Links - 8th December 2018 (2)

The social costs of ride-hailing may be larger than previously thought - Ubernomics - "Far from reducing congestion by encouraging people to give up their cars, as many had hoped, ride-hailing seems to increase it. Bruce Schaller, a transport consultant, estimates that over half of all Uber and Lyft trips in big American cities would otherwise have been made on foot or by bike, bus, subway or train. He reckons that ride-hailing services add 2.8 vehicle miles of driving in those cities for every mile they subtract. A new working paper by John Barrios of the University of Chicago and Yael Hochberg and Hanyi Yi of Rice University spells out one deadly consequence of this increase in traffic. Using data from the federal transport department, they find that the introduction of ride-sharing to a city is associated with an increase in vehicle-miles travelled, petrol consumption and car registrations—and a 3.5% jump in fatal car accidents. At a national level, this translates into 987 extra deaths a year. What could be done to tip the balance back to benefits overall? “Congestion pricing is the most direct solution,” says Jonathan Hall of the University of Toronto. Several cities, including London, Stockholm and Singapore, have moved in this direction, charging drivers for entering busy areas at peak hours. If ride-hailing firms tweaked their pricing to encourage carpooling, that would help, too."

Don Lemon doubles down after calling white men ‘biggest terror threat’ in U.S. - The Washington Post - “Unfortunately this is how so many leftists actually think,” he continued. “Disgusting! Imagine the outrage if you changed ‘white men’ with any other demographic?”

Who carries out more terror attacks on U.S. soil: Right wing or Islamic extremists? - "Several studies show there have been more terror related incidents or events involving right-wing extremists compared with Islamic jihadists. Many of these, however, were foiled plots that never resulted in an actual attack... One point that is clear from the research: Islamic terror attacks on U.S. soil, though less frequent, have been much more deadly per attack... Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University San Bernardino agreed there are far more incidents of terrorism involving right wing extremists. The Islamic jihadist inspired attacks, however, have garnered more attention in the United States because they’ve been much more lethal. He cited the example of the Orlando nightclub shooting in 2016 in which a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic terror group ISIS killed 49 people."
And these analyses leave out September 11th. Comment from elsewhere: "Since Hiroshima the US has used just as many nukes as Swtizerland, so what's everyone crying about? Leaving out the most significant attack in our history to manipulate the data to serve your narrative is infuriatingly disrespectful from where I'm standing."
Meanwhile Snopes will claim that it's misleading to say that police shoot more white people than black, because there're more white people in the US

An0maly on Twitter - "Facebook is now suspending accounts for quoting Don Lemon. Really. I got a 24 hour suspension for posting a direct tweet from Sarah Jeong. How come liberals get promotions & million dollar contracts for speaking foul -- & we get banned for simply quoting them?
DOUBLE STANDARD."

Comment on Lucas Lynch - "Fact: The left-leaning Mother Jones data on mass shooters, used by CNN and many other outlets, proves whites are not overrepresented as mass shooters in the U.S. For terrorism it’s even a smaller percentage (Jihadists are responsible for near 60% of terrorism deaths, according to widely respected New America Foundation). Factually, black males commit around 50% of gun homicides, and mass shootings make up around 1% or less of all homicides. So if people want to go around pointing fingers ...
Indeed, white males DO commit a great number of mass shootings, but it's EQUAL or less than their share of the population. And mass shootings and hate crimes are far less than 1/100th of homicides. (Hate crime murders are 1/1000th.)
It’s a fact-based argument that “blacks commit more crime” across the board, including mass shootings (16% of total), at a HIGHER rate than their percentage of the population (13%). Non-Hispanic whites (63%) technically commit more mass shootings than anyone else in the United States, but the same or possibly LESS than their percentage of population (64% of total, according to Mother Jones-data interpreted by CNN … or possibly 54% according to Mother Jones-data interpreted by Newsweek).
Ironically, it's Asians that CNN reported to be commit mass shootings at 2 1/2 times their population!"
Whether per capita is the relevant metric depends on your problem statement If you are trying to identity problem populations to target, it is a relevant metric. E.g. surveillance of extremist mosques
If you're looking at interventions that are easily rolled out to a population, total numbers might be more useful. E.g. if guns kill a lot of people, reforming gun laws may make more sense to reduce gun deaths as opposed to focusing on nuclear waste even if nuclear waste is more deadly to those who work with it/encounter it (i.e. on a per capita basis)

How Can I Drink Bubble Tea Without Finishing the Tea Before the Bobas? - "It’s better to use a slim cup than a wide cup. This can create a taller layer of bobas, and there is less area to catch the bobas when few are remaining.
Don’t add too much ice. If you add ice, let it melt to add volume to the tea. I usually shake my cup before drinking to ensure the entire drink is cold in case the ice was dropped on top without shaking or stirring. The trade-off is that it might dilute the tea.
It’s better to take a powerful sip than a weak sip. Powerful sips ensure you get the bobas, while weak sips may only give you the tea. Just don’t be so aggressive you end up choking."

