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The slow death of Twitter is measured in disasters like the Baltimore bridge collapse
Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after being struck by a cargo ship on March 26. | Scott Olson/Getty Images Twitter, now X, was once a useful site for breaking news. The Baltimore bridge collapse shows those days are long gone. Line up a few years’ worth of tragedies and disasters, and the online conversations about them will reveal their patterns. The same conspiracy-theory-peddling personalities who spammed X with posts claiming that Tuesday’s Baltimore bridge collapse was a deliberate attack have also called mass shootings “false flag” events and denied basic facts about the Covid-19 pandemic. A Florida Republican running for Congress blamed “DEI” for the bridge collapse as racist comments about immigration and Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott circulated among the far right. These comments echo Trump in 2019, who called Baltimore a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess,” and, in 2015, blamed President Obama for the unrest in the city. As conspiracy theorists compete for attention in the wake of a tragedy, others seek engagement through dubious expertise, juicy speculation, or stolen video clips. The boundary between conspiracy theory and engagement bait is permeable; unfounded and provoking posts often outpace the trickle of verified information that follows any sort of major breaking news event. Then, the conspiracy theories become content, and a lot of people marvel and express outrage that they exist. Then they kind of forget about the raging river of Bad Internet until the next national tragedy. I’ve seen it so many times. I became a breaking news reporter in 2012, which means that in internet years, I have the experience of an almost ancient entity. The collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge into the Patapsco River, though, felt a little different from most of these moments for me, for two reasons. First, it was happening after a few big shifts in what the internet even is, as Twitter, once a go-to space for following breaking news events, became an Elon Musk-owned factory for verified accounts with bad ideas, while generative AI tools have superpowered grifters wanting to make plausible text and visual fabrications. And second, I live in Baltimore. People I know commute on that bridge, which forms part of the city’s Beltway. Some of the workers who fell, now presumed dead, lived in a neighborhood across the park from me. The local cost of global misinformation On Tuesday evening, I called Lisa Snowden, the editor-in-chief of the Baltimore Beat — the city’s Black-owned alt-weekly — and an influential presence in Baltimore’s still pretty active X community. I wanted to talk about how following breaking news online has changed over time. Snowden was up during the early morning hours when the bridge collapsed. Baltimore’s X presence is small enough that journalists like her generally know who the other journalists are working in the city, especially those reporting on Baltimore itself. Almost as soon as news broke about the bridge, though, she saw accounts she’d never heard of before speaking with authority about what had happened, sharing unsourced video, and speculating about the cause. Over the next several hours, the misinformation and racism about Baltimore snowballed on X. For Snowden, this felt a bit like an invasion into a community that had so far survived the slow death of what was once Twitter by simply staying out of the spotlight. “Baltimore Twitter, it’s usually not as bad,” Snowden said. She sticks to the people she follows. “But today I noticed that was pretty much impossible. It got extremely racist. And I was seeing other folks in Baltimore also being like, ‘This might be what sends me finally off this app.’” Here are some of the tweets that got attention in the hours after the collapse: Paul Szypula, a MAGA influencer with more than 100,000 followers on X, tweeted “Synergy Marine Group [the company that owned the ship in question] promotes DEI in their company. Did anti-white business practices cause this disaster?” alongside a screenshot of a page on the company’s website that discussed the existence of a diversity and inclusion policy. That tweet got more than 600,000 views. Another far-right influencer speculated that there was some connection between the collapse and, I guess, Barack Obama? I don’t know. The tweet got 5 million views as of mid-day Wednesday. Being online during a tragic event is full of consequential nonsense like this, ideas and conspiracy theories that are inane enough to fall into the fog of Poe’s Law and yet harmful to actual people and painful to see in particular when it’s your community being turned into views. Sure, there are best practices you can follow to try to contribute to a better information ecosystem in these moments. Those practices matter. But for Snowden, the main thing she can do as her newsroom gets to work reporting on the impact of this disaster on the community here is to let time march on. “In a couple days, this terrible racist mob, or whatever it is, is going to be onto something else,” Snowden said. “ Baltimore ... people are still going to need things. Everybody’s still going to be working. So I’m just kind of waiting it out,” she said “But it does hurt.” A version of this story was published in the Vox Technology newsletter. Sign up here so you don’t miss the next one!
