USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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Zwabu: Aug 7, 2006

Wow, GOP candidate Will Hurd actually coming out and saying Trump and DeSantis are wrong on Ukraine policy and advocates more vigorous support. Color me surprised.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 17:54

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# ? May 26, 2024 23:19

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

Sephyr posted:

Yep. Putin is a mobster and a fuckhead, but it has been a bit disquieting watching supposedly level-headed people drooling to see Russia become a larger version of post-Khaddafi Lybia, only with nukes.

"Shut up about the Azov battalion, Russia has the Wagner Group which is even nazi-er! I mean, um, those brave freedom fighters may reach Moscow and remove the tyrant any day now, yay! What, they were bought off? So back to being nazis. Update your talking points, everyone."

Do you think Russia will get to have a peaceful, democratic transition of power away from Putin? A Russia able to concentrate its power to invade its neighbors seems worse than infighting.

Tiny Timbs fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jun 25, 2023

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:02

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

Tiny Timbs posted:

Do you think Russia will get to have a peaceful, democratic transition of power away from Putin?

Nobody thinks that. However, that fact doesn't imply that any transition of power away from Putin would be a good thing.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:03

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

cat botherer posted:

Nobody thinks that. However, that fact doesn't imply that any transition of power away from Putin would be a good thing.

Europe is currently experiencing what a concentration of power in Putin looks like.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:05

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

Are we not honoring the mod request to keep Russia posting to the other thread?

Google Jeb Bush posted:

It's good to have sent the signal up here, but I'd like to preemptively request that unless it's definitely the US side of the current events, talk about the Russian coup / civil war / elaborate ritual suicide of Prigozhin go to the Ukrainewar thread. There's a pretty fair chance this will get Very Spicy. hell, if it gets spicy enough it might need its own thread

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:09

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

In U.S. news, the NYT has an interesting dive into the allegations that a Harvard professor whose specialty is research into honesty has been accused of lying & rigging her research.

I've bolded the cliffs instead of restating them:

quote:

Harvard Scholar Who Studies Honesty Is Accused of Fabricating Findings

Over the past two decades, dozens of behavioral scientists have risen to prominence pointing out the power of small interventions to improve well-being.

The scientists said they had found that automatically enrolling people in organ donor programs would lead to higher rates of donation, and that moving healthy foods like fruit closer to the front of a buffet line would result in healthier eating.

Many of these findings have attracted skepticism as other scholars showed that their effects were smaller than initially claimed, or that they had little impact at all. But in recent days, the field may have sustained its most serious blow yet: accusations that a prominent behavioral scientist fabricated results in multiple studies, including at least one purporting to show how to elicit honest behavior.

The scholar, Francesca Gino of Harvard Business School, has been a co-author of dozens of papers in peer-reviewed journals on such topics as how rituals like silently counting to 10 before deciding what to eat can increase the likelihood of choosing healthier food, and how networking can make professionals feel dirty.

Maurice Schweitzer, a behavioral scientist at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, said the accusations were having large �reverberations in the academic community� because Dr. Gino is someone who has �so many collaborators, so many articles, who is really a leading scholar in the field.�

Dr. Schweitzer said that he was now going through the eight papers on which he collaborated with Dr. Gino for indications of fraud, and that many other scholars were doing so as well.

Behavioral work is common in psychology, management and economics, and scholars can straddle these disciplines. According to her r�sum�, Dr. Gino has a Ph.D. in economics and management from an Italian university.

Questions about her work surfaced in an article on June 16 in The Chronicle of Higher Education about a 2012 paper written by Dr. Gino and four colleagues. One of Dr. Gino�s co-authors � Max H. Bazerman, also of Harvard Business School � told The Chronicle that the university had informed him that a study overseen by Dr. Gino for the paper appeared to include fabricated results.

The 2012 paper reported that asking people who fill out tax or insurance documents to attest to the truth of their responses at the top of the document rather than at the bottom significantly increased the accuracy of the information they provided. The paper has been cited hundreds of times by other scholars, but more recent work had cast serious doubt on its findings.

Dr. Gino did not respond to a request for comment, and Harvard Business School declined to comment. Reached by phone, a man who identified himself as Dr. Gino�s husband said, �It�s obviously something that is very sensitive that we can�t speak to now.�

Dr. Bazerman did not respond to a request for comment for this article, but told The Chronicle of Higher Education that he had had nothing to do with any fabrication.

On June 17, a blog run by three behavioral scientists, called DataColada, posted a detailed discussion of evidence that the results of a study by Dr. Gino for the 2012 paper had been falsified. The post said that the bloggers contacted Harvard Business School in the fall of 2021 to raise concerns about Dr. Gino�s work, providing the university with a report that included evidence of fraud in the 2012 paper as well as in three other papers on which she collaborated.

