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Maybe Twitter Isn’t Planning to Ruin Your Life After All

by JeanaButcher Posted on February 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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On Twitter, the big outrage over the past few days has been the news that the corporate suits are planning to change the way your Twitter feed works. Instead of simply listing every tweet from your followers in real time, they’ll be rolling out an algorithm that reorders tweets “based on what Twitter’s algorithm thinks people most want to see.” This is something Facebook has been doing for years.

Power users are apoplectic, despite the fact that it’s not clear what’s really going on. A developer at Twitter hit back with this: “Seriously people. We aren’t idiots. Quit speculating about how we’re going to ‘ruin Twitter.'” Nor is it clear when this is really going to roll out. And the rumors suggest that it will be an opt-in feature anyway. Chronological timelines will still be around for everyone who wants them.

In any case, I’d suggest everyone give this a chance. Computer users, ironically, are notoriously change averse, which might be blinding a lot of us to the fact that chronological timelines aren’t exactly the greatest invention since the yellow first down line. Maybe we really do need something better. More generally, here are a few arguments in favor of waiting to see how this all plays out:

I’m a semi-power user. I don’t write a lot on Twitter,1 but I read it a lot. Still, I have a job and a life, and I don’t check it obsessively. And even though I follow a mere 200 people, all it takes is 15 minutes to make it nearly impossible to catch up with what’s going on. Being on the West Coast makes this an especial problem in the morning. A smart robot that helped solve this problem could be pretty handy, even for those of us who are experts and generally prefer a real-time feed.
One of my most common frustrations is coming back to the computer after a break and seeing lots of cryptic references to some new outrage or other. What I’d really like is a “WTF is this all about?” button. An algorithmic feed could be a useful version of this.
As plenty of people have noted, Twitter is a sexist, racist, misogynistic cesspool. There are things Twitter could do about this, but I suspect they’re limited as long as we rely on an unfiltered chronological timeline. Once an algorithm is introduced, it might well be possible to personalize your timeline in ways that clean up Twitter immensely. (Or that allow Twitter to clean it up centrally—though this obviously needs to be done with a lot of care.)
One of the most persuasive complaints about the algorithm is that it’s likely to favor the interests of advertisers more than users. Maybe so. Unfortunately, Twitter famously doesn’t seem able to find a profitable business model. But if we like Twitter, the first order of business is for it to stay in existence—and that means it needs to make money. This is almost certain to be annoying no matter how Twitter manages to do it. A good algorithm might actually be the least annoying way of accomplishing this.
Needless to say, all of this depends on how good the algorithm is. It better be pretty good, and it better improve over time.

So….stay cool, everyone. Maybe this will be an epic, New Coke style disaster that will end up as a case study in business texts for years. It wouldn’t be the first time. Then again, maybe the algorithm will be subtle, useful, and optional. I’ll be curious to try it out, myself.

1Arguments on Twitter are possibly the stupidest waste of time ever invented. Everything that’s bad about arguments in the first place is magnified tenfold by the 140-character limit. It’s hard to imagine that anyone other than a psychopath has ever emerged from a Twitter war thinking “That was great! I really learned something today.”

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Maybe Twitter Isn’t Planning to Ruin Your Life After All

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Friday Cat Blogging – 5 February 2016

by MarlaBuxton Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Here are the furballs up on the balcony surveying their domain. All is well in the kingdom—though Hilbert does appear to be alarmed about something. Probably a patch of light on the opposite wall or something. Hilbert is quite convinced that we humans don’t take the threat of light patches seriously enough. Someday, perhaps he’ll have the last laugh.

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Friday Cat Blogging – 5 February 2016

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The Bernie vs. Hillary Fight Is Kind of Ridiculous

by BellaMaughan6 Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Michigan senator Debbie Stabenow supports Hillary Clinton: “I think Bernie’s terrific as an advocate. There’s a difference between a strong community advocate and being someone who can get things done.” Martin Longman says this is an example of how nasty things are getting: “Breaking out the Sarah Palin talking points isn’t smart. Talk about how people view socialism all you want, but don’t dismiss community organizers or advocates. This isn’t a Republican campaign.”

I had to laugh at that. Nasty? I’d rate it about a 1 on the Atwater Scale. Toughen up, folks.