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Is Biden on track for defeat? The debate, explained
Ian Maule/Getty Images Should we take current polls seriously? Or are there good reasons to expect a Biden comeback? Is Joe Biden in deep reelection trouble, or is there good reason to think he’s headed for a comeback? The question has divided the political world for months. The case that Biden’s on track for defeat is pretty simple: He’s trailed Trump in a large majority of the national and swing state polls conducted since last September. That means it’s been six months with very little good polling news for Biden. If you take the polls seriously, he’s in trouble — and those who fear Trump’s return to power should be very worried indeed. The case for a Biden comeback, on the other hand, goes something like this: It’s still too early for the polls to tell us much, but there are a lot of reasons we might logically expect Biden to do better. After all, the economy has improved. Trump is headed to trial. Biden has a fundraising advantage. Democrats have been doing rather well in special elections, and they exceeded expectations in the 2022 midterms. And eventually, the general election will bring focus from the media and campaigns on a binary choice between Trump and Biden — which means more focus on Trump’s extremism and scandals. That all sounds convincing enough. But the Biden skeptics fire back: Aren’t you just coming up with excuses to explain away the unpleasant reality the polls are clearly showing? Aren’t you just reasoning backward from your belief that Biden should be winning — and ignoring the best evidence, which states that things look pretty dire for him? The case that Biden is in deep trouble Win McNamee/Getty Images President Joe Biden departs the White House March 22, 2024 in Washington, DC. Start with Biden’s low approval: According to FiveThirtyEight’s poll average, Biden has been deeply unpopular since late 2021 — his average approval rating has been in the high 30s or low 40s since then. Since the State of the Union address, Biden’s number has slightly improved — from 38.1 percent on March 7 to 39.3 percent as of March 27, per FiveThirtyEight. But that’s still a very bad approval rating. At this point in Trump’s term, his approval was about 45 percent — more than 5 points better. And, of course, he lost. Trump has led most national polls: An approval rating can’t tell you everything in a two-way race because your opponent may be deeply unpopular too. But the head-to-head poll numbers haven’t been comforting for Biden lately either, since they’ve shown Trump ahead for the past six months. (Biden very recently rose to about a tie in the Economist’s polling average, while Trump still leads by just over 1 point in RealClearPolitics’s average.) Trump leads most swing state polls: Of course, the presidency is decided by the Electoral College, not a national vote. And swing state polling for Biden has been very bad. In Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada, Trump has led in every poll tracked by FiveThirtyEight since November, often by sizable margins. If he loses the three states above, Biden would need Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to win. Trump has led in most — but not all — polls in all three states in recent months. Other bad signs: Besides the polls, the skeptics believe there are other reasons to doubt whether Biden will be able to pull it off. Age: Voters have regularly said in polls that Biden’s age is a problem for them. Inflation: It has slowed recently, but voters still may resent hikes in prices and then interest rates that have occurred while Biden was president (even though much of the inflation was caused by factors out of Biden’s control, and he doesn’t directly control interest rates either). International comparisons: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are all extremely unpopular right now (even more so than Biden), suggesting it could just be a rough time to be an incumbent leader in a Western democracy. The case for Joe Biden being the Comeback Kid Win McNamee/Getty Images U.S. President Joe Biden departs the White House on March 19, 2024 in Washington, DC. Start with skepticism about early polls: With so much of the fear that Biden is doomed based on his bad polling, it’s worth noting that the election is still about seven months away. Polling from late March 2016 showed Hillary Clinton leading Trump by 11 points. Clearly things can change by quite a lot before election day. Instead of early polls, look at recent election results: In 2022, Democrats performed well in swing states like Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. The party held on to the Senate, and the House didn’t see the typical midterm blowout (the “red wave” many predicted) but instead a very close contest Republicans only narrowly won. Democrats have also done quite well in special elections over the past year. Now, don’t get too carried away with this. Democrats’ coalition is now heavily skewed toward college-educated high-engagement voters who are more likely to turn out in off-year elections. Skeptics argue that such an advantage will surely drop in a higher-turnout presidential year, when infrequent voters are more likely to show up. There’s another interesting wrinkle here. Because polls show Biden struggling badly among less-engaged voters, the topline results that he’s losing are effectively based on pollsters’ assumptions about how likely those less-engaged voters are to turn out. Are those assumptions solid? We won’t know until election day. Upcoming campaign and media dynamics may help Biden: Biden comeback believers contend that three main factors will likely help the president in the coming months. An improving economy: Voters have been negative about the economy for years, but their perceptions have improved somewhat in recent months. It’s true that that hasn’t seemed to helped Biden’s poll standing much yet, but perhaps it will take some time to sink in. Trump may become a felon: Trump’s indictments don’t seem to have hurt him up to this point, but polls have regularly shown many voters say they will reconsider supporting him if he’s actually convicted of a crime. His first criminal trial, in the New York hush money case, is set to begin April 15. More attention on Trump and Republicans’ extremism: As the election approaches, a well-funded Democratic campaign and outside group apparatus will spend heavily to remind voters about the threat Trump poses to American democracy and the threat the GOP poses to abortion rights — both issues that helped Democrats triumph in key 2022 races. The mainstream media will increasingly frame the choice before voters as “Trump vs. Biden” as well. Perhaps many of the disgruntled Democrats and tuned-out independents who currently say they won’t vote for Biden will eventually choose the lesser of two evils once Trump’s awfulness is hammered home to them. Can we already see the comeback in polls? Perhaps the strongest point made by the Biden skeptics is that the polls have been quite consistent for quite some time. Sure, they say, you can tell yourself that Biden will bounce back at some point — but those polls keep not budging, so when will it happen? Indeed, I wrote about Biden’s bad polls last April, last September, and last November, and evidence for any comeback in that time has been scant. But some now say we’re seeing our first signs in polls that the comeback is underway. As mentioned, Biden is currently tied with Trump in the Economist’s polling average — in recent months, he’s generally been down by 2 to 3 points. Polls released this week have shown some improvement for him in swing states and nationally, pointing toward a race that’s about tied, not one where Trump has a clear edge. Again, don’t get carried away. It’s too early to say whether this will prove to be a durable trend. But it’s worth keeping in mind that even when Trump has been polling best, the race hasn’t looked like a total blowout. Trump has had, on average, small single-digit leads both nationally and in key swing states. That’s the sort of lead that no candidate can really take for granted. The election was quite close in 2016 and 2020 — so close that any confident prediction about who would win was, in retrospect, overconfident. Given the repeat candidates, it’s reasonable to expect another close election this time around. This story appeared originally in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here for future editions.
