Your Friday white paper: How ordinary people can become trolls.
Bridges connect places, people—and underneath them live trolls, slurping, snorting, enviously watching people go by. But where do trolls come from?
Good (academic) reading in "Anyone Can Become a Troll: Causes of Trolling Behavior in Online Discussions," by Justin Cheng, Michael Bernstein, Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil, Jure Leskovec.
A predictive model of trolling behavior shows that mood and discussion context together can explain trolling behavior better than an individual’s history of trolling. These results combine to suggest that ordinary people can, under the right circumstances, behave like trolls.
Five things to remember about Trump when vexed.
Sometimes, all the time, every rabbit hole that lurks at the bottom of every second, it feels like there's an alien species in the White House. Unfortunately, he's all too human. Here are five things to keep in mind when you struggle to grasp his moods and behavior, excerpted below.
1. Trump is a Damaged Personality
He needs to dominate everyone around him and is profoundly susceptible to ego injuries tied to not 'winning', not being the best, not being sufficiently praised and acclaimed, etc.
2. Trump is a Great Communicator
Trump has an intuitive and profound grasp of a certain kind of branding. It's not sophisticated. But mass branding seldom is. It is intuitive, even primal.
3. Trump's Hold on His Base Is Grievance
Despite all their differences, Trump meets his voters in a common perception (real or not) of being shunned, ignored and disrespected by 'elites.'
4. Trump is Possible Because of Partisan Polarization
No matter how unpopular Trump gets, Republican lawmakers will continue to support him because the chances of ending their careers is greater in a GOP primary than in a general election.
5. Trump is Surrounded By Extremists and Desperados
Trump is primarily driven by impulse, grievance, the need to dominate and the need to be praised. There are core political beliefs Trump has had for decades which we should expect him to stick to.
Feb 10, 2017The problem is that travel writing, a form of writing about departures, about leaving the known in order to venture into the unknown, could become a stay-at-home genre.
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Prisons in the Netherlands have a problem: a shortage of inmates
Too often we Americans forget prisons are supposed to be rehabilitative, that the vast majority of prisoners aren't monsters. Whereas, in Dutch-land:
About a third of Dutch prison cells sit empty, according to the Ministry of Justice. Criminologists attribute the situation to a spectacular fall in crime over the past two decades and an approach to law enforcement that prefers rehabilitation to incarceration.
“The Dutch have a deeply ingrained pragmatism when it comes to regulating law and order,” said René van Swaaningen, professor of criminology at Erasmus School of Law in Rotterdam, noting the country’s relatively liberal approach to “soft” drugs and prostitution. “Prisons are very expensive. Unlike the United States, where people tend to focus on the moral arguments for imprisonment, the Netherlands is more focused on what works and what is effective.”
The Editors' Longreads Picks
- An excellent essay on poverty and writing by Starr Davis. Updated May 31, 2022
- Novelist Héctor Tobar tries to understand the 1992 Los Angeles riots through the experiences of a single high school.
- Steven Johnson with a long assessment of the current state of A.I. and language. (The illusion has gotten very good.)
Welcome to The Morning News Tournament of Books, 2017 edition.
- Our championship match is decided in the Tournament of Books, with news of a Rooster surprise debuting this summer. Updated Mar 31, 2017
- In Thursday's action, Reyhan Harmanci sets up a colossal final.
- The Zombie round opens with Buzzfeed's Isaac Fitzgerald reading The Nix and The Underground Railroad.
Все ваши Белый дом принадлежит нам.
- "Will Putin expose the failings of American democracy or will he inadvertently expose the strength of American democracy?" Updated Mar 3, 2017
- Wilbur Ross just wanted to make some money in ethically gray areas (that should've prevented him from taking office).
- Jeff Sessions's spokeswoman can't help but continue to lie.
The oceans are under assault, and not just from the White House and friends.
- Trump's assault on the environment begins with American headwaters. Updated Mar 1, 2017
- Don't just blame the oil companies for destroying the oceans—blame sushi restaurants.
- Nothing escapes the deepest trenches of the ocean floor. Not light, not nutrients, not pollutants.