The blog � by Uri Simonsohn of ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Leif Nelson of the University of California, Berkeley, and Joseph Simmons of the University of Pennsylvania � focuses on the integrity and reliability of social science research. The post on Dr. Gino noted that Harvard had placed her on administrative leave, a fact that was reflected on her business school web page, though no reason was given. The Internet Archive, which catalogs web pages, shows that Dr. Gino was not on leave as recently as mid-May.

The 2012 paper was based on three separate studies. One study overseen by Dr. Gino involved a lab experiment in which about 100 participants were asked to complete a worksheet featuring 20 puzzles and were promised $1 for every puzzle they solved.

The study�s participants later filled out a form reporting how much money they had earned from solving the puzzles. The participants were led to believe that cheating would be undetected, when in fact the researchers could verify how many puzzles they had solved.

The study found that participants were much more likely to report their puzzle income honestly if they attested to the accuracy of their responses at the top of the form rather than the bottom.

But in their blog post, Dr. Simonsohn, Dr. Nelson and Dr. Simmons, analyzing data that Dr. Gino and her co-authors had posted online, cited a digital record contained within an Excel file to demonstrate that some of the data points had been tampered with, and that the tampering helped drive the result.

Last week�s post was not the first time the DataColada watchdogs had found problems with the 2012 paper by Dr. Gino and her co-authors. In a blog post in August 2021, the same researchers found evidence that another study published in the same paper appeared to rely on manufactured data.

That study relied on data provided by an insurance company, to which customers reported the mileage of cars covered by their policy. The study purported to find that customers who were asked at the top of the form to attest to the truthfulness of the information they would provide were significantly more honest than customers who were asked to attest to their truthfulness at the bottom of the form.

But through analysis of the raw data, Dr. Simonsohn, Dr. Nelson and Dr. Simmons concluded that many of the data points were created by someone connected to the study, not based on customer information. The journal that published the 2012 paper, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, retracted it the month after the blog post appeared.

In that case, another of the paper�s co-authors, Dan Ariely of Duke University, was the scholar who procured the data from the insurance company. Dr. Ariely, one of the world�s best-known behavioral scientists, said in an email on Friday that he had been �stunned and surprised� to learn that some of the insurance data in the paper had been fabricated, �which led me to proactively retract it.�

DataColada has since published blog posts laying out evidence that results were fabricated in two other papers of which Dr. Gino was a co-author. The bloggers have written that they plan to publish one more post laying out issues in an additional paper on which she collaborated.

In interviews and comments on social media, several scholars said they had not suspected fraud in Dr. Gino�s work. But some noted that the findings in the genre of behavioral research that she specializes in, which is closer to psychology, often resemble findings generated by questionable research methods.

One category of questionable methods, said Colin Camerer, a behavioral economist at the California Institute of Technology, is p-hacking � for example, testing a series of arbitrary data combinations until the researcher arrives at an inflated statistical correlation.

In 2015, a team of scholars reported that they had tried to replicate the results of 100 studies published in prominent psychology journals and succeeded in fewer than half the cases. The behavioral studies proved especially hard to replicate.

I'd be interested in knowing whether her bogus research was cited by Sunstein to promote "nudging" or by others.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:16

OctaMurk: Jun 21, 2013

Zwabu posted:

Wow, GOP candidate Will Hurd actually coming out and saying Trump and DeSantis are wrong on Ukraine policy and advocates more vigorous support. Color me surprised.

nothing surprising about that if youve ever heard of will hurd before. hes a former cia officer lol

most rest of the gop candidates besides trump or desantis are all in on ukraine, e.g. pence. and i dont think trump or desantis actually believe anything

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:19

ryde: Sep 9, 2011; God I love young girls

Personally I wasn�t rooting for Wagner to win. I was rooting for them to distract Russia long enough for Ukraine to make significant progress on their counter offensive. I can�t think of anyone who actually knows the deal with Wagner and wanted Pringles to take over from Putin.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:28

BiggerBoat: Sep 26, 2007; Don't you tell me my business again.

Madkal posted:

My buddy doesn't know who the Wagner group is so was thinking it was a group of soldiers fed up with the war and wanting Putin gone so the war could end.

TBH, I didn't know either and initially thought it was military uprising against Putin's fascism until I read about it and educated myself. Really comforting to know that the two most heavily armed and nuclear capable nations on the planet are racing each other to see who can become more fascist.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 18:57

Mercury_Storm: Jun 12, 2003; *chomp chomp chomp*

BiggerBoat posted:

TBH, I didn't know either and initially thought it was military uprising against Putin's fascism until I read about it and educated myself. Really comforting to know that the two most heavily armed and nuclear capable nations on the planet are racing each other to see who can become more fascist.