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Yes, even most temperate landscapes in the US can and will burn
Photo by Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images Wildfire risk is increasing everywhere, especially in the East and South. Here’s a major reason why. Lucas Aguayo Araos/Anadolu via Getty Images Smoke rises over the forest during a wildfire in Viña del Mar, Chile, on February 3, 2024. Last month, a heat wave persisted for days in the Chilean coastal city of Viña del Mar. The landscape, already affected by an El Niño-supercharged drought, was baked dry. So, when wildfires sparked, they ripped through densely populated and mountainous terrain. In just a few days, the fires — the deadliest in Chile’s history — burned 71,000 acres and killed at least 134 people. Devastating wildfires like these are becoming increasingly common. Climate change is partly to blame — while research has found that both El Niño and climate change have contributed to intense wildfires in Chile in recent years, scientists disagree whether climate change had a statistically significant impact on these particular February fires. But the Chilean fires also underscore another ominous dynamic: Grasses, shrubs, and trees that humans have introduced to new ecosystems are increasing wildfire occurrence and frequency. In central Chile over five decades, timber companies have converted natural forests to homogenous, sprawling plantations of nonnative eucalyptus and Monterey pine that grow rapidly in the country’s Mediterranean climate. These trees contain an oily resin that makes them especially flammable but coupled with hotter and drier conditions due to climate change, they can be explosive, says Dave McWethy, an assistant professor at Montana State University. Our relationship with such nonnative species is fraught. We enable the spread of nonnatives by purposely transporting species to landscapes that haven’t previously existed with them. Take English ivy, a popular choice for stabilizing soil as an ornamental plant. Or the Norway maple, which was introduced to the East Coast of the US in 1756, quickly becoming popular for the shade it provided. In the process, such nonnatives can displace local ecologies and native species, disrupt agriculture, or transmit disease. Once a critter or a plant is introduced, either accidentally or purposefully, it can spread rapidly and outpace efforts to catch them at checkpoints or, as is the case for Florida’s state-sponsored “rodeos” for species like pythons, kill them. A report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) estimates that the approximately 3,500 geographically invasive plants and animals worldwide cost the global economy $423 billion annually. Climate change is also shuffling the ecological deck: As Vox has reported, ecologists expect climate change to create “range-shifting” or “climate-tracking” species that move to survive hotter temperatures. Perhaps some of those species will be more fire-prone. “Fires in places that are not used to fires are going to become much worse because of invasive species,” said Anibal Pauchard, co-author of the IPBES report and a professor at the University of Concepción and director of the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity in Chile. Such trends are causing wildfires to burn in unexpected places in the US as well. Last summer, for example, a wildfire — fueled by guinea grass, molasses grass, and buffel grass — killed at least 101 people in Maui. According to research published in the journal PNAS, eight species of nonnative grasses are increasing fire occurrence by between 27 and 230 percent in the US. This means, due in part to the spread of nonnative species, millions of people in the US will be affected by more frequent wildfires and the unhealthy smoke they produce. As the research shows, invasive grasses are altering historic fire activity and behavior in a variety of locations across the US. This includes those living in the arid West (especially the Great Basin and the Southwest) but also those in more humid parts of the country, particularly people living near eastern temperate deciduous forests, which cover the eastern US, and pine savannah ecoregions from central South Carolina to central Florida. Michael Bocchieri/Getty Images A firefighter helps battle a brush fire in the Meadowlands near Metlife Stadium in Carlstadt, New Jersey, in 2012. Fire departments struggled to bring under control one of many brush fires that broke out in New Jersey and New York that year. Such brush fires are increasing common in the Eastern US as the climate continues to change. The nonnative grasses driving wildfire risk in the US While no one factor causes a big fire to happen on its own, nonnative grasses have played a more important role in recent decades — especially in low-elevation regions without much fire historically, said Seth Munson, an ecologist with the Southwest Biological Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. The annual invasive grass cheatgrass, known for its hairy tops, is found in an estimated 50-70 million acres nationwide, mostly in the Great Basin states. Lands with at least 15 percent cheatgrass are twice as likely to burn as those with a low abundance of the grass, and four times more likely to burn multiple times, according to researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Idaho, and University of Colorado. According to the latest data, eight of the largest fires on record in the Great Basin have happened since 2010. That includes Nevada’s Martin Fire, which burned over 435,000 acres in 2018 and destroyed large swaths of grazing pastures for cattle and habitat of the federally protected sage grouse. Another invasive grass, cogongrass flourishes across Florida and the Gulf States, infiltrating traditional pine woodlands. These landscapes are already burning, with harsh human consequences. Wildfires in northwest Florida in recent years have scorched homes, prompted the evacuation of over a thousand people, and cost millions of dollars. The largest wildfire in Texas state history, only recently contained, damaged or destroyed hundreds of homes, killing at least two people and thousands of cows. Hundreds of wildfires in Louisiana last summer also resulted in two deaths. Buffelgrass is taking root all over Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, and red brome is spreading in the Mojave and other deserts. Highly flammable tamarisk shrubs have taken root in thick stands near streams in the western US, and eucalyptus — one of the primary invasive trees blamed for worsening Chile’s recent wildfires as well as fires in Portugal — increases wildfire risk in California. What can be done? Limiting the introduction of nonnative plants, when possible, addresses the problem at its root. But many invasive species already have a foothold somewhere nearby. In that case, early detection of invasive species, by satellite imagery or by people on the ground, is the best way to stop invasives with a variety of removal techniques, be that herbicide or something else, in an attempt to keep them somewhat contained. Federal agencies across the country, like the one Munson works for, as well as states, tribes, nonprofits, and others, are already monitoring for the movement of invasive species on the landscape and attempting to manage them as they inevitably spread. Work is also underway to help native plants reestablish faster after fires, giving them a chance against invasives angling for the same open space. You can do your part by finding out which nonnative plants exist in your area, especially those that increase wildfire risk. And if you’re looking to spruce up your home’s landscaping, don’t plant them; consider a native alternative instead.
