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331 lines
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<title>15 December, 2023</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<body>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What Did COP28 Really Accomplish?</strong> - At the end of the day—or record-hot year—what matters is not what language countries agree to but what they actually do. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/what-did-cop28-really-accomplish">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Year of Ozempic</strong> - We may look back on new weight-loss drugs as some of the greatest advances in the annals of chronic disease. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/2023-in-review/the-year-of-ozempic">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Colorado Reconsiders Letting Trump on the Ballot</strong> - A Colorado Supreme Court case is one of several considering whether Trump should be disqualified under the Fourteenth Amendment, but it has proceeded the furthest. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/colorado-reconsiders-letting-trump-on-the-ballot">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The U.N. Human-Rights Chief and the Fugitive Princess of Dubai</strong> - Michelle Bachelet’s private meeting with Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed Al Maktoum was viewed as proof that a long-imprisoned royal was finally free. In her first interview about the encounter, Bachelet reveals her doubts. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-un-human-rights-chief-and-the-fugitive-princess-of-dubai">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How a Student Group Is Politicizing a Generation on Palestine</strong> - Activists with Students for Justice in Palestine have mobilized major campus demonstrations in support of Gaza—and provided an intellectual framework for protesters watching what’s happening in the Middle East. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/how-a-generation-is-being-politicized-on-palestine">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><strong>A new approach to measuring what’s going on in our minds</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="Santiago Ramón y Cajal working at his desk with a microscope and medicinal bottles, writing on paper." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/TNK1daUQuXbAdowaleGb0vQaPFY=/22x0:5295x3955/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72965618/GettyImages_152195326.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Santiago Ramón y Cajal, neuroscientist and artist who shared the 1906 Nobel Prize in medicine with Camillo Golgi. | Universal Images Group via Getty
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Quantifying the “complexity” of consciousness can tell us how rich our experiences are.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TQOdgi">
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Sometimes when I’m looking out across the northern meadow of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, or even the concrete parking lot outside my office window, I wonder if someone like Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson could have taken in the same view and seen <em>more. </em>I don’t mean making out blurry details or more objects in the scene. But through the lens of their minds, could they encounter the exact same world as me and yet have a richer experience?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ojicVK">
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One way to answer that question, at least as a thought experiment, could be to compare the electrical activity inside our brains while gazing out upon the same scene, and running some statistical analysis designed to actually tell us whose brain activity indicates more richness. But that’s just a loopy thought experiment, right?
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UnHFsf">
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Not exactly. One of the newest frontiers in the science of the mind is the <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.05.570101v1">attempt to measure</a> consciousness’s “complexity,” or how diverse and integrated electrical activity is across the brain. Philosophers and neuroscientists alike <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10325487/">hypothesize</a> that more complex brain activity signifies “richer” experiences.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wUwIJX">
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The idea of measuring complexity stems from <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-claude-shannons-information-theory-invented-the-future-20201222/">information theory</a> — a mathematical approach to understanding how information is stored, communicated, and processed —which doesn’t provide wonderfully intuitive examples of what more richness actually means. Unless you’re a computer person. “If you tried to upload the content onto a hard drive, it’s how much memory you’d need to be able to store the experience you’re having,” <a href="https://profiles.sussex.ac.uk/p156234-adam-barrett">Adam Barrett</a>, a professor of machine learning and data science at the University of Sussex, told me.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="NIQiHA">
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Another approach to understanding richness is to look at how it changes in different mental states. Recent studies have found that <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-04474-1">measures of complexity</a> are lowest in patients under general anesthesia, higher in ordinary wakefulness, and higher still in psychedelic trips, which can notoriously turn even the most mundane experiences — say, my view of the parking lot outside my office window — into <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23972716/psychedelics-meaning-science-psychedelic-mushrooms-ketamine-psilocybin-mysticism">profound and meaningful encounters</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3K34js">
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Increasing richness isn’t just like cranking up the color saturation of a picture or getting a bigger hard drive. It seems to imply an increase in the depth of how we experience the world. Complexity is what you see in the equations, richness is what that feels like in the mind.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="00gM5e">
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Although measuring brain complexity is still in relative infancy, the nascent ability to gauge something like richness is a pretty incredible development — not only for <a href="https://www.vox.com/neuroscience">neuroscience</a> but for how we think about well-being more broadly. With innovations like these, we can go beyond the <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23862090/subjective-wellbeing-wealth-philanthropy-gdp-happiness-givewell">blurry question of happiness</a>, which doesn’t have an accepted neurological measure that can translate across social and cultural differences, and ask more targeted questions, like whether our experiences are richer. As these approaches mature, scientists might develop a deeper understanding of all the different, tractable ways that consciousness can change for the better.