Not only that but Prigozhin is also under criminal indictment (from the US, mind you) for interfering with the 2016 election and funding the "Internet Research Agency", so he's likely one of the people responsible for a good portion of right-wing media addicts in the US wearing Putin-colored glasses 24x7.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerr...sh=612800f67f93

# ? Jun 25, 2023 19:04

Koos Group: Mar 6, 2013

As per GJB's request, please talk about Mr. Prigozhin in the Ukraine War thread unless there is something specifically about the United States.

Edit: The post just before this one would be an example of one directly related to the US.

Koos Group fucked around with this message at 19:41 on Jun 25, 2023

# ? Jun 25, 2023 19:39

DeeplyConcerned: Apr 29, 2008; I can fit 3 whole bud light cans now, ask me how!

Willa Rogers posted:

In U.S. news, the NYT has an interesting dive into the allegations that a Harvard professor whose specialty is research into honesty has been accused of lying & rigging her research.

I've bolded the cliffs instead of restating them:

I'd be interested in knowing whether her bogus research was cited by Sunstein to promote "nudging" or by others.

Thanks, Willa. This type of thing drives me up a wall. You're going to have bad actors in any system, but the fact that this is such a pervasive problem really speaks to systemic problems in the academic and scientific publishing communities. In my opinion it's driven by two interconnected problems.

First professors are rewarded by counting the number of publications they produce. It's got nothing to do with quality in all about numbers. how many can you get published?

Second, getting something published is almost impossible, unless you find a statistically significant result. For all the talk of the importance of replication, trying to submit a replication paper is going to get your rear end rejected. It's not "novel" or "interesting". You're expected to build on existing work, but take it in a new direction. So we're heavily disincentivized from doing the necessary work of replication to ensure that results are actually significant and not simply the result of P-hacking or simply statistical error. And we are incentivized to treat unreplicated research as gospel for that reason.

Research takes time, work and funding. So if you put all that time and effort into a study and it doesn't pan out (and by paying out I have course mean get a statistically significant result) you're essentially rewarded with nothing.

Finally at the publication stage where you would expect all of this work to be verified there's no expectation that the researcher will actually provide their raw data. Without having to provide your raw data it's exceptionally easy to insert a few data points here and there to ensure you get the result that publishers will like.

This all works together to ensure that some of the most prominent papers in these disciplines end up falsified. Now let's count up how many paper cited Dr. Gino's work, assuming it was all legit. Massive amount of scientific effort wasted.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 21:10

Rappaport: Oct 2, 2013

The entire publishing thing is a racket of the worst order and I Have Some Opinions about it.

Like yeah I've got a couple Nature papers under my belt, sure, but how much does that help me as a researcher, inform any future research, or even evaluate my work? It doesn't; we found something sexy and people knew people (professors and editors) and it happened, and that was that. Academic work is so obsessed with (in my opinion false) metrics and generally pretending to be a Sim game about producing science points rather than actually about caring about scientific work that well buh.

If science tries to emulate capitalism, no matter how juvenile and silly the attempt is, you'll wind up with results like this. (And I am aware of my name-sake's anti-thesis to this situation!) I don't pretend to have an answer to exactly how "fundamental" research should be funded, but surely publication metrics have failed at every step of the way.

edit: Also guess how much universities et al have to pay for subscriptions to publications, and how many of them are owned by like 2 publishing houses? Geez Luise, talk about perverted incentives all the way down

Rappaport fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Jun 25, 2023

# ? Jun 25, 2023 21:24

I AM GRANDO: Aug 20, 2006

DeeplyConcerned posted:

Thanks, Willa. This type of thing drives me up a wall. You're going to have bad actors in any system, but the fact that this is such a pervasive problem really speaks to systemic problems in the academic and scientific publishing communities. In my opinion it's driven by two interconnected problems.

First professors are rewarded by counting the number of publications they produce. It's got nothing to do with quality in all about numbers. how many can you get published?

Second, getting something published is almost impossible, unless you find a statistically significant result. For all the talk of the importance of replication, trying to submit a replication paper is going to get your rear end rejected. It's not "novel" or "interesting". You're expected to build on existing work, but take it in a new direction. So we're heavily disincentivized from doing the necessary work of replication to ensure that results are actually significant and not simply the result of P-hacking or simply statistical error. And we are incentivized to treat unreplicated research as gospel for that reason.

Research takes time, work and funding. So if you put all that time and effort into a study and it doesn't pan out (and by paying out I have course mean get a statistically significant result) you're essentially rewarded with nothing.

Finally at the publication stage where you would expect all of this work to be verified there's no expectation that the researcher will actually provide their raw data. Without having to provide your raw data it's exceptionally easy to insert a few data points here and there to ensure you get the result that publishers will like.