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vox.com
Chicago’s inhumane migrant evictions are a symptom of a bigger problem
Venezuelan migrants, Lenin Diaz, 11, left, Maria Inojosa, 43, and Diaz’s mother Euglimar Ramos, 30, walk outside a shelter on December 19, 2023, in Chicago. | Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service/Getty Images They point to much deeper holes in US immigration policy. Chicago’s decision to move forward with a controversial migrant eviction proposal is underscoring ongoing gaps in immigration policy that continue to exist across the country — and the inhumane quick fixes that are being used in the meantime. Earlier this month, Chicago began evicting migrants from homeless shelters after Mayor Brandon Johnson instituted a policy stating that people must leave these centers after 60 days. The goal, Johnson has said, is to incentivize migrants to find permanent housing and to free up space in these shelters, which have become overwhelmed past their breaking points in recent months. Migrants can apply for extensions if they have an extenuating circumstance, or if they are in the process of moving to permanent housing. Those who don’t have housing lined up can also return to the city’s migrant “landing zone,” a center established to process new migrants, and reapply for a shelter spot. Advocates and progressive lawmakers have criticized the policy for being inhumane. As newcomers to the US, many migrants don’t have existing funds for housing and are waiting on work permits. Those who don’t have families or other social networks in the US are often struggling to find a place to stay as well as a way to remain afloat financially. “New arrivals may be offered the opportunity to go to the landing zone, but many will likely end up living on the streets and parks near the shelter they were displaced from,” the Progressive Caucus of the Chicago City Council wrote in a recent statement. Chicago’s response points to challenges affecting a number of cities — including New York — as they’ve grappled with an influx of thousands of migrants, many of whom have been bussed or flown there from the southern border by Republican governors like Texas’s Greg Abbott. It also highlights holes in federal immigration policy when it comes to both funding and migrant resettlement that leave local leaders grasping for a temporary patch. “We have literally built an entire infrastructure for an international crisis that Congress hasn’t figured out,” Johnson said in January, regarding the construction of new shelters. Chicago’s policy, briefly explained Johnson first announced this policy last November as the city tried to stem the growing number of migrants arriving there, navigate concerns from existing residents, and assist the migrants who had already arrived. As of late March, there were 10,555 migrants living in the city’s 23 homeless shelters, a decrease from earlier in the year. Since 2022, Chicago has seen a large jump of more than 37,000 migrants arriving in the city, a notable uptick relative to recent years. Following the surge in migrant arrivals in August 2022, Chicago began setting up emergency shelters in order to accommodate this increase, dubbing itself “the welcoming city.” As a sanctuary city, it’s committed to providing services for migrants regardless of immigration status, and it’s pledged not to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport people. The investments the city has made in the months since include setting up numerous shelters in parks, schools, and hotels; establishing a “landing zone” center where migrants can go when they initially arrive; and providing social services and a caseworker for each new arrival. In total, this effort cost Chicago at least $138 million in 2023, and it’s expected to cost at least another $150 million this year. “The City’s goal is to provide short-term emergency shelter to new arrivals as they are connected to resources including public benefits,” a Chicago mayor’s office spokesperson, told Vox via email. But as this month’s changes make evident, Chicago and other cities weren’t really prepared for the long term. The city’s policies — and residents’ reactions — to the incoming migrants have also changed as more people have arrived. At first, city officials emphasized Chicago’s welcoming history, but as the number of migrant arrivals grew in 2023, and shelters and services became overwhelmed, local leaders both sounded the alarm for federal support and introduced proposals like evictions. Under the new shelter policy, migrants who have been in a shelter for 60 days must leave or reapply for a spot. Several exemptions also exist for families with school-age children, pregnant people, and those who are ill, buying the majority of migrants staying in these shelters more time. In the initial two days of evictions, eight single migrants were forced to leave, while roughly 2,000 could be required to do so by the end of April. A chief concern regarding such policies is that they effectively leave migrants with nowhere to go. The city has urged migrants to apply for state rental assistance so they can find permanent housing, but it’s not guaranteed that they will qualify or that they’ll receive it in time. Similarly, it could take awhile for any applications for work permits to be approved, and only a fraction of the newcomers in Chicago likely qualify for such approvals. “It really stresses me out. What am I going to do? Where am I going to go?” Daniel Vizcaino, a 20-year-old Venezuelan asylum-seeker with an April move-out date, told NBC News. The implementation of this policy has already been delayed multiple times because of outcry from city council members and others, as well as freezing cold weather in the city. “We need an end to this policy, as it doesn’t solve our challenges, it merely exacerbates and displaces them,” Alderman Andre Vasquez has written in a letter. Other policies that Chicago has put in place include coordinating transportation for migrants to other destinations if they have a family member or secondary place to go. Chicago’s not alone in struggling to find long-term solutions for large influxes of migrants it initially welcomed. New York City also saw a surge of migrant arrivals over the last year, and spent an estimated $1.45 billion in the fiscal year of 2023 to provide shelter and support. This past January, New York City also began its own wave of evictions of migrant families, capping their stays in shelters at 60 days. And in mid-March, it announced that it was limiting single adult migrants to 30-day stays in the city’s shelters. These crises are due to deeper problems in the US immigration system Right now, cities are moving from one short-term solution to the next. Regional