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</p>
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<h3 id="2bavvt">
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From staining neurons black to measuring the brain’s complexity
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="spZBZp">
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In the 1800s, scientists studying the mind didn’t yet know what a neuron looked like, let alone how they worked. That breakthrough came in <a href="https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/neuron-doctrine-1860-1895">1873</a>, when physician Camillo Golgi discovered that by immersing brain tissue in a potassium dichromate solution and then dunking it in a bath of silver nitrate, the neuron would turn black, making it visible under a microscope.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="N5rHCD">
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The Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal, when observing newly stained neural tissue in 1887, discovered that contrary to the reigning reticular theory (which held that the nervous system was a continuous network of cells smushed together with no gaps), neurons were indeed separated from each other. Sprouting from the neuron’s edges were spindly little axons and dendrites, but they didn’t seem to create permanent bridges between the neurons, leading him to conclude that communication between neurons likely wasn’t all that important in explaining their main functions. Instead, individual neurons were taken as the nervous system’s fundamental units, or building blocks, an idea that solidified into “the <a href="https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/neuron-doctrine-1860-1895">neuron doctrine</a>.”
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt="An ink illustration of a root- or vein-like structure of connected tendrils. spreading upward." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/grgMXPbGUE9GaAt3GLxonLSRuyQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25162910/GettyImages_1404548943.jpg"/> <cite>VW Pics/Universal Images Group</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Neuroscientist and artist Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s drawings of neuroanatomy were collected into a book, <em>The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ram</em>ó<em>n y Cajal.</em>
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MpuP7i">
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Through the 20th century, developments in electrophysiology led to a sharper understanding of the connections between neurons, and the importance of the little electrical impulses that travel across synapses. But the basic perspective of focusing on neurons themselves, rather than the holistic electrical processes that they’re conduits for, remained dominant. This approach has gotten quite good at breaking the brain into distinct parts and explaining how they contribute to specific functions, like vision or controlling your fingers. The downside is that many theories of consciousness struggle with what’s called the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/">binding problem</a> — the question of how all the separate parts fit back together to generate a unified conscious experience.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2lnBUs">
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Recent improvements to electroencephalography (EEG, those skull caps with a bunch of electrodes that measure the brain’s electrical activity) made it possible to look deeper inside the workings of the brain, opening the way for neuroscientist Giulio Tononi and biologist Gerald Edelman’s 1998 paper: <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.282.5395.1846">Consciousness and Complexity</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2vizX9">
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Their publication was the first to propose a direct measure of the complexity of brain activity, an idea that matured into <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn.2016.44">Integrated Information Theory</a>, or IIT. According to IIT, consciousness arises where the underlying neural activity is both “integrated” and “differentiated.” Integration refers, roughly, to how synchronized electrical activity is across the brain. Differentiation is the diversity of that activity. You can think of them in terms of weaving a tapestry. Integration is how many different threads are woven in, while differentiation is the variety of colors used. Together, these two determine the complexity of a given state of consciousness. That, in turn, approximates its richness.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1qOHaw">
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In theory, anyway. At the time, the idea ran ahead of technology. “It became apparent over the years that it’s quite hard to measure those two things simultaneously,” Barrett told me, “and it turned out that the differentiation aspect alone, without thinking about integration, did quite well at being able to distinguish between different states of consciousness.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iMsZ7k">
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That said, our measures are improving quickly. Barrett co-authored <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.12.05.570101v1">a study</a> released as a pre-print last week that compared a new measure of complexity — what they call “statistical complexity” — to Lempel-Ziv complexity, which was first <a href="https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1055501">proposed</a> in 1976 and is still the field’s leading measure. While Lempel-Ziv captures only the differentiation aspect, their findings suggest that the new measure successfully brings integration back into the mix, affording greater precision.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Qtp7Nr">
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As progress continues, IIT may creep closer to its grand ambition: constructing an equation that can measure and describe the richness of conscious experience in any physical system, whether human, animal, or machine. “That fails at the moment,” said Barrett, “but I’m very interested in seeing if we could come up with a plausible equation. That’s sort of the holy grail for me.”
