The Sindex

[Arkady]

Below I've provided a ranking of the states based on how sinful the residents are.

To do this, I used the traditional Christian Seven Deadly Sins as a template (dating back to 590 CE and Pope Gregory). In each case I tried to find a measurable statistic to use as a rough proxy for the sin. Here's what I came up with (with reasoning for each in parentheses):

Greed -- Poverty rate (based on the idea that poverty is a proxy for the level of suffering of the unfortunate that the wealthy will tolerate rather than give up a larger share of their wealth to reduce poverty).

Lust -- Teen pregnancy rate (based on the idea that teens get pregnant generally due to poor ability to control their sexual urges)

Envy -- Rate of larceny-theft (based on the idea that envious people are more likely to steal)

Wrath -- Murder rate (based on the idea that wrath leads to violence).

Gluttony -- Obesity rate (based on the idea that people who stuff their faces get fat)

Sloth -- life expectancy (based on the fact that active people tend to live longer -- I thought about using NAEP scores or college graduation rates, based on the idea lazy people don't study as much... would that have been a better proxy?)

Pride -- The Movoto state pride metric, based on the percentage of residents who have "liked" their state on Facebook (based on the fact I couldn't think of any other decent proxy for pride).​

In each case, I ranked the states from 1 to 50, with 50 being the worst (e.g., the highest obesity rate, the lowest life expectancy). Then I simply added the seven rankings together for each state, to list the states from most to least sinful. I've colored them red, blue, and purple based on how they've gone in the last three presidential elections:

Louisiana
Arkansas
South Carolina
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Alabama
Mississippi
Texas
Tennessee
Georgia
Ohio
Kentucky
West Virginia
Missouri
Arizona
Delaware
Alaska
North Carolina
Indiana
Michigan
Nevada
Kansas
Florida
Oregon
Wyoming
Montana
Illinois
Maryland
Nebraska
Maine
Pennsylvania
Colorado
Hawaii
Wisconsin
Washington
North Dakota
South Dakota
Idaho
New York
California
Utah
Rhode Island
Virginia
Iowa
Minnesota
Vermont
New Jersey
New Hampshire
Connecticut
Massachusetts​

I embedded links for each of the stats above, so you can confirm my results.​

Notice any patterns? Well, for starters, the six states with the most virtuous residents have gone Democrat consistently. And of the more virtuous half of states, only five went consistently for the Republicans. The nation's most liberal region, New England, has five out of six states in the top ten for virtue.

At the other end, the three states with the most vicious residents all consistently vote Republican, and there isn't a single solid blue state among the most vicious populations, until you get all the way down to Delaware, at 16.

Is there some reason that states with especially sinful residents are such fertile grounds for the GOP? Is there some reason the Democratic Party does so well among good people? Or does it perhaps run the other way -- that a triumph of conservatism leads people into sin, while liberalism encourages people to rise towards virtue?

 

[marvin martian]

Welcome to the church, brother. Good to see you've finally come around...

 

[Arkady]

Wow...... That is one of the most contrived pieces of bullshit I've ever seen. That you actually went to the time and trouble to make all that horseshit up, and twist it and spin it until it roughly approximates what you're trying to say, is amazing to me. You have something seriously broken in your brain if this is an example of the kind of projects you use to entertain yourself. You might want to seek out a medical professional's advice, guy.
Just saying....

We each do things to entertain ourselves. I put together an index showing real-world patterns, based on statistical evidence, and I invited discussion about why those patterns exist. That entertains me. You launched an angry, profanity-laced personal attack in response to that. That entertains you. I'll leave it to others to assess which of us is showing signs of needing a medical professional's advice.

 

[Arkady]

Obviously a slow day at DNC HQ.

As you know, I have no affiliation with the Democrats, and I never have. But I do find it interesting that virtuous populations have a greater tendency to vote that way. Don't you? Do you have any theories on why that clear correlation exists?

 

[marvin martian]

As you know, I have no affiliation with the Democrats, and I never have. But I do find it interesting that virtuous populations have a greater tendency to vote that way. Don't you? Do you have any theories on why that clear correlation exists?

I have a theory as to why you've finally accepted Jesus Christ and the righteousness and validity of Christian doctrine after denying it for so many years. I hope I'm right...

