<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>prepend</author><text>“The south” is a really big region so maybe someone pops up because you’re tarring an entire region based on your individual experience. As an LGBT person, I grew up with people telling urban legends about gerbils and whatnot. Perhaps they witnessed a single person doing this, but attributing it to a large group is not very accurate.&lt;p&gt;I grew up in the south in a super backwards small town and now live in a really forward town in the south. It’s a big place and there’s a lot of great places.&lt;p&gt;Stereotypes are based on common behavior but don’t apply to everyone here or every part of the south.</text><parent_chain><item><author>scarmig</author><text>Or maybe they themselves have experienced discriminatory behavior in the Midwest?&lt;p&gt;As an LGBT guy, I&amp;#x27;m always direct when pointing out that I left the South partially because of discrimination, and someone is always happy to butt in to say I&amp;#x27;m making it all up and the South is perfectly open and tolerant. It gets tiring.</text></item><item><author>jacobriis</author><text>&amp;quot;What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white).&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Be aware that when people say things like this they often do so to feel virtuous themselves like only they are so enlightened that only they even consider being friendly to non white people.&lt;p&gt;The idea that people in the Midwest (which has a population of over 65 million people similar to France and the UK) are only friendly to white people is pretty crazy.</text></item><item><author>dexwiz</author><text>Moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area, and tech comes in two forms: IT departments at major industrial firms (manufacturing, chemical, pharma, etc), or companies that are eventually bought by West Coast companies. The pay cap is much lower. Becoming a millionaire through stocks and wages is harder, but you will still be in the top 10% of earners overall.&lt;p&gt;If you want to live in a mansion, the Midwest makes this dream obtainable. Buy a 6 bedroom, lake (reservoir) side, 4k sqr ft home for less than a million. Of if you want an acre of lawn, but not live too far in the country.&lt;p&gt;What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white). (EDIT: This gets more pronounced the more rural you are. Cities tend to be more accepting. What you will find is that rural areas have more relative sway on thought compared to the West Coast.) Towns outside of major metropolitan areas are dying as most major industries that supported that last two generations have left. Drugs are a huge issue, but its not as obvious because the floor for homelessness is so much lower. The only major infrastructure and building projects that get approved are sports stadiums, because idiots in local government rather have sports teams than functioning schools.&lt;p&gt;What the Midwest does have is solid engineering and research universities, that graduate thousands of STEM oriented students a year. Unfortunately there are often over an hour from the nearest 250k+ city. I went to one, and I think less than 25% of my friends stayed in state. The brain drain is real.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Hiring for tech jobs has increased more than 100% in these Midwestern cities</title><url>https://www.purpose.jobs/blog/hiring-tech-jobs-has-increased-in-midwestern-cities</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>learc83</author><text>&amp;gt;I&amp;#x27;m making it all up and the South is perfectly open and tolerant.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m sure you&amp;#x27;re not. But &amp;quot;the South&amp;quot; is diverse. Atlanta has a very large LGBT community (both in absolute terms and as a percentage) and culture that is completely different from areas just an hour away. It&amp;#x27;s very possible that you and the people you are talking to had completely different experiences.&lt;p&gt;Both of you are almost certainly overgeneralizing your experiences when you say &amp;quot;the South&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;People who live in the South get upset that the country likes to pretend that the rest of the country outside a few urban centers is any different. That is, if you had left the South for the rural or suburban Midwest or most of Pennsylvania, you&amp;#x27;d likely have had a similar experience.</text><parent_chain><item><author>scarmig</author><text>Or maybe they themselves have experienced discriminatory behavior in the Midwest?&lt;p&gt;As an LGBT guy, I&amp;#x27;m always direct when pointing out that I left the South partially because of discrimination, and someone is always happy to butt in to say I&amp;#x27;m making it all up and the South is perfectly open and tolerant. It gets tiring.</text></item><item><author>jacobriis</author><text>&amp;quot;What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white).&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Be aware that when people say things like this they often do so to feel virtuous themselves like only they are so enlightened that only they even consider being friendly to non white people.&lt;p&gt;The idea that people in the Midwest (which has a population of over 65 million people similar to France and the UK) are only friendly to white people is pretty crazy.</text></item><item><author>dexwiz</author><text>Moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area, and tech comes in two forms: IT departments at major industrial firms (manufacturing, chemical, pharma, etc), or companies that are eventually bought by West Coast companies. The pay cap is much lower. Becoming a millionaire through stocks and wages is harder, but you will still be in the top 10% of earners overall.&lt;p&gt;If you want to live in a mansion, the Midwest makes this dream obtainable. Buy a 6 bedroom, lake (reservoir) side, 4k sqr ft home for less than a million. Of if you want an acre of lawn, but not live too far in the country.&lt;p&gt;What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white). (EDIT: This gets more pronounced the more rural you are. Cities tend to be more accepting. What you will find is that rural areas have more relative sway on thought compared to the West Coast.) Towns outside of major metropolitan areas are dying as most major industries that supported that last two generations have left. Drugs are a huge issue, but its not as obvious because the floor for homelessness is so much lower. The only major infrastructure and building projects that get approved are sports stadiums, because idiots in local government rather have sports teams than functioning schools.&lt;p&gt;What the Midwest does have is solid engineering and research universities, that graduate thousands of STEM oriented students a year. Unfortunately there are often over an hour from the nearest 250k+ city. I went to one, and I think less than 25% of my friends stayed in state. The brain drain is real.</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>Hiring for tech jobs has increased more than 100% in these Midwestern cities</title><url>https://www.purpose.jobs/blog/hiring-tech-jobs-has-increased-in-midwestern-cities</url></story>