leaders, including Chicago Mayor Johnson and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, have stressed that the current situation is not sustainable for them and that they’re in desperate need of more federal funding, as well as policy changes on issues like work permits. The federal government has provided millions in grants to both Chicago and New York, but those funds aren’t seen as sufficient to help address the scope of the problem. Similarly, the White House has streamlined applications for some work permits, but those changes are likely only a fraction of what is needed. According to Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute (a think tank that’s opposed Trump’s immigration policies in the past), it can take months for migrants to get a work permit depending on their immigration status. While those with parole status or temporary protective status (TPS) can try to apply for a work permit right away, asylum seekers must wait for their asylum applications to be approved before they can even start that process. And application processes for these permits can be complicated for newcomers as they navigate language barriers and bureaucratic documents. Larger changes to the work permit system are one of the more substantive solutions that regional leaders have also urged, but they’d likely require more federal action. Beyond responses to the immediate crisis, public officials, including Johnson, note that more immigration reforms are needed from Congress in order to build a better system for resettling migrants. As Vox’s Abdallah Fayyad has written, the US has established an effective federal policy for resettling refugees that helps place people across the country and provides access to social services. No comparable system currently exists for asylum seekers, leaving cities and states who are receiving these arrivals to develop ad hoc policies on their own. The prospect of approving such reforms, however, seems like a long shot as lawmakers have struggled to coalesce on even the most limited immigration proposals.
vox.com
One big problem with how we rank countries by happiness
Getty Images How happy are you? Are you sure about that? We know that America is really unhappy. And Finland is the happiest country. Right? Well, that’s what it says in the World Happiness Report, a wide-ranging survey on global happiness levels released last week. But before you pack your bags and move to Northern Europe, you might want a sneak peek at how the experts figure out who’s happy and who’s not. Believe it or not, it typically comes down to one question. The pollsters use something called the Cantril Ladder. They ask: “Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from zero at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you, and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?” Before you read any further, think for a second about how you would answer the question. Would you say your life is … a five? A seven? A nine? When I first did this exercise, I said my life is a seven out of 10. But behind this answer was a more complicated truth.I’d initially thought about rating my life a six. Yet there was a voice tugging at me, from my years of reporting on people living in extreme poverty. Compared to their lives, I figured mine was probably pretty easy. So I bumped up my rating. Did you implicitly find yourself doing something similar? Comparing yourself to others — either positively or negatively? A new paper from researchers in Scandinavia and the US suggests that’s actually very common — and it may be a flaw in the question itself. By showing a picture of a ladder and saying to imagine some people “at the top” and others “at the bottom,” the question may be influencing respondents to consider not so much their actual happiness as their status. Happiness and status are, of course, very different things. One is about overall well-being and the other is more about how much power or wealth you have relative to others. If the main question used to suss out people’s happiness isn’t really measuring that overall well-being at all, our results might be leading us astray. What is the World Happiness Report really measuring? Looking over the World Happiness Reports from previous years, the team of researchers from Scandinavia and the US noticed some “curious properties.” For one, we would expect that as countries become richer, their people become happier. But higher GDP doesn’t always correlate with increased happiness. Despite how wealthy the US is, Americans are only becoming more miserable, for a range of reasons. And people in some higher-GDP European countries like Portugal and Italy report lower life satisfaction than people in lower-GDP Latin American countries. What’s going on? It also turns out that when you present people with the Cantril Ladder and ask them which rung they’d prefer to be on, most of them do not say 10. On average, they say eight. That’s … baffling! Remember, 10 represents “the best possible life for you” — surely everyone wants that, don’t they? Curiouser and curiouser, thought the researchers. Suspecting that the framing of the question might be biasing the respondents, the researchers decided to investigate this empirically. They gathered randomized groups of participants and presented them with different versions of a question trying to measure well-being. They tried the original Cantril Ladder, but they also posed the question without the picture of the ladder and without the bottom-to-top description. Plus, they tried versions that don’t mention a ladder, a bottom or top, or even a “best possible life,” but instead just mention either “happiness” or “harmony.” Then they asked people what was on their minds when they answered the question and used AI to analyze the responses. The researchers found that each version of the question brought up different associations. Most notably, the original Cantril Ladder influenced respondents to focus more on power and wealth — not a very broad or holistic notion of well-being. The researchers also found that when they removed the ladder symbol and description, people associated well-being more with mental and physical health, relationships, and family. They still thought of money, but rather than thinking in terms of wealth, they thought in terms of financial security (the important thing was not to be richer than others but simply to have enough for a nice life). And crucially, they gave a more intuitive answer when asked which level of happiness they’d prefer, answering much closer to the “10” end of the spectrum. That makes sense.If you think a 10 is about being richer than others, you might actually feel like an asshole saying that’s your preferred level — it feels like you’re saying that you want to outrank