This all works together to ensure that some of the most prominent papers in these disciplines end up falsified. Now let's count up how many paper cited Dr. Gino's work, assuming it was all legit. Massive amount of scientific effort wasted.

I can�t believe someone at a business school would do something dishonest. Isn�t it an established phenomenon that businesses students (undergraduate) report a greater willingness to cheat when used in social science surveys vs regular BA/BS students? I recall reading that it was something that needed to be corrected for.

# ? Jun 25, 2023 21:27

OctaMurk: Jun 21, 2013

Dr Gino clearly should have had to attest to the accuracy of her papers before submitting them rather than after

# ? Jun 25, 2023 21:46

DEEP STATE PLOT: Aug 13, 2008; Yes...Ha ha ha...YES!

DeeplyConcerned posted:

Thanks, Willa. This type of thing drives me up a wall. You're going to have bad actors in any system, but the fact that this is such a pervasive problem really speaks to systemic problems in the academic and scientific publishing communities. In my opinion it's driven by two interconnected problems.

First professors are rewarded by counting the number of publications they produce. It's got nothing to do with quality in all about numbers. how many can you get published?

Second, getting something published is almost impossible, unless you find a statistically significant result. For all the talk of the importance of replication, trying to submit a replication paper is going to get your rear end rejected. It's not "novel" or "interesting". You're expected to build on existing work, but take it in a new direction. So we're heavily disincentivized from doing the necessary work of replication to ensure that results are actually significant and not simply the result of P-hacking or simply statistical error. And we are incentivized to treat unreplicated research as gospel for that reason.

Research takes time, work and funding. So if you put all that time and effort into a study and it doesn't pan out (and by paying out I have course mean get a statistically significant result) you're essentially rewarded with nothing.

Finally at the publication stage where you would expect all of this work to be verified there's no expectation that the researcher will actually provide their raw data. Without having to provide your raw data it's exceptionally easy to insert a few data points here and there to ensure you get the result that publishers will like.

This all works together to ensure that some of the most prominent papers in these disciplines end up falsified. Now let's count up how many paper cited Dr. Gino's work, assuming it was all legit. Massive amount of scientific effort wasted.

yes but have you considered that the bobby broccoli video on this will be highly entertaining

# ? Jun 25, 2023 21:56

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

I AM GRANDO posted:

I can�t believe someone at a business school would do something dishonest. Isn�t it an established phenomenon that businesses students (undergraduate) report a greater willingness to cheat when used in social science surveys vs regular BA/BS students? I recall reading that it was something that needed to be corrected for.

Can that study be replicated?

# ? Jun 26, 2023 06:36

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

Tiny Timbs posted:

Do you think Russia will get to have a peaceful, democratic transition of power away from Putin? A Russia able to concentrate its power to invade its neighbors seems worse than infighting.

Unless Putin is as weakened by this incident as western news outlets clearly hope, he will probably just pick a successor. If things devolve into civil war when he is out of power that would be pretty crazy. Even if he dies in office without a clear power structure in place, I would like to think violence is limited to certain officials jumping out of windows with bullets in their back.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 12:08

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

2nd good ruling in a row on this issue. Very strange

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/politics/supreme-court-louisiana-congressional-redistricting

quote:

The Supreme Court said Monday that Louisiana�s congressional map must be redrawn to add a second majority-Black district.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 14:54

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Charlz Guybon posted:

2nd good ruling in a row on this issue. Very strange

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/26/politics/supreme-court-louisiana-congressional-redistricting

It's the same ruling as before. They are just declining to hear this case because the question was already answered by the previous ruling.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 15:08

Charlz Guybon: Nov 16, 2010

Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:

It's the same ruling as before. They are just declining to hear this case because the question was already answered by the previous ruling.

The need to be consistent has never constrained this court before.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 15:24

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Charlz Guybon posted:

The need to be consistent has never constrained this court before.

Well sure but it's the same group of justices, like a month apart. If you use those incredibly specific parameters they probably have a pretty good track record of consistency.

Unfortunately Mississippi only has four reps so its delegation will likely remain 25% black despite the state being 3/8 black.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 15:24

PhazonLink: Jul 17, 2010

they're also trying to build up good karma to burn on something bad.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 15:43

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE) announced his retirement a few weeks ago.

It is now official that Delaware's current lone House member (Lisa Blunt-Rochester) is running for his seat and State House member (Sarah McBride) is running for the newly opened House of Representatives seat. McBride would be the first transgender person elected to Congress in U.S. history.

Lisa Blunt Rochester is essentially a generic Dem on the left-side of the caucus, but not too wild. She will be an objective improvement over Tom Carper, but will probably be a backbencher that you don't hear much about (for good and bad). She would be the third black woman elected to the Senate in U.S. history.

