Stallman was right. Thankfully this seems like it should be relatively easy to replace. If anyone knows a friendly hacker collective to point this way...
These same “rural departments” are in areas that claim to hate “big government” and are anti tax and aren’t willing to fund essential services and vote for national politicians who are defunding programs that could help them.
Yes I would be all in favor of my federal tax dollars being redirected to rural areas whose taxpayers can’t fund firefighters so they don’t have to fundraise to buy equipment.
Unfortunately, they overwhelmingly vote for politicians that believe just the opposite on the state and federal level.
That’ll just lead to people on the opposite side of the spectrum (politically and in terms of being more urban) asking why their tax dollars are going towards a bunch of rednecks living in the middle of nowhere and destroying the earth with their heavily car-dependent lifestyles. _They should move to the city if they want a fire department! Otherwise, pay for it yourself or quit yer bitchin!_
> Unfortunately, they overwhelmingly vote for politicians that believe just the opposite on the state and federal level.
Perhaps the reason is because the people they “should” be voting for, according to you, are tied to a lot of social policies that these rural folks find deeply disagreeable. In a similar vein, if the 2024 Republican president campaigned on true free healthcare and massive taxes for the rich, you wouldn’t chide Democrat voters for not voting for that candidate on account of his social policies, now would you?
But all that being said, I wouldn’t vote for a Democrat that said they wanted free health care and also bring back segregation and laws against miscegenation. The first affects me and everyone in my family and the second would affect my son and my soon to be daughter in law.
Democrats are not saying they want universal healthcare only for blue areas.
Suburbs of Austin is not what people call rural America
There’s also small towns or clusters of homes in the middle of nowhere where most of the residents disagree from the communities surrounding them. They don’t necessarily have enough votes to make a dent, but they also exist.
Assuming people’s politics or worth based on where they live leads to unpleasant outcomes.
Rural people face different challenges than urban people, although there’s some overlap. Finding agreement on the overlap—while attempting to solve the unique urban and rural problems in parallel—would be more effective than the tug of war that we have now. US politics has developed a winner-take-all attitude that’s clearly not working.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk...
Even though I’ve been coding as a hobby or professionally for 40 years - and have done my bid in BigTech?
How is a gay/trans person suppose to find common ground with someone who literally thinks the country is going to be consumed in fire just because it’s legal for them to get married?
How is Latin American going to find common ground with someone who thinks they are taking their jobs, at the same time are not working getting welfare and lowering test scores and keeping them from affording housing? Oh yeah abs it’s only because of H1B visas that rural American can’t get one of them good tech jobs.
The only reason they are opposed to “socialist” programs is because there is an off chance that someone who doesn’t look like them might benefit.
Oh and by the way, I had a house built in Forsyth county and lived there for 6 years and moved to Florida and downsized when I knew I would be working remotely and after my youngest graduated. Yeah this Forsyth County.
https://youtu.be/WErjPmFulQ0?si=MVrJUwjZ2DfonHjw
Those folks haven’t gone anywhere. They have been overrun by more of the Romney/Bush type conservatives moving in.
You still see in Facebook groups where they are opposed to a Hindu temple nearby. But not opposed to a large church.
Myself, my wife, my (step)son and his (white) fiance still get disapproving looks there (where my son still lives) that we don’t get when they visited us in Orlando.
It’s not about a difference of “needs”. Yet I as a decently well off tech person continuously vote for policies that would help them and not me.
They are fundamentally opposed to a governmental system that works for everyone.
There’s rural people of all backgrounds (including straight white folk) who feel that the system has failed them and there’s no point in voting. Roughly 40% of eligible people don’t vote. That’s a lot of votes.
Lumping in a potential constituency with your opponent is a loser’s game. It just turns away and demoralizes potential allies.
You could say the same for the heavily gerrymandered house districts.
An ally in Forsyth county or Mississippi doesn’t help.
It’s a mistake, in my opinion, just as it’s a mistake to ignore that non-swing states can and have flipped unexpectedly.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk...
They can’t afford $5000 a year for software. I work in consulting, that is less than half of what my company bills me out for a week as a staff consultant.
On the other hand, if you involuntarily live at low densities because of gatekeepers in the city who have prevented housing from being built for the last dozen decades or so, then we should fix that so that anyone who wants to live in a city with excellent and cheap fire protection can do so.
Importantly, neither of these have anything to do with capitalism or private equity.
My issue is not that rural America is poor. My issue is that there vote for politicians whose explicit goal is not to help them. But that’s okay as long as the politicians “fight the woke”.
Re: farmers - are farms themselves a big farm risk? I can imagine farm workers living in nearby towns requiring fire service, but not the farms themselves or farm owners. I can see the case for public funding of fire service for such towns, but density still matters - if 1000 farm workers each live on their own acre (~42,000 sqft), it's going to cost more to provide fire service than they live on a 1,000 sqft lot, or in a 1,000 sqft apartment in a 4 storey building. Most of North American land use will require them to live much less densely than they might have otherwise, driving up the cost of infra & fire service.
These places use volunteers because fire is rare, but they still need some kind of fire service just in case. They often get their expensive equipment from grants, it’s the labor that’s provided by the community.
Would you be okay if the software companies were charging the same amount and not funded by PE? What if they were funded by YC?
Your point "states and federal government should pay for this" is a valid opinion, but it is muddled with your attitude that anyone offering to write open source software to support emergency services is a fool.
I was a hobbyist assembly language programmer for six year prior to going to college and did some BASIC.
You've spent more time criticizing open source development and struggling fire departments than you have spent criticizing predatory capital buying up every competing piece of software in order to raise the price.
Even if the state and federal government funded firefighter management software, this is still a story of predatory PE.
And I assume you are okay with what YC does?
Why should anyone spend their time doing open source projects that might be adopted by organizations who can't afford it.
> Yes I would be all in favor of my federal tax dollars being redirected to rural areas whose taxpayers can’t fund firefighters so they don’t have to fundraise to buy equipment.
Absolutely, me too. But in the meantime, until you/we are able to convince the government to redirect your tax dollars, this is something that is in your/our capabilities to do something about.
> Absolutely, me too. But in the meantime, until you/we are able to convince the government to redirect your tax dollars, this is something that is in your/our capabilities to do something about.
And those communities are not only voting for, they are cheering on politicians who are defunding the departments who can help them the most.