JollyG

The average of all the serious guesses in this thread.

This has largely been my experience as well. I work as a statistician and it seems like the folks who arrived at data science through a CS background are less equipped to think through data analysis. Though I suppose to be fair, their coding skills are better than mine. But if OP wants to do data journalism, of the sort Pro Publica is gearing up for, then a stats background would be better.

Probably statistics. A lot of journalists seem to struggle with stats so that could give you an advantage. You can pick up a lot of programming skills in a stats program. You can even lean into statistical programming if you want. I think you’d have to seek out the more advanced programming side of a statistical degree but it is there and I think stats is harder to learn than the coding skills you need for data science.

They are hard to read because they are written to explain concepts to people who already understand them. Handy if you just need them for reference. Useless if you are trying to learn. Which is why RTFM is often bad advice

Prenda law. A legal outfit that would seed porn and then sue downloaders for copyright violations. The idea being that people would settle to avoid being publicly humiliated by their porn viewing habits.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law

I think when most people say something like “technology is making the world worse” they mean the technology as it actually exists and as it is actually developing, not the abstract sense of possible futures that technology could feasibly deliver.

That is clearly what the author of the piece meant.

If the main focus of people who develop most technology is getting people more addicted to their devices so they are easier to exploit then technology sucks. If the main focus is to generate immoral levels of waste to scam venture capitalists and idiots on the internet then technology sucks. If the main focus is to use technology to monetize every aspect of someone’s existence, then I think it is fair to say that technology, at this point in history, sucks.

Saying “technology is neutral” is not super insightful if, in the present moment, the trend in technological development and its central applications are mostly evil.

Saying “technology is neutral” is worse than unhelpful if, in the present moment, the people who want to use technology to harm others are also using that cliche to justify their antisocial behavior.

I'm no economist, but this seems like a really bad idea.

Federal Agencies make their own rules. That is how the Federal government works. Congress makes a law, usually with enough ambiguity that the federal agency charged with enforcing the law has to make specific interpretations. They make those interpretations, usually under some process that requires public notice and comment, and that interpretation becomes the law in effect. That interpretation can be challenged through a lawsuit, at which point a Judge could overrule the interpretation establishing a new interpretation through judicial review. Until recently, the courts gave a lot of deference to the agency's rule making process because rules are usually written by a combination of lawyers at the agency, and subject matter experts. So, for example if a new law regulating factory safety was passed, and the enforcement of the law was delegated to OSHA, then OSHA lawyers and subject matter experts (like doctors or engineers working for the agency) would make a rule and solicit public comment.

Nothing about this EO can, or pretends to. usurp the power of the judicial system. The AG can make any interpretation they like, it can still be challenged in a Court. And after the Chevron court case, these rulings are easier than ever to challenge.

This does not extend to the Judicial branch. It only applies to the Executive branch. You can read the EO yourself to see that fact.

This is bad because it is trying to exert control over independent agencies, and pretty stupid because there is something like 5000 final rules and proposed rules in the Federal Register last year, so if this were seriously implemented, the AG and POTUS would just sit in teams meetings for the rest of their terms while potential rules get discussed.

This is bad because it undermines the independence of federal agencies, it does not actually impact the Judicial system however.

I wish they'd offer an llm free version with no cap on searches. Their products are too expensive and it feels like it is mostly to pay for the llms. I can’t justify paying that much for a product I am never going to use.

Not a youtube channel, but there is a podcast called serious trouble that covers legal events and provides a sober, detailed analysis of the law that is relevant to the cases they cover. They mostly focus on legal cases surrounding politics, but are also following the Drake/Lamar defamation case. I like it because a lot of the coverage of Trump's legal troubles is characterized by hand wringing or wild speculation and serious trouble stays focused more on the facts and likely outcomes of cases.

Political hobbyists are people who consume political content, but don't do anything substantive with it. There probably are MAGA types who are political hobbyists, but the movement in general is extremely politically active, organized, motivated, and effective across all levels of public life. They influence conservative politics through those organizational efforts. The MAGA movement came to power by leveraging networks of activists and voters to build political infrastructure that could be used to drive voters to the polls, fund candidates, coordinate campaigns and set the scope of policy, which they do very effectively. If you want to be effective you should be building political networks too.

Also, this is an aside, but political messaging is way less effective at persuasion than your comments here suggest. In practice this type of messaging tends to only reach people who already agree with it, and the persuasive effects of media on political attitudes have very weak effects that are attenuated quickly (Look up something called the hypodermic model of mass communication if you want to know more). Benkler, Faris, and Robberts offer really good illustrations of this in practice. By analyzing the spread of political messaging in news and social media networks, they show that most of the misinformation, lies, and propaganda that circulate through conservative media spaces do so because conservative media consumers want that content and punish outlets that criticize it. Creating 'counter messaging' is unlikely to be effective because conservatives would just reject the messaging.