Sarah McBride is also a "generically liberal" Democrat and the House seat will not change much ideologically.

https://twitter.com/LisaBRochester/status/1671488134511730693
https://twitter.com/SarahEMcBride/status/1673301518420783107

# ? Jun 26, 2023 15:43

Randalor: Sep 4, 2011

PhazonLink posted:

they're also trying to build up good karma to burn on something bad.

Is there a chance they realized they may have overextended on their draconian mindset and are trying to give a smidgen of "bipartisanship" to try to get the shy Republicans (ie: "undecided") to vote R again?

# ? Jun 26, 2023 16:01

FlamingLiberal: Jan 18, 2009; Would you like to play a game?

Randalor posted:

Is there a chance they realized they may have overextended on their draconian mindset and are trying to give a smidgen of "bipartisanship" to try to get the shy Republicans (ie: "undecided") to vote R again?

Very unlikely

# ? Jun 26, 2023 16:07

Clarste: Apr 15, 2013; Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

PhazonLink posted:

they're also trying to build up good karma to burn on something bad.

I'm not sure why would need Good Karma unless they expect congress to start packing the court or something? They're accountable to no one, that's the whole point. I think the simplest answer is just that judges don't really give a poo poo about their parties after they're appointed, they just have their own personal biases and the biases of their donors.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 16:15

Yawgmoft: Nov 15, 2004

They're definitely going to completely destroy Affirmative Action so I could see Roberts saying give me something to balance that off

# ? Jun 26, 2023 16:52

James Garfield: May 5, 2012; Am I a manipulative abuser in real life, or do I just roleplay one on the Internet for fun? You decide!

They aren't personally accountable but they aren't totally immune to public opinion. One way that happens is that the court making unpopular rulings like Dobbs causes people to vote for Democrats in elections, which doesn't personally cost unelected judges their offices but does make them unhappy because they're Republicans.

I don't think Roberts is more moderate than someone like Kavanaugh, as much as he's more concerned about getting Republicans elected.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:00

Leon Trotsky 2012: Aug 27, 2009; YOU CAN TRUST ME!*

_{*Israeli Government-affiliated poster}

$42 billion of the bipartisan infrastructure bill from 2021 was allocated for broadband expansion. Part of the reason it has taken so long to be distributed is that the FCC has been revamping the way they collect data on internet speeds and access. Previously, U.S. data on internet access came primarily from the telecom companies themselves. The new FCC data has identified and corrected roughly 4 million mistakes in that data and identified an additional 500,000 homes that were not being picked up under the previous data.

The U.S. Government has spent the past 1.5 years changing their procedures and definitions of "high-speed internet access" to identify all Americans without access to high-speed internet. There are roughly 8.5 million total.

The money would result in 100% of Americans having access to high-speed cable or fiber-optic internet service. The bulk of the process is expected to happen in the next two years, but part of the schedule will depend on individual states/local governments and some areas (like the U.S. Virgin Islands, remote areas of Alaska, and Parts of Texas) will likely take much longer than the average area. As a result, they estimate that the bulk of the process will be done by 2025, but they estimate it will be 2030 before they officially reach 100%.

States have a set amount of funds appropriated for them based on the FCC data and they must provide a plan to the federal government that can demonstrate it will result in 100% connectivity to high-speed internet before they can get the funds.

The current standard for "high-speed" internet is 25 mbps, but the FCC is looking to change the definition to 100 mbps. Currently, 7% of Americans do not have access to internet that is at least 25 mbps. The plan requires 100% access to 25 mbps for the 7% that currently do not have access and upgrading as many under 100 mbps to reach that new minimum threshold as possible, but there is no fixed amount they are requiring for 100 mbps.

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1673353411050209280

quote:

Biden announces $42 billion to expand high-speed internet access

The funding � a centerpiece of the recent bipartisan infrastructure law � marks the largest-ever federal push to help an estimated 8.5 million families and businesses

The Biden administration on Monday announced more than $42 billion in new federal funding to expand high-speed internet access nationwide, commencing the largest-ever campaign to help an estimated 8.5 million families and small businesses finally take advantage of modern-day connectivity.

The money, which the government plans to parcel out to states over the next two years, is the centerpiece of a vast and ambitious effort to deliver reliable broadband to the entire country by 2030 � ensuring that even the most far-flung parts of the United States can reap the economic benefits of the digital age.

In a preview of Biden�s planned remarks, White House officials likened the new infrastructure project to the government�s work to electrify the nation�s darkened heartland in the late 1930s, when more than 90 percent of farms had no electric power in the face of high costs and prohibitive terrain.