others.Plus, as the researchers noted, “It is likely that the ladder framing imposes a hierarchical perspective that influences individuals to interpret it as less compatible with other essential aspects of well-being, such as belongingness and mutuality in relationships.” The great irony of comparing who’s happiest The takeaway here is not that the World Happiness Report is useless or that efforts to measure happiness are silly. These efforts can help inform policymakers around the world as they try to figure out which things correlate strongly with happiness so they can invest in those things. But we need to remember that our measurements often come with cultural metaphors baked in. They can affect the results without us even realizing it. That seems to be the case with the Cantril Ladder — and that means we should take the results with a big grain of salt. We should also remember that there’s a great irony in comparing my happiness with yours, or my country’s with your country’s. As any psychologist will tell you, comparing ourselves to others tends to make us very unhappy! In fact, this should be part of any discussion on why young Americans are so unhappy — a discussion that’s been in the media a lot this past week thanks to the World Happiness Report.While smartphones and especially social media are often blamed for the misery, we have to ask what it is about the tech that makes people so miserable. Research suggests a big part of it may be that Facebook, Instagram, and the rest turbocharge social comparison — poison for mental health. The poisonousness of social comparison can also help make sense of the observation that higher GDP doesn’t always correlate with increased happiness. The US has a high GDP, but it also has extremely high inequality. So a lot of Americans are comparing themselves to other, richer Americans — and becoming more miserable as a result. “In rich countries, where you have big sectors of the population that are declining relative to their peers, then they don’t have hope for the future,” Carol Graham, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland and a senior scientist at Gallup, told me last year. “As decades of evidence demonstrate, happiness often comes not from comparing ourselves to others, but through connection with them, something that might be missing from some of the [World Happiness] report’s key variables,” Jamil Zaki, a Stanford psychologist, noted. “As such, it’s ironic that many headlines about the report have focused on how countries ‘rank’ in happiness, reinforcing a competitive view that might be part of why we find it so hard to be happy in the first place!”
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Baltimore’s bridge collapse is global shipping’s smallest problem
The cargo ship Dali sits in the water after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge. | Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images From drought in the Panama Canal to the Houthis in the Suez to pirates off Somalia, we’re all paying the price. Baltimore woke up yesterday to horrific images of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing into the harbor after the cargo ship Dali lost power and collided with a support column. It’s a horrible tragedy — six construction workers who were on the bridge at the time are missing and presumed dead — and one that will likely take at least several billion dollars to repair. In a small bright spot, the macroeconomic impact will likely be limited. (While Baltimore is the US’s 17th largest port and there will be some costs and delays, particularly around automobiles and coal, other ports will quickly handle rerouted container ships.) There is a reason, however, that economic concerns immediately spiked: The global shipping industry is having a bit of a rough time right now. International shipping traffic is being choked at two separate, vital points — the Panama Canal in the Western hemisphere and the Suez Canal in the Eastern — which combined account for more than half of the container shipping that links Asia and North America. And as awful as this Baltimore incident was, it was, by all accounts, a rogue accident. The root causes of these other disruptions, though? They’re not quite as easily fixed. Oh, plus pirates are back. Global shipping’s current problems, briefly explained The Baltimore incident encapsulates one thing really well: just how globalized the shipping industry is. The Dali was a Singapore-flagged ship, with an all Indian-nationality crew, operated by the Danish company Maersk and on its way to Sri Lanka. (Thankfully, there were no injuries reported among the crew of the ship.) This degree of interconnectedness — and how fragile it all is — probably feels familiar by now. Remember the wide swath of consumer goods that were subjected to back orders and shortages in 2021 as the global supply chain fell victim to a series of interconnected problems, including (but definitely not limited to) issues with container ships and ports? Or, more hilariously, remember the delays (and memes) the ship Ever Given spawned when it got stuck in the Suez Canal? This year is shaping up to be another difficult one for global shipping. Low water levels in Panama — the result of a prolonged drought that began in early 2023 — forced canal officials late last year to cut the number of ships that pass through each day from the normal 38 to just 24. That’s left some ships stranded for more than two weeks, and others taking costly roundabout routes; major shipping companies are even switching some freight to railroad “land bridges” across parts of the country. And in the Red Sea, the Houthis, a Yemen-based rebel group that controls much of the country’s north, have been waging an increasingly serious campaign of attacks against shipping, purportedly in protest of Israel’s war in Gaza. Ships are rerouting here, too, this time around the Horn of Africa, or facing the risk at added cost. At the start of this month, the Houthis sank a ship. And while the group is reportedly allowing safe passage to some ships — those affiliated with Russia and China — that’s not necessarily a foolproof guarantee. Between the two, prices for freight containers from Asia to the US have doubled over the last six months. Walter Hurtado/Bloomberg via Getty Images Low water levels outside the Miraflores locks of the Panama Canal near Panama City, Panama, last November. Can’t we fix this? It would be tempting to look at both of these issues and think, “Things will get better soon.” And in some ways, they will. “The industry is going to find medium- to short-term solutions against these particular obstacles,” Nikos Nomikos, a professor of shipping finance and risk management at Bayes Business School in London, told me. Take the Panama