Does growing up in Alaska make you more likely to adopt anti-consumerist, anti-commercialism opinions? Perhaps there's something more real about growing up surrounded by wilderness? Or some warping factor due to the conventional wisdom (which amounts to little more than a consensus reality in Alaska) that Alaskans are the last true frontier folk?
There are likely no hard data one way or another. I just can't shake the nagging sense that I've developed from talking to fellow expatriot-Alaskans that we still carry the psychological distance we felt growing up some 3000 miles from Outside, from the Lower 48 states, even though we may currently live right in the middle of the Lower 48. Perhaps foreigners in the US feel the same way? Immigrants? Perhaps Canadians from the Yukon feel the same way in Canada? Or Nova Scotians?
Perhaps this is why, in a conversation with three fellow Alaskans (only three of us expats), it was soundly concluded that Alaska would be a great place to raise children. Your kids would inherit this subtle, underlying worldview, which we four concluded was all to the good. But don't share this truth with anyone else -- after all, we can't have half of Chicago moving to South Anchorage. Call it our little secret.
Secrets & Lies, by Bruce Schneier
The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea & Robert Anton Wilson
Life is a Miracle, by Wendell Berry
The Practice of System and Network Administration, by Thomas A. Limoncelli and Christine Hogan
Comfortable With Uncertainty, by Pema Chödrön
Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything, by James Gleick