 

[Arkady]

I have a theory as to why you've finally accepted Jesus Christ and the righteousness and validity of Christian doctrine after denying it for so many years. I hope I'm right...

Sorry to disappoint you, but referencing a Christian framework for sin doesn't suggest I've become a Christian. I'm just aware of my audience. I figured the five pillars of Islam or five precepts of Buddhism wouldn't have much cachet here.

Having said that, I suspect the list wouldn't look that different regardless of which set of traditional virtues or vices you pulled for. For example, the five precepts of Buddhism has three directly corresponding to deadly sins (abstain from killing, abstain from stealing, avoid sensual misconduct). Of the remaining two, one is to abstain from alcohol and one is to abstain from false speech. Not sure what stat you could use for false speech, but there are ways to measure per capita alcohol consumption. That would probably hurt the ranking of NH and Montana, since they're big drinkers who otherwise rank well. And it would further help Utah's ranking. But overall I'd expect the same pattern.

 

[Dino]

As you know, I have no affiliation with the Democrats, and I never have. But I do find it interesting that virtuous populations have a greater tendency to vote that way. Don't you? Do you have any theories on why that clear correlation exists?

So uhh...voting for Democrats is considered "virtuous" now?

I'd consider your findings more paradoxical than proof positive of any perceived "virtue".

 

[marvin martian]

Sorry to disappoint you, but referencing a Christian framework for sin doesn't suggest I've become a Christian. I'm just aware of my audience. I figured the five pillars of Islam or five precepts of Buddhism wouldn't have much cachet here.

True. The alternative is that you're so hateful, unstable and useless that you spent a significant amount of your obviously valueless time developing a matrix based on principles in which you don't believe, to prove a political point you claim you don't represent.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now you've removed it...

 

[SW48]

Below I've provided a ranking of the states based on how sinful the residents are.

To do this, I used the traditional Christian Seven Deadly Sins as a template (dating back to 590 CE and Pope Gregory). In each case I tried to find a measurable statistic to use as a rough proxy for the sin. Here's what I came up with (with reasoning for each in parentheses):

Greed -- Poverty rate (based on the idea that poverty is a proxy for the level of suffering of the unfortunate that the wealthy will tolerate rather than give up a larger share of their wealth to reduce poverty).

Lust -- Teen pregnancy rate (based on the idea that teens get pregnant generally due to poor ability to control their sexual urges)

Envy -- Rate of larceny-theft (based on the idea that envious people are more likely to steal)

Wrath -- Murder rate (based on the idea that wrath leads to violence).

Gluttony -- Obesity rate (based on the idea that people who stuff their faces get fat)

Sloth -- life expectancy (based on the fact that active people tend to live longer -- I thought about using NAEP scores or college graduation rates, based on the idea lazy people don't study as much... would that have been a better proxy?)

Pride -- The Movoto state pride metric, based on the percentage of residents who have "liked" their state on Facebook (based on the fact I couldn't think of any other decent proxy for pride).​

In each case, I ranked the states from 1 to 50, with 50 being the worst (e.g., the highest obesity rate, the lowest life expectancy). Then I simply added the seven rankings together for each state, to list the states from most to least sinful. I've colored them red, blue, and purple based on how they've gone in the last three presidential elections:

Louisiana
Arkansas
South Carolina
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Alabama
Mississippi
Texas
Tennessee
Georgia
Ohio
Kentucky
West Virginia
Missouri
Arizona
Delaware
Alaska
North Carolina
Indiana
Michigan
Nevada
Kansas
Florida
Oregon
Wyoming
Montana
Illinois
Maryland
Nebraska
Maine
Pennsylvania
Colorado
Hawaii
Wisconsin
Washington
North Dakota
South Dakota
Idaho
New York
California
Utah
Rhode Island
Virginia
Iowa
Minnesota
Vermont
New Jersey
New Hampshire
Connecticut
Massachusetts​

I embedded links for each of the stats above, so you can confirm my results.​

Notice any patterns? Well, for starters, the six states with the most virtuous residents have gone Democrat consistently. And of the more virtuous half of states, only five went consistently for the Republicans. The nation's most liberal region, New England, has five out of six states in the top ten for virtue.