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</p>
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<h3 id="VbRIOy">
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So what do we make of richness?
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="niyx1w">
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If a plausible equation isn’t the kind of thing that occupies your dreams, a concrete measure for something like richness could bring some sorely needed innovation to our ideas around <a href="https://www.vox.com/mental-health">mental health</a>. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM-5) contains <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4810039/#B27-behavsci-06-00005">298</a> diagnoses to help clinicians classify just about every shade of mental disorder they might encounter. When it comes to the positive dimensions of mental health, however, our language is comparatively sparse.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="m5w5kP">
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“Happiness” is a very nebulous idea, especially when you <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/23862090/subjective-wellbeing-wealth-philanthropy-gdp-happiness-givewell">try to measure it</a>. We in the West, unlike the Buddhists, have not developed rigorous taxonomies for all the rungs on the mental ladder — from our default modes to the ecstasies, grades of zest, or senses of “<a href="https://sashachapin.substack.com/p/how-i-attained-persistent-self-love#footnote-1-47192004">deep okayness</a>” that lurk in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23836358/meditation-mindfulness-enlightenment-science-contemplative-buddhism-spirituality">upper realms of well-being</a> (reportedly, anyway). If we can quantify the richness of our minds, maybe it could jumpstart the process of finding other tractable dimensions we can add to our conceptions of well-being.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pSuR36">
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Of course, quantifying something important always <a href="https://philpapers.org/go.pl?aid=NGUVCH">carries risks</a> (à la <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095859655">Goodhart’s law</a>: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure), and being wise about how to make sense of these new ideas will be bumpy. It’s tempting, for example, to simply think that when it comes to richness, more is always better. But researchers, like <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect">Future Perfect</a> 50 honoree <a href="https://www.vox.com/23896208/robin-carhart-harris-professor-neurology-psychedelics-ucsf-future-perfect-50-2023">Robin Carhart-Harris</a>, believe that the brain evolved to hold levels of complexity below a threshold called “criticality,” rather than just maximize it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="k5jnAv">
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In information theory, criticality marks the optimal balance of complexity for processing information, a perch between order and chaos. Or in terms of the mind, between the rigidity and flexibility of mental habits. Too much complex activity pushes the brain over the edge. That might offer a temporarily exciting state of mind (as psychedelic trips can), but in terms of efficiently processing information to be successful creatures in the world, a never-ending acid trip is probably not the ideal state. “A brain at criticality may be a ‘happier’ brain,” Carhart-Harris <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00020/full#h12">writes</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jvP96B">
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If criticality means greater well-being calls for a particular balance of complexity, not just as much as we can muster, that doesn’t mean that we’re all, by default, naturally tuned to that balance. As our measures and technologies improve, maybe we’ll get better at identifying when someone’s ordinary brain activity is below criticality, and a burst of complexity could serve as a boon to well-being. Maybe we’ll develop new ways of growing richer, not just in our bank accounts (though that may help), but in the ways that we experience the world.