Roughly nine decades later, the Biden administration believes that rural communities suffer from a similar disparity known as the �digital divide� � the persistent gap between the families, workers and employers that have high-speed internet access and those that do not. Even in a time of self-driving cars, commercial spaceflight and artificial intelligence, roughly 7 percent of the United States still does not have broadband service that meets the government�s minimum standards, according to new federal estimates.

But the president�s announcement marks only the beginning of a long and difficult process, which will largely will see states devise their own plans for how and where to deploy speedy internet. And the success or failure of Biden�s new campaign hinges on factors that have bedeviled his predecessors � from the steep price tag and complicated nature of broadband build out, to the lingering gaps in the government�s understanding about who needs connectivity.

�For millions of Americans, in rural communities in particular, the internet is down a lot, [and] sometimes there�s not even any access,� said Jeffrey Zients, the White House chief of staff, in a briefing with reporters. �We all know in our day-to-day lives how internet access is not nice to have at this point; it�s a need-to-have.�

A massive burst of new broadband funding

In 2021, Congress provisioned more than $42 billion to improve high-speed internet access nationwide. Here�s how the Biden administration divvied up the money.

For decades, the U.S. government has spent billions of dollars annually to deploy speedy internet service nationwide � only to struggle to ensure those sums benefit the communities that need it most. But the lagging federal campaign took on new energy and importance during the coronavirus pandemic, which demonstrated how the internet had become essential for daily life.

For millions of Americans, the internet offered a safe way to work, attend school, purchase groceries and stay in touch with their loved ones � provided, of course, they could access and afford it. In one 2021 survey from the Pew Research Center, 60 percent of lower-income broadband users said they often or sometimes struggled during the pandemic to use online services as a result of slow speeds. Nearly half said they also worried at the time about their ability to afford their internet bills.

In an acknowledgment of the nation�s technological disparities, lawmakers approved $166 billion starting in 2019 to improve internet connectivity, a record-breaking amount in a bid to boost telehealth, expand online learning and help Americans pay their internet bills, according to a review of federal budget records.

�We came out of the pandemic different than we were before,� said Jessica Rosenworcel, the chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission. �For so long we have clutched pearls and wrung our hands out over there not being broadband in rural communities � now we finally have the data and dollars to do something about it.�

That new federal campaign included $42.5 billion for the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program, known as BEAD, which Congress enacted as part of a sprawling 2021 law to improve the nation�s infrastructure. On Monday, the Commerce Department unveiled how it is divvying up that money, awarding grants ranging from roughly $27 million for the U.S. Virgin Islands to more than $3.3 billion for Texas, based largely on their local needs.

�What this announcement means for people across the country is that if you don�t have access to quality, affordable high-speed internet now � you will, thanks to President Biden and his commitment to investing in America,� pledged Gina Raimondo, the secretary of commerce, in a statement.

With the funding commitments in hand, states next must devise blueprints for how to bring broadband to those disconnected communities. If they have any leftover funds, local leaders can then focus on improving internet connectivity for those with slow, subpar access.

The fuller process is expected to occur over the next two years, according to senior administration officials, who briefed reporters on the unreleased details of the program last week on condition of anonymity. The aides said the timeline could help Biden achieve his goal to connect all Americans by 2030, though he would not be president at that point even if he won a second term.

�It�s really important we not leave any community behind with this project,� said Brandy Reitter, the executive director at the Colorado Broadband Office, whose state is set to receive $826 million. She added that the historic level of funding meant that the United States has �one shot at it.�

Already, states like West Virginia are �anxious for the dollars,� said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), one of the architects of the bipartisan infrastructure law. The state, which is slated to reap $1.2 billion in new federal funds, has long struggled from a combination of chronic underinvestment and rocky terrain that can make broadband build out difficult � leaving roughly 270,000 homes, businesses and other locations without internet, she said.

�We�re a state that�s trying to recruit remote workers to live in West Virginia,� she said. �But if they can�t connect, they can�t work here, and that�s been an issue for us.�

On the opposite side of the country, Mark Vasconi, the director of the top broadband office in Washington, said there are another 239,000 locations in his state that still don�t have service. To deliver quality fiber internet everywhere, Vasconi predicted it could cost as much as $3 billion, more than the $1.2 billion the state ultimately received Monday � but he said in advance of the award that the remainder could be covered by state and private investment.

�It is an astonishing amount of money to provide access to every location that is currently defined as unserved,� he said.

The exact amount the U.S. government allocated to each state hinged in large part on the total number of unserved homes, businesses and other locations within their borders. Nationally, the United States has identified more than 8.5 million such locations after a year-long effort by the FCC to remap the nation and its connectivity. But the figure reflects a complicated � and, at times, contentious � process that has played out behind the scenes.

