“And yet there are a few recurring subthemes that bubble up when you talk with the professionals and with the younger voters themselves. These insights won’t crack the turnout code. Or necessarily save Mr. Biden’s presidency. But they do shed light on some of the more amorphous reasons younger Americans are so hard to turn out — and can maybe even point a way forward.”

“The No. 1 rule when you’re talking about young people: They may be progressive, but they are not Democrats,” warned Joshua Ulibarri, a partner with the Democratic polling firm Lake Research Partners. “They don’t turn out for parties.”

“Younger voters also are less inclined to turn out simply because they like a candidate’s personality. Now and then, one comes along who inspires them (think Barack Obama) or, alternatively, outrages them enough to make them turn out in protest (think Donald Trump). But more often they are driven by issues that speak to their lives, their core values or, ideally, both.”

My comment posted in NYT on above article;

FS | NY
It is a mistake to blame the Youngs if they are turned off by Biden and Democratic party. The Youngs do not want to hand over their future to Biden, as it is about future and not past. Gaza war is self-inflicted wounds which Biden could have avoided by supporting Israel and at the same time giving voice to Palestinian’s rights. as every President has done, and not going well beyond what was required and making it our war. Despite mounting deaths of thousands of children in Gaza, which angered Youngs, Biden is still sending weapons to Israel without notifying even congress. It is not just Youngs, but many Americans are also questioning our unconditional support of Israel and want to know what are our national interests that require us to risk our values, sense of justice, and credibility in the world to give unconditional support to Israel despite mounting Gazan deaths and keeping Palestinians occupied and oppressed.

Full article

posted by f.sheikh

Today New York Times posted article by its most celebrated and senior foreign affairs columnist, Mr. Thomas Friedman, “What Is Happening to Our World”.

Worth reading following excerpts from the article.

“I referred to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as our first true world war, and why I feel that Hamas’s war with Israel is in some ways our second true world war.”

“I began thinking about this a few weeks ago, when I flew to Dubai to attend the United Nations climate summit. If you’ve never been there, the Dubai airport has some of the longest concourses in the world. And when my Emirates flight landed, we parked close to one end of the B concourse — so when I looked out the window, I saw lined up in a perfectly symmetrical row some 15 Emirates long-haul passenger jets, stretching far into the distance. And the thought occurred to me: What is the essential ingredient that Dubai has and Gaza lacks? Because both began, in one sense, as the convergence of sand and seawater at crucial intersections of the world.”

“It’s not oil — oil plays only a small role in Dubai’s diversified economy today. And it’s not democracy. Dubai is not a democracy and does not aspire to be one. But people are flocking to live here now from all over the world — its population of more than 3.5 million has surged since the outbreak of Covid. Why? The short answer is visionary leadership.”

“Compare that with Gaza, where the role models today are Hamas martyrs in its endless war with Israel.”

Mr. Friedman who poses himself as friend of Palestinians, is comparing Dubai’s progress with Gaza and implying that they could have progressed like Dubai if it was not for Hamas. He is implying that violent occupation of Gaza is not any hinderance to their progress, they are as free as citizens of Dubai. What a bizarre comparison and advocacy from a friend of Palestinians.

There is no Hamas in West Bank and more than 200 innocent Palestinians get killed every year by extremist settlers and security forces with their houses destroyed and farms ransacked. Palestinians are treated like animals.

Mr. Friedman writes that Gaza war is “our second true world war.” Really? Mr. Biden impulsively rushed to embrace Netanyahu and made it our war, and Biden is going to pay price for it in 2024. But what are our national interests in this war that makes it “our war”, except AIPAC say so, and which is costing thousands of innocent Palestinian lives, our values, our sense of justice, our credibility, and our standing in the world?

The strangest aspect of the article by Mr. Friedman is that Editors of NYT did not question it, because it was from Thomas Friedman, and posted it.

Something strange happened during our recent Times Opinion focus group, the 18th and final one of 2023. When we asked the participants (13 Democrats, Republicans and independents) how they felt about the economy, we didn’t hear the same chorus of complaints that our other groups pretty consistently intoned all year. Our participants were by no means cheery, but several were upbeat, and even the Trump voters in the group weren’t aggrieved about the economy — so much so that our focus group moderator, Frank Luntz, looked a little surprised and said, “OK, this is not that bad. In fact, this is reasonably good.”

Our intent with this focus group was to bring together people who voted for Joe Biden or Donald Trump in 2020 and explore areas where they agreed or disagreed about the year we just went through. The usual partisan divisions fell away in a few places: In addition to seeing some upsides on the economy, several of the Biden and Trump voters expressed concern about ongoing aid to Ukraine, worry about the U.S. border with Mexico and a desire for Mr. Biden not to run for re-election. The group was more divided over Israel and Gaza and over the prosecutions of Mr. Trump.

We asked what the participants would say to Mr. Biden if he had been listening to the group. Angela, a 56-year-old Black woman from Califonia who supported him in 2020, said, “Thank you for your many years of service in politics. Go home. Enjoy your wife. Enjoy your life.” Sean, a 39-year-old white man from Georgia who voted for Mr. Biden last time, said, “You got to let somebody else step in. He’s not going to have a good run at this point.”

When we asked what they would say to Mr. Trump, Betsy, a 42-year-old white woman from Colorado who backed him in 2020, said, “Please bow out. You’re the best get-out-the-vote machine for the Democratic Party.” At the same time, there were more Trump and Biden voters who said at this point that they thought Mr. Trump would win in November than participants who said they thought Mr. Biden would win.

And asked what they thought the country would look like and be like in 2030, there was a mix of optimism and pessimism, but the reactions did not break down strictly along partisan lines. The biggest worry of all was not about the country’s politics but about the health of our culture and the values of younger Americans.

Patrick Healy and Frank Luntz

posted by f.sheikh

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/29/opinion/2023-america-focus-group.html

New artificial intelligence tools are the latest reason to be cautious about leaving minor’s images on the internet.

By now, we’re familiar with the risks of sharing photos and videos of minors to websites or social media apps,where they can be used for bullying or misused by strangers. An evolving threat is artificial intelligence tools, which are improving at a dizzying pace. They can be fed real images and photos to make “deep fakes.”

It’s already happening. New Jersey high school students allegedly used AI tools to make sexualized images of their classmates using “original photos” last summer. A high school student in Issaquah, Wash., allegedly used real photos of classmates to make sexualized images, which were then shared around. And in Spain, parents of more than 20 girls between the ages of 11 and 17 say photos of their children were altered using AI tools to create sexual images.

AI tools “need as little as one picture now,” says Wael Abd-Almageed, distinguished principal scientist and research director at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute. “You can train AI to pick up the facial features of somebody, so if the AI can pick up the facial features for a child, you can replace them in a video.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/27/remove-photos-kids-online/

posted by f.sheikh