{"id":24778,"date":"2019-05-04T19:38:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-05T00:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=24778"},"modified":"2019-05-04T19:38:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-05T00:38:01","slug":"geological-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/05\/04\/geological-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Geological Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg24232260-100-surprising-ways-the-changing-earth-shaped-human-evolution-and-society\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">From<\/a> a <em><strong>NewScientist<\/strong><\/em> (26 April 2019, paywall) sidebar:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h4><em><strong>Bedrock of democracy<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n<p>The impact of the planet\u2019s geology is even visible in how people vote. Running through the staunchly Republican south-eastern US states, for example, is a distinct crescent of Democrat-voting counties (see\u00a0<a title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mg32260103.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-4\">graphic<\/a>, below). This curve closely follows an exposed band of 75-million-year-old rocks laid down during the Cretaceous period. These have produced a very rich, fertile soil, which was found to be perfect for growing cotton. In the mid-1800s, cultivation of this crop led to a boom in slave labour. A high proportion of African-Americans still remain in these areas, where they favour the more liberal policies of the Democratic party, and continue to vote for its presidential candidates.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"graphic case1\"><a class=\"nlb\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mg32260103.jpg?ssl=1\" rel=\"lightbox\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"graphic\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscientist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/mg32260103.jpg?w=800&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Blue belt\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Fascinating stuff. I wonder if <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/12\/31\/book-review-secular-cycles\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Professor Turchin<\/a> has ever considered this sort of cultural influence during his demographics research. The geographic movements of a specific group of people, based their source of origin, might or might not perturb the cycles of prosperity\/poverty in interesting ways that make them more predictable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From a NewScientist (26 April 2019, paywall) sidebar: Bedrock of democracy The impact of the planet\u2019s geology is even visible in how people vote. Running through the staunchly Republican south-eastern US states, for example, is a distinct crescent of Democrat-voting counties (see\u00a0graphic, below). This curve closely follows an exposed band \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2019\/05\/04\/geological-politics\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24778"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24779,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24778\/revisions\/24779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}