphere has been very ignorant view on just what exactly was taking place as Western migration was taking place, and the amount of countless stories of barbaric violence that will never be told because no one lived to tell about it.

It doesn't justify the violence that has come since from Westerners, but it also should be noted that the thing we should be against is institutionalized violence and not just hyper-focus on those acts of a certain racial/ethnic group in Society but ask how we got here and what to do about it moving forward.

1: https://www.npr.org/2011/05/20/136438816/the-rise-and-fall-o...

> and many Western settlers were lured into the Midwest/South only to suffer a hapless fate as so many and were captured, killed, raped, enslaved.

lured? The natives ( comanche, lakota, dakota, cheyenne, etc ) didn't want western "settlers" on their land. Especially since the midwest and southwest natives already knew about the genocide committed against the natives along the east coast by the "settlers".

> It doesn't justify the violence that has come since from Westerners

Violence? It's called genocide/extermination. Lets not mince words here.

Just remember that most "history" books, even those recommended by joe rogan, are highly biased and tend to paint a highly subjective "story". Also, there is incentive to "hype" things for a targeted audience.

While driving recently through Eastern Oregon, I was absolutely flabbergasted by the landscapes. It was like the surface of another planet. Miles and miles, hours and hours of arid, dry, dirt landscapes. Nearly formless except for the rolling, dark mounds of earth.

For much of the trip there wasn't even speed signs posted, let alone cell phone service. The temperature was over 100 degrees outside. More than a few times I wondered what might happen if we ran out of gas

I have a lot of respect for our early pioneers. People were definitely made of a different material back then. Your whole life packed up in a wagon, and it's do or die.

Don't forget the very first settlers were native american people as we call them today in the us. It's interesting to think about their views of today's self-reliance culture. I don't know what they are.

Relevant:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed

My recollection of that book is that it doesn't really cover the settling of the west, and is more focused on the earlier arrivals who spread out to cover the land between (say) the Atlantic and the Mississippi.

Relevant to this subthread, not necessarily the whole article. Parent poster was commenting about people who "give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey". That's the settlers in the East (many of whose descendants eventually moved west).

> The people who arrived in America and decided to take it one step further by moving away from the crowded cities of the east into the vast and dangerous interior of the continent must have been a special breed.

The consequences of this are not always 'positive' as the book Fantasyland argues:

> In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, “fake news” moment we’re all living through—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.

> Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged. From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies—every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35171984-fantasyland

An hour-long talk by the author:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRqDzEOJImw

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Andersen

I have read that one of the strong selection factors for the settling of the west was the ability to survive beaver fever (giardiasis). Some have speculated that this may have correlations with personality traits.

It's very frustrating that it's a blanket attitude that doesn't respond to context. There are vanishingly few people in the United States for whom a fixed frontier mindset makes sense, yet many people cling to frontier logic even when they live and spend the vast majority of their time in cities and towns that have modern amenities and professional police, fire, and EMS services. If people aren't flexible enough to adapt their thinking to whatever situation they're in, then we would be so much better off with a fixed, uniform urban mindset than a frontier one. But I think many people's idea of an alternative "urban mindset" is a caricature of effete helplessness, like the Eloi in the Time Machine (or worse and more racist images.)

>The early settlers of North American were in some sense selected by personality. It must have taken a certain sort of risk-taking personality to give up everything and climb aboard a crowded rickety passenger ship for a month-long journey to a vast and mostly uninhabited land.

Many early settlers were criminals. I wonder if that personality selection shines through.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_transportation#Transport...

Being a criminal, especially in times when many crimes were punishable by death, it also requires a risk-taking personality, so GP's point still stands.

50,000-120,000 might be small enough of a selection to be difficult to detect in a population of 2.5 million in 1776 when transportation ended.

Keep in mind also that "criminal" meant something a bit different in colonial times than it does today.

Yeah, like “poor”. Oh, wait...

It meant something more violent then today.

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