Magdi Jacobs Profile picture
I write about politics, culture, & science for https://t.co/Gti12sLy1c. Bylines in @PostOpinions, @ForeignPolicy, @Slate, @damemagazine, @Alternet. She/her
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Mar 27 16 tweets 4 min read
I have many things to say in response to abuse of Amit Soussana, as well as general denialism in response to 10/7. There is a part of me that wants to wait. To write an essay. Where I can be succinct. But there is another part of me that cannot wait. I will ramble. But plz listen I am a rape survivor. I have been sexually abused at other times, but the "Big Event," the life-changing event, was when I was gang raped by 2, or maybe more, men in an apartment in Paris when I was 19 yrs old. I say "maybe more" b/c I was passed out for much, but not all, of it.
Mar 12 13 tweets 5 min read
Here is Biden describing the file-drawer problem in biomedical research, such that he is telling Hur that he has identified a problem in the field: the non-publication of non-significant scientific results. This is graduate-level knowledge. Then he goes further & discusses NIH $.
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Biden describes how little info, even on NIH grants, is provided. He describes how *only* significant results are reported, resulting in gigantic narrative holes. He addresses how to use the federal gov't funding system to change this detrimental pattern in science & medicine.
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Mar 8 8 tweets 2 min read
The lines are definitely blurrier than ever, but there are also clear patterns that emerge after looking at the bots for a while. There are definitely some "hints" in terms of both language & pragmatics, as well as historical knowledge & interpretative heuristics. But this is really the way we need to start thinking about the current problem: there are troll/bots, just as in 2016, but, this time around, their corpus--of both contemporary language AND American culture--is much more well-developed. We have all given them quite a bit of data.
Mar 4 5 tweets 1 min read
In my 40 years on this planet, I do not think I've ever seen liberals more fed up than they are right now. I believe this is a good development. Liberals laid out the consequences of a Trump presidency & were bullied for it. Then, when the consequences of a Trump presidency came true, liberals were bullied for that too. Now, liberals are being gaslit as to the harms of Biden vs. Trump. Liberals have reached their limit.
Mar 3 4 tweets 2 min read
On the left: What Mehdi Hassan & others claim Joe Biden can do to effectuate a ceasefire
On the right: What Joe Biden & other negotiators--including members of the Egyptian, Qatari, & Israeli governments--are actually doing to effectuate a ceasefire
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Be logical for a moment: Debates over the next stage are causing rifts in Netanyahu's own government. Netanyahu is determined to destroy Hamas at all costs, which puts him at odds w/ those who want to prioritize hostages. Yet Joe Biden, somehow, can stop this all with a pen.
Mar 1 5 tweets 1 min read
I heard that many young people do not realize what the ACA did for pre-existing conditions, so let me briefly explain. W/out the ACA, if you are a 22-year-old who has had COVID, depression, or any other recorded medical condition, that record could be used to deny health coverage If you received treatment for an eating disorder when you were 16, your diagnosis of anorexia could impact your ability to get health insurance for the rest of your life. Your diagnosis could also lead to loss of coverage for issues related to anorexia, e.g. osteoporosis.
Feb 28 7 tweets 2 min read
We should talk more about the fact that COVID-19 was a mass traumatic event. A lot of the problems we face right now are very real. They are are exacerbated by an un-named societal PTSD. A PTSD none of us claims for ourselves b/c it belongs to everyone & thus seemingly to no one. Obviously quite a bit of this is also exacerbated by social media. But this is different. Social media--especially political social media--has been equal parts problematic & influential for years. Post-COVID, or, really, Post-Omicron, things have gotten increasingly unhinged
Feb 17 17 tweets 4 min read
I will add that this is an *objective* measure of the faith The Biden Admin has in the foreign policy acumen of VP Harris. To be the US Representative at Munich, at this point in time, is an enormous responsibility, just as EU allies are becoming more trepidatious re: Trump/NATO. I am not here to convince anyone that Harris is more popular than she is, within the US. Nor am I here to describe *why* she is viewed critically by (mostly white) voters in the U.S. That's a different discussion.
Feb 9 18 tweets 4 min read
Reposting some stuff about stuttering from 2020. Biden has a severe stutter for which he has developed compensatory mechanisms. These compensatory mechanisms often weaken w/ age, but are *not* in any way associated w/ general cognitive decline. Whole word substitutions are what Biden gets dinged for most frequently. Whole word substitutions are extremely common in stuttering. It's an issue of lexical access. There's a reason why Biden typically substitutes when saying names or places. It's not that he is confused.