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>What Trump has already taken from us</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="Trump wears a navy blue suit jacket and a red tie, and raises his right hand in a fist. Behind him, a screen displays the words: Florida Is Trump Country" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/c-LpKp_nCBrxf3U9ZhY11ToNVJc=/203x0:4195x2994/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72965555/1771549284.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Trump holds a rally at Ted Hendricks Stadium in Hialeah, Florida, on November 8, 2023. | Alon Skuy/Getty Images
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Democracy is a culture — and Trump is destroying it.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vbadCU">
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In the long arc of human history, the modern democratic era is a mere blip.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4filC3">
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Humans first began residing in city-like agricultural settlements <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/when-did-humans-settle-down-house-mouse-may-have-answer">about 10,000 years ago</a>. The American and French revolutions, widely seen as the dawn of the democratic age, took place less than 250 years ago. For most of subsequent history, so-called “democracies” didn’t meet minimal modern standards — most notably by restricting the franchise to white, property-owning men.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JvYJ6Y">
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Democracy as we know it — a system formally premised on equal citizenship for everyone — is <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/countries-with-universal-right-to-vote-lexical">really a 20th-century invention</a>. The degree to which it has become the consensus gold standard for human governance, both in the United States and around the world, is nothing short of miraculous.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9cgvTm">
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This development is not just a function of democracy’s military victories or constitutional innovations. It has depended fundamentally on the global rise of <em>a democratic culture —</em> a set of ideas, beliefs, and expectations centering on the notion that democracy is the only just and feasible way to run a society.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZpUo4W">
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Democracy has grown and matured by turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy: It persists because everyone in a society believes it should and will exist. If democratic culture dims, democracy’s prospects dim with it.
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</p>
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|
|
The United States, the first country to claim the mantle of democracy in the modern era, has long had an exceptionally strong democratic culture. Belief in democratic ideals, liberal rights, and the basics of constitutional government are so fundamental to American identity that they’ve been collectively described as the country’s “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/12/985036148/can-americas-civil-religion-still-unite-the-country">civil religion.</a>”
|
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</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wwUhBN">
|
|||
|
|
Yet today, America’s vaunted democratic culture is withering before our eyes. American democracy, once seemingly secure, is now in so much trouble that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208373493/political-violence-democracy-2024-presidential-election-extremism">75 percent of Americans</a> believe that “the future of American democracy is at risk in the 2024 presidential election,” according to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution.
|
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</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JVm0rv">
|
|||
|
|
This withering took off during <a href="https://www.vox.com/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>’s rise to power and has continued apace in his post-presidency. The more he <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/11/14/23958866/trump-vermin-authoritarian-democracy">attacks the foundations of the democratic system</a>, the less everyone — both his supporters and his opponents — believe American democracy is both healthy and likely to endure.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QFFCTi">
|
|||
|
|
Moreover, he has birthed an anti-democratic movement inside the Republican Party dedicated to advancing his vision (or something like it). These Republicans vocally and loudly argue American democracy is a sham — and that dire measures are justified in response. This faction is already influential, and will likely become more so given its especial prominence among the ranks of young conservatives.
|
|||
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|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="BwyWSN">
|
|||
|
|
As worrying as the prospect of a second Trump term is, the damage he and his allied movement have already done to American democratic culture is not hypothetical: It’s already here, it’s getting worse, and it will likely persist — even if Trump loses in 2024.
|
|||
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|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RnB2Vx">
|
|||
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|
Put differently, Trump has already robbed us of our sense of security and faith in our democracy. The consequences of that theft are not abstract, but rather ones we’ll all have to deal with for years to come.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="VSi9XH">
|
|||
|
|
How democratic culture protects democracy
|
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|
|
</h3>
|
|||
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6d5b6b">
|
|||
|
|
To understand how democratic culture works — and how Trump’s behavior damages it — it’s important to start with a political science concept called “democratic consolidation.”
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tgGyFg">
|
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|
The idea, which grew out of the study of new and fragile democracies, is that merely creating a formal democratic system isn’t enough to ensure its survival. Rather, democracies only become stable when no major political actors even think of breaking its most fundamental rules. Once such a culture has been constructed, democracy becomes the only game in town: the only conceivable means for attaining and wielding political power.
