Eric Levitz
@ericlevitz.bsky.social
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It is bad when centrists rationalize the crimes of America's allies. It is also bad when leftists do the same for America's adversaries. Both of these things are worth saying, even if the latter is less consequential
www.vox.com/politics/486...
about 1 month ago
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Israel’s apologists insist that its critics are motivated by sectarian biases rather than humanitarian principles. When influential leftists celebrate Mao, they lend credibility to such charges
www.vox.com/politics/486...
about 1 month ago
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Too often, Hasan Piker's commentary is a mirror image of what it claims to oppose: If Washington’s jingoists downplay or rationalize the crimes of America and Israel, Piker does their adversaries the same favor
www.vox.com/politics/486...
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The real problem with Hasan Piker
Spoiler: It’s not about Israel.
https://www.vox.com/politics/486091/hasan-piker-democrats-israel-china?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImJxeG9ta3hpVUsiLCJwIjoiL3BvbGl0aWNzLzQ4NjA5MS9oYXNhbi1waWtlci1kZW1vY3JhdHMtaXNyYWVsLWNoaW5hIiwiZXhwIjoxNzc4MjQ1NDE0LCJpYXQiOjE3NzcwMzU4MTR9.ZKzHx4nRqC8EfAcUXF6PCWCzp5RWhJ-6kDiIHtgA4Ys&utm_medium=gift-link
about 1 month ago
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Last week, OpenAI argued that the government may need to create a vast new welfare state to counter AI-induced unemployment and inequality. And yet, the company's leaders have ignored - or abetted - attacks on actually existing social programs
www.vox.com/politics/485...
about 2 months ago
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College grads have been “prolentarianized": Universities minted too many knowledge workers, and now they're working at Starbucks in unprecedented numbers. This is a popular narrative. But the share of recent grads in low-wage jobs is tiny (and down since the mid-90s)
www.vox.com/politics/485...
about 2 months ago
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reposted by
Eric Levitz
Quinn Slobodian
2 months ago
As he put it in his inimitable fashion
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Elon Musk's chatbot has forsaken its creator. A new study analyzed 1.6 million fact check requests -- and found that Grok was more likely to contradict Republican-leaning accounts than Democratic-leaning ones
www.vox.com/technology/4...
2 months ago
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How can you convince someone to abandon conspiratorial or pseudoscientific beliefs? Have them debate an LLM. Or so some new studies suggest. I wrote about why AI may be uniquely effective at countering misinformation (even as it also helps to spread it)
www.vox.com/technology/4...
2 months ago
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99%-ism - the belief that only the top 1% should have to pay higher taxes - is a scourge. Booker and Van Hollen's tax cut plans represent the culmination of a decades-long trend -- one that could make building a robust American welfare state impossible
www.vox.com/politics/482...
3 months ago
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How Iran views this war, according to historian of the regime
@gbrew24.bsky.social
www.vox.com/politics/482...
3 months ago
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How AI could trigger an economic doom loop (according to a financial firm's viral memo)
www.vox.com/politics/480...
3 months ago
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reposted by
Eric Levitz
Vox
3 months ago
An AI doom scenario so compelling, it shaved billions off the stock market.
www.vox.com/politics/480...
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Why Wall Street panicked over a sci-fi blog post
An AI doom scenario so compelling, it shaved billions off the stock market.
https://www.vox.com/politics/480445/ai-recession-citrini-memo-wall-street
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It's true that there are tons of rich bigots. It's also true that more educated voters are, in the aggregate, much more progressive on social issues than non-graduates. This is reflected not only in their answers to polls, but in the parties/candidates they support
nymag.com/intelligence...
add a skeleton here at some point
3 months ago
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A little over a year into his second presidency, Donald Trump has yet to turn America into a pure, uncut authoritarian nightmare — but not for lack of trying!
www.vox.com/politics/479...
4 months ago
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I wrote about why Silicon Valley is convinced we're in a "February 2020" moment (and how their dire prophesies could prove mistaken)
www.vox.com/politics/478...