At the other end, the three states with the most vicious residents all consistently vote Republican, and there isn't a single solid blue state among the most vicious populations, until you get all the way down to Delaware, at 16.

Is there some reason that states with especially sinful residents are such fertile grounds for the GOP? Is there some reason the Democratic Party does so well among good people? Or does it perhaps run the other way -- that a triumph of conservatism leads people into sin, while liberalism encourages people to rise towards virtue?

Very good info and post.

I wonder what the political makeup of our prisons, food stamps, jobless etc would look like? Might be an interesting followup project. Might surprise some people.

 

[Arkady]

Very good info and post.

I wonder what the political makeup of our prisons, food stamps, jobless etc would look like? Might be an interesting followup project. Might surprise some people.

The interesting thing is that there's so much correlation among these various indicators of social and economic health. For example, since you brought up prisons, here are the states with the highest incarceration rates:

LA, OK, MS, AL, GA, TX, AZ, AR, FL, NM.

And here are those with the lowest:

ME, MN, MA, RI, VT, NH, ND, HI, IA, NY

Those are similar to the clusters you'd see for lists of obesity, life expectancy, poverty, income, education levels, infant mortality, STD rates, patents per capita, drug abuse rates, and on and on. Almost without regard to topic, you'll find states like Massachusetts among the best performers and states like Mississippi among the worst.

Anyway, I think there's some divergence between what these stats look like on a society-wide level, versus what they look like on an individual level. For example, states that have populations with lower education levels tend to vote Republican, while those with higher education levels vote Democrat. Yet that doesn't mean that individuals with higher education levels vote Democrat and those with lower ones vote Republican.

I have a theory on that disparity. I think it can be summed up easily with a parable. If you're in a class of idiots and are offered the choice between an individual project or a group project, you're more likely to want the individual project, because you'll figure a group project will just mean you pulling a lot of dead weight around. If you're in class of smart people, a group project will be more appealing, because you'll see it as a chance to combine your strengths, with the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. In the same way, people in states full of dumb people don't like the idea of the "group project" of having more stuff handled at the government level, since they'll see that as making them carry around a lot of dead weight. They'd rather be left to their own devices -- which is conducive to the conservative mindset. If your state is full of smart people, on the other hand, you'll see collective efforts more positively. So, at least for people of average-or-better intelligence, education, diligence, etc., they're going to be more likely to lean liberal somewhere like Massachusetts and conservative somewhere like Mississippi.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

Below I've provided a ranking of the states based on how sinful the residents are.

To do this, I used the traditional Christian Seven Deadly Sins as a template (dating back to 590 CE and Pope Gregory). In each case I tried to find a measurable statistic to use as a rough proxy for the sin. Here's what I came up with (with reasoning for each in parentheses):

Greed -- Poverty rate (based on the idea that poverty is a proxy for the level of suffering of the unfortunate that the wealthy will tolerate rather than give up a larger share of their wealth to reduce poverty).

Lust -- Teen pregnancy rate (based on the idea that teens get pregnant generally due to poor ability to control their sexual urges)

Envy -- Rate of larceny-theft (based on the idea that envious people are more likely to steal)

Wrath -- Murder rate (based on the idea that wrath leads to violence).

Gluttony -- Obesity rate (based on the idea that people who stuff their faces get fat)

Sloth -- life expectancy (based on the fact that active people tend to live longer -- I thought about using NAEP scores or college graduation rates, based on the idea lazy people don't study as much... would that have been a better proxy?)

Pride -- The Movoto state pride metric, based on the percentage of residents who have "liked" their state on Facebook (based on the fact I couldn't think of any other decent proxy for pride).​

In each case, I ranked the states from 1 to 50, with 50 being the worst (e.g., the highest obesity rate, the lowest life expectancy). Then I simply added the seven rankings together for each state, to list the states from most to least sinful. I've colored them red, blue, and purple based on how they've gone in the last three presidential elections:

Louisiana
Arkansas
South Carolina
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Alabama
Mississippi
Texas
Tennessee
Georgia
Ohio
Kentucky
West Virginia
Missouri
Arizona
Delaware
Alaska
North Carolina
Indiana
Michigan
Nevada
Kansas
Florida
Oregon
Wyoming
Montana
Illinois
Maryland
Nebraska
Maine
Pennsylvania
Colorado
Hawaii
Wisconsin
Washington
North Dakota
South Dakota
Idaho
New York
California
Utah
Rhode Island
Virginia
Iowa
Minnesota
Vermont
New Jersey
New Hampshire
Connecticut
Massachusetts​

I embedded links for each of the stats above, so you can confirm my results.​

Notice any patterns? Well, for starters, the six states with the most virtuous residents have gone Democrat consistently. And of the more virtuous half of states, only five went consistently for the Republicans. The nation's most liberal region, New England, has five out of six states in the top ten for virtue.

At the other end, the three states with the most vicious residents all consistently vote Republican, and there isn't a single solid blue state among the most vicious populations, until you get all the way down to Delaware, at 16.

Is there some reason that states with especially sinful residents are such fertile grounds for the GOP? Is there some reason the Democratic Party does so well among good people? Or does it perhaps run the other way -- that a triumph of conservatism leads people into sin, while liberalism encourages people to rise towards virtue?

I will only comment on one section: GREED. You use the poverty rate to make that case. First of all, that is a very small slice to use to define greed. But let's let that go for the moment.

It's no coincidence that the blue states you listed are at the bottom of the list. They are also states with a very high cost of living. Currently, we have a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in this country. I contend that a person making $7.25 an hour in Connecticut is far worse off than a person making the same pay in Mississippi.

So using a national poverty rate in states with far different costs of living is specious at best and clearly fails to control for differences in cost of living.

 

[marvin martian]

I will only comment on one section: GREED. You use the poverty rate to make that case. First of all, that is a very small slice to use to define greed. But let's let that go for the moment.

It's no coincidence that the blue states you listed are at the bottom of the list. They are also states with a very high cost of living. Currently, we have a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in this country. I contend that a person making $7.25 an hour in Connecticut is far worse off than a person making the same pay in Mississippi.

So using a national poverty rate in states with far different costs of living is specious at best and clearly fails to control for differences in cost of living.

Well said. A better indicator for GREED, imo, would be the number of people employed in the banking or government sectors, as well as members of public unions.

 

[Arkady]

Where is the "arrogant" rating button?

Good question. One of the posters here tried to deceive the forum into thinking Paul Krugman had pronounced Japan healed -- a "fact" he'd invented out of nothing and that a humbler man would have realized would be immediately identified and outed as a lie. The level of arrogance it takes to engage in such conduct really does deserve its own button.

 

[Arkady]

Well said. A better indicator for GREED, imo, would be the number of people employed in the banking or government sectors, as well as members of public unions.

People employed in the government sector are very often the opposite of greedy, in that they're often paid less than they would be in the private sector, but feel that they're doing more good working for the nation. For example, I had a friend who was a nuclear technician in the Navy, where he made a fraction of what someone with the same skills would make working in the private sector, but he believed he was helping to keep the rest of us safe, which was a form of non-monetary compensation for him. As for people employed as banking, I'd accept that they're probably disproportionately greedy, but it doesn't strike me as a good proxy for greed since just focusing on that one industry is so narrow. How about people in the fossil fuels field? They make damned good money destroying our environment and hastening climate change.

 

[Arkady]

True. The alternative is that you're so hateful, unstable and useless that you spent a significant amount of your obviously valueless time developing a matrix based on principles in which you don't believe, to prove a political point you claim you don't represent.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but now you've removed it...

What makes you think I don't believe in those principles? If you could identify which part of what I wrote you misread that way, I could explain to you where, exactly you went wrong. Through effort, you could become a better reader.

 

[Arkady]

So uhh...voting for Democrats is considered "virtuous" now?

I'd consider your findings more paradoxical than proof positive of any perceived "virtue".

No. You've misread. Go back and try again.

 

[UPNYA2]

Below I've provided a ranking of the states based on how sinful the residents are.

To do this, I used the traditional Christian Seven Deadly Sins as a template (dating back to 590 CE and Pope Gregory). In each case I tried to find a measurable statistic to use as a rough proxy for the sin. Here's what I came up with (with reasoning for each in parentheses):

Greed -- Poverty rate (based on the idea that poverty is a proxy for the level of suffering of the unfortunate that the wealthy will tolerate rather than give up a larger share of their wealth to reduce poverty).