|
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|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jRpSjc">
|
|||
|
|
There are many different ways to think about the process of consolidation. Some center around the idea of <a href="https://www.vox.com/23055620/supreme-court-legitimacy-crisis-abortion-roe">political legitimacy</a> — whether public and political elites come to believe that their democratic government has the moral right to rule. Larry Diamond, a political scientist at Stanford, defined democratic consolidation <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/225379/pdf">in a 1994 article</a> as “the process by which democracy becomes so broadly and profoundly legitimate among its citizens that it is very unlikely to break down.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W30JHP">
|
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|
|
Others focus less on legitimacy than on political calculation. In<a href="https://irihs.ihs.ac.at/id/eprint/1026/1/pw_50.pdf"> a 1997 paper</a>, Central European University’s Andreas Schedler argued that a democracy is most at risk when both elites and the mass public believe that it won’t last. If members of competing factions are afraid that the other side might seize power undemocratically, they become more willing to try to do it themselves. But when everyone believes that democracy will likely survive and that power can’t or won’t be seized in some extralegal fashion, they become more likely to play by the rules.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="iQMhMF">
|
|||
|
|
“Democracy is consolidated,” Schedler writes, “when actors think it actually will last well into the future.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5yfUcJ">
|
|||
|
|
These two factors, legitimacy and expectations, are deeply intertwined. The more widespread a government’s legitimacy among the citizenry, the more reason people have to be confident it will persist. The more stable a democracy seems, the more likely people are to see it as a legitimate source of authority.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A young man wearing eyeglasses and a T-shirt with an American flag design holds a small American flag in his hand. Beside him, a woman in a white headscarf and sunglasses also holds a small American flag. " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/zX1hN3d_MBr3qxatIoow01vo4lk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25163509/809266352.jpg"/> <cite>Keith Bedford/The Boston Globe/Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
A crowd listen to a reading of the Declaration of Independence at the Old State House in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 4, 2017.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="vqj7UQ">
|
|||
|
|
So once a country has managed to establish a democratic culture, it tends to build on itself over time. Statistically, one of the strongest predictors of a democracy’s future survival is how long it has already been in place. Older democracies tend to have such robust democratic cultures that their fraying seems unimaginable.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="DP1mMW">
|
|||
|
|
The United States is often described as the oldest democracy in the world — and not without justification. While it fell far short of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/03/voting-rights-act-democracy/617792/">many basic democratic standards until fairly recently</a>, America has been holding electoral contests that produced peaceful transfers of power for its entire history. The consensus on democracy’s most basic idea, that the people should get to determine who rules them, has been remarkably strong in American public culture (even when the definition of “the people” was unacceptably shrunken).
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TFomuB">
|
|||
|
|
For this reason, post-civil rights America was long seen as the most consolidated of consolidated democracies. Yet today, there are serious fears that American democracy may not be long for this world. The gold standard consolidated democracy may no longer be consolidated at all.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="Ahh4Su">
|
|||
|
|
The great unsettling of American democracy
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="86h3D6">
|
|||
|
|
In the United States, democracy’s positive feedback loop turned negative. Republican attacks on the legitimacy of America’s democratic institutions caused Democrats to doubt their very survival — leading Democrats to take actions that Republicans (incorrectly) perceive as further undermining the system’s legitimacy.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VexmdP">
|
|||
|
|
The process was visible during Trump’s rise in 2016, when his partisans began casting the contest with Hillary Clinton in apocalyptic terms — “charge the cockpit or you die,” as <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/michael-antons-flight-93-election-trump-coup.html">one famous pro-Trump metaphor went</a>. But it really accelerated after the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020-presidential-election">2020 election</a>, when Trump argued that the election was stolen from him and attempted <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/6/10/23162442/january-6-committee-hearing-june-10-trump-fascist">a kind of coup</a> rather than accepting defeat.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5fB2zD">
|
|||
|
|