An initial version of the FCC�s map, released last year, offered the government the most detailed glimpse to date into the country�s digital divide; Washington until then had relied primarily on data furnished by telecom giants. But it also spooked many state officials and congressional lawmakers, who felt millions of homes and businesses were missing from the picture. A drove of Democrats and Republicans soon called on the Biden administration to postpone any broadband funding announcements until the data could be cleaned up.

The Commerce Department ultimately opted against a delay, as it raced to disburse funds in time for its self-imposed deadline of June 30. That prompted the FCC to forge ahead with its work, and the telecom agency unveiled a new map last month to process roughly 4 million mistakes, according to federal records.

The fixes resulted in the U.S. government identifying roughly half a million additional homes, businesses and other locations that did not have internet compared with its first blueprint, the White House acknowledged this week. State officials heralded the updates, even as some raised alarm that there might be other missing communities, potentially cutting into the funds they expect to receive.

The errors and omissions initially proved problematic in Michigan, where officials worked with the FCC well into June � and days before the White House announcement � to prove that there were tens of thousands of additional homes and businesses without internet access. Eric Frederick, the leader of Michigan�s leading broadband office, attributed the problem in part to two wireless carriers that had filed an �overstatement� of their coverage area to the federal government.

After weeks of work, Frederick said last week he is �feeling pretty good about where we�re at,� but added of the haste in Washington: �Yes, we could use more time.�

�There�s definitely flaws,� added Frederick, whose state ultimately received nearly $1.6 trillion. �I think the [federal] allocation decisions are going to be the best they can be, given the time we had.�

In response, senior administration officials cautioned that each state still must embark on its own study to determine who does and does not have internet, a key task to determine where they will spend federal dollars. And they said the current map marks a dramatic improvement from the government�s prior effort, which largely relied on broad attestations from the nation�s telecom giants.

�We�ve made pretty radical improvements since the first iterations of the map went out, and they�re going to get better and better,� Rosenworcel said.

State broadband officials � who joined Biden at the White House on Monday � signaled they would be watching closely to see how the funding matches their local needs. Sally Doty, the head of the broadband expansion office in Mississippi, said she expected to receive one of the largest federal grants due to the state�s �large areas of unserved populations,� particularly in its rural areas along the Mississippi delta.

On Monday, the federal government awarded Mississippi about $1.2 billion in new broadband aid. Even before the allocation became official, Doty said she�s going to �take what we have,� adding of the work to come: �We know it is probably not enough.�

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:02

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

Clarste posted:

I'm not sure why would need Good Karma unless they expect congress to start packing the court or something? They're accountable to no one, that's the whole point. I think the simplest answer is just that judges don't really give a poo poo about their parties after they're appointed, they just have their own personal biases and the biases of their donors.

The timing of Supreme Court decisions is strategic for the party and their donors are GOP donors

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:03

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Clarste posted:

I'm not sure why would need Good Karma unless they expect congress to start packing the court or something? They're accountable to no one, that's the whole point. I think the simplest answer is just that judges don't really give a poo poo about their parties after they're appointed, they just have their own personal biases and the biases of their donors.

SCOTUS justices don't have "donors" because they don't have to run for anything. It does appear that at least two of them do have benefactors. But really I think that the biases of your eg Thomases and Alitos tend to line up exactly with their billionaire friends, and the yacht set are just bringing these guys on lavish vacations not to influence cases, but to say "hey, this is my friend, the famous Supreme Court Justice, look how influential and well-connected I am."* They don't need to incentivize Thomas and Alito make right wing rulings.

(To be clear, the fact that I don't think these are functioning as bribes doesn't mean that it's not unacceptable, or that Alito and Thomas shouldn't be impeached for their lack of disclosure.)

* It's kind of like having Hunter Biden on the board of your energy company. :v:

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:18

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Kinda feels like the real "victims" in the Burisma saga were Burisma themselves. Hunter probably did tell them, or imply, that he could deliver his dad's support - because that was what he had to say to get the position, and the associated hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on coke and hookers. But he was full of poo poo and couldn't actually get them anything.

I guess that makes Joe Biden a victim too, since it's his reputation getting slagged, but it doesn't really seem to be hurting him politically, just providing a revenue source for the Right Wing Media Industrial Complex.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:21

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Randalor posted:

Is there a chance they realized they may have overextended on their draconian mindset and are trying to give a smidgen of "bipartisanship" to try to get the shy Republicans (ie: "undecided") to vote R again?

The simpler explanation is that they're not complete ideological zombies who vote total party line on literally everything. The conservative justices generally lean conservative, yes, but they have their own particular stances on particular issues that do frequently lead to decisions that aren't just 6-3 along ideological lines.

