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434 lines
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<title>08 June, 2022</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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<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>Would Showing Graphic Images of Mass Shootings Spur Action to Stop Them?</strong> - Returning to an old debate after the horrific killings in Uvalde, Texas. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/would-showing-graphic-images-of-mass-shootings-spur-action-to-stop-them">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Boris Johnson Survives, for Now</strong> - Many observers, including a number of Conservatives, think that his premiership has been holed below the waterline. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/boris-johnson-survives-for-now">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two January 6th Defendants and the Consolidation of Right-Wing Extremism</strong> - As Congress searches for accountability, Guy Reffitt and Jessica Watkins remain defiant. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/two-january-6th-defendants-and-the-consolidation-of-right-wing-extremism">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Putin Has a Patriotism Problem</strong> - The Kremlin depends on “passive loyalty” from the Russian public. What if winning the war in Ukraine demands something more? - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/putins-patriotism-problem">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Without Mark Meadows, January 6th Might Never Have Happened</strong> - Trump’s fourth and final White House chief of staff served as the “matador” for the former President’s election lies. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/mark-meadows-was-trumps-matador-for-his-fake-election-lies">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>Elif Batuman’s Either/Or is a portrait of the artist as a young idiot</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xnnyu2u7MI98dmSEk4N1KwNHtzQ=/200x0:3400x2400/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70955149/headshots_1654632503789.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Either/Or by Elif Batuman. | Left: Penguin Press. Right: Valentyn Kuzan.
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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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Batuman’s second novel is shaggy, strange, and sweet.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zum61W">
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<a href="https://go.skimresources.com?id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbookshop.org%2Fbooks%2Fthe-idiot-9781524756222%2F9780143111061&xcust=VoxEitherOr060722"><em>The Idiot</em></a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21498963/elif-batuman-interview-idiot-either-or">Elif Batuman</a>’s charmingly deadpan debut novel of 2018, was unconventional as coming of age stories go. The protagonist, Selin, took very few concrete actions, and at the end she informed us that she “hadn’t learned anything at all.” <a href="https://go.skimresources.com?id=66960X1516588&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbookshop.org%2Fbooks%2Feither-or-9780525557593%2F9780525557593&xcust=VoxEitherOr060722"><em>Either/Or</em></a>, Batuman’s follow-up to <em>The Idiot</em> and a direct sequel, shares its predecessor’s dryly understated wit, but it does so with a far more conventional structure. By the end of <em>Either/Or</em>, Selin has definitely learned something.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6pKZ7V">
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Selin is an undergraduate at Harvard in the 1990s, just as email is beginning to become A Thing. In <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21423100/idiot-elif-batuman-semiotics-language-word-games"><em>The Idiot</em></a>, she carried out a flirtation with an enigmatic Hungarian mathematician named Ivan almost entirely by email, all the while studying linguistics and thinking very hard about the relationship between language and meaning. When she followed Ivan to Hungary at the end of her freshman year, though, their relationship ended without so much as a kiss. All that harping on language in her classes and emails hadn’t helped her much at all once she tried to take her love story out into the real world.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="3LdctC">
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Now, as <em>Either/Or</em> begins, Selin steps into her sophomore year determined to take on a new outlook on life. She’s switched her major from linguistics to literature, and having decided she wants to be a novelist, she commits herself to learning how to live an aesthetic life. The trouble is, she’s not quite sure how to go about doing such a thing.
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</p>
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<div class="c-float-right">
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<aside id="yKQPlz">
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ispgab">
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Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophical treatise <em>Either/Or</em>, which Selin encounters early on in the novel and which gives this volume its title, presents the aesthetic life as the counterpart to the ethical life of marriage and children. (<em>The Idiot</em> was named after the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel of the same name, and Batuman’s 2010 memoir <em>The Possessed</em> also took its title from Dostoevsky.) Selin, who has no interest in either marrying or having kids, pounces on it eagerly, but she’s disappointed to find that Kierkegaard’s version of the aesthetic life mostly revolves around seducing and then abandoning young women. When Selin reads his account, she recognizes herself not in the seducing aesthete but in his victim, the heartbroken Cordelia.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UwCmRQ">
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“Was there a way of viewing Cordelia’s situation as not bad, or as bad for only historically contingent reasons?” Selin wonders with a hint of desperation. “Was there a version of ‘The Seducer’s Diary’ where they were equal?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6e3647">
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Lacking a clear map forward from one of her textbooks, Selin is left to improvise as best she can. She signs up for a class on chance. She experiments with making only the decisions she would want a character in a novel to make, on the grounds that at a certain point, she can just write down everything that happens to her and that will be a book. And she decides, with a little less remove than perhaps she would like to suggest, to lose her virginity.