Polling has consistently shown that large majorities of Republicans believe that Biden stole the election from Trump — that is, that America’s last presidential election <em>was not decided democratically</em>. Political scientists have confirmed that <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/07/republicans-big-lie-trump/">they’re not just saying this</a>: Republicans sincerely believe that American democracy is not functioning in a legitimate fashion, that it’s rigged against them.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xerzFs">
|
|||
|
|
Trump’s attempt to overturn the election made it plain to his opponents that he posed a clear and present threat to American democracy. Democrats began talking, and acting, like the country was in the midst of an existential crisis — making<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/19/23453073/2022-year-democracy-russia-ukraine-china-iran-america-brazil"> the preservation of democracy a central issue in the 2022 midterms</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="E9pQba">
|
|||
|
|
Today, it’s common among pro-Trump Republican partisans to jeer at the invocation of democratic values (“muh democracy” is a common sarcastic phrase on right-leaning social media). They see liberals and Democrats warnings about Trump as an insincere ploy to defend a corrupt system and scorn them accordingly.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9Xvk9p">
|
|||
|
|
Anti-democratic rhetoric is not the sole province of Trump and a handful of his most online supporters.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ghGn3c">
|
|||
|
|
Current Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) was the architect of the House Republican caucus’s <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/mike-johnson-january-6-house-speaker-nominee-rcna122081">legal argument for overturning the 2020 election</a>. Amazingly, Johnson was not perceived as the most radical candidate during the contentious fight to choose a speaker: He was a consensus alternative to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/the-symbiotic-democracy-eroding-relationship-between-donald-trump-and-jim-jordan">a dogmatic Trump ally</a> who (<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/10/us-house-democracy-threat-republican-speaker-race/675679/">per some reports</a>) was the House Republican most deeply involved in Trump’s election overthrow effort.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<figure class="e-image">
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="Rep. Johnson sits with a somber expression on his face. Rep. Jordan stands beside him and points a finger in the air, wearing a serious and displeased expression." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Mj6CLcsseuZysf7JL-AdwxB20Qk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25163530/1240746132.jpg"/> <cite>Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images</cite>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
Republican Reps. Mike Johnson (left) and Jim Jordan (right) attend a House Judiciary meeting on May 18, 2022.
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JlPvLb">
|
|||
|
|
In <a href="https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/markers-to-identify-a-rightwing-authoritarian">a recent piece in the Unpopulist</a>, the libertarian writer Radley Balko compiled a long list of other influential Republicans who have made their disdain for democracy plain. Some examples included:
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li id="Uqbjpf">
|
|||
|
|
Kash Patel, a high-level <a href="https://www.vox.com/trump-administration">Trump administration</a> official rumored to be a top pick for CIA director, vowed to “go after” his enemies in government and <a href="https://www.vox.com/media">the media</a> “<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/kash-patel-tells-members-media-government-after-trumps/story?id=105432592">criminally or civilly</a>” if returned to power.
|
|||
|
|
</li>
|
|||
|
|
<li id="SQB4HU">
|
|||
|
|
Mike Davis, a Republican lawyer on Trump’s attorney general shortlist, says he would use that power to engage in a “<a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/mike-davis-promises-reign-terror-if-trump-appoints-him-acting-attorney-general">reign of terror</a>” in which they “<a href="https://news.yahoo.com/gonna-put-kids-cages-meet-200752325.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALQAKfJGxzM5zb81S3hXEOC7xJXf2o88AUk2kkQICbnT33Rm9d6f3FF8BQm41MMaPS-RJV7F66V1ybx52keNvLeNFCpYyilV_FfZr89l9JPBg_Bg2loJMTRYKDoGyPGqc_0YVXVT1KzTFdAYLjOcMcYcjLyNETlF-wT32lwtJLYF">put kids in cages</a>” and “detain a lot of people in the DC gulag.”
|
|||
|
|
</li>
|
|||
|
|
<li id="cRD5vJ">
|
|||
|
|
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/j-d-vance-republican-senate-hillbilly-elegy-dangerous-authoritarian.html">advised Trump</a> to fire “every civil servant in the administrative state” and “replace them with our people.”
|
|||
|
|
</li>
|
|||
|
|
<li id="CSvmBM">
|
|||
|
|
Presidential candidate <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/vivek-ramaswamy-january-6-inside-job-conspiracy-theory-rcna128463">Vivek Ramaswamy went</a> on a conspiratorial rant during the December primary debate — calling the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot an “inside job,” defending the white nationalist “Great Replacement” theory, accusing “<a href="https://www.vox.com/big-tech">Big Tech</a>” of stealing the 2020 election, and indulging in 9/11 trutherism.