Lust -- Teen pregnancy rate (based on the idea that teens get pregnant generally due to poor ability to control their sexual urges)

Envy -- Rate of larceny-theft (based on the idea that envious people are more likely to steal)

Wrath -- Murder rate (based on the idea that wrath leads to violence).

Gluttony -- Obesity rate (based on the idea that people who stuff their faces get fat)

Sloth -- life expectancy (based on the fact that active people tend to live longer -- I thought about using NAEP scores or college graduation rates, based on the idea lazy people don't study as much... would that have been a better proxy?)

Pride -- The Movoto state pride metric, based on the percentage of residents who have "liked" their state on Facebook (based on the fact I couldn't think of any other decent proxy for pride).​

In each case, I ranked the states from 1 to 50, with 50 being the worst (e.g., the highest obesity rate, the lowest life expectancy). Then I simply added the seven rankings together for each state, to list the states from most to least sinful. I've colored them red, blue, and purple based on how they've gone in the last three presidential elections:

Louisiana
Arkansas
South Carolina
New Mexico
Oklahoma
Alabama
Mississippi
Texas
Tennessee
Georgia
Ohio
Kentucky
West Virginia
Missouri
Arizona
Delaware
Alaska
North Carolina
Indiana
Michigan
Nevada
Kansas
Florida
Oregon
Wyoming
Montana
Illinois
Maryland
Nebraska
Maine
Pennsylvania
Colorado
Hawaii
Wisconsin
Washington
North Dakota
South Dakota
Idaho
New York
California
Utah
Rhode Island
Virginia
Iowa
Minnesota
Vermont
New Jersey
New Hampshire
Connecticut
Massachusetts​

I embedded links for each of the stats above, so you can confirm my results.​

Notice any patterns? Well, for starters, the six states with the most virtuous residents have gone Democrat consistently. And of the more virtuous half of states, only five went consistently for the Republicans. The nation's most liberal region, New England, has five out of six states in the top ten for virtue.

At the other end, the three states with the most vicious residents all consistently vote Republican, and there isn't a single solid blue state among the most vicious populations, until you get all the way down to Delaware, at 16.

Is there some reason that states with especially sinful residents are such fertile grounds for the GOP? Is there some reason the Democratic Party does so well among good people? Or does it perhaps run the other way -- that a triumph of conservatism leads people into sin, while liberalism encourages people to rise towards virtue?

Poor fellow, you began all of this using obviously biased data and actually got worse as you went......

" In each case I tried to find a measurable statistic to use as a rough proxy for the sin."

The initial mistake. You should have tried harder.

"Here's what I came up with (with reasoning for each in parentheses):"

So you inform us all that you created what is supposed to be viewed as some sort of a scientific analysis of data based on factors the YOU "came up with"?

Look at it like this, YOUR "rough proxy" for;

Greed -- Poverty rate (based on the idea that poverty is a proxy for the level of suffering of the unfortunate that the wealthy will tolerate rather than give up a larger share of their wealth to reduce poverty).

But what if greed were defined as people feeling entitled to as much of OTHER people's monies as they "feel" is "fair"?

Hell, that unhealthy manner in which those on the left seek more and more of the monies of OTHER people COULD also qualify as lust and envy as well.

Were those definitions applied would the people you deem to be more virtuous change?

Look, we get it, we ALL get it.

As a liberal you truly feel as if your ideas, and ONLY your ideas, of how much money each person should be allowed to keep, who is entitled to the monies of other folks and what needs to be done with everyone's money are "compassionate", "fair", and yes, "virtuous", we get that.

But just be who you are and stop with these feeble-assed, at BEST, attempts to somehow just magically explain away your desire to run the lives of all. It isn't working and it fools none of us.

Just try to be true to yourself. Just be yourself. This sh it here makes it look like you know what you desire is not right and you are desperately seeking to hide it from others and yourself.

It isn't working by the way.......

 

[Arkady]

I will only comment on one section: GREED. You use the poverty rate to make that case. First of all, that is a very small slice to use to define greed. But let's let that go for the moment.