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</p>
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<aside id="amMTZe">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xlj5qY">
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It’s that slipping clinical mask that separates <em>Either/Or</em> most definitively from <em>The Idiot</em>. Selin is by nature a character who spends most of her time thinking, and in <em>The Idiot</em>, she was able to use those thoughts to successfully distance both herself and the reader from her emotions, particularly the more bodily ones. It was clear that she was spending a great deal of time thinking about Ivan, but Selin wasn’t about to tell us that she thought about having sex with him.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OGl8pS">
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But seven pages into <em>Either/Or</em>, Selin informs us that while the thought of having sex with Ivan or anyone else doesn’t seem that appealing to her, sometime off the page in the previous book, she had considered what it would be like to do the deed. Moreover, “it was immediately obvious that if Ivan tried to have sex with me, I would let him.” The Selin of <em>The Idiot</em> would have died before admitting as much to us.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ikwlpM">
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Because Selin spends less time in <em>Either/Or</em> hiding from her feelings than she did in <em>The Idiot</em>, this novel has less of its predecessor’s cool polish. This book is shaggier and less disciplined, but also more vigorous, and Selin has become a stronger and more definite character. When she chooses to veil her emotions, it is only to make the inevitable unveiling all the more devastating.
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</p>
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<aside id="cf1w3C">
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<div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="R6T9MZ">
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Her eventual and catastrophic first time, she glosses over in an understated blood-streaked montage, capped off with what she considers “a really funny joke”: “So this is what the big deal is about?” she says brightly to her panicked paramour (he does not laugh). But 20 pages later, Selin goes back over the event with an unexpectedly brutal summation: “I had been hurt, and hurt, and hurt, for two hours,” she tells us. The line lands like a blow.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="RVFeK8">
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Selin’s romantic travails, though, exist in service to a greater quest: her twin attempts to figure out how to be a writer and how to live the kind of life she considers worthwhile. On this subject Batuman’s prose turns tender, and the wryness of her humor becomes affectionate. Selin cultivates an end-of-history apoliticism and never identifies as a feminist within the text, but she can’t help but notice that a lot of the books she admires are written by men about women they consider stupid. Figuring out how to become a good writer, like figuring out how to live an aesthetic life, means finding a way to not quite identify with either. By the end of <em>Either/Or</em>, Selin has at last amassed enough confidence to see her way forward.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="j6ICfA">
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“I wasn’t dumb or banal, and I lived in the future,” Selin concludes from the comfort of the 1990s. “Nobody was going to trick me into marrying some loser, and even if they did, I would write the goddamn book myself.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KtM1bM">
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Do you pick the aesthetic life or the ethical life? If you’re Selin, you pick the aesthetic life — but you’re in charge of what the aesthetic means.