|
|||
|
|
</li>
|
|||
|
|
<li id="lIf73K">
|
|||
|
|
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened <a href="https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-opens-investigation-media-matters-potential-fraudulent-activity">a criminal investigation into Media Matters</a>, a liberal media watchdog, in retaliation for its criticism of Elon Musk’s content moderation on <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a> (also known as X).
|
|||
|
|
</li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UEejOT">
|
|||
|
|
The official veer into authoritarianism Balko documents is underpinned by an intellectual climate on the right that’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/14/us/politics/extremism-republicans.html">socializing the next generation of Republicans into extremism</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9PLcrA">
|
|||
|
|
Take the pseudonymous writer Bronze Age Pervert, for example. Identified as a <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/bronze-age-pervert-costin-alamariu/674762/">Yale-trained political theorist named Costin Alamariu</a>, BAP is a pop-Nietzchean extremist who refers to his political enemies as subhuman “bugmen” and describes his own politics as “fascism or ‘something worse.’” Despite (or perhaps because) of this bizarre presentation, he is <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/10/bronze-age-pervert-costin-alamariu/">widely read by young Republican staffers</a>. Nate Hochman, a former <a href="https://www.vox.com/ron-desantis">Ron DeSantis</a> speechwriter, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/03/magazine/claremont-institute-conservative.html">told the New York Times</a> that “every junior staffer in the Trump administration read [BAP’s manifesto] ‘Bronze Age Mindset.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fra7Ti">
|
|||
|
|
Among liberals and the left, the response to this has been increasing talk about playing constitutional hardball to stop the right — and even murmurs of outright alternatives to existing political arrangements.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IMjbss">
|
|||
|
|
In a recent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/11/30/trump-dictator-2024-election-robert-kagan/">Washington Post</a> essay announcing that “a Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable,” the writer Robert Kagan counsels Democratic governors to resist Trump rule through “a form of nullification” — the doctrine of states’ rights underpinning pre-Civil War Southern resistance to the Union. In <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Democracy-Lasts-Forever-Constitution-Threatens-ebook/dp/B0CJGYQNY2">a forthcoming book</a> titled <em>No Democracy Last Forever</em>, eminent legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky argues that Americans need to think about “forms of secession” from the Union.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="WFNq8m">
|
|||
|
|
This is what it looks like when a democracy de-consolidates. The shared expectation that the American system deserves its citizens’ respect has collapsed; so too has the shared sense that there’s no alternative to democratic rules and elections for the foreseeable future.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="foj2UX">
|
|||
|
|
This is not just a Trump phenomenon: The loss of faith in American democracy runs deep.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HS74cT">
|
|||
|
|
The social forces unleashed by the MAGA movement are<a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/9/19/12933072/far-right-white-riot-trump-brexit"> bigger and more primal than one man</a>. The political rise of figures like Johnson, Vance, and Ramaswamy — all younger vehicles for Trump-style anti-democratic politics — points toward a post-Trump right that continues to attack democracy’s foundations. So too does <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Reactionary-Spirit-Insidious-Political-Tradition-ebook/dp/B0CMQB8S94">the anti-democratic right’s ascent to political power in advanced democracies around the world</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ePA5nt">
|
|||
|
|
There’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/12/19/23453073/2022-year-democracy-russia-ukraine-china-iran-america-brazil">plenty of cause for hope</a> that American democratic culture can be repaired. But it’s important to start from a place of realism about the problem — that we are in the midst of an unprecedented kind of democratic collapse: the de-consolidation of the world’s oldest and most deeply rooted democracy, fueled primarily by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22274429/republicans-anti-democracy-13-charts">the Republican party’s institutional turn against democratic ideals</a>.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TihXDc">
|
|||
|
|
Trump may not win next year. But he has already succeeded in taking something vital from us — our faith in a bright democratic future.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>What your credit score actually means</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Ny5EOQZLgEjPeRdLJwbBDIduSps=/240x0:1680x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72963954/VDC_XEP_061_credit_scores_Thumb_SYN.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
It’s not just you. Credit scores are confusing as hell.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hO61Tz">
|
|||
|
|
When credit scores were invented just a few decades ago, they were hailed as a way to democratize lending. Today, they’ve become so essential that not having one can lock you out of daily life. Having a low score can make life challenging, too.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cQRy71">
|
|||
|
|
These scores have a long history — and a lot of problems. In this video, we’ll show you where they came from, how they’ve changed over the years, and explain what that three-digit number means for you.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HlqInf">
|
|||
|
|
This video is presented by Secret. Secret doesn’t have a say in our editorial decisions, but they make videos like this possible.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5WUsJ7">
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You can find the video above and the entire library of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLXo7UDZvByw2ixzpQCufnA"><strong>Vox’s videos on YouTube</strong></a>.
