Friday, October 18th, 2024

Today’s core story is about: Americans living in different realities ahead of the 2024 election.

KNEAD TO KNOW

Israel Defense Forces killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Southern Gaza. Sinwar was the architect of the October 7 terror attacks that killed 1,200 people and sparked the year-long war in Gaza.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned 10,000 North Korean troops are preparing to join Russian forces in Ukraine. Zelensky warned E.U. leaders during a one-day summit in Brussels Thursday that North Korea’s involvement is “the first step to the world war.” 

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will pay $880 million to 1,353 victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests dating back decades. The archdiocese had previously paid $740 million to victims in various settlements, bringing its total payout to over $1.5 billion.

Instagram rolled out a suite of new options to help fight teen “sextortion” scams on the platform. The new options will limit screen recording in DMs, automatically blur images, and block follow requests from suspicious accounts, among other changes. Geekout’s Matt Navara highlighted some of the biggest changes on Threads.

This Election Is About Reality, Not Just Ideology

A new survey by CBS News shows the upcoming presidential election isn’t just about two competing political ideologies; it’s about two competing versions of reality. 

What’s happening: 

The survey shows stark differences in perception between Harris and Trump voters on…

… the economy:

… the U.S.-Mexico border:

…voter fraud:

…and what their candidate should do after the results are in:

The survey as a whole paints a damning portrait of modern American politics: a divided world where truth doesn’t matter and one’s reality largely depends on their party preference.

• It’s also important to note the lying is coming from one side of the aisle and not the other. 

• Donald Trump, Republican politicians, and right-wing media continue to lie about the 2020 election, Trump keeping classified documents after his presidency, and his business practices in New York, among numerous other things (like how he actually sucks at golf). 

The truth:

While rebutting all of the right-wing misinformation points at play in the pictures above and survey within would take far too long, let’s at least discuss the ones I’ve highlighted. 

First, while economic realities fluctuate with each person, the truth is the Biden-led economy is strong. 

• Unemployment recently clocked in at 4.1%, inflation has fallen below 2.5%, real wages are up, and the stock market continues to set record highs.

• In the words of The Economist, “The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust”.  

Second, illegal border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are down, not up, and the Biden administration has taken efforts to reduce the number of migrants crossing, not increase it.

• Third, voter fraud is still extremely rare in the U.S., and, in any case, the vast majority of people charged with voter fraud in the 2020 election supported Trump, not Biden.

Finally, there’s only one right answer to the question of what a candidate should do after receiving the results of an election: abide by them. 

• It’s not hard, there isn’t room for discussion absent real evidence, and it goes without saying that it indeed matters.

• However, only one candidate is likely to lie about the results and his name doesn’t rhyme with Shamala Sharris, so keep that in mind when Republicans claim Democrats are the ones destroying our democracy.      

What’s next:

Election Day is on the horizon and we all know how it’ll go. 

• Either Trump wins and he marches happily to D.C., ready to gut the institutions and agencies that afford us a functioning democracy, or he loses, and then lies that he didn’t. 

The good news is, under the latter scenario, we still get back one of our vital norms: Harris will take office after a peaceful transfer of power.

QUICK BITES

Half of All Global Food Production is Threatened By a Growing Water Crisis

The world is facing a growing water crisis and half of all food production will be at risk of failure by the middle of this century, according to a new report by the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.

Why it matters: 

• With a name that boring, you know the group means business, and they’re not mincing words: “We have, fundamentally, put the [water] cycle itself under unprecedented stress, with growing consequences for communities and countries everywhere.”

• Happily, the report makes it clear that the challenges can be met and overcome, though it’ll take a globally coordinated effort with “bolder and more integrated thinking” to establish a “new economics of water.” 

This Chatbot Could Save Your Conspiracy-Pilled Relative

Interacting with an AI chatbot that counters conspiracy theories significantly reduced users' beliefs in the theories and lessened their conspiratorial thinking overall, according to a new study by researchers at MIT Sloan. 

Combating misinformation: 

• The AI chatbot, called DebunkBot, was able to reduce users’ conspiratorial beliefs by an average of 20% over the course of just three written exchanges that took about eight minutes.

• Debating with DebunkBot also led to a quarter of participants moving from believing in a particular conspiracy to now being uncertain, and resulted in users expressing greater intention to ignore, unfollow, or rebut people posting about conspiracy theories on social media.

The U.S.’s Newest National Marine Sanctuary Is the First Led by a Native Tribe

More than 4,500 square miles of ocean off the coast of central California will soon receive federal protection, creating what will be the third largest marine sanctuary in the U.S. and the first to be led by an Indigenous group.  

Conserving America: 

• The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary (pictured above) is the result of more than a decade of effort by the Northern Chumash Tribe to protect the rugged coastline that is their historical home.

• The designation is part of President Joe Biden’s America the Beautiful Initiative, which supports locally led conservation efforts across the country and sets the goal of protecting, conserving, and restoring at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.hould they care? (Benefit) What do I want them to do here? (Call-to-Action).

PLAIN INTERESTING

Astronomers Unveiled the First Section of the Largest-Ever Cosmic Map

A mosaic of images from the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope offers the first glimpse of a “cosmic atlas” that could one day help scientists understand how dark matter and dark energy impact the structure of our universe.

Vast universe:

• The mosaic of 260 images (pictured above) captures more than 14 million galaxies and covers an area of the southern sky about 500 times the size of the full moon. Representing it at full resolution would require 16,000 4K screens.

• The images that comprise the mosaic were captured during a two-week survey by Euclid in April and represent just 1% of the final map.

What’s next:

• Euclid will spend the next six years scanning about a third of the night sky, culminating in the largest 3D map of the cosmos ever created. 

• Researchers anticipate the atlas will feature around 8 billion galaxies, each with billions of their own stars, stretching across 10 billion years of cosmic history. 

Head to ESA’s YouTube channel to view the mosaic in more detail and realize just how tiny we are. (3 min).

OVEN-FRESH STATS

• 1 million - The number of public service workers in the U.S. who have had their student debt canceled by the Biden administration, up from just 7,000 who received cancellation prior to the administration updating the program two years ago.

• 43% - The percentage of Americans ages 18 to 24 who say they’d have a more negative view of a person they’re on a date with if that person voted for Trump, according to a new survey by Generation Lab.

• $20 billion - How much OnlyFans has paid out to its 4 million creators since its launch in 2016. The platform has more than 400 million users, according to CEO Keily Blair.

• 171 - The number of times Elon Musk posted on X over a five-day period from September 16-20, according to a new analysis by The New York Times. If that sounds like a lot to you, it’s because it is, averaging out to roughly 34 posts per day (or 1.4 per hour) by the world’s richest and weirdest man.

EXTRA SCHMEAR

Long Video. Who and what killed the Colorado River? (18 min) 

Short Video. The extreme plan to refreeze the Arctic and fight climate change. (8 min)

Fun Video. British Airways “Flying With Confidence” course helps people overcome their fears of flying. (1 min)

Good Read. Columbia University journalism professor and former editor of The New York Times Margaret Sullivan on mainstream media’s softball coverage of Trump’s deranged rhetoric.

Neat List. Check out the 20 winning photographs from the 50th Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

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Written by Ryan Wittler