Biden squeezing by to win the 2020 election like...

But in all earnest there are a few lessons we all need to reflect on (thread). 1/
1. The election will leave many people unsatisfied. With 71+ million votes for Biden, and 68+ million votes for Trump, this is the largest number of votes casted in a US presidential election (Biden is the most voted ever). Yet, a 270-268 victory is unsatisfying in two accounts:
It will of course be unsatisfying to the 68+ million Americans who voted for Trump. But those who voted for Biden expected a repudiation of Trump’s government & a landslide win. That didn’t happen. This is America.
2. People need to accept that in 2016 it was not Russian hackers, but American voters who elected Trump. In 2020, Trump got ~5 million more votes than in 2016. The support is real & local, not something fabricated from abroad.
3. This is not over, in the short & long term. We should expect weeks of legal & online battles. We should expect political blockade if Republicans win the senate. And in 2024, we will be here again. Will we have a new generation of leaders?
4. With the exception of Obama, the US has not been ruled by someone born after 1946 (Bush, Clinton, & Trump were born within weeks in the summer of 46). A generational change in US politics is long overdue, but conspicuously absent. Why?
5. The world is watching. The US is the Truman show of countries but it has lost its soft power. The argument of moral exceptionalism that is central to American identity is out the window. The US will need to learn to be ‘just another country,’ like everyone else.
6. It is time to start questioning systems, not just candidates. A system of episodic elections of high power representatives will continue to produce polarizing outcomes. Politics & media are amplifiers of disagreements, not agreements. The end of history is yet to come.
7. To end up in a high note, here is one of Biden’s TikTok campaign videos.

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More from @cesifoti

7 Nov
Map Time!
So you’ve seen a lot of maps in the last few days. What maps work, which ones don’t, and how to think about them? Time for a thread ! /1 ImageImageImageImage
To begin, let’s go through some data visualization basics. Data visualization, is the use of graphical metaphors to represent quantities. The fact that visualization are metaphors, however, is often forgotten. 2/
Think of a scatter plot showing age vs income. Age is measured in years. Income in dollars, but in a scatter plot they are both represented in inches (a spatial metaphor!). 3/
Read 17 tweets
17 Oct
Today I am leaving the US.
With my family we are exploring a new life in the south of France.
I’ve been in the US for more than 16 years. I earned my citizenship & experienced many ups & downs. But I am grateful. The US was good to me in many ways ...
/1
I published 3 books & about 60 academic papers. I started a company that employs dozens of people & has clients throughout the world. I ran a lab for 9 years at one of the countries top universities. I was invited to the main stage of Ted and to Davos.
/2
I met millionaires, billionaires, movie stars, & rock stars. I had my work published in “The Times.” I hanged out with Nobel prize winners in their darkest moments. I experienced hype & betrayal. I saw the belly of the beast, from the inside, as I rose, fell, & stood up again. /3
Read 24 tweets
5 Sep
He visto este tuit varias veces. Lamentablemente, la tesis que presenta no es correcta. Holanda es un gran RE-exportador de productos vegetales, y su volumen exportador se explica por logística, no agricultura. Veamos los datos? (1/N) 🧵
oec.world/en/profile/bil…
1. Holanda si exporta muchos productos vegetales (USD 29.4B el 2018, 3ero en el 🌎), pero importa mucho (USD 21.7B, 4to en el 🌎). La población de Holanda no explica este volumen importador. Lo que pasa es que productos agr. entran a granel en los puertos y salen empaquetados.
Por ejemplo, Holanda exporta mas bananas (si, estas que no crecen en Holanda), que Mexico, Honduras, o la Rep. Dominicana! (Belgica es incluso mas bananero) oec.world/en/profile/hs9…
oec.world/en/profile/bil…
Read 10 tweets
2 Sep
La complejidad económica ha sido debatida en Chile las ultimas semanas. Lamentablemente, incluso los expertos entienden poco que es la complejidad o como se mide. Acá un hilo y un artículo aclarando varios malos entendidos. ciperchile.cl/2020/09/01/mit… (1/N)
Mito 1: La complejidad económica es equivalente a la diversificación exportadora.
FALSO!
La complejidad económica es técnicamente perpendicular a la diversificación o concentración de exportaciones.
Mito 2: La complejidad económica es una medida de las exportaciones.
FALSO.
La complejidad económica se ha estimado usando datos de empleo, patentes, salarios, etc. a nivel de municipio o estado para muchos países. Complejidad y exportaciones son cosas muy distintas.
Read 11 tweets
23 Jun
High skill migrants (e.g #H1B visa holders) are an engine of economic growth & innovation. Don't believe me? Here is a thread with some stats...
1. High skilled people are more prone to migrate, so they are hard to get an easy to lose... Image
2. About 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies in America were founded by immigrants or their children.
3. Immigrants account for half of the founders of America’s unicorns.
Read 8 tweets
10 Jun
While people's general understanding of physics is a jump from Newton to Einstein, it is important to understand that there are some very clear intermediate steps. Here, I want to focus on a huge one: Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics (1/N)
Newton's greatest hit was his three laws of motion.
1. Inertia.
2. F=ma.
3. Action and reaction.
The key here is the second law, which allows you to write equations for the motion of things. For a spring ma=kx. For a falling rock ma=mgh.
Newton's equation allows you to connect the acceleration of an object (a=ẍ) with its position (x). If you solve that equation, you get the position in time (x(t)). That's great, but what equation do you need to solve? How do you figure what goes after ma=...?
Read 16 tweets

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