BC BIDEN
Saved by @Mollyycolllinss

Has there been a moment in modern history where so many people in free societies have believed such damaging lies?
https://t.co/HrZcnJJ61W
1/

 It’s easy to point to the US, where nearly 90 per cent of people who voted for Donald Trump believe Joe Biden’s election victory was not legitimate.
2/
But it’s not just the US. In France, a minority of adults are confident that vaccines are safe, which explains why only 40 per cent say they plan to get a Covid-19 shot.
3/
Meanwhile, across the world, substantial minorities believe that the Covid-19 fatality rate has been “deliberately and greatly exaggerated”.
4/
How did it come to this? The simplest explanation — to repurpose a phrase from former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers — is: “There are idiots. Look around.”
5/
But while there is a certain visceral satisfaction in that explanation, there is much more going on. Robert Proctor, a historian, once told me “we are living in a golden age of ignorance”. That was in 2016; the golden age had barely started to dawn.
6/
Three elements of it are worth highlighting. First, distraction. It’s possible for people to spend hours every day consuming what is described as “news” without ever engaging with anything of substance.
7/
Second, political tribalism. In a polarised environment, every factual claim becomes a weapon in an argument. When people encounter a claim that challenges their cultural identity, don’t be surprised if they disbelieve it.
8/
Not everything is polarised — but almost anything can be polarised, and it will be if a prominent political or media figure sees advantage in doing so.
9/
Distractions stop us from paying attention to what matters, and political tribalism makes us reject evidence that casts our tribe in a bad light. Combine the two, add steroids and you get the third element of the age of ignorance: conspiracy thinking.
10/
So can ignorance be banished? It isn’t easy. @davidmcraney , creator of the You Are Not So Smart podcast, and @AdamMGrant , author of Think Again, each offers similar advice: don’t lead with the facts.
11/
Instead, establish rapport, ask questions and listen to the answers.
12/
https://t.co/g5ptXg89Ju
You won’t be able to bully someone out of fringe views, but sometimes people will talk themselves around.
13/
This is wise advice, but my own recent work has a more modest goal. Instead of trying to enlighten someone else, I suggest that each of us starts with our own blind spots.
14/
We are all distracted. We all have tribes too: social if not political. We are all vulnerable, then, to believing things that aren’t true. And we are equally vulnerable to denying or ignoring important truths.
15/
We should all slow down, calm down, ask questions and imagine that we may be wrong. It is simple advice, but much better than nothing. It is also advice that is all too easy to ignore.
16/
By the way - the US edition of my new book is out in a few days, with the title "The Data Detective".
Spread the word...
17/
https://t.co/CzuIaZKtOC

More from Biden

Lewis Goodall
Lewis Goodall
@lewis_goodall
BREAK: Joe Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States.

The Trump administration is over.

Technically another 9 mins to go for the official handover. But it’s a formality.

Biden: "This is America's day. This is democracy's day. A day of history and hope....Today we triumph not of a candidate but of a cause. The cause of democracy. The people, the will of the people has been heard. And the will of the people has been heeded."

"At this hour my friends, democracy has prevailed."

Biden thanks his predecessors from both parties "from the bottom of my heart."

With, perhaps, the exception of one.

Biden addresses the pandemic and its economic consequences: "Few people in our nation's history have found themselves in a moment as challenging as the one we're in now...but the dream of justice for all will be deferred no longer."
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Julie Hughes
Julie Hughes
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so ... I saw this and comment @GhostEzra made underneath
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David Dayen
David Dayen
@ddayen
This is a very uninformed article that presumes the dumb way Trump initiated executive orders taints all executive action a president has the authority and mandate to

I can't believe this has to be spelled out:
Congress passes laws, presidents implement them. There are latent authorities in already passed laws that can be employed to give material benefits to people. That's literally the job description of the president in Article II.

Most of Trump's exec orders were BS but some did draw on already passed laws, like the farm funding through the Commodity Credit Corporation. That was billions of dollars that cannot be "rolled back."

It was untargeted and drawn upon disproportionately by rich farmers. But there are more equitable measures, with the authority granted by CONGRESS, which the president can implement.

So far Biden has not really taken this opportunity. There's been a blizzard of paper, most of it rolling back Trump EOs, and some emergency programs. A few of those emergency programs are going to give real benefits (eligibility changes on nutrition assistance for ex.)
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Eric Geller
Eric Geller
@ericgeller
.@MiekeEoyang will be the new deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, according to documents obtained by @KatieBoWill. https://t.co/c2F8GNQUIf

Check another position off the list of mid-level federal cyber jobs that we're waiting to see filled.

