Bernie Venezuela Quote is Fake

Read The Falsity of the Sanders Venezuela Meme.

...a comprehensive search of Sanders’s congressional records, speeches, newspaper articles, books, and the weight of opposition research against him, offers a rather different picture to that painted by his political opponents. The condemnation of his apparent praise of the Venezuelan regime, it turns out, is based on unfounded claims, unexamined sources, conclusion-jumping, intellectual laziness, and some pretty shoddy journalism.

But what about that one quote from Bernie that says the American dream is more apt to be realized in Venezuela?

The words attributed to Sanders are traceable to a single online source: an article posted on his official website on 5 August, 2011 in the ‘Newsroom’ section and categorized as a ‘Must Read.’ It is entitled “Close the Gaps: Disparities That Threaten America,” and, as the link below the headline indicates, it originally appeared in the 4 August edition of Valley News, a New England regional newspaper.

The Sanders people merely reposted the article on their website. So it appears that these are not authentic Bernie Sander's words,

A quote of Bernie Sander's Website quoting someone else

You could say that since the Bernie people posted it on his official website, then Bernie must have at least agreed with the quote.

I would say while Bernie endorsed the article, that doesn't mean he endorsed every piece of rhetoric in it.

The Falsity of the Sanders Venezuela Meme.

Does Plastic Pollution in the Oceans come from Rivers?

Two different claims:

- 95% Of Global Plastic Waste In Oceans Comes From Just TEN Rivers In Asia & Africa.

- Stemming the Plastic Tide: 10 Rivers Contribute Most of the Plastic in the Oceans (Scientific American)

- 90% of plastic polluting our oceans comes from just 10 rivers

- Almost all plastic in the ocean comes from just 10 rivers

- Shocking report reveals that 95% of plastic polluting the world's oceans comes from just TEN rivers including the Ganges and Niger

- Just 10 river systems transport more than 90% of all plastic waste to the world’s seas, new research shows

A couple had a slightly different claim:

- JUST 10 RIVERS CONTRIBUTE UP TO 95% OF RIVER-BASED OCEAN POLLUTION

- Just 10 streams carry 95% of all river-borne plastic into the ocean

The discrepancy isn't that some articles say 90% and some say 95% (the paper says it's around 90%). The difference between the claims is that some say X% of river based plastic pollution, and the others say X% of all plastic pollution.

The difference is really important. If we're talking about all plastic pollution then we can focus our efforts on these 10 rivers and pretty much eliminate the plastic pollution problem. It also means most of our efforts outside of these areas are mostly in vain.

On the other hand, if these 10 rivers are taken out of only river based pollution and river based pollution is a relatively low percent of total plastic pollution, then it really doesn't matter that much.

First of all, the paper is clearly talking about river based plastic pollution. Most of the reporting got it wrong. But whether it's important will depend on how much ocean pollution comes from rivers.

The National Geographic article is the only one that mentions this issue. It says that most plastic pollution comes from coastal cities and towns, not rivers. It is National Geographic, an organization I'm hardly skeptical of, and they state it quite confidently, but I would still feel more comfortable with a stronger source.

So I found MarineLitterFacts, who say that 80% of ocean plastic comes from land-based sources, the other 20% are water based. This sounds like rivers are not a significant contributor to ocean plastic pollution.

But as it turns out, rivers are classified as land-based sources. Somebody needs to tell these people that rivers are made of water.

A little more digging and I found this paper in Nature. It estimates that between 2.8–18.6% of plastic emissions occur via river transport. Confirmation at last. Like many of the sources I peered at, it emphasized how imperfect these estimates are. Okay, we're being cautious. But it's not like next week the estimates are going to be 80%.

I think this basically affirms my suspicion that a lot of reporting on the issue gives a very wrong impression. If only 18% of plastic in the ocean comes from rivers, then the highly reported 90% is only out of that 18%. We can't just focus our efforts on these rivers to fix our problems.

Is Liberal Speech being Suppressed on Campus?

Vox pendulums back to writing garbage:

Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions.
Does “political correctness” really crush conservative speech on campus? The data suggests no.

As many on Twitter have pointed out, their numbers don't benchmark against the rates of conservatives and liberals among faculty. Talking about totals rather than rates gives the wrong impression.

