I did not realize this video was going to "pop off" so a little addendum here: 1. I don't want people to watch this and think "Oh, so Trump didn't do as well as everyone is saying?" No, Trump got way more votes than in 2020, and Kamala Harris got way fewer than Joe Biden. The swing was decisive and national and not something to be ignored. 2. I don't think these maps are trying to mislead anyone intentionally, but as a person who communicates for a living, I am very aware of times when someone might walk away with the wrong idea in their heads. 3. Alaska does have county-like things, but they don't report the vote by them so it just gets one arrow.
Its somehow a Democrat plot to gives so many Electoral Votes to California and New York. The Electoral map will always mostly be red, and the densely populated areas will be Blue, at that point you think the whole system is rigged, and Republicans feed that beast. Its reactionary thinking, for a reactionary party.
Yeah, Alaska is super weird. They report their votes by state House of Representatives districts. People often have to use precinct results to manually reconstruct the results by borough/census area, which are the county equivalents in Alaska.
Yeah it's been driving me nuts watching people say that there's like 15 million democrat votes missing when you can just... look at the results and see that there's something like 15 million votes left to count. Like California is still left with 7-8 million uncounted votes. And that's California alone.
I think the confusion came from reporting that there were "record numbers" of votes cast. Which would indicate that there should be more votes than were cast last cycle. So if Biden had 81M and Trump had 71M that means there should be OVER 152M votes. Plus whatever made up those record numbers. So far, there are only about 130M votes accounted for. And even if you add on 8M for California, the math is still not adding up for people.
@@mandirants There were record numbers of *early votes* cast, and there were predictions that that would mean "record numbers of _total votes_," but that didn't pan out. A bunch of people just sat this election out.
@@JoannaLovesHistoryBooks We do "how to lie with graphs" in my grade 9 (and other) math class. Let's just say Fox News has a good chunk of the examples in many different ways to lie. But, I've chastised MSNBC and other channels for doing exactly the same y-axis manipulation that Hank pointed out here.
That percent usually is about counties, not the number of votes. Some counties, especially in California have upward of 10 times the number of voters as others. Even then only another about 5 million is left which still doesn't add up to the number that voted in 2020
John and Hank, thanks for being here through these tough times and continuing to make videos. Seeing a new vlogbrothers video get posted is incredibly comforting.
I'm actually a bit confused as to why the nyt had Alaska as a single unit in that graphic. Louisiana has a similar situation (parishes instead of counties) but it's still broken down into the individual smaller units.
Hey, New York City has boroughs too. Those also aren't counties. Alaska also specifically segregates the idea of a county vs a borough in their constitution. So it does roughly mean that "750,00 people are in one big county" but that county has divisions.
Totally not having to do with this video but here it is anyways. I feel like a lot of people have forgotten how to human. I saw a woman in a comment section say how scared she is of losing healthcare due to chronic illness. And a person responded some version of "ha ha, lib tears, move or die." And it just kinda shocked me. I know this is the internet but when did it get where people are comfortable laughing at truly scared folks? I feel like I'm in a daycare watching a handful of 4 year olds running around biting people and laughing. And at least one teacher is egging them on, laughing along, and giving them gold stars for doing it. I'm not talking about ethics or morals. Literally just being human. Holding doors for people, not tripping old ladies crossing the street, feeling sad when you see a sad person. These are just _human_ things and I don't know when being human became something to question in a significant part of the population. I don't know. Just thoughts.
Because people suffering no consequences of being evil assholes on the internet has made them comfortable. Internet anonymity is both a blessing and a curse.
You do know half the internet isnt real people right? You almost know that trolls don't have lives or do what Trump or Elon does and tweet like 30 times a day.
I think because certain people choose who they are empathetic or sympathetic towards, and revoke that empathy and sympathy arbitrarily, based on who they feel would be sympathetic towards them. It's my personal belief that humanity's greatest accomplishment is the ability to feel for *everything*, like feeling sad about dented cans at a grocery store, or saying sorry to a table you ran into. It is our greatest sin that humans can also revoke that feeling for anything, including other people. I try to remember that everyone, *everyone* is human, and deserves a baseline level of respect for that. I don't know how to remind other people of that though, this is a personal understanding I came to privately and I don't know how to convince others of that, or even if it would be ethical to do so. That's just my two cents
Thank you for your thoughts, Friend. INCREDIBLY discouraging to see such callous attitudes spread and fester online. But you sharing this makes a difference.🙏
p.s. I was assaulted in the train station this week, but rewatching you and John make tea on the livestream from last week has been keeping me together
You are not a cartoon hero. You cannot change the world on your own. Instead, be where you are needed. There are people who need your help. Wherever you look, you will find somebody that could use your help. If your thinking about giving up, I understand, but I also would feel bad for the people who could have used your help. Something I heard someone say, that I think should be spread.
I work with Maps and one of the top books for GIS nerds and Cartographers is called "How to Lie with Maps". It's a good read and explains the bad use an manipulation of the data. Great video Hank!
@@DonNadie05I actually think nonzero x-axis is correct. The x-axis is zero if it goes through y=0, but in this case it didn’t, so it was a nonzero x-axis.
@@CanaanPoE nah it has everything to do with politics and people. I know for a fact what the leftists got up to with their new freedoms and abilities was toxic to America as a state having lived through woke college in Biden. I mean shit I was voting on policy up until the last day of the election I thought and researched about it so much and voted Trump.
@@CanaanPoE and besides trumps actual policy is his selling point btw he wants to change the horrible economy the dems are forging and I do think the dems created this bad economy. Only idiots support the idea of fully open borders without vetting and verification if you are one of those you deserve your L on a silver platter.