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>Stop telling kids that climate change will destroy their world</strong> -
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<figure>
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<img alt="A student holds a poster reading “why the fuck are we studying for a future we won’t even have.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/WANMYoMRyPLwXulDmkJwMsT60Nc=/267x0:4472x3154/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70955107/1235466534.0.jpg"/>
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<figcaption>
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Student protestors in Rome as part of the September 24, 2021 Climate Strike March | Simona Granati/Corbis via 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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Some “climate anxiety” is the product of telling kids — falsely — that they have no future.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5GYwN1">
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My 5-year-old daughter is now old enough to read a lot of books and magazines aimed at children, and it’s given me a whole new perspective on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/climate/climate-change-ok-doomer.html">discourse wars</a> over how we talk about climate change, conservation, and the future of the planet.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VcklXn">
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As I’ve written <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/6/13/18660548/climate-change-human-civilization-existential-risk">about before</a>, climate change is going to be bad, and it will hold back humanity from thriving as much as we should this century. It will likely cause <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/23/magazine/climate-migration.html">mass migration</a> and <a href="https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/species-and-climate-change">displacement and extinctions of many species</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VzpYMQ">
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What it won’t do, however, is make the Earth unlivable, or even mean that our children live in a world poorer than the one we grew up in. <a href="https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1533638987004276736">As many climate scientists have been telling us</a>, the world is a better place to live in — especially for people in lower-income countries — than it has ever been, and climate change isn’t going to make it as bad as it was even in 1950.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Gj4k2q">
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“I unequivocally reject, scientifically and personally, the notion that children are somehow doomed to an unhappy life,” Kate Marvel, a climate scientist at Columbia, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/opinion/climate-change-should-you-have-kids.html">told Ezra Klein in his column this week about overcoming climate despair</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fa1Pjp">
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Writing aimed at adults doesn’t always do the best job of striking a balance, though not everyone agrees on precisely what that balance is. Books like <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Uninhabitable-Earth-Life-After-Warming/dp/0525576703?ots=1&slotNum=1&imprToken=a0c09d13-1fb5-f813-594&ascsubtag=%5B%5Dvx%5Bp%5D17952603%5Bt%5Dw%5Br%5Dgoogle.com%5Bd%5DD"><em>The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming</em></a>, to my mind, do a reasonable job of describing some extreme scenarios that really are worth contemplating, but they still don’t add up to <a href="https://thebreakthrough.org/articles/is-climate-change-like-diabetes">an uninhabitable Earth, or even one that’d be an awful place to live</a>.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xO8lnL">
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Yes, some things will be worse, but because of progress on many fronts in addressing extreme poverty and disease, as well as general economic growth, our kids’ lives will be better than our parents’ lives were.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Vti3HZ">
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This question matters because there’s a fierce debate among activists about whether more pessimistic messaging energizes people to fight climate change or causes them to despair, conclude the world is doomed, and tune out. But the messaging for adults is positively nuanced and optimistic compared to the presentation of climate change and other environmental challenges that gets passed on to kids.
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</p>
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<h3 id="xyB2ts">
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What we’re telling our kids about climate change
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="C0D3NN">
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As a parent, I think it’s essential to empower kids and pass along the message that the world will be in their hands, that they will have the power to solve its most pressing problems, and that there are lots of people already working on those problems who are eager for kids to learn, grow, and join us. Fighting climate change is part of that, and it’s important and worthwhile, but not because there will be no world for children to live in when they grow up.<em> </em>
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wZbC6X">
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Unfortunately, the latter message is the dominant one in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Our-House-Fire-Thunbergs-Planet/dp/1534467785"><em>Our House Is on Fire: Greta Thunberg’s Call to Save the Planet</em></a>, a beautifully illustrated picture book aimed at ages 3-8.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="GeG2OX">
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“There might not be a world to live in when she grows up. What use is school without a future?” one page describes Thunberg as thinking. Even as a setup for Thunberg’s rise as an activist, I’m not thrilled about that message. Some kids might hear that and be inspired to speak before the United Nations, but most kids are going to hear that and be scared and disempowered.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xv4D5z">