It's no coincidence that the blue states you listed are at the bottom of the list. They are also states with a very high cost of living. Currently, we have a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour in this country. I contend that a person making $7.25 an hour in Connecticut is far worse off than a person making the same pay in Mississippi.

If you'd like to recalculate the poverty rate to account for cost of living, I'd be open to seeing the new rankings. While we're at it, perhaps we should address this as an actual policy matter: for example, changing the thresholds for welfare payments based on residence, to reflect the fact that a family making $15,000 per year in Mississippi might not really need any help, while a family making $20,000 per year in Connecticut might. We could also do that with tax brackets: index them to cost of living, so that those of us with salaries that would make us rich in an average area, but not in the area where we live, aren't taxed as if we're rich -- and those who are poor by the standards of an average area but can actually live quite comfortably in their local area don't get the benefit of tax breaks designed for people who are struggling. That kind of change would also help rebalance the flow of federal funds, which currently tend to come disproportionately from places like Connecticut and flow disproportionately to places like Mississippi.

 

[Arkady]

Poor fellow, you began all of this using obviously biased data and actually got worse as you went......

The data wasn't biased, except in the traditional right-wing sense that reality is understood to have a well-known liberal bias.

" In each case I tried to find a measurable statistic to use as a rough proxy for the sin."

The initial mistake. You should have tried harder.

If you'd like to try harder, feel free. You can come up with your own proxies and re-run the numbers. If you just snipe from the sidelines, though, you're not in much of a position to fault someone for not trying harder, are you?

So you inform us all that you created what is supposed to be viewed as some sort of a scientific analysis of data based on factors the YOU "came up with"?

I'm transparent about my methods and reasoning. That's how honest people behave (you'll have to take my word on that). If you disagree with my methods and reasoning, you're welcome to argue for alternatives and to recrunch the numbers using those.

But what if greed were defined as people feeling entitled to as much of OTHER people's monies as they "feel" is "fair"?

How w0uld you propose we quantify that feeling of entitlement? And doesn't it require that we presuppose what belongs to each person to begin with?

Take copyright law as an example. Prior to the Copyright Term Extension Act, the future value of all those works set to go into the public domain belonged to all of us, collectively. After that Act, that future value belonged to the existing copyright holders, instead. That was a transfer of countless billions of dollars of value from the public, in general, to a subset of the nation -- disproportionately to a few large content holders like Disney (it was called the Mickey Mouse Protection Act for a reason). So, can we say that the shareholders of Disney felt themselves to be entitled to much of other people's monies as their fair share, when they pushed for that legal change? Or did it really belong to them, rightly, in the first place, and the law that would have it move to the public domain was wrong? Depending on where you come down on that question, the issue of who is being greedy here is decided differently. And the same is true for absolutely any property issue. To decide whether someone is greedy to expect a certain thing to belong to him or her, you have to first take a position whether it's right or wrong for it to belong to him or her. I'm not sure how you quantify that.

Anyway, if you have anything of value to offer here, I hope to see it.

 

[Deleted member 21794]

If you'd like to recalculate the poverty rate to account for cost of living, I'd be open to seeing the new rankings. While we're at it, perhaps we should address this as an actual policy matter: for example, changing the thresholds for welfare payments based on residence, to reflect the fact that a family making $15,000 per year in Mississippi might not really need any help, while a family making $20,000 per year in Connecticut might. We could also do that with tax brackets: index them to cost of living, so that those of us with salaries that would make us rich in an average area, but not in the area where we live, aren't taxed as if we're rich -- and those who are poor by the standards of an average area but can actually live quite comfortably in their local area don't get the benefit of tax breaks designed for people who are struggling. That kind of change would also help rebalance the flow of federal funds, which currently tend to come disproportionately from places like Connecticut and flow disproportionately to places like Mississippi.

Equal protection under the law makes your idea a FAIL. If anything, what you have shown is why we should have the federal government controlling far less that what they do.

Furthermore, the federal government can't even balance a checkbook. They couldn't even manage a simple car rebate. To think they could manage something like this is laughable.

By the way, why do you think there needs to be any "rebalancing" of where federal dollars are spent. Would you like to volunteer Massachussetts for nuclear testing so that New Mexico can quit collecting so many federal dollars?