I should just save this for copy/paste into replies to various “robots will put us all out of work!” stories.

Weeellll….. mmmaybe. We’ve been automating since out-of-work weavers were throwing their wooden shoes (“sabot” –> saboteur) into automated looms in order to wreck them.

I’m not on board with the picture of a fully autonomous machine replacing 100% of workers in some field overnight, which is what articles like this always seem to imply (at least with their headlines). There will always be challenges that only an adaptable human can handle, and they’ll sometimes be crucial challenges.

That said, yeah, automation has been happening. I think it’s more of a challenge than a catastrophe.

Russia is working to break democracy by boosting extremes on both sides away from moderate, centrist parties.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/russian-trolls-spread-vaccine-misinformation-on-twitter

Podcast I just happen to have listened to a day or two ago: https://m.soundcloud.com/user-291551645/episode-6-were-going-to-live-on-were-going-to-survive

https://twitter.com/LeopoldTraugott/status/1040162218996903936?s=20 (via Ben Turner’s reply to the AfD tweet below)

https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/1043028793718321153?s=20 (why do I have to put this tweet LAST to make it show up on Twitter? Or maybe it won’t. Maybe it’s just the last url within 280 characters. Makes total sense.)

(Is the web our samizdat? No, because everything is traceable.)

https://twitter.com/davidmweissman/status/1039698866579419136?s=17

Amazing thread.

«David Weissman (@davidmweissman) Tweeted:
If you were former GOP, conservative, even a former Trump supporter and you went blue, tell me your story here, and I will RT. I am about to prove a point here.»

Source: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-germany-emissions/

«The real problem is that Germany is also also trying to phase out nuclear reactors, a response to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi meltdown in Japan. And with the 2020 goals looking like a stretch, there’s increasing concern that tighter goals the country is planning for 2030 will be completely out of reach.»

Headline used the word “failed”, which I disagree with. Setback != failure.

https://mastodon.technology/@sonniesedge/100577603777067424

https://medium.com/@cassolotl/i-left-mastodon-yesterday-4c5796b0f548

https://medium.com/@cassolotl/i-left-mastodon-27-days-ago-ae34919290e1

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/07/27/upshot/white-voters-precinct-analysis.html

This seems like a biggish deal. I guess the question is: is it because of a true change of heart or just because Trump is clearly a loon?

https://twitter.com/joshHuder/status/1020648294467424256?s=17

Huder thread. Trump is a nasty aberration, yes, but he’s only part of a bigger trend. This country is really divided, electorally*, and this only part of a bigger battle.

*”Electorally”: We really need to fix our election systems with National Popular Vote, re-apportioning the House, and scaling back gerrymandering with independent redistricting commissions and efficiency-gap measurements. On a person-by-person level (popular vote), we’re less divided.

Josh Huder (@joshHuder) Tweeted:
If that’s the case, 2020 is a totally different animal. Republicans might be looking at historic majorities in both chambers as Democrats eyed a very tough “4th term” reelection effort as President Clinton battles investigations on all fronts and congressional super majorities.

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/politics/courts-law/gerrymander/?utm_term=.35ae24672524

The hits just keep coming, apparently.

NY AG Underwood (@NewYorkStateAG) Tweeted:
Last month, @BetsyDeVosED quietly broke with nearly two decades of practice & stopped sharing student loan info with law enforcement agencies like ours.

We use that info to prosecute crimes and fraud against student borrowers. Now we can’t.

This should be front-page news. https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1017849241807532032?s=17