And speaking of this, it sure is hard to take seriously the gripes going back and forth between the Hillary and Bernie camps. Is it really the case that we can’t even agree on the following two points?

Sanders is more progressive than Clinton.
Clinton is more electable than Sanders.

I mean, come on. They’re both lefties, but Sanders is further left. The opposing arguments from the Clinton camp are laughable. Clinton is more progressive because she can get more done? Sorry. That’s ridiculous. She and Bill Clinton have always been moderate liberals, both politically and temperamentally. We have over two decades of evidence for this.

As for electability, I admire Sanders’ argument that he can drive a bigger turnout, which is good for Democrats. But it’s special pleading. The guy cops to being a socialist. He’s the most liberal member of the Senate by quite a margin (Elizabeth Warren is the only senator who’s close). He’s already promised to raise middle-class taxes. He can’t be bothered to even pretend that he cares about national security issues, which are likely to play a big role in this year’s election. He wants to spend vast amounts of money on social programs. It’s certainly true that some of this stuff might appeal to people like me, but it’s equally true that there just aren’t a lot of voters like me. Liberals have been gaining ground over the past few years, but even now only 24 percent of Americans describe themselves that way. Republicans would tear Sanders to shreds with hardly an effort, and there’s no reason to think he’d be especially skilled at fending off their attacks.

I like both Sanders and Clinton. But let’s stop kidding ourselves about what they are and aren’t. Republicans won’t be be swayed by these fantasies, and neither will voters. We might as well all accept it.

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The Bernie vs. Hillary Fight Is Kind of Ridiculous

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Obamacare Enrollment Up About 15 Percent This Year

by Dorcas8538 Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Open enrollment for Obamacare is over, and HHS announced yesterday that 12.7 million people signed up via the exchanges plus another 400,000 via New York’s Basic Health Program. So that gives us 13.1 million—up from 11.4 million last year. And since HHS is getting better at purging nonpayers, this number should hold up better throughout the year than it did in 2015. Charles Gaba has more details here.

Add to that about 15 million people enrolled in Medicaid thanks to the Obamacare expansion, and the total number of people covered this year comes to 28 million or so. This means Obamacare has reduced the ranks of the uninsured from 19 percent to about 10 percent. Not bad.

Obamacare’s raw enrollment numbers remain lower than CBO projected a few years ago, but that’s partly because employer health care has held up better than expected—which is a good thing. The fewer the people eligible for Obamacare the better. More on that here. Generally speaking, despite the best efforts of conservatives to insist that Obamacare is a disastrous failure, the truth is that it’s doing pretty well. More people are getting covered; costs are in line with projections; and there’s been essentially no effect on employment or hours worked. The only real problem with Obamacare is that it’s too stingy: deductibles are too high and out-of-pocket expenses are still substantial. Needless to say, though, that can be easily fixed anytime Republicans decide to stop rooting for failure and agree to make Obamacare an even better program. But I guess we shouldn’t hold our collective breath for that.

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Obamacare Enrollment Up About 15 Percent This Year

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Here’s How Morality Shapes the Presidential Contest

by Angelo6721 Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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A few years ago Jonathan Haidt wrote The Righteous Mind, an attempt to understand the way different people view morality. I won’t say that I bought his premise completely, but I did find it interesting and useful. In a nutshell, Haidt suggests that we all view morality through the lens of six different “foundations”—and the amount we value each foundation is crucial to understanding our political differences. Conservatives, for example, tend to view “proportionality”—an eye for an eye—as a key moral concern, while liberals tend to view “care/harm”—showing kindness to other people—as a key moral attribute. You can read more about it here.

So which presidential candidates appeal to which kinds of people? Over at Vox, Haidt and Emily Ekins write about some recent research Ekins did on supporters of various presidential candidates. I’ve condensed and excerpted the results in the chart on the right. As you can see, Democrats tend to value care but not proportionality. Republicans are just the opposite. No surprise there. But were there any moral values that were unusually strong for different candidates even after controlling for ideology and demographics?

Yes. Sanders supporters scored extremely low on the authority axis while Trump supporters scored high on authority and low on the care axis. Outside of the usual finding for proportionality, that’s it. Hillary Clinton supporters, in particular, were entirely middle-of-the-road: “Moral Foundations do not significantly predict a vote for Hillary Clinton; demographic variables seem to be all you need to predict her support (being female, nonwhite, and higher-income are all good predictors).”