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That pessimistic message seems to be sinking in for the young. A 2021 <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-58549373">study</a> funded by the campaign and research group Avaaz polled 10,000 people between 16 and 25, and found that over half thought that humanity was “doomed” because of climate change.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt="A child holding a protest sign that reads, “You’re gonna kill us all!”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/sQlY3H7ErJs99t_3IGKZZT40zYc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23613309/1276675039.jpg"/> <cite>Horacio Villalobos/Corbis via Getty Images</cite>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="i7XwnN">
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““You see children saying things like ‘The world’s going to burn up, we’re all going to be dead in 20 years,’ and that’s pretty unlikely,” Susan Clayton, a conservation psychologist who studies how climate change affects mental health, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/family/2021/04/helping-kids-deal-with-climate-anxiety">told National Geographic</a> in an article about kids and climate anxiety.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EbYjK5">
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Clayton has some good advice on what to do with a climate-anxious child. But it’s worth pausing on her quote. Why do we see kids saying that? Because books, stories, and protest messaging aimed at them tell them that! There’s pessimism in the water around climate change, and kids often take that pessimism far more literally than adults do.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt="A child holding a protest sign that reads, “I’m sure the dinosaurs thought they had time too.”" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/YhNCq6RHtza59KNiNzGnX6SMGTk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23613339/1149976947.jpg"/> <cite>Rodger Bosch/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zWOlnn">
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In some cases, it feels like adults are displacing our own frustration at political inaction on climate onto kids — and doing it by telling them things that aren’t true, and that they don’t have the perspective or context to take with the appropriate grain of salt.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ZLNFZd">
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The problem permeates advice about what kids can do about climate change, too.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="38vhbQ">
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I imagine the tendency of advice for kids about climate change to urge them to challenge their grownups, recycle, ride bikes, and attend protests is out of a well-intentioned urge to give them advice they can use right now. But I worry it sets them up for frustration, and is fundamentally not very honest about how they can solve climate change.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="XhfSfs">
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Kids who throw themselves wholeheartedly at those problems for their entire childhood, but who aren’t themselves Greta Thunberg, aren’t likely to get anywhere, and they won’t be positioned to get anywhere as an adult either.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nGaF86">
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The best way a 7-year-old can improve the world probably isn’t by pleading with adults. It’s by learning more and developing new skills that she’ll be able to directly bring to bear on problems like climate change when she gets older.
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</p>
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<h3 id="KSaHLF">
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Raising a better future
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</h3>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="22w63U">
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When our daughter asks about environmental issues, I like to tell her that a few generations ago, there was smallpox, but some kids studied hard and <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21493812/smallpox-eradication-vaccines-infectious-disease-covid-19">grew up into grownups who fought to eradicate it</a>. I tell her that there was <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22650920/leaded-gasoline-eradicated-public-health">leaded gasoline</a>, but we learned it was bad and phased it out. I tell her that today there is climate change, and solving it is going to require new inventions and new ideas — and she can be the one to invent them.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="72x2Ze">
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I explain that if we had better batteries, then we could use solar for more of our power grid, so maybe she can learn how to invent better batteries. I explain that if we could <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/12/2/22125518/lab-grown-chicken-meat-singapore-bioreactor-approve">grow beef without cows,</a> they wouldn’t belch methane, so maybe she’ll be the one who figures out how to do that in a cost-effective way.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dSN6Vh">
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But I have yet to find a children’s book that frames the climate crisis that way: as a challenge, but one like the many that humanity has overcome, and one that our kids can overcome by learning about the world and inventing new solutions. If you know of one, I’m in the market for recommendations; if you don’t know, I invite you to think about where this hole in our messages for children leaves them.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yXWLvW">
|
||
<em>A version of this story was initially published in the Future Perfect newsletter. </em><a href="https://confirmsubscription.com/h/d/A2BA26698741513A"><em><strong>Sign up here to subscribe!</strong></em></a>