Canal problem: The cuts are, canal officials repeatedly say, a responsible adaptation to a particularly bad year. Droughts have happened before, and the weather phenomenon El Niño is exacerbating droughts throughout the Americas, with devastating consequences. But this isn’t just a bad year. There are systemic issues at play with no quick answers. Climate change is worsening extreme weather events around the world, including droughts. And that’s running up against another competing need. As Dulcidio De La Guardia, a director at the Morgan & Morgan Group in Panama, told the Latin American Advisor in February, “The lakes that provide water to the Canal are the same ones used to supply drinking water to the major cities of the country.” “And water consumption has increased more rapidly than forecasted due to population growth, and poor management, waste, inefficiencies and corruption at the state-owned water company,” he said. There are potential solutions, but no easy or immediate ones. And then in the Red Sea: While the Houthis might temporarily halt or reduce their attacks if a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas comes through, there’s no guarantee that they’ll stop altogether. That’s because, as one Yemeni analyst told my colleague Josh Keating, the attacks serve a lot of the group’s other aims, allowing them to “disrupt economic activity, extract political concessions, and bolster their standing.” Having achieved that, they show no signs of backing down, even in the face of Western military strikes. Moreover, this is part of a broader trend of increased geopolitical instability, all of which can impact — and increasingly is impacting — global shipping. See also: Russia blocking Ukrainian grain from transiting the Black Sea at times during that war, fears about how a war over Taiwan will affect the global economy, and more. What’s happening in the Red Sea, in other words, is symptomatic of something fundamental. The “principle of freedom of navigation is being challenged here,” Rahul Kapoor, the head of shipping analytics & research at S&P Global Commodity Insights, told Bloomberg in December about the Houthis’ attacks. I’m not trying to be alarmist. Global shipping is a “resilient industry,” Nomikos told me. But countries’ militaries and international shipping companies alike are thinking and planning for more maritime disruptions. Customers, unfortunately, should too. Any disruption’s net result “will be an increase in the freight cost, either because you have more fuel consumption and longer transit times, or because you require a premium to compensate you for the risks that you face,” Nomikos said. This story appeared originally in Today, Explained, Vox’s flagship daily newsletter. Sign up here for future editions.
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The Baltimore bridge collapse and its potential consequences, explained
Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images From search and rescue efforts to how a ship can knock down a bridge, here’s what you need to know. The shocking collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge after it was hit by a cargo ship early Tuesday morning has the region reeling as authorities continue to search for survivors who may have fallen into the Patapsco River. Thus far, two people who were working on the bridge have been rescued and six are still missing. Sonar, robots and human divers are among the resources being deployed to look for the remaining individuals, authorities say. “This is an unthinkable tragedy,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said at a press conference on Tuesday morning. The collapse of the bridge will also affect transportation in the region — and potentially global trade. Used by 31,000 vehicles each day, the Key Bridge is a central conduit for traffic in the area. And the incident also comes as the global shipping industry is facing several other challenges, including a record-breaking drought in Panama and Houthi strikes on ships in the Red Sea. Due to closures at the Port of Baltimore — one of the busiest in the country, especially for foreign cargo — logistics and shipping companies will likely need to reroute more key deliveries. Authorities have acknowledged these concerns — and the challenges they pose — but emphasized that they’re secondary to the urgent search and rescue effort that’s still underway. As Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said Tuesday, “right now, our exclusive focus is on saving lives.” 1. Why did the Baltimore bridge collapse? What happened with the ship? The incident took place around 1:30 am ET Tuesday when a large cargo ship called the Dali abruptly lost power and collided with a support column on the Key Bridge, a 1.6-mile structure that stretches across the Patapsco River. After the ship — which holds a volume of 95,000 gross tons — hit the column, video shows parts of the four-lane bridge crumbling rapidly and collapsing into the water. BREAKING: Ship collides with Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse pic.twitter.com/OcOrSjOCRn— BNO News (@BNONews) March 26, 2024 Shortly before the collision, the crew of the ship, which is owned by a Singaporean company called Grace Ocean, reported that they had lost control of the vessel and issued a “mayday” call. Dali was originally headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka, on behalf of Maersk, the major Danish shipping and logistics company. As experts told USA Today, the bridge failure was so catastrophic because the ship took out a support column — a key component that kept it structurally sound — while going at a high speed. “Any bridge would have been in serious danger from a collision like this,” Nii Attoh-Okine, the chair of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland, said. For now, it’s not clear what caused the ship to lose power, though the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting an investigation. Authorities have also concluded that there’s no evidence this was an intentional incident or terrorist attack. “Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday afternoon in a press conference. 