Fauci: Downplaying Coronavirus Threat Is ‘Not A Good Thing’ | MSNBC

MSNBC

Sep 11, 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci responded to reports that President Trump wanted to play down the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, saying that doing so with any serious threat was “not a good thing.” Aired on 09/11/2020.

Sagan Lecture Seminar Series: Introduction to Planetary and Earth Science

AGU

Published on Aug 28, 2020

Introduction to Planetary and Earth Science: Tucker’s view of the Universe

The AGU Sagan Lecture series is sponsored jointly by the Biogeosciences and Planetary Sciences Sections of AGU and is aimed to provide perspectives on astrobiology and public engagement on critical issues that transcend boundaries of disciplinary research and planetary boundaries. These lectures encompass topics that integrate and synthesize multiple disciplines in a unique fashion to explore and to expand our knowledge of life without boundaries. This seminar will provide an overview of Sagan’s vision of planetary exploration with an emphasis on the living earth and will be related to Sagan’s relevance to today’s research directions, as well as how he influenced earth system research over the past decades.

Compton J. Tucker is a Senior Earth Scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. He has broad experience in remote sensing research and applications and has won a number of prestigious national and international awards.

Webinar: Creating an effective one-pager

The Ring of Fire

Published on Sep 11, 2020

At least 6 teachers have died from COVID 19 since schools began reopening last month, and the virus isn’t showing any real signs of slowing down. These deaths were all preventable, and they show us what happens when a country decides to ignore science in the name of money. We are valuing the wrong thing, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.

Link – https://www.newsweek.com/teachers-die…

Teachers Are Dying From COVID As Schools Continue To Reopen

The Ring of Fire

Published on Sep 11, 2020

At least 6 teachers have died from COVID 19 since schools began reopening last month, and the virus isn’t showing any real signs of slowing down. These deaths were all preventable, and they show us what happens when a country decides to ignore science in the name of money. We are valuing the wrong thing, as Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains.

Link – https://www.newsweek.com/teachers-die…

Unregulated data usage is an “underlying issue” of unfair elections and voter manipulation

Democracy Now!
Jan 12, 2020

Propaganda researcher Emma Briant says unregulated data usage by big tech companies such as Facebook is “an underlying issue” that is stopping “the kinds of policies that would create … a better society.” After the Cambridge Analytica leak exposed how data manipulation directly threatened the 2016 election, antitrust laws and campaign financing must be revisited in order to prevent it from happening again. “The issue isn’t just about what’s happening on the platforms, although that is a big part of it. We have to think about the whole infrastructure,” she says.

‘A Fool’: Trump Insider Backs Cohen, Putin Playing Trump Like A Sucker | MSNBC

MSNBC

Sep 8, 2020

“New allegations against Donald Trump are now being revealed by his former personal attorney and fixer Michael Cohen with the release of a new tell-all book about the president. Cohen revealing details about Trump’s relationship with Russian president Putin and Trump’s racism. Former Trump organization executive Barbara Res joins Melber to react to the book’s allegations, asking why the Russians “are so influential” to Trump. (This interview is from MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber, a news show covering politics, law and culture airing nightly at 6pm ET on MSNBC

How a data analytics firm allegedly ‘weaponized’ Facebook to swing votes in 2016

PBS NewsHour

Mar 18, 2018

On Friday, Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica, a UK-headquartered data analytics firm, for allegedly using user data to devise election advertising strategy, particularly for undecided voters, in the run-up to the 2016 election. The U.S. arm of the firm reportedly received information on 50 million American voters from Facebook without disclosing its intentions to the social media giant. Molly Wood, host of Marketplace Tech, joins Megan Thompson for more.

The Weaponization of Data: Cambridge Analytica, Information Warfare & the 2016 Election of Trump

Democracy Now!

Jan 10, 2020

We continue our conversation with the directors of “The Great Hack,” Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, as well as former Cambridge Analytica employee Brittany Kaiser and propaganda researcher Emma Briant, about Cambridge Analytica’s parent company SCL Group’s history as a defense contractor. “We’re in a state of global information warfare now,” Briant says. “How do we know if our militaries develop technologies and the data that it has gathered on people, for instance, across the Middle East … how do we know when that is turning up in Yemen or when that is being utilized by an authoritarian regime against the human rights of its people or against us? How do we know that it’s not being manipulated by Russia, by Iran, by anybody who’s an enemy, by Saudi Arabia, for example, who SCL were also working with? We have no way of knowing, unless we open up this industry and hold these people properly accountable for what they’re doing.”

Too Much Information: Understanding What You Don’t Want to Know: Cass R. Sunstein

How information can make us happy or miserable, and why we sometimes avoid it and sometimes seek it out.

How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought on our way into the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? Can we do anything useful with next week’s weather forecast for Paris if we are not in Paris? In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Policymakers emphasize “the right to know,” but Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing that the focus should be on human well-being and what information contributes to it. Government should require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information not because of a general “right to know” but when the information in question would significantly improve people’s lives.

Sunstein argues that the information on warnings and mandatory labels is often confusing or irrelevant, yielding no benefit. He finds that people avoid information if they think it will make them sad (and seek information they think will make them happy). Our information avoidance and information seeking is notably heterogeneous—some of us do want to know the popcorn calorie count, others do not. Of course, says Sunstein, we are better off with stop signs, warnings on prescriptions drugs, and reminders about payment due dates. But sometimes less is more. What we need is more clarity about what information is actually doing or achieving.

Why people fall for misinformation – Joseph Isaac

TED-Ed

Sep 3, 2020

How does a fact become a misconception? Dig into the world of misinformation to see how facts can become distorted and misleading.