@@spagooter1807 You... Don't like how progressives "band together socially"? What does that even mean? Progressivism is a social movement, just like conservatism. Your implication seems to be that the latter somehow "deserves" to exist, while the former doesn't. I wonder why that is. Not incidentally, I've observed plenty of Trump rallies, and if that's not the definition of "banding together", I don't know what is.
@@dem8568 not even mentioning that, the left talks a whole lot of shit for people that act like they would promote equality once they have a majority and just what I’ve seen last election yeah you guys don’t believe in equality.
To quote from a great book, "when you don't know what to do, do what's right, and do what's in front of you - but not necessarily what's right in front of you." I'm putting my phone away except for music today. Time to go for a hike.
@ I know he did? Is that what we're supposed our eyes to? He won fair and square, we got crushed. Let's hope your conservative utopia lives up the fucking hype.
@jttinsleyjoey Why does Trump have so many pictures hanging out with Epstein, why did Trump call his own daughter hot? Why was Trump walking into 12 year old dressing rooms?
The guy said he wouldn't accept any results that didn't say he won. Almost like he knew it was rigged in his favor. I'm not so sure it was a free and fair election @@jttinsleyjoey
As a geography teacher, I absolutely love this! My students often think coming into class that maps are just factual but there are so many limitations to what maps can tell you and if you aren’t looking carefully you can draw the wrong conclusions. That’s how maps are used to manipulate people.
thank u hank. as a scared 19 yr old who watched crash course throughout high school. thank u for getting it, and breaking it down. hope you get some R&R. this whole country needs it right now.
@@Grunttamercan you provide some insights? I work in a field that interfaces with government policies quite frequently and have heard the opposite. A right wing controlled house (tentative), senate, and white house seems pretty impactful but maybe I'm missing something.
@@Cobalt_11 first, the news has been painting conservatives as actual monsters and it’s just not true. We just want less over reach, affordable groceries and safe streets. Second, the policies laid out in agenda 47 are not things that are all that controversial. We want legal immigration, we want to deport criminal aliens, we want less taxes, we want to use our natural resources to become energy independent.
Something that people don't realize is that in 2020 a lot more people got an absentee ballot in the mail (you know due to a certain pandemic). This made it a lot more convenient for more people to vote. This helped cause a few things one of which was that people who felt like their vote didn't matter were much less likely to actually vote. ("Why wait in line to vote if it doesn't change anything?" as opposed to "my vote probably doesn't matter but I have the ballot already so might as well fill it out.") This makes red counties look redder and blue counties look bluer (on the arrow map). The pandemic totally changed the way the 2020 election looked and the way it took place which makes comparison very difficult, and usually misleading.
This is an interesting point and I know that voting accessibility was compromised in quite a few areas. However, I don't think we currently have an idea of real numbers that would suggest the significance of those changes, e.g. how many people had mail-in ballot access in 2020 but didn't in 2024. But certainly a whole let less people voted this cycle
Absentee ballots, or mail-in votes, is the #1 source of election fraud according to a study from around 2012 I believe. Do with that information what you will.
Most neutral take (not a bad thing) I have seen on universal mail in ballots for 2020. Intresting to think if it won Biden the election due to universal mail in balloting, based on this years election in conjunction with the fact Trump repeatedly told his supporters not to vote by mail and go in on election day for 2020. Would people actually have gone out to vote for Biden? Would more people have voted for Trump if he didnt discourage mail in ballots
Maybe we need to start considering this. Sending ballots to people who asked to be registered, they fill it in and just put it in the mail. Will make people feel less exhausted about voting.
Fixing how hard it is to vote in America needs to Dems priority! In my country we're automatically registered since birth, voting is always at the same place. If you need to change it, it takes 5 minutes online and you can do it 3 days before an election. And it takes 5 minutes to vote!!! Oh, and vote is always on a Sunday, when most people are off from work. No wonder your turnout is so low. I wouldn't want to wait in line either. Or spend all the mental energy to figure out what, where, why. Overwhelming, especially for new voters.
@@brian8507America is a global superpower. What happens here affects the world. Or did you forget about that, mister "we probably have a military base in your country"? Your comment history is public, by the way. We can see the daft things you say.
I hate gerrymandering. Theyre literally misrepresneting how many people live in certain places. Like people think places that are bigger have more power but no its the amount of people.
This isn't exactly gerrymandering. But the fact that there is a huge rural/urban split in how people vote means all maps have to be looked at with a lot of skepticism. He showed a cartogram, which distorts based on population. Those are good for getting a sense of how the votes actually pan out, but aren't very good for actually figuring out how a given area voted.
@@nathanspear8035 The electoral college mechanics are arguably a subtype of gerrymandering, just by drawing up the value of each "district" to give more voting power to certain demographics, instead of drawing up borders which do so. It's a vaguer use of a term which is more traditionally precise, but the outcome is the same.
@@falleithani5411 The only states where it's possible to gerrymander the Electoral College are Maine and Nebraska. Every other state assigns winner-take-all so there's no districts to fiddle with. Unless you're saying along the lines that it's gerrymandering to say, count Virginia and West Virginia as being split since it ends up with 13 votes blue and 4 votes red, but if you had combined the two, it'd be 17 votes red. Since the presence of West Virginia effectively cordons off a massive chunk of red voters that would have been have made Virginia's total election much more competitive. But for that point of view, you'll have to take it up with the states existing at all. Most didn't get much control over their original border, and even those who did, locked in what that border looks like over a hundred years ago.
Thank you for this, Hank. This community continues to be a good place to be even during times of complete and total bewilderment and frustration. One of the proudest moments I had recently was when my son was watching a RUclips video with us where information was being presented as fact, and he blurted out, "She's not saying any evidence!" He was picking up on a perceived lack of cited sources, and we were able to have a discussion about how that particular channel does do a lot of research and posts