Links - 13th August 2019 (2)

The Real Problem With Fake News - "Today, according to a new Pew Research Center study, Americans rate it as a larger problem than racism, climate change, or terrorism... One of the biggest risks often imputed to the current media environment, in which audiences can pick and choose news outlets that agree with them, is that people will become more and more siloed, cutting themselves off from information that they don’t like or that contradicts their prior assumptions.The Pew study suggests that fake-news panic, rather than driving people to abandon ideological outlets and the fringe, may actually be accelerating the process of polarization: It’s driving consumers to drop some outlets, to simply consume less information overall, and even to cut out social relationships."
If everyone who disagrees with you is a Russian bot and anything from a website you dislike can be dismissed because the website is 'biased'...

Why Fears of Fake News Are Overhyped - "many of the initial conclusions that observers reached about the scope of fake news consumption, and its effects on our politics, were exaggerated or incorrect. Relatively few people consumed this form of content directly during the 2016 campaign, and even fewer did so before the 2018 election. Fake news consumption is concentrated among a narrow subset of Americans with the most conservative news diets. And, most notably, no credible evidence exists that exposure to fake news changed the outcome of the 2016 election. The fake news panic echoes fears that prior forms of communication would brainwash the public. Just as exaggerated accounts of hysteria over Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds broadcast took advantage of doubts about radio, claims about the reach and influence of fake news express people’s broader concerns about social media and the internet... Consistent with behavioral evidence showing that online echo chambers are relatively rare, fake news consumption was concentrated among the 10 percent of Americans with the most conservative news diets, who were responsible for approximately six in 10 visits to fake news websites during this period. Even in that group, however, fake news made up less than 8 percent of their total news diet. Finally, people ages 60 and over consumed more fake news than other cohorts, which may reflect a lack of digital literacy or simply having more time to read news."

Testosterone and Civilization - Posts - "describe the American left in one image"
"tall blonde communist. won't date a man who makes less than 6 figures"

Brooklyn threesome killer sobs behind bars over girlfriend’s deceit: ‘I threw my life away for a f---ing lie’ - "He raced to his lover's defense, killing a man he thought raped his girlfriend in a three-way tryst — and now he sits in jail fearing she set him up.A disheveled Christopher Membreno was stunned on Saturday to learn that police believe the ménage à trois in Brooklyn involving his girlfriend and two men was consensual."I threw my life away for a f---ing lie? My life is over because of a f---ing lie?"... "She has not been charged at this point with anything," said a high-ranking police source, who noted that charges may never come. "Lying to your boyfriend is not the same as, say, lying to the police.""
#BelieveWomen
Amazingly in response some people still say rapists deserve to die

Woman reveals the shocking 'toxic femininity' she's experienced at work - "Imagine turning up to work every day knowing the person sitting opposite you is doing everything in their power to push you out of your job.That was the shocking reality for Naomi Joy, a 30-year-old former PR director from London, who witnessed and experienced 'toxic femininity' throughout her career.She reveals one female colleague in her thirties once declared everyone in the office 'hated her', while another tricked her into making a mistake so that she would be favourite for a promotion... she conducted a survey of 1,000 employed British women and found more than half claimed to have been sabotaged at work by another member of the so-called sisterhood, while more than a third (37 per cent) said they'd actually felt scared or threatened by a female colleague. .. while men are buoyed by competition, women report negative emotions - but only when competing with other females... Evelyn Cotter, a career coach who founded SEVEN Career Coaching, told me that female clients routinely claim they have been undermined by other women."
Women need to do better!
Of course one of the interviewees found a way to blame this on men

Gender differences in response to competition with same-gender coworkers: A relational perspective. - "We take a relational perspective to explain how women and men may differently experience competition with their same-gender coworkers. According to gender socialization research, the female peer culture values harmony and the appearance of equality, whereas hierarchical ranking is integral to the male peer culture. As competition dispenses with equality and creates a ranking hierarchy, we propose that competition is at odds with the norms of female (but not male) peer relationships. On this basis, we predicted and found in 1 correlational study and 3 experiments that women regard competition with their same-gender coworkers as less desirable than men do, and that their relationships with each other suffer in the presence of competition. We discuss the implications of these findings for women’s career progression"

