4 ms·

The line you're referring to was corrected to: > There's a reason the majority of our armed forces hail from the south and midwest and not from the north and w

The line you're referring to was corrected to: > There's a reason the majority of our armed forces hail from the south and midwest and not from the north and west. Less confusion of statistics and more poor language on my part; the distinction should be between the areas thought of as rural versus the areas which are fully urbanized. Florida being the obvious example of a coastal state that is less developed compared to the North and West and overrepresented in military demographics.

bsder 9y ago
I'm still going to challenge you on this. Taking a look at: http://www.statemaster.com/graph/mil_tot_mil_rec_arm_nav_air_for-recruits-army-navy-air-force&b_map=1 http://www.statemaster.com/graph/mil_tot_mil_rec_arm_nav_air... The top states in terms of numbers are: Texas-15,594 Florida-9,581 New York-7,523 Pennsylvania-5,756 Illinois-5,738 So, Florida is the outlier, not Southern states in general.
- hitekker 9y ago
  For those curious, I made a quick excel spreadsheet of the data provided. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_3pASjRsRXawSF4BgmSU7Ugm0i2r_rDyw-cUaR4aYuc/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_3pASjRsRXawSF4BgmSU... A supermajority of recruits (65.7%) comes from the South and Midwest [1]. More recent sources (Statemaster's data is from 2004) confirms that not only the South and Midwest still form the majority in recruiting, but also forms majorities in active duty service men and other key metrics [2]. I would continue tabulating and analyzing, but at this point, I'll take the secondary sources at their word. [3] To be clear, I am not advocating for rural-over-urban or south-over-north or some-weird-political-agenda. Instead, I would caution against minimizing the contributions of these states to our (the US's) national defense. Especially in the South, military service is, not unduly, enshrined as a part of their culture and identity. [1]: This graphic in addition to the state's individual wikipedia articles guided how the groupings of the spreadsheet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Census_Regions_and_Division_of_the_United_States.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_United_... [2]: http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2014-Demographics-Report.pdf http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2014... [3]: http://www.ozy.com/acumen/why-the-us-military-is-so-southern/72100 http://www.ozy.com/acumen/why-the-us-military-is-so-southern..., http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-not-representative-of-country-2014-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-not-representa... And so forth. There are a lot of articles about the overrepresentation of the South and Midwest in military demographics.
  - pnutjam 9y ago
    The midwest is still a powerhouse for the US economy and military. It's just no the cool place to be.
  - bsder 9y ago
    Um, you picked off almost 59% of the population with your categories, you know? If you are average, you would see 59% of the representation--that should be your baseline. This is the standard "look, everything is concentrated where the population is" graph problem. However, even after accounting for that, I stand corrected as having been wrong. There seems to be a systematic bias in the range of 5-8% toward the Southern and Midwestern states.

bsder 9y ago

I'm still going to challenge you on this. Taking a look at: http://www.statemaster.com/graph/mil_tot_mil_rec_arm_nav_air_for-recruits-army-navy-air-force&b_map=1 http://www.statemaster.com/graph/mil_tot_mil_rec_arm_nav_air... The top states in terms of numbers are: Texas-15,594 Florida-9,581 New York-7,523 Pennsylvania-5,756 Illinois-5,738 So, Florida is the outlier, not Southern states in general.

hitekker 9y ago
For those curious, I made a quick excel spreadsheet of the data provided. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_3pASjRsRXawSF4BgmSU7Ugm0i2r_rDyw-cUaR4aYuc/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_3pASjRsRXawSF4BgmSU... A supermajority of recruits (65.7%) comes from the South and Midwest [1]. More recent sources (Statemaster's data is from 2004) confirms that not only the South and Midwest still form the majority in recruiting, but also forms majorities in active duty service men and other key metrics [2]. I would continue tabulating and analyzing, but at this point, I'll take the secondary sources at their word. [3] To be clear, I am not advocating for rural-over-urban or south-over-north or some-weird-political-agenda. Instead, I would caution against minimizing the contributions of these states to our (the US's) national defense. Especially in the South, military service is, not unduly, enshrined as a part of their culture and identity. [1]: This graphic in addition to the state's individual wikipedia articles guided how the groupings of the spreadsheet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Census_Regions_and_Division_of_the_United_States.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_of_the_United_... [2]: http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2014-Demographics-Report.pdf http://download.militaryonesource.mil/12038/MOS/Reports/2014... [3]: http://www.ozy.com/acumen/why-the-us-military-is-so-southern/72100 http://www.ozy.com/acumen/why-the-us-military-is-so-southern..., http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-not-representative-of-country-2014-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-not-representa... And so forth. There are a lot of articles about the overrepresentation of the South and Midwest in military demographics.
- pnutjam 9y ago
  The midwest is still a powerhouse for the US economy and military. It's just no the cool place to be.
- bsder 9y ago
  Um, you picked off almost 59% of the population with your categories, you know? If you are average, you would see 59% of the representation--that should be your baseline. This is the standard "look, everything is concentrated where the population is" graph problem. However, even after accounting for that, I stand corrected as having been wrong. There seems to be a systematic bias in the range of 5-8% toward the Southern and Midwestern states.