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>The January 6 committee’s biggest task is getting people to care</strong> -
|
||
<figure>
|
||
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_u4sf5cU5W86pBx6_6FkYew1RMg=/24x0:4025x3001/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/70955049/GettyImages_1230454306.0.jpg"/>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Trump supporters storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The committee’s evidence against Trump could well be damning. It still might not be enough to overcome polarization and public fatigue.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IE4nxc">
|
||
In his new book <em>The Right</em>, conservative journalist Matthew Continetti describes the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot as the decisive event in Donald Trump’s presidency: one that transformed it from what he sees as a largely successful enterprise into a disastrous one.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="1yqwxr">
|
||
“If Trump had followed the example of his predecessors and conceded power graciously, he would have been remembered as a disruptive but consequential populist leader,” Continetti writes. “Instead, when historians write about the Trump era, they will do so through the lens of January 6.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="16cBta">
|
||
If <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-are-moving-on-from-jan-6-even-if-congress-hasnt/">polling data</a> is anything to go by, few Americans share Continetti’s view. Those who disliked Trump before January 6 continued to do so after January 6; those who approved of him beforehand largely still did afterwards. A <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/trump_favorableunfavorable-5493.html">RealClearPolitics poll average</a> shows that a short-term collapse in his approval rating after the Capitol riot has fully reversed; his net approval rating today, while negative, is still about 1.5 percentage points higher than Joe Biden’s.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="otKR64">
|
||
Perhaps the January 6 committee’s public hearings this week will bridge the partisan divides on the event; maybe it will convince Americans that the day truly was a national tragedy, and persuade even Republicans who support Trump that his role was truly unforgivable.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="PBzOk0">
|
||
Sadly, we have every reason to expect the committee to fail at these tasks.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="zpDp2s">
|
||
In the nearly year and a half since the Capitol riot, it has only grown dimmer in the public imagination. Two polls, from <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/08/fewer-americans-now-say-trump-bears-a-lot-of-responsibility-for-the-jan-6-riot/">Pew</a> and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/first-read/fewer-americans-now-say-trump-responsible-jan-6-nbc-news-poll-finds-rcna32074">NBC News</a>, found that the percentage of Americans who believe Trump is responsible for the January 6 attack has declined significantly over the course of the year. That number has fallen among both Republicans and Democrats, suggesting it’s the result of people seemingly forgetting the former president’s pivotal role in inciting the riot.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QGWJhM">
|
||
Perhaps the committee’s hearings can reverse this trend among Democrats (and independents), but Republicans are almost certainly a different story.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2ijQwz">
|
||
Trump’s grip on the GOP remains quite strong — certainly strong enough to convince the vast majority of Republicans not to abandon him over an attack <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-01-04/three-quarters-of-republicans-sympathize-with-jan-6-rioters-poll">in which they sympathize with the attackers</a>. And there’s little evidence to believe that a GOP base that hates both Democrats and the mainstream media will be persuaded by coverage of hearings; they’re more likely to be swayed by the counter-programming that’s sure to come on Fox News and talk radio.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="QTW1B1">
|
||
Absent any kind of national consensus on the importance of January 6, it’s hard to imagine the hearings leading to an outcome that might deter those responsible from trying to steal another election.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mj2hP0">
|
||
The January 6 committee may, in the end, be a profoundly depressing exercise: yet another high-profile warning of a looming democratic crisis that our system is structurally incapable of heeding.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<h3 id="dNKmfd">
|
||
Why we should expect even damning revelations to change little
|
||
</h3>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bubbE-K8Lz4fxO6SIFZXIBxzmR4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23613777/GettyImages_1237060658.jpg"/> <cite>Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Chairman Bennie Thompson makes remarks during the January 6 Select Committee on December 1, 2021.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mPi5SH">
|
||
The January 6 Select Committee is an investigative body made up of nine House members, seven Democrats and two Trump-critical Republicans, Reps. Liz Cheney (WY) and Adam Kinzinger (IL). Its stated aim is to “investigate the facts, circumstances, and causes relating to the domestic terrorist attack on the Capitol,” with an eye towards issuing a report containing “findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures” that might prevent such an attack from taking place again.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xzgbna">
|
||
So far, it seems, the thrust of their work seems to have focused on compiling proof that Trump and his team played a more central role in the day’s events than previously thought.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="sczIBe">
|
||