So there you have it. Generally speaking, if you value proportionality but not care, you’re a Republican. If you value care but not proportionality, you’re a Democrat. Beyond that, if your world view values authority—even compared to others who are similar to you—you’re probably attracted to Donald Trump. If you’re unusually resistant to authority, you’re probably attracted to Bernie Sanders. The authors summarize the presidential race this way:

Bernie Sanders draws young liberal voters who have a strong desire for individual autonomy and place less value on social conformity and tradition. This likely leads them to appreciate Sanders’s libertarian streak and non-interventionist foreign policy. Once again, Hillary Clinton finds herself attracting more conservative Democratic voters who respect her tougher style, moderated positions, and more hawkish stance on foreign policy.

….On the Republican side…despite Trump’s longevity in the polls, authoritarianism is clearly not the only dynamic going on in the Republican race. In fact, the greatest differences by far in the simple foundation scores are on proportionality. Cruz and Rubio draw the extreme proportionalists — the Republicans who think it’s important to “let unsuccessful people fail and suffer the consequences,” as one of our questions put it.

….One surprise in our data was that Trump supporters were not extreme on any of the foundations. This means that Trump supporters are more centrist than is commonly realized; consequently, Trump’s prospects in the general election may be better than many pundits have thought. Cruz meanwhile, with a further-right moral profile, may have more difficulty attracting centrist Democrats and independents than would Trump.

So which moral foundations define you? If you’re curious, click here and take the test.

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Here’s How Morality Shapes the Presidential Contest

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Rubio Feasts on the Leftovers in New Hampshire

by JarrodLNFcyejkz Posted on February 5, 2016

Mother Jones

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Apologies for two polls in one day, but the latest CNN poll shows something interesting in the Republican race. Donald Trump is still in the lead in New Hampshire, but in the wake of the Iowa caucuses Marco Rubio has picked up a lot of support. Basically, several other folks have either left the race or lost their fan base, and nearly all of it has gone to Rubio.

It’s only one poll, and the absolute margin of error is large, but it probably shows the trend fairly well. And what it suggests is that as the also-rans steadily drop out of the race, Rubio is picking up the bulk of their support. If this happens in other states as well, Rubio could be well on his way to building a commanding lead.

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Rubio Feasts on the Leftovers in New Hampshire

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Ben Carson Says Islam Is Not a Religion But a "Life Organization System"

by JanisPolglaze Posted on January 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Ben Carson has a homework assignment for Iowans the weekend before the presidential caucuses: read up on the history of Islam. And what message will they take away? He thinks that, after a bit of studying, “you won’t call it a religion, you’ll call it a life organization system,” one that has a “apocalyptic vision.”

During a speech at the University of Iowa, Carson said that the US needed to take ISIS more seriously. The first step? He implored the Iowans in the room to learn more about the origins of the religion, hinting that ISIS’ violence is an inevitable result of the founding of Islam. “What I would suggest is that everybody here—we’ve got a weekend coming up—take a few hours and read up on Islam,” Carson said. “Please do that. Read about Muhammad. Read about how he got his start in Mecca. Read about how he was seen by the people in Mecca—not very favorably, by the way. How his uncle, nevertheless, was an influential guy. Protected him. When his uncle died, he had to flee. He went north to Medina. That’s where he put together his armies, and they began to massacre anybody who didn’t believe the same way they did.”

I didn’t want to read too much into Carson’s description of Islam, so followed up with him after the event, asking what lessons exactly he wanted Iowans to draw from his reading assignment. “I think they don’t understand all the aspects of it, including Sharia, how that plays in,” he responded. “I don’t think most people actually understand what jihad is. They don’t understand the whole apocalyptic vision that they have. When you understand that, you understand what drives an organization like ISIS.”

Still a bit confused, I double checked to see if those lessons encapsulated the entire religion, or just ISIS. “It doesn’t encapsulate everything,” he replied. “It’s really not, once you read it, you won’t call it a religion, you’ll call it a life organization system.”

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Ben Carson Says Islam Is Not a Religion But a "Life Organization System"

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Vámonos! An Unprecedented Latino Voter Drive Could Tip the Scales in Iowa

by ErnieRau44478 Posted on January 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Across Iowa, thousands of Latino voters are getting the same call. “It is important the Latino community participate in the presidential caucuses,” a young Latina woman says on the robocall. “If we don’t participate in the Iowa caucuses, then everyone else gets to decide for us what issues are important and which candidates will address those issues.”

