Tag: Trump

Crowd Wisdom, Fake News, Information Disparity, and Antarctic Ice Shelves. What’s the connection?

Are Crowds Looking Better These Days?

Facebook is reported to be using crowdsourcing to keep Fake News in check. See https://headleaks.com/2016/12/facebook-tries-crowdsourcing-fact-checkers-to-fight-fake-news/

Trust in numbers. That’s what democracy is all about, right? In a representative democracy, crowds pick their representatives by majority rule. (I’m talking about the principle, not a debacle like the 2016 U.S. Presidential election.) Wisdom flows from the crowd. . . all of us persuaded of crowd wisdom are prepared to hand over most decisions to the crowd. Thus the popularity of ballot initiatives, such as the ones to legalize marijuana in several states in the 2016 election—let the voters decide, directly. Real democracy. Obtains the wisest results. If two heads are better than one, a million heads are better than. . . yours.

Or are they? There are a couple of things that call that into question crowd wisdom when applied to our real, complex, modern world.

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Donald Dishes Out Nuclear Trash Talk

Yes, you’ve all heard it,  thanks to Joe Scarborough, that not only will we have an arms race, but WE the USA will crush the opposition! Hooray! The fun begins January 21st. Courtesy of Donald Trump.

Esquire on 2017 Detonation Device

So, that’s not news.  What’s most newsworthy about this, for those seeking to “read between the lines,” is the spin (not so much spin as cartwheel) from Trump spokesman Sean Spicer:

“He’s going to ensure that other countries get the message that he’s not going to sit back and allow” them to engage in nuclear proliferation, Trump spokesman Sean Spicer told NBC. “And what’s going to happen is they will come to their senses, and we will all be just fine.”

Fortune cites “loose cannon.”

We will all be just fine.

Per Sean Spicer, who, if you have actually seen him speak, exudes all the charm of a badger in a leg-hold trap, assures us that his boss is just sending a message. As in, trash talk, “Listen up, MoFos, we gonna whup yo’ MoFo-ing nuclear ass,” which everyone understands is just showmanship to boost ratings, no one to take it that seriously, once “they have come to their senses.”  (Doesn’t this sound like something like Don Corleone might have said?)

For his part, Russian leader Vladimir Putin kept his pragmatic head, pointing out that a nuclear arms race was unaffordable.  Vlad, bless his cold cold heart, was not about to take the bait—and I, for maybe the first time, was grateful for the wisdom of a tyrant with a long memory and a long projection into the future.

 

 

 

37%!?! The Trumputin Effect, Tribalism, and Strongmen

A recent poll by The Economist and YouGov found that 37% of Republicans  have a “favorable view” of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. (It’s 10% of Democrats also!; I don’t know who these Democrats are and I don’t want to know.)

That’s a “favorable view” of someone who is responsible for the deaths of Syrian civilians in the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. That’s in addition to  thousands of casualties resulting from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea, plus the bloody invasion of Georgia in 2008, not to mention cyberwarfare against Baltic states, and, within Russia itself, continuing violent repression of critical investigative media and opposition voices in general.  In other words, a “favorable view” of someone for whom there’s a compelling case to charge as a war criminal several times over.

Oh, and we might mention that he lies about absolutely everything that sheds a bad light on Russia (last I heard he was still denying that Russian troops had entered eastern Ukraine, except to protect Ukrainian rebels. Why does this sound like Saturday Night Live?). 

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Environmental Wrecking Ball to Head EPA, Continue War on Science – Why??

It seems that every sentient being on the planet has felt obliged to weigh in on the U.S. Presidential election and what it spat out: Donald Trump. I have kept quiet on this matter on this blog up to now, because (1) I’m “partisan,” so what is my biased opinion worth? (2) every insightful thing that can be said has already been said by others.

But Donald Trump’s nominating Scott Pruitt to head the EPA is a call to arms.  If you don’t know the scope of the damage Pruitt can do, check out this in The Guardian: Pruitt Nomination Implications

Most of what you need to know about the policy issues can be gleaned from The Guardian piece and elsewhere on the Web. But there’s a more sweeping issue represented by the nomination of a climate “skeptic” (in actuality, a denier) to this critical post. That of course is the War on Science. From whence does it spring?

Continue reading “Environmental Wrecking Ball to Head EPA, Continue War on Science – Why??”