Biden cyber appointees so far:

▪️ Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Tech: Anne Neuberger

▪️ NSC Senior Director for Cyber: Michael Sulmeyer

▪️ Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy: Mieke Eoyang

Biden has also named a bunch of cyber-related or cyber-adjacent appointees below the cabinet level. See next few tweets.

▪️ NatSec Adviser: Jake Sullivan
▪️ Principal Deputy NatSec Adviser: Jon Finer
▪️ Homeland Sec Adviser: Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall
▪️ Deputy HSA: Russ Travers

▪️ NSC Senior Director for Russia and Central Asia: Andrea Kendall-Taylor
▪️ NSC Senior Director for China: Laura Rosenberger
▪️ NSC Senior Director for Resilience and Response: Caitlin Durkovich
▪️ NSC Senior Director for Technology and National Security: Tarun Chhabra

And last but not least:

▪️ Office of Science and Technology Policy Director: Eric Lander
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Dr. Tamara Cofman Wittes
Dr. Tamara Cofman Witt...
@tcwittes
🧵In coming days & weeks, a bunch of awesome younger folks will be taking on roles in the Biden Administration, some for their first experience in government. Herewith some free advice, worth what you paid for it. I encourage others to add their best advice below this thread! 1/

1) You may be appointed by the president—but you are taking an oath to the constitution, and you work for the people of these United States. You owe them integrity, honesty, & transparency, as well as your best work. 2/

Take your ethics undertakings seriously. Learn the rules and follow them. Don’t ever think they don’t apply to you. And don’t do or write anything you would be ashamed to see in the newspaper the next day. 3/

2) Government is a team sport. Your job is to help your team succeed. That means help your boss, help your peers, and help your employees. If they rise, you rise. If they fail, you have failed. So start by figuring out who they are, what they need, and what you can offer. 4/

3) Every workplace has unwritten rules, too: what I call “invisible furniture.” You will be bumping into a lot of it in your first months on the job. Make a point of learning it, & remember that it’s never dumb to admit what you don’t know—it’s the quickest way to learn. 5/
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This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


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Loren Brichter
Loren Brichter
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So it turns out that Google Chrome was making everything on my computer slow *even when it wasn’t running*, because it installs something called Keystone which is basically malware.

I made a website because this shouldn’t

Wired first reported on how bad Keystone was 11 years ago when they put it into Google Earth (they seem to put it in all their popular

The fact that Keystone hides itself in Activity Monitor is bizarre. (The only sign of it was excessive CPU usage of WindowServer which is a system process).

I don’t know if Google was doing something nefarious with Keystone, or a third party figured out how to (which Wired warned about). But either way, I’m not inclined to give Google-the-organization the benefit of the doubt (despite the many good people who work on Chrome)...

...since it's been a decade+ and this still hasn't been "fixed".

There is no reason for auto-update software to need to do what Chrome/Keystone was doing. It also has a long history of crashing Macs.
TECH
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लखोबा लोखंडे...
@LakhobaLokhande
Secrets of Ganapati (Author - Keshav Sitaram Thackeray)

This article is taken from Keshav Sitaram Thackeray's book 'Dharmachi Devale and Devalcha Dharma'. In it, Bal Thackeray's father is claiming how the Hindu deity of Ganesha is imaginary.
(1/20)

Buddha is Ashtavinayak and "Ganapati Bappa Morya" is "Chandragupta Morya".

In the era of democracy, the head of state is the President. But in ancient India, there was a Gana culture in the monarchy and the head of that Gana was called Ganapati
(2/20)

In ancient India, a prince named Siddharth Gautam was born in royalty. He later became the king of Shakya Gana in this Gana culture. In time, Siddhartha attained enlightenment.

Let us now understand the difference between a real Ganapati and an imaginary Ganapati.
(3/20)

Some clever Brahmin manuvadis made the real Ganapati the imaginary Ganapati.

Buddha was the king of the Shakya Gana, so people called him Ganaraja. He founded Buddhism and became the head of the Shakyas. As the head of Gana, people used to call Buddha as Ganapati.
(4/20)

But the Brahmins Brahmanized Ganapati and created a false Ganapati. When Buddha used to give the message of Dharma to the people, two words would come out of his message. Chitta and Malla.

Chitta is the body.
Malla means waste
(5/20)
INDIA
Justin Kan
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