1,600 dead, 70,000 homeless. Why wouldn’t tsunami-hit Indonesia want aid? - "Indonesia’s reluctance in accepting foreign aid has previously been attributed to national pride, a desire for self-sufficiency or protecting the nation’s sovereignty. According to some analysts, Widodo risks looking weak if he accepts outside help too readily, while risking a political backlash if Indonesia cannot handle the disaster on its own. As if to save face, this week Securities Minister Wiranto explained Indonesia’s acceptance of assistance for the Sulawesi disaster as helping bilateral diplomacy with other countries... India and Bangladesh are among countries that have rejected or limited international assistance in recent years, but have been generous when it comes to providing aid, for example to Rohingya refugees."

Sweden Blows Tax Millions on 'Feminist' Trucks and 'Equal' Firefighting - "Feminist trucks that are "better suited for women," a new system for "greater equality in banking" and design solutions "for a more equal firefighting." These are only some of the new projects scheduled to receive tax money from the government authority Vinnova, which promotes "anti-bias innovations.""

Swedish Feminists Are So Bored They’re Telling Men How to Sit on the Bus - "To counter this "normalized expression of power" (that’s what they call slouching), a group of firebrand feminists have set up a blog called "Macho i Kollektivtrafiken" ("Macho in Public Transport"), encouraging readers to send in sneaky snaps of men in relaxed poses. The aim is to spread awareness of a "symbolic and active recreation not just of power, but of a stereotypical form of masculinity." Do Swedish women really feel threatened by men who slouch on the subway? Can this seriously be construed as a feminist issue? Do feminists today really view women as weaklings who are traumatized by straddle-legged passengers and who don't have the guts to tell men to scooch over? It's tempting to suggest that the women posting pictures of slouching men online should grow a pair, and point out that feminists have fought hard to shake the image of women as thin-skinned victims off and to prove that women have agency, gumption, and power...
'this is part and parcel of the kind of oppression that leads to women being raped, getting lower salaries, and being exposed to violence in relationships.'"
From 2012. Vice wouldn't publish this today

Externalities and the Swedish Man Tax - "the feminist council of Sweden’s Left Party made worldwide headlines when former party leader Gudrun Schyman proposed a radical initiative that included—among other things—a “man tax”. The idea was to use tax policy to correct for the supposed “externality” of men’s violent behavior toward women, and use the proceeds to fund anti-domestic-violence programs. Needless to say, the proposal was panned in the media. Now, a year later it appears Sweden’s Left Party is paying a steep political price for the radical proposal...
'SPARE a thought for Swedish feminists whose newly formed party is disintegrating after hardliners presented a manifesto advocating a “man tax”, the abolition of marriage and the creation of “gender-neutral” names'"

Already 20% of driving lessons in Sweden are in Arabic as migrants fail them in Swedish

Man fired from PBS for saying Meghan Markle is ‘not bad.’ The woman who complained had called Trudeau ‘hot’ - "A news writer with PBS who was fired for expressing admiration of Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, complains of a double standard because his female coworkers were heard saying Justin Trudeau was “hot” without similar consequences... One woman, sitting some six metres away and unable to see the photo in question, his claim says, said his comment contravened company training on sexual harassment in the workplace; another said “Haven’t you learned?” Heckman denied his comment had a sexual connotation. It was, he claims, “intended to convey that the Duchess (of Sussex, as Markle is now known) possessed charm and beauty and was a suitable match for her fiancé, who has a reputation of possessing charm and handsome looks.” “No reasonable woman would consider his remark to be a sexual comment about the Duchess”"

Chef Who Thought Her Bloating Was Gluten Intolerance Turned Out To Be 33 Weeks Pregnant

Democratic Voters Move Leftward on a Range of Issues - "leaders in the Democratic Party have undergone a dramatic shift toward unalloyed support of immigration, including to a certain extent illegal immigration. But voters have moved as well. In 1994, just 32 percent of Democrats said that immigrants strengthened the country. Now 84 percent do... The percentage of Democrats who say that the government needs to do more to fight racism has risen from 57 to 81 since 2009. In 1994, four in 10 Democrats said that racial discrimination was the main reason black people couldn’t get ahead; in 2017, more than six in 10 did. White voters have moved especially dramatically, as Thomas Edsall notes: On both of these indicators, white Democrats are actually further left than black ones"