Feb 3 27 tweets 7 min read
Yes. Also: We have not well-formulated in the public consciousness 1. what the "Biden Doctrine" is, 2. how it relates to Obama-era policy, 3. how this current doctrine--which progressives should like, relative to previous doctrines--is currently being threatened. Obama inherited a foreign policy disaster, in addition to a domestic policy disaster. In such a case, it is hard to establish a firm "doctrine," so Obama's foreign policy was always going to be inherently a mixed bag. In general, however, he began a pull-back of US military power
Feb 3 15 tweets 6 min read
Silver is making a number of errors here, including conflating best sampling procedures for population-level work w/ sampling of research experts. More pernicious, however, is that Silver is moving us further from any kind of shared truth thru undermining expertise more broadly Please note what is happening here; it is important to understand these dynamics in the current post-truth era. 1. Silver said there was no expert consensus, 2. A researcher responded by pointing to a study showing expert consensus, 3. Silver responded by (inaccurate) nitpicking
Jan 28 18 tweets 6 min read
Nancy Pelosi is correct. It should be stressed--as Pelosi said--that there are large numbers of real people who truly care who are protesting. There are also clearly a large number of trolls/bots who are likely doing Putin's bidding. I will give some examples. This is an account named "BlackRussian." He replies to tweets almost exclusively about Israel Palestine. He is rather unsophisticated b/c he confuses conservative anti-Biden rhetoric w/ leftist anti-Biden rhetoric. He tries--& fails--to use AAVE. He is also anti-Ukrainian. Image
Jan 22 11 tweets 2 min read
What do we know about the way the twitter algorithm currently works? For the record, I know quite a bit about how social media algorithms either 1. interact w/ our cognitive biases &/or 2. exploit our cognitive biases. I wrote about how Facebook did both for @AlterNet alternet.org/2021/10/facebo…
Jan 21 11 tweets 3 min read
1. The political media was wrong about Ron DeSantis
2. This same media desperately *wanted* a "Smart Authoritarian" vs. Trump narrative. They pushed it relentlessly
3. They then used DeSantis's supposed "strength" (that they made up) to push "anti-wokeness" on the rest us) These are things we really need to absorb about the current state of political analysis. There are *specific* fights the media wants, consciously or not. The media also makes some people appear strong & others weak, totally contrary to all available evidence.
Jan 16 12 tweets 3 min read
The Democratic Party has never been as progressive as it is right now & the Republican Party has never been as openly racist fascistic. I increasingly do not understand how people are constructing this completely alternate reality in good faith. I would assume that anyone commenting on politics has been through a few presidential elections. This should enable them to
1. Compare current & past Democrats to each other
2. Measure the ideological distance between past & current Democrats & Republicans.
Jan 14 6 tweets 2 min read
We need to call this what it is. These people are reducing some of the most extreme suffering in the world-that of the Yemeni people-to a symbol of their own righteousness. It is not the same kind of dehumanization as conservatives engage in; but it is dehumanization all the same It is horrifically sad, to me. If you pick apart at any conflict in the Middle East, you rarely find something that resembles "Good vs. Evil." What you find is various powers acting in their own self-interests while millions of civilians suffer. The West becomes disengaged.
Jan 9 8 tweets 2 min read
Do people realize that Netanyahu desperately wants Joe Biden to lose the election? I'm not trying to be sassy. I'm wondering if people actually know this. It seems like an important thing to understand.
Dec 30, 2023 6 tweets 1 min read
"Biden is a fascist" is just a bad take. It is false. Laughably so. It would be a bad take even if Trump didn't exist; it's an even worse one because he does. I am completely and utterly baffled by why anyone is claiming this w/ a straight face & why anyone else would defend it. Our world of discourse is becoming increasingly untethered from reality. "Biden is a fascist" is so obviously false & yet, when someone says it, the debate then becomes about how, in some world, it might be arguably reasonable to call him such. What are we doing, here?
Dec 19, 2023 9 tweets 2 min read
I have a lot of thoughts on this discourse, but here I'll just say one: I lived in rural PA for almost 3 years. There are many wonderful people there, but, in another sense, it is the most fundamentally cruel place I've ever lived. All the elements of Trumpism existed before 2016 Image I want to be careful here. I don't want to stereotype or even deride the area. Like I said, there are great people there, including great political operatives who are deeply invested in the area. I have indescribable respect for the work they do + hope for the future of rural PA.
Dec 7, 2023 4 tweets 1 min read
I do not know why we cannot say that Muslim men have suffered gravely from negative "animalistic" stereotyping while also honestly describing the actions of Hamas on 10/7. I feel non-separation is offensive. I feel non-separation is a conflation btwn a group & individual actors These kinds of conflations are what we should avoid in anti-racism. They distort the truth. I have known & even lived w/ Arab & Muslim men. I think of them, these good men, when you argue that condemning Hamas's violence is the same as how society has racistly harmed men of color
Dec 3, 2023 21 tweets 4 min read
See, this is how denialism typically proceeds, by wearing away at the edges of truth. Rape does occur in every conflict. People are bad & conflict makes them worse. Systematic rape as ordered or allowed by high command as a method of warfare is *not* committed in every conflict. I'm not saying that the intent of the poster is to engage in denialism. Many people adopt this logic w/out intent. But it is the logic of denialism.