Let's see here, since academic faculty consists of a 9:1 ratio (minimum) of liberals to conservatives, you'd expect there to be... this can't be right. So, you're at least twice as likely to be fired for conservative than liberal speech? Thanks for the confirmation, Vox. pic.twitter.com/cDzGL6QyVx

— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) August 7, 2018

How many people are Alt-Right?

Read, The Alt-Right No-Show

Anyone who pays the slightest attention to the daily passage of events in the news was aware that white-supremacist alt-right groups were planning a rally in Washington, D.C., this past weekend. The anticipatory media coverage of the event didn’t quite reach Super-Bowl hype levels, but it was close. And the number of white supremacists who showed up for the Sunday rally? 

Not 200. Not 100. About 20.

You might think this means the alt-right are a fringe, barely visible group who political people are using to fear monger about the other side.

Of course, you'd be wrong.

Maybe it's true that a lot of people don't call themselves, "alt-right", but when you include the 38% of the population who don't think Affirmative Action is a good thing, the 37% of the population who consider feminism a negative term, and the 63 million people who voted Trump, it's obvious that the alt-right is all around us.

At our grocery stores. On our buses. In our closets.

Maybe even our closest friends are alt-righters.

^^^ Trump voter

Gah!

Why The Left is so Afraid of Jordan Peterson?

Here's a quote from a new(ish) Atlantic article, Why The Left is so Afraid of Jordan Peterson

With identity politics off the table, it was possible to talk about all kinds of things—religion, philosophy, history, myth—in a different way. They could have a direct experience with ideas, not one mediated by ideology. All of these young people, without quite realizing it, were joining a huge group of American college students who were pursuing a parallel curriculum, right under the noses of the people who were delivering their official educations.

It's nice to read mainstream articles on Peterson that aren't stupid and hateful, but to be honest I don't think the left is afraid of Jordan Peterson, or need to be. Most political spectrum tests place me on the left, and I've listened to several hours of the guy. His criticisms of the "far left" are some of the most obviously true things he says. He gets shaky only when he starts talking about things like parenting, God, and Jungian dream interpretation, which all seem pretty out there to me.

Sam Harris wants you to take Drugs

Listen to Sam Harris' first podcast, Drugs and the Meaning of Life.

"I have two daughters who will one day take drugs. Of course I will do everything in my power to see that they choose their drugs wisely. But a life lived entirely without drugs is neither foreseeable, nor I think desirable.

I hope they someday enjoy a morning cup of tea or coffee as much as I do. If they drink alcohol as adults, and they probably will, I will encourage them to do it safely. If they choose to smoke marijuana I will urge moderation. Tobacco should be shunned, and I will do everything within the bounds of decent parenting to steer them away from it. Needless to say if I knew that either of my daughters would ever develop a fondness for methamphetamine or crack cocaine I might never sleep again.

But if they don't try a psychodelic like Psilocybin or LSD at least once in their adult lives, I will wonder if they had missed one of the most important rights of passage a human being can experience."

But remember,

John McWhorter's 3 Policies to Transform the Race Question

Here are John's three things that if done tomorrow, the whole race question would be utterly transformed in 10 years (starting at 1:20:50)

1) No war on drugs, including hard drugs. You should be able to get heroin at the super market

2) Make long term reversible contraceptives available to everybody for no money. Too many births are accidents.

3) Teach kids to read right. Impose phonics on every single Pre-K and Kindergarden system in the United States.

I've been listening to Glenn Loury and John McWhorter's conversations lately (Try Starbucks and Swimming Pool Problem for a good one).

Society Quit Smoking and Lung Cancer Fell

I was wondering the other day when we might see the returns to life expectancy from the absence of smoking. SlateStarCodex read my mind in his recent post, Cancer Progress; much more than you wanted to know.

Of course the rise and decline of the red line (lung and bronchus cancer death rate) is the 30 year delayed effect of the the rise and fall of tobacco use.

This is both good news and a great example of how society can make a full u-turn in response to evidence. In theory, we should expect the returns to continued decline in smoking rates to yield an even lower lung cancer rate.

But how much do you want to bet that when the rate of lung cancer falls below that of prostate cancer, headlines will read, "prostate cancer becomes biggest killer, overtaking lung cancer"?