2. What do we know about casualties from the Francis Key Bridge collapse? When the collapse happened, a group of eight construction workers were filling in potholes on the bridge. Two of those workers have been rescued, including one who was in stable condition and one who was hospitalized. Six other workers have not yet been found, however. The tragedy could have been far worse: thousands of vehicles cross the bridge each day on average. But immediately after the ship’s “mayday” call — and before it collided with the bridge — government officials were able to shut down additional vehicle traffic, preventing cars and passengers from being harmed. (Vehicles can be seen falling into the river in videos, but authorities said these were the parked cars of construction workers.) “These people are heroes. They saved lives last night,” Moore said at a press conference about the ship’s crew. There’s tremendous urgency behind a sweeping search and rescue effort that’s continuing to take place for remaining survivors. Any of the workers who are still alive in the water, which was an estimated 48°F on Tuesday, are stuck in frigid temperatures that are difficult to survive in, experts say. Authorities have said they’re deploying a range of technology as well as human divers, boats, and helicopters as they continue this effort. 3. Are bridges safe? Has a cargo ship crashed into a bridge before? Yes, bridges are safe — but not as safe as they could be. In the 1970s, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) adopted the National Bridge Inspection Standards regulations, after a horrible 1967 accident in West Virginia where the Silver Bridge collapsed and killed 46 people. The accident ushered in a new era of bridge safety at the national level. In 2022, the FHWA updated its standards to incorporate recent technological advancements. But not all bridges are created equally. One in three bridges in the US are in need of repair or replacement, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. Maintenance helps bridges be able to withstand stressors such as natural disasters, for instance. The FHWA classifies bridges into three ratings: good, fair, and poor. Those with poor ratings are prioritized for repairs first. To be clear, Key Bridge was structurally sound with a fair rating. It’s just not designed to absorb the shock of an incredibly large and heavy cargo ship ramming into it, engineers say. (As the Guardian’s Oliver Milman points out, current bridge code doesn’t account for today’s supersized cargo ships, some of which are far bigger than the Dali.) Nonetheless, the National Transportation Safety Board, the federal agency responsible for investigating transportation accidents, will be looking deeper into the safety of the bridge. “Part of our investigation will be how this bridge was constructed,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy during a press briefing Tuesday. She stressed it will take time, referencing the investigation for the 2022 Fern Hollow Bridge collapse in Pennsylvania, which took two years to fully complete. When it comes to the cargo ships: It is not uncommon for a ship to lose power as the Dali did Tuesday, according to attorney Matt Shaffer, who handles maritime law cases, and without power, a ship of that size can cause extensive damage. But cargo ships bumping into a bridge and causing it to collapse isn’t common. Since 1960, it’s happened just 35 times worldwide. As of 2015, a total of 342 people have died from bridge failures caused by ships. To put that in perspective, more than 40,000 people in the US died in a car accident in 2020, according to some estimates. 4. How important is the Francis Scott Key Bridge, and what’s next for it? The Francis Scott Key Bridge — named after the poet who wrote the lyrics to what became the national anthem — not only connects commuters from one part of the harbor to another, it plays an important industrial role. It’s one of three major crossways for the Baltimore Harbor. In 2023, more than 12.4 million passenger and commercial vehicles crossed the bridge, according to the Maryland Transportation Authority. Bloomberg News reported that it transports $28 billion in goods annually — with nearly 4,900 trucks crossing daily. The bridge and its almost nine miles worth of approaches serve as a final link in I-695. From there, the interstate connects the city’s port to I-95, the major highway along the East Coast. Construction of the bridge started in 1972 and was completed March 1977. It cost $60.3 million at the time to build. The bridge is mostly made of lightweight concrete, according to a November 2021 report by the US Federal Highway Administration. Lightweight concrete, the report notes, isn’t typically used for bridge construction, but it “can be used as a durable and cost-effective material for bridges.” Bridges are a feat of engineering — and are rightfully expensive. A $60 million project in the 1970s would cost far more to execute today, especially given increased scrutiny for speed and safety (and inflation). Rebuilding the bridge will likely cost “several billion dollars,” Yonah Freemark, a researcher at the Urban Institute, told Bloomberg. Biden, during the press conference Tuesday afternoon, said that it is his “intention” that the federal government will pay for reconstructing the bridge. “And I expect Congress to support my effort,” he added. Even with federal money, it could take months, if not years, to rebuild, disrupting both commercial and commuter traffic in the region. 5. What does this mean for the shipping industry? The search and rescue operations have shut down the port of Baltimore, which has become an increasingly important shipping hub for the eastern US. The port is the 17th largest in the nation based on the amount of cargo that goes through the port, and it handles the largest amount of transportation cargo — cars and trucks, but also farm equipment and construction machinery, the New York Times reported. It is unclear what the Dali was carrying. The broader economic impact will likely be limited — already, nearby ports like one in Virginia are talking about supporting temporary diversions. But the terminal’s closure is another setback for the global shipping industry in an already difficult year. Maersk, the company that owns the Dali, said in January that it would no longer send its vessels through the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb strait near Yemen, where Houthi forces have targeted ships since November in response to the Israeli war in Gaza. Because of the risk of damage, injury, and kidnapping, some global shipping companies have opted to take the longer shipping route around the Horn of Africa, which can add as much as two weeks to a voyage and comes with attendant fuel and salary costs for the companies. The Panama Canal, another global commercial transit hub, is also causing issues for the industry. A massive drought in Panama has severely limited the number of ships that can use the canal, slowing transit times and increasing costs. Though the Baltimore port has played an increasing role in trade, it’s too soon to see what the commercial fallout will be. But companies have the option to send their cargo to ports throughout the East Coast, including in New York and Virginia, industry executives told the Times.
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