4 months ago
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Over the past three weeks, the "nightmare scenario" for November's midterms has grown more plausible
www.vox.com/politics/478...
4 months ago
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Tulsi Gabbard has been investigating baseless allegations that Venezuelan hackers rigged the 2020 election That's alarming, as it could indicate that Trump is trying to establish a national security rationale for seizing voting machines in November
www.vox.com/politics/478...
4 months ago
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reposted by
Eric Levitz
Michael Caley
4 months ago
oh god we're doing it again aren't we
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A lesson of the backlash to Pretti's murder: Video is one of the last remaining constraints on Trump's mendacity and malfeasance And this is what made some online liberals' response to the second Pretti video - declaring it a deepfake without solid evidence - misguided
www.vox.com/politics/477...
4 months ago
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Summary execution is not the punishment for assault on an SUV in the United States.
www.vox.com/politics/477...
4 months ago
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reposted by
Eric Levitz
Evan Hill
4 months ago
After years of denial and accusing anyone using the numbers of duplicity or Hamas sympathy, the Israeli military now admits — via anonymous briefing to domestic reporters — that the Gaza Health Ministry's death toll from the war is accurate
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Gotta admit, I too fell for this. When I first saw federal agents fire 10 shots into the back of a man they'd just senselessly beaten, I thought it was wrong. But then I learned that the murder victim wasn't even *that* hot
4 months ago
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The White House has tacitly admitted that Kristi Noem and Stephen Miller defamed a man who was killed by their agents. It is a scandal that they still hold their positions
www.vox.com/politics/476...
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The Trump administration is admitting it lied about Alex Pretti
A baby-step back from the brink.
https://www.vox.com/politics/476592/alex-pretti-ice-shooting-trump-noem-bovino
4 months ago
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reposted by
Eric Levitz
Kolina Koltai
4 months ago
Our initial analysis is up. The video footage appears to show that the gun was taken away from the man before he was shot. He was UNARMED before any of the shots were fired.
add a skeleton here at some point
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I can't decide which is more chilling -- watching federal agents commit a murder, or seeing the government and its supporters smear the victim with *blatant* lies
4 months ago
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You don't need to have leftwing views on immigration to oppose what ICE is doing. You just need to value your own most basic rights
www.vox.com/politics/476...
4 months ago
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Wall Street buying up single-family homes is good, actually
www.vox.com/politics/476...
4 months ago
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Won't somebody *please* think of the landlords who own only 10-to-12 properties
add a skeleton here at some point
4 months ago
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In the 1990s, cable news networks discovered that viewers were less likely to click away from coverage of culture war issues than coverage of economic matters. TV news started giving social issues greater priority - and caused voters to do the same, a new study suggests
www.vox.com/politics/475...
4 months ago
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In the 20th century, poor whites voted to the left of rich ones. But that changed in 2016. And by 2024, the relationship between income and Republicanism had inverted completely: The more money a white voter made, the more likely they were to back Harris
www.vox.com/politics/475...
4 months ago
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Over the past 4 decades, the culture war's rise realigned American politics -- pushing working-class voters right and college grads left. A new study offers a simple theory for why this happened: Americans' at-home entertainment options got too good.
www.vox.com/politics/475...
4 months ago
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The president is all-but encouraging pogroms against specific Somali-owned businesses, on the grounds that they serve customers who pay in food stamps (much like countless Walmarts in heavily Republican rural areas)
5 months ago
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The sheer volume of white nationalist memes/allusions posted from official government accounts over the past year is staggering
www.vox.com/politics/475...
5 months ago
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ICE's official recruitment ads are suffused with allusions to white nationalist memes and books. The government is openly trying to give guns and badges to supporters of ethnic cleansing.
www.vox.com/politics/475...
5 months ago
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I enjoyed this conversation and you might too!
add a skeleton here at some point
5 months ago
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Many of the left and right's contemporary debates may be rooted in one fundamental disagreement: How much less should we trust/care about strangers, compared to "our people?"
www.vox.com/the-highligh...