But of course, the real story should be everything is awesome nobody is happy.

A Tiny Sliver of the Possibilities

9 months is a long time for fetal development. I don't know when within that time span the unborn should begin being treated with rights or dignity the same way a born baby is. Theoretically, I think an educated guess is as good as we can do. Practically though, we should hold to the normal moral rule to tread carefully, both morally and legally.

I'd like to think of myself as on the middle on abortion. Both sides deserve a lot of criticism for making unsound arguments, and missing the crux of the issue while demonizing one another. Moreover, my actual position is in the middle of the possibilities on abortion.

But the two camps are not defined this way. The pro-lifers have taken one tiny sliver of the possibilities by claiming that life begins at conception. Pro-choicers have taken the entire spectrum of possibility outside of that. Literally life could begin at any other time in the pregnancy and it could better be described better as pro-choice than pro-life.

I'd usually look to the common leftist tactic of trying to gain linguistic territory, but in this case pro-lifers give it away. It's hardly pro-choicers who are nudging their position into ever wider territory. Pro-lifers adamantly declare that abortion is virtually never okay because life begins at conception. If you're going to define your position in a way that contains such a small sliver of the possibilities, you're basically asking to be wrong.

Mike Huckabee is from another universe

Tweet of the week goes to Mike Huckabee for being the Ned Flanders of politics.

Breaking wind from CNN! Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook will change name to FAKEBOOK to more accurately reflect how it operates with bias toward conservatives.

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 26, 2018

I am ripped from my bubble by the comments, which are filled with people saying things like, "you nailed it!" and "Hilarious because it's so true. Good one Mike!"

I just... I don't have words.

First Study of Trigger Warnings

The first study of Trigger Warnings did not come out favorably. They undermined emotional resilience and increase anxiety toward the material being warned against.

It should be noted that the effect of trigger warnings could only be had on people who stayed past the warning. I always thought (and maybe I'm wrong) a rationale for trigger warnings were for people who might be triggered to leave the room. Presumably, those people would have avoided emotional hardship. But the study has nothing to say about them.

It is also worth mentioning that the sample sizes were pretty small (couple hundred) and of course, this is only one study.

Given that trigger warnings are the exact opposite of Exposure Therapy, we may want to do some longer term studies on the effects of trigger warnings. Do triggered people end up more fragile if they don't face their fears in at least small doses?

Also see Economist Bryan Caplan disagree with secret genius blogger Scott Alexander on trigger warnings.

Eric Weinstein on More than Equality of Opportunity

Here is Eric Weinstein's interview with Joe Rogan. It's long but every word of Eric's is worth listening to again and again.

The best part for me was at 1:45:50 when Joe said, "we would like to see equality of opportunity, right?"

And Eric replied,

"More than that. If you think about how many women are offline - start thinking about it like an oil field that hasn't been tapped... 

Asian females have a huge percentage of the world's neurons basically untapped. If you want to make tons of money, if you want to cure cancer, if you want to do all these things, figure out a way to bring these neurons fully online..."

Coleman Hughes

Coleman Hughes is an interesting guy. He's super-smart, young (still an undergraduate), and non-conformist.

1. Read his blogpost Explaining Affirmative Action to a Martian

2. He wrote four articles for Quillette:
- Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap
- The High Price of Stale Grievances
- Kanye West and the Future of Black Conservatism
- The Racism Treadmill

A slice of his writing from The Racism Treadmill

"Indeed, it is rare to find any two ethnic groups achieving identical outcomes, even when they belong to the same race. A cursory glance at the mean incomes of census-tracked ethnic groups shows Americans of Russian descent out-earning those of Swiss descent, who out-earn those of British descent, who out-earn those of Polish descent, who out-earn those of French descent in turn. If the disparity fallacy were true, then we ought to posit an elaborate system that is biased towards ethnic Russians, then the Swiss, followed by the Brits, the Poles and the French. Yet one never hears progressives make such claims. Moreover, one never hears progressives say, “French-Americans make 79 cents for every Russian-American dollar,” although the facts could easily be framed that way.'

3. Here he is in an interview with Glenn Loury

4. And with Sam Harris, Beyond the Politics of Race, where he comes across like Sam's robotic minded twin brother.