The Economists Who Studied All-You-Can-Eat Buffets - "New research shows that paying that much for a buffet might actually make the food taste better... Those who paid $8 rated the pizza 11 percent tastier than those who paid $4. Moreover, the latter group suffered from greater diminishing returns—each additional slice of pizza tasted worse than that of the $8 group... “We specifically refer to our ‘all-you-care-to-eat’ items in this way because we do not want to encourage our guests to intentionally overeat,” says Kerry Kramp, chief executive of Sizzler. “Sometimes guests misperceive these types of promotions and they take it as a challenge to potentially overconsume. That is not what we hope for and the majority of our guests greatly appreciate the flexibility to have a little more of their favorite menu items. We never create ‘consumption challenges’ and that is why we basically refer to these as ‘all you care to eat’ versus ‘all you can eat.’ People can eat a lot of food if they are not feeling like there is a value to the actual item.”... As far as dealing with those customers trying to “beat the buffet,” the maxim is this: It’s all about the average... The other key metric in buffet economics is managing waste"

Why spoilers are ruining storytelling - To the victor belong the spoilers - "Shocking plots are what get people talking, tweeting and tuning in. In television, they help to guarantee huge ratings on the day of broadcast. The hubbub encourages fans to book their cinema tickets in advance. The Russo brothers begging viewers not to ruin the Avengers films probably helped them to secure the biggest opening weekend in film history. See it now, that seemed to say, or have someone else spoil it for you. This attitude stifles proper discussion of stories by critics as much as viewers, and it inflicts damage on storytelling as a craft. By promoting one technique, the twist, and one effect, surprise, stories get bent out of shape. They try too hard to counter expectation and resist predictability. “The Lord of the Rings” is totally predictable from beginning to end, but the series does not suffer for it. William Shakespeare gave away the end of his tragedies by billing them as such and no one seemed to mind (“Romeo and Juliet” even told the audience the story in a prologue). “Columbo”, a classic crime serial, reveals who commited the murder at the beginning of each episode and succeeded in making the investigation thrilling to watch. Stories that promote surprise over character end up as mere soap opera, a series of sensational shocks. That corrodes credibility"

Rep. Omar filed joint tax returns before she married husband - "U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar misused campaign funds in violation of state rules. They also revealed that she had filed joint tax returns with her husband years before they were legally married and at a time when she was married to another man.The revelation put the freshman representative under more scrutiny from critics who have taken issue with her marital past... Omar has so far kept her tax returns private. While she has called for President Donald Trump to release his tax returns, her campaign did not acknowledge the AP’s request to release hers. Her campaign also did not answer a question about whether there might be issues with other tax returns prior to Omar’s marriage to Hirsi in 2018."

AP: Ilhan Omar Ignores Request for Tax Returns, but Demanded Trump's - "Omar has joined Democrats in demanding that President Donald Trump release his tax returns, even claiming — oddly — that he had to do so because it was “required by law”"

Ilhan Omar Refuses to Comment on Terrorist Recruitment in Her District - "Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) declined to address a report that found the highest level of terrorist group recruitment has taken place in her congressional district.According to a Fox News report from February, “More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.” The city of Minneapolis is located in Omar’s district."

Logic, Empathy, Honesty - Posts - "Homophobia used to mean "people who don't want gay people to have equal rights"
Now it's used to silence people saying "Let's try to keep sexuality out of schools"
Racism used to mean "people who discriminate against people over the color of their skin"
Now it's used to silence people saying "Maybe there are differences between different racial groups that affect outcomes"
Sexism used to mean "people who believe women should be controlled and subjugated",
Now it's being used to silence people who say "perhaps women don't have the same life goals as men, and choose not to earn more"
We once used powerful terms to call attention to people trying to restrict people's freedom. "

Licensed Memes - Posts - "There is now a K in LGBTQQICAPF2K+"
"How secure is your password? Fantastic, using that password makes you as secure as Fort Knox. Time to crack your password: 25 years"

Paul Embery on Twitter - "I voted Leave. Not once have I demanded Remain voters be:
-hauled through the courts
-banned from the media
-denied the vote unless they meet an intellectual requirement
I have seen all these things suggested by some on the other side of the argument.
But I'm the fascist."

Tempted to cheat on a written exam? Artificial intelligence is 90% certain to nab you - "Combining big data with artificial intelligence has allowed University of Copenhagen researchers to determine whether you wrote your assignment or whether a ghostwriter penned it for you -- with nearly 90 percent accuracy... "Our program identifies discrepancies in writing styles by comparing recently submitted writing against a student's previously submitted work. Among other variables, the program looks at: word length, sentence structure and how words are used. For instance, whether 'for example' is written as 'ex.' or 'e.g.'""