A total of 50,000 Latino voters are receiving direct mailings bearing similar messages, and 25,000 are receiving robo and live calls encouraging them to caucus on February 1. For those living in the 20 Iowa counties with the highest concentration of Latino voters, they are getting knocks on their door and caucus training opportunities in their communities. It’s all part of an ambitious effort to organize Iowa’s Latino population into an influential voting block in the caucuses next month. “People will be surprised,” predicts Joe Henry, the man spearheading the effort. “I think you’re going to see a little history here.”

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Vámonos! An Unprecedented Latino Voter Drive Could Tip the Scales in Iowa

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Why Do So Many People Believe Bernie Sanders?

by WilfredPba Posted on January 26, 2016

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OK, now for the Democrats. It’s really hard to get excited about the state of the race, isn’t it?

The Clinton campaign’s focus on gun control is absurd. Hillary has an NRA grade of F and Bernie gets a D-. That’s what we’re arguing about? For chrissake. How dispiriting can you get?

On health care, Bernie wants single-payer. Me too. And I’ll bet Hillary does as well. She’s just decided that it’s not politically useful to say so. And since neither one of them is going to get it anytime soon, does it really matter much?

The same is true on nearly every other domestic issue. Bernie is off to Hillary’s left—either genuinely or rhetorically—but in office they’d both be constrained to the same place. Neither one could accomplish even what Hillary wants, let alone what Bernie wants.

The one place where they have real differences and those differences might matter is national security. But for reasons of their own, neither of them really wants to talk much about that. Hillary doesn’t want to highlight her relative hawkishness in a Democratic primary, and Bernie doesn’t really want to highlight what his dovishness would mean in practice. Besides, it just gets in the way of the only message he really cares about: plutocracy and income inequality.

Bottom line: given the realities of American politics, they’d both be highly constrained in what they can accomplish in the White House. It doesn’t matter what’s in their hearts. What matters is (a) whether they can win in November and (b) what kind of deals they can broker with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell.

Anybody who’s read my blog for a while can guess where I fall on this. I think Bernie has done a great job of pushing Hillary a bit to the left and demonstrating that she can expect continued pressure on that front. But the truth is that Hillary wins on both points A and B. She’s not the most charismatic politician in the world, but as we all like to say, we’re voting for president, not someone to have a beer with. What’s more, I’ve long admired her tenacity; her ability to withstand decades of crude invective and political destruction derby; and her very obvious, lifelong commitment to using politics as a way of improving people’s lives. There have been a million noxious compromises along the way, but that’s how politics works in the real world. Plus I’d love to see a woman in the White House.

I like Bernie. I like what he says. If I believed he could do all the stuff he talks about, he’d have my vote. But I don’t.

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Why Do So Many People Believe Bernie Sanders?

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Why Is Flint’s Water Still Unsafe? Or Is It?

by BethEverett Posted on January 21, 2016

Mother Jones

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Can someone help me out? Flint reconnected to the Detroit water system in October, and it was supposed to take a few weeks after that to clean out the pipes. So what happened? I keep seeing pallets of bottled water being delivered to Flint, but shouldn’t the tap water be safe by now? Has it been tested for lead levels in the past month or two? I’ve been trying to check this out, but I can’t seem to find anything definitive.

I feel like I must have missed something. I don’t know how hard a thorough round of testing is, but it sure seems like that would have been a top priority starting in early November. Is it being done?

UPDATE: Here’s the answer:

Over time, the lead pipes in Flint built up a protective mineral coating—or scale—that prevented lead from getting into the water.
During the 17 months it was used, acidic water from the Flint River corroded away the scale, exposing fresh metal.
Even if the water is now good, it’s going to take a while before the scale rebuilds. In the meantime, lead can still leach into the water.

Back in December, the Flint Utilities Director announced that they planned to boost the level of phosphates in the water to aid in rebuilding the scale. They also hired a firm to begin testing of high-risk homes. Normally it can take up to five years for scale to rebuild, but presumably the additional phosphates will reduce this time. Still, it might be quite a while before the water is safe again, which explains the continuing pallets of bottled water.

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Why Is Flint’s Water Still Unsafe? Or Is It?

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