This isn't the result the Alabama GOP wants, but it's not like Alabama is gonna immediately turn blue under fair maps. Hell, excessive gerrymandering has arguably been harmful to the GOP, because it's made them far too accountable to the hardcore base they've cultivated: ultra-safe deep-red seats are where all the longtime party functionaries are getting unseated by absolute loving maniacs.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:27

Gyges: Aug 4, 2004; NOW NO ONE
RECOGNIZE HULK

Randalor posted:

Is there a chance they realized they may have overextended on their draconian mindset and are trying to give a smidgen of "bipartisanship" to try to get the shy Republicans (ie: "undecided") to vote R again?

This only worked when Roberts was the 5th vote on things. He was big on finding ways to methodically take steps forward while keeping an eye on public opinion and appearances. The problem is that Thomas, Alito, and Coney Barrett are on a mission from god to burn everything down. So we've got 3 complete psychos with no scruples who always have itchy stabbing hands, and one skittish psycho who only wants to stick the knife in when nobody is looking. As a result everything rests in the hands of the two moderate psychos who don't want to knife everyone, but at the same time don't have any qualms about stabbing people in public.

So when considering whether the court is exercising moderation, due to fear of public backlash or other types of loss of legitimacy, what you're really asking is if the conscious of of either Gorsuch or Kavenaugh suddenly decided to kick in on any particular case.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:34

zoux: Apr 28, 2006

It's been 100 years and we still don't know if Owen Roberts reversed his jurisprudence on the minimum wage in response to FDRs court packing bill or not, so I don't think it's an answerable question wrt the modern SCOTUS.

https://twitter.com/williamjordann/status/1673369609217490947

Precipitous!

zoux fucked around with this message at 17:39 on Jun 26, 2023

# ? Jun 26, 2023 17:37

cat botherer: Jan 6, 2022; I am interested in most phases of data processing.

I'm shocked that 25% of people still have land lines. Even the boomers in my life have ditched them at this point.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 18:11

Shooting Blanks: Jun 6, 2007; Real bullets mess up how cool this thing looks.

-Blade

James Garfield posted:

They aren't personally accountable but they aren't totally immune to public opinion. One way that happens is that the court making unpopular rulings like Dobbs causes people to vote for Democrats in elections, which doesn't personally cost unelected judges their offices but does make them unhappy because they're Republicans.

I don't think Roberts is more moderate than someone like Kavanaugh, as much as he's more concerned about getting Republicans elected.

I think they are becoming more aware of public opinion. 5-10 years ago, they could get away with whatever they wanted. A year ago they had people protesting outside their homes over Dobbs, and Alito just wrote an op-ed last week in WSJ pre-empting another article in ProPublica which questioned his ethics. For the record, that's never been done before and there's some egg on WSJ's face for it as well -

Roberts has always been aware and is likely putting pressure on the rest to get this poo poo under control.

Mellow Seas posted:

SCOTUS justices don't have "donors" because they don't have to run for anything. It does appear that at least two of them do have benefactors. But really I think that the biases of your eg Thomases and Alitos tend to line up exactly with their billionaire friends, and the yacht set are just bringing these guys on lavish vacations not to influence cases, but to say "hey, this is my friend, the famous Supreme Court Justice, look how influential and well-connected I am."* They don't need to incentivize Thomas and Alito make right wing rulings.

(To be clear, the fact that I don't think these are functioning as bribes doesn't mean that it's not unacceptable, or that Alito and Thomas shouldn't be impeached for their lack of disclosure.)

* It's kind of like having Hunter Biden on the board of your energy company.

You're saying that SCOTUS operates under the patronage system, then.

cat botherer posted:

I'm shocked that 25% of people still have land lines. Even the boomers in my life have ditched them at this point.

I think it's just available - not actually in use. Meaning infrastructure is installed for it, and still powered. I suspect the majority of landlines still in use are at small businesses who haven't upgraded to a cheap VOIP solution for whatever reason, and various companies that still have a fax machine collecting dust somewhere. I have an elderly great aunt and uncle that still use a landline, but that's it for me personally.

Shooting Blanks fucked around with this message at 18:17 on Jun 26, 2023

# ? Jun 26, 2023 18:14

haveblue: Aug 15, 2005; Toilet Rascal

cat botherer posted:

I'm shocked that 25% of people still have land lines. Even the boomers in my life have ditched them at this point.

I wonder if this is due to renters who don�t have a say in whether they have landline service

# ? Jun 26, 2023 18:20

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# ? May 26, 2024 23:19

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

cat botherer posted:

I'm shocked that 25% of people still have land lines. Even the boomers in my life have ditched them at this point.

Boomers typically hate cellphones almost reflexively, especially the price points (can't blame them), and don't really understand the advantages.

# ? Jun 26, 2023 18:21

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USCE 2023: Please let them shove a camera up your butt

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