5 months ago
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What's the essential, philosophical disagreement that cleaves the left from the right? Some argue: There is none. "The left" and "the right" are just two contingent coalitions that propagandize for their members' interests. I think they are 30% right
www.vox.com/the-highligh...
5 months ago
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Putting Trump's 2020 statement on George Floyd next to his remarks on Renee Nicole Good is illuminating. Trump once felt compelled to suggest that his vision of “law and order” did not entail impunity for armed agents of the state Now, he doesn't.
www.vox.com/politics/474...
5 months ago
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I wrote about the president's menacingly dishonest response to the killing of Renee Nicole Good
www.vox.com/politics/474...
5 months ago
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After Venezuela, do we need to take Trump's most outlandish military threats seriously? Will US troops storm the beaches of Greenland? There's definitely cause for worry. But Trump's warmongering still appears to be limited by one major constraint
www.vox.com/politics/474...
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The one line that Trump’s foreign policy still hasn’t crossed
After Venezuela, how far could Trump really go?
https://www.vox.com/politics/474108/venezuela-trump-greenland-colombia-mexico-war?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6IjB0eEgzR2hpYnAiLCJwIjoiL3BvbGl0aWNzLzQ3NDEwOC92ZW5lenVlbGEtdHJ1bXAtZ3JlZW5sYW5kLWNvbG9tYmlhLW1leGljby13YXIiLCJleHAiOjE3Njg5MTkwNTUsImlhdCI6MTc2NzcwOTQ1NX0.SvoYG3vBDoFP_--coan5GY_L9tihXlqmPRxUritO7UA&utm_medium=gift-link
5 months ago
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In truth, Trump's war in Venezuela does not actually serve the American oil industry's interests. It might nonetheless be motivated by oil, but only because Trump personally loves the idea of pillaging conquered lands
www.vox.com/politics/473...
5 months ago
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Trump didn't wage war in Venezuela to advance the oil lobby's interests. His motives appear much less coherent -- and more superficial -- than that
www.vox.com/politics/473...
5 months ago
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AI is more popular than child molesters
www.vox.com/politics/473...
5 months ago
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Voters don't "hate" AI. And only a tiny share of them consider it a top-tier issue. That could change. People are definitely anxious about the technology. But some recent pieces have wildly overstated the scale and intensity of the backlash thus far
www.vox.com/politics/473...
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The political backlash to AI is overstated
Americans’ feelings about artificial intelligence are complicated.
https://www.vox.com/politics/473715/ai-data-center-chatgpt-electricity-polls?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImJZSWM2UzJ2RG8iLCJwIjoiL3BvbGl0aWNzLzQ3MzcxNS9haS1kYXRhLWNlbnRlci1jaGF0Z3B0LWVsZWN0cmljaXR5LXBvbGxzIiwiZXhwIjoxNzY4MzIzMDEwLCJpYXQiOjE3NjcxMTM0MTB9.DX5gF-jUmsPdMriWgz8hK8xUAhEJbBsid785Emk4hO4&utm_medium=gift-link
5 months ago
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reposted by
Eric Levitz
Dave Weigel
5 months ago
I feel like "attention hacking" is most of politics now. The Minnesota aid fraud story is becoming a perfect example. Recap: In 2022, the Biden DOJ filed the first charges against dozens of fraudsters, many of them Somali-American, who'd fleeced a state food aid program. (1/x)
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Rich nations are happier than poor ones. And poor countries tend to get happier as they get richer Yet wealthy countries have been getting richer - without getting discernibly happier - for decades. I wrote about one (not totally convincing) explanation:
www.vox.com/politics/472...
5 months ago
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Degrowth proponents often suggest that America can slash its resource use by over 50% -- while still expanding the *good* sectors, such as healthcare. I think this betrays a naivety about how resource-intensive modern medicine is
www.vox.com/politics/472...
5 months ago
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Americans' incomes are 26% higher than they were in 1996 -- yet our self-reported happiness has fallen sharply since then. I wrote about one theory of The Thirty Years' Vibecession
www.vox.com/politics/472...
5 months ago
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