“There will be, I think, substantial evidence that really demonstrates the coordination and the planning,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), a committee member, <a href="https://e.newsletters.cnn.com/click?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">told CNN</a>. “I think the American people are going to learn facts about the planning and execution of this that will be very disturbing.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yZEmqn">
|
||
Reading between the lines, the committee’s work can be seen as one in a long line of efforts to hold Donald Trump accountable for his misdeeds: to prove that he’s done something wrong and, eventually, help bring about some kind of accountability for it.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yWqDxI">
|
||
But one of the defining features of Donald Trump’s political career has been his ability escape accountability. (His narrow defeat in 2020 is a glaring<strong> </strong>exception.) Trump always seemed to get away with it — from his sexual assault comments caught on the <em>Access Hollywood</em> tape; to his remarks on the “very fine people on both sides” after white supremacist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia; to his suggestion that Americans should inject themselves with bleach to fight the coronavirus.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jML4nd">
|
||
His ability to escape, often in defiance of pundits predicting his demise, became a dark running joke best encapsulated in a (since-deleted) 2016 tweet:
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div class="c-float-right">
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt="The tweet reads: Well, I’d like to see ol Donny Trump wriggle his way out of THIS jam! *Trump wriggles his way out of the jam easily* Ah! Well. Nevertheless," src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tPvx8VauIDAnhZBqckQVC1fl1sM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23610616/Screen_Shot_2018_10_24_at_11.08.29_AM.jpg"/> <cite><span class="citation" data-cites="BronzeHammer">@BronzeHammer</span></cite>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2EoCNk">
|
||
Everyone who follows American politics, at this point, is aware of this pattern and the reasons behind it. American politics is dominated by the logic of extreme partisanship, in which partisans of both sides see the other as a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22814025/democracy-trump-january-6-capitol-riot-election-violence">fundamental (maybe even existential) threat</a>. In such an environment, Republican partisans have proven themselves willing to excuse almost anything that Trump does — no matter how undemocratic — if it helps their side win.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bpwSuI">
|
||
This theory is supported by <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Why-Were-Polarized-Ezra-Klein/dp/147670032X">an impressive body of political science</a> research documenting the powerful warping effect partisanship has on the American population’s judgment. One of <a href="https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/campuspress.yale.edu/dist/6/1038/files/2020/06/Graham-and-Svolik-2020-APSR.pdf">the best of these papers</a>, from George Washington University’s Matthew Graham and Yale’s Milan Svolik, polled Americans on whether they would vote against candidates from their party if they engaged in certain anti-democratic behaviors (e.g., “ignores unfavorable court rulings from [opposite party] judges”). Even in such a hypothetical case only a small minority would be willing to do so; their research suggests the numbers would likely be substantially lower in a real-world election.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="LLx8fR">
|
||
Graham and Svolik conclude that polarization creates a get-out-of-jail-free card that allows politicians to push the democratic envelope. As long as you’re seen as loyal to your team, then fellow partisans will excuse your misbehavior because they see the other side as a bigger threat.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/nb5gdoNGm3KD1PwKum6s62WpqFM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23613782/GettyImages_1235507079.jpg"/> <cite>Sean Rayford/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Supporters of former US President Donald Trump sing at a rally in September 2021 in Perry, Georgia.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UvfLxM">
|
||
This logic played out again and again during the Trump presidency. It’s a key reason why his base never revolted, why Fox News stood by his side, and why Republican leaders that clearly knew better enabled him. It’s why both attempts to impeach him failed; in the <a href="https://www.politico.com/interactives/2021/trump-second-impeachment-vote-count-house-results-list/">second</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/13/politics/republican-votes-trump-guilty-convict-impeachment/index.html">trial</a>, 93 percent of congressional Republicans voted to protect him just weeks after his mob had threatened their very lives.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="EMEpqL">
|
||
Mere information isn’t enough to overcome this powerful psychological force, as research finds that ideologically convenient false beliefs can be <a href="https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.dartmouth.edu/dist/5/2293/files/2021/03/nyhan-reifler.pdf">extremely hard to correct once in place</a>. Republican partisans and the right-wing media will find a way to excuse or downplay whatever the committee reveals. We know this because it has already happened, both throughout the Trump presidency and specifically when it comes to the January 6 riot.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="K2IQ3g">
|
||
The basic damning facts of January 6 — a president whipping up a mob that then attacked the Capitol in an attempt to overturn an election — have been out in the public since Day 1. And yet, <a href="https://www.umass.edu/news/article/one-year-later-new-umass-amherst-poll-finds-continued-national-political-division-over">the majority of Republicans</a> still describe the events of January 6 as a protest, with many blaming “antifa” provocateurs for the violence that engulfed it. <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-are-moving-on-from-jan-6-even-if-congress-hasnt/">Most<strong> </strong>of the party faithful</a> still believes, against all evidence, that <a href="https://m-graham.com/papers/GrahamYair_BigLie.pdf">the 2020 presidential election was stolen</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="kjCkHo">