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</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Double Scotch, Mystical Air, Honest Desire and Philosophy shine</strong> -</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Booster Shot shines</strong> -</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>To honour Dhoni’s contribution to Indian cricket, No. 7 jersey retired, says Rajeev Shukla</strong> - The iconic India captain last played for the country in the 2019 World Cup semifinal against New Zealand.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>AUS vs PAK first Test | Pakistan digs in as Lyon edges closer to 500 Test wickets</strong> - But it was a slow grind with Pakistan runs coming off 53 overs after Aamer Jamal took 6-111 on debut to help dismiss the hosts for 487.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dhoni’s contempt plea | Madras High Court sentences IPS officer to 15 days imprisonment</strong> - Justices S.S. Sundar and Sunder Mohan, however, suspend the sentence imposed on G Sampath Kumar for 30 days in order to enable him to file an appeal before Supreme Court</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Farmers to get interest waiver on medium-, long-term cooperative loans if they pay up principal amount</strong> -</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CPI(M) in Kerala perceives cracks in Opposition UDF over Centre’s ‘financial embargo’ on State</strong> - CPI(M) State secretary M.V. Govindan says IUML leader P.K. Kunhalikutty has evinced interest to cooperate with ruling LDF to wrest what the Centre financially owed Kerala and fight against Union Government’s ‘economically stifling trespasses’ on fiscal federalism</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>CM Siddaramaiah announces series of projects for development of North Karnataka</strong> - This includes preparing a comprehensive action plan for promoting prominent tourist destinations and developing an industrial estate on 2,000 acres of land near Belagavi.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SC stays proceedings against Randeep Surjewala in 23-year-old case</strong> - A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud issued notice to Uttar Pradesh.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Activists stage protest condemning Israel’s attack on Palestine</strong> -</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Hungary blocks €50bn of EU funding for Ukraine</strong> - Hungary blocks new funding just hours after a deal is struck on starting talks to admit Ukraine to the EU.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Russian gas giant Gazprom makes £39m profit in North Sea</strong> - The state-owned Russian energy firm earned £39m from its Dutch-UK gas field in 2022, accounts show.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Alex Batty: ‘I love you, I want to come home’</strong> - Alex Batty, 17, went missing in 2017 and British officials are preparing to bring him back to the UK later.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Alex Batty: How delivery driver found lost teen on unlit mountain road</strong> - It was the middle of the night when Fabien Accidini stumbled across a young man on an unlit road.</p></li>
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<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Channel migrants: One dead, another injured, says French coastguard</strong> - A boat with 66 people on board got into trouble near the French coast, the coastguard says.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Rocket Report: Signs of life from Blue Origin; SpaceX preps next Starship</strong> - Baguette One isn’t a joke, but it sure sounds like one. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991267">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>If AI is making the Turing test obsolete, what might be better?</strong> - The Turing test focuses on the ability to chat—can we test the ability to think? - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991004">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Suspects can refuse to provide phone passcodes to police, court rules</strong> - Phone-unlocking case law is “total mess,” may be ripe for Supreme Court review. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991289">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>MDMA—aka ecstasy—submitted to FDA as part of PTSD therapy</strong> - If FDA approved, it would require the DEA to reclassify MDMA. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991296">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Space Force chief: Timing of Chinese spaceplane launch “no coincidence”</strong> - US and Chinese spaceplanes are “two of the most watched objects” in orbit. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1991189">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
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