Reading Keifus's comments about AI and geogrpaphic diversity led me to think about another show -- Extreme Makeover (Home Edition).

I would venture that the show's appeal is mostly to red state people, and most of the subjects are suburban white "What's the matter with Kansas?" type of people facing the worst problems for suburban white people, typically a debilitiating illness to one of the family members.

One of the things I used to like about the show was that it did bring red and blue state sensibilities together.  The regulars seemed to be blue state Americans.  And they could work together with the red state locals to help some folks in need.

But that always raised a few questions for me:

• Could we bring people together to help folks who weren't obviously innocent victims?  What about families torn apart by alcoholism, or an unexpected pregnancy, or someone coming out of the closet?  It's easy to come together to build a new house for poeple whose son developed muscular distrophy.  What if he's in a wheelchair because he got in the middle of a gang fight?
• Why does it take a TV show to bring the community together to help these folks?  Sure, they may not have been able to build them a brand new house loaded with plasma TV's, but it seems there's something between that and the desperate conditions they start out at.

Right -- it's disproportionate.  I think a lot more good (but perhaps not as dramatic TV) would come from doing moderate fix-ups to five houses than levelling one house and building a three-car garage five bedroom mansion with eight plasma TV's and brand new appliances.  And then the corporate do-gooder comes on and pays off their mortgage.

I wonder what that does to the family socially in that community when they've received such a windfall, and with the subtle message that they "deserved" it, whereas the family down the street with the slightly less telegenic sob story got nothing. 

And obviously, these familiies are going to continue to need help.  Will they continue to get it after everyone just worked their tail off to give them a mansion?