|
||
“I’m quite skeptical [that hearings will] lead to a concrete shift in public opinion on the attack,” says Brendan Nyhan, a Dartmouth political scientist who studies information and political beliefs. “A polarized elite discourse could potentially increase salience and consensus among Democrats but is unlikely to move Republicans. The impeachment hearings (both) are a case in point.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="FJLVGw">
|
||
Indeed, <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/we-asked-2000-americans-about-their-biggest-concern-the-resounding-answer-inflation/">a May FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll</a> found that “political extremism or polarization” was the second-most important issue among Democrats — topped only by inflation. And yet, there’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/12/9/22824509/summit-for-democracy-biden-america">scant evidence of a mass pro-democracy movement</a> pushing to prevent another Republican attempt to steal an election (either through laws or riots). If the January 6 Capitol attack didn’t kick off such a mass mobilization by Democrats, it’s hard to imagine a post-facto investigation into the riot being more galvanizing.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<figure class="e-image">
|
||
<img alt=" " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0twGur6Bz2SaI0cDbbeNxkGB3oM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23613787/GettyImages_1364875196.jpg"/> <cite>Mario Tama/Getty Images</cite>
|
||
<figcaption>
|
||
Former President Donald Trump prepares to speak at a rally on January 15, 2022 in Florence, Arizona.
|
||
</figcaption>
|
||
</figure>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9IyXZC">
|
||
“I was really struck, in DC a few weeks ago, by how much more present the event seemed to people there,” says Julia Azari, a political scientist at Marquette University. “I think for most people, it seems much more abstract.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bq4jqo">
|
||
None of this should be seen as undermining the significance of the January 6 committee’s work. The events of that day were one of the most serious attacks on American government, and the truth of how and why it happened should be documented in full. Based on what we already know, Trump’s role in it (and his broader attempt to overturn the election) is one of the worst presidential abuses of power since Watergate — and the committee seems to have evidence that it’s worse than we think.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W4U7M0">
|
||
But Watergate happened in a different America, one far less polarized than the country is now. Back then, the evidence against Nixon ultimately persuaded a critical mass of Republicans to throw him to the wolves. It’s nearly impossible to imagine that happening today.
|
||
</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I have become more attacking now: Sarita</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Mithali brings curtains down on playing career</strong> - Bids adieu to all forms of international cricket via social media announcement</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Geographique, Four Wheel Drive, All Attractive, Black Eagle, Royal Glory and Juliette impress</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sports Authority of India calls back Indian cycling contingent from Slovenia after female cyclist accuses coach of ‘inappropriate behaviour’</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Simone Biles, other assault victims seek $1B-plus from FBI over Nassar</strong> - FBI agents in 2015 knew that Nassar was accused of molesting gymnasts, but they failed to act, leaving him free to continue to target young women and girls for more than a year</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Viveka murder case: TDP leader demands resignation of A.P. CM</strong> - ‘CBI inspection at house of Jagan makes him a suspect’</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Industries- portals launched</strong> -</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Editors Guild disturbed by ‘irresponsible conduct of some news channels’</strong> - News channels are ‘giving legitimacy to divisive and toxic voices’ that has ‘made the the gap between communities unbridgeable’, the Editors Guild of India said in a statement</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Autokast set to make bricks from silica sand</strong> - The manufacturing unit has a capacity to produce 4,000 bricks per day</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Northeast marching ahead to be on a par with rest of India: Sarbananda Sonowal</strong> - The Union Minister of Ayush and Ports was speaking at the Regional Ayurveda Research Institute in Itanagar.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Berlin: One dead and others hurt as car drives into pedestrians</strong> - Police say it is unclear whether the incident was an accident or a deliberate attack.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Irpin: Russia’s reign of terror in a quiet neighbourhood near Kyiv</strong> - A handful of streets in a leafy town on Kyiv’s doorstep were subjected to weeks of deadly occupation.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Dame Paula Rego: Celebrated Portuguese-British artist dies at 87</strong> - A gallery representing the celebrated painter says she died peacefully at her home in north London.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Paris woman condemns police for friend’s fatal shooting</strong> - A young woman speaks out after her friend becomes the latest person to die in a police road check.</p></li>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>NI Protocol: ‘Historic low point’ if UK unilateral action taken</strong> - Taoiseach Michéal Martin made the comments to EU leaders ahead of the publication of new legislation.</p></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>This plasma ignition system can increase engine efficiency by 20%</strong> - The TPS ignition system has been designed to work with existing engines. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859593">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>You’ll shoot your eye out: Popped champagne cork ejects CO2 at supersonic speeds</strong> - Researchers “might consider the typical bottle of champagne as a mini-laboratory.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859317">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>FDA advisors overwhelmingly endorse Novavax COVID-19 vaccine</strong> - The company hopes it will sway vaccine holdouts to finally get their shots. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859537">link</a></p></li>
|
||
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>$10 billion fund starts giving US states money for broadband expansions</strong> - Every state can get at least $100 million from Treasury Dept’s $10 billion fund. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859516">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Apple makes Xcode Cloud available to all developers</strong> - The CI/CD service was first announced a year ago at WWDC 2021. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1859511">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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<ul>
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||
<li><strong>What would two termites order at a restaurant?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
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||
<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Table for 2
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/nabilbhatiya"> /u/nabilbhatiya </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7hnbf/what_would_two_termites_order_at_a_restaurant/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7hnbf/what_would_two_termites_order_at_a_restaurant/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>China has now banned any military personnel to use apple watches due to security reasons.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
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||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
One soldier says with tears in his eyes “but but my daughter made it for me”.
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||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/curiousrelatively"> /u/curiousrelatively </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v72b2y/china_has_now_banned_any_military_personnel_to/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v72b2y/china_has_now_banned_any_military_personnel_to/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>Our local pizza guy has been arrested for selling drugs</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
I have been a loyal customer for years. I honestly had no idea he was selling pizzas
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/GabrielKnight8660"> /u/GabrielKnight8660 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7kx28/our_local_pizza_guy_has_been_arrested_for_selling/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7kx28/our_local_pizza_guy_has_been_arrested_for_selling/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>One year, I had been a naughty child, and Santa left me a piece of coal.</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
So I poisoned his cookies. But the sneaky bastard found out and killed my dad.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MrDagon007"> /u/MrDagon007 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7gzcm/one_year_i_had_been_a_naughty_child_and_santa/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7gzcm/one_year_i_had_been_a_naughty_child_and_santa/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
||
<li><strong>A German in a Bar</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF -->
|
||
<div class="md">
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
A German walks into a bar and orders a beer.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The bartender tells him : “20 euros!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The German is shocked - “20 euros? yesterday it was only 3 euros !”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Well, today it is 20 euros.”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
</p><ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">“But why 20, damn it?”
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
Bar tender : "I’ll explain it,
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
-3 euros is beer,
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
-3 to help Ukraine,
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
-4 assistance to European countries who have imposed sanctions and are not members of the EU.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
-4 euros in aid to the UK, for successful implementation of sanctions against Russia.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
-Then 3 euros are sent to the Balkan countries as aid to buy furnace coal.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
</p><ul>
|
||
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">and finally, 3 euros for a gas subsidy for the EU and fund to help maintain sanctions!"
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"></p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The German silently took out the money and gave the bartender 20 euros.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
The bartender took them, entered in the cash register and gave him 3 euros back.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
German in disbelief : “Wait, you said 20 euros, right ? I gave you 20, why are you giving me back 3 euros?”
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
||
“Ahh… We have no beer!”
|
||
</p>
|
||
</li></ul></li></ul></div>
|
||
<!-- SC_ON -->
|
||
submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/fundoomaster"> /u/fundoomaster </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7o0am/a_german_in_a_bar/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/v7o0am/a_german_in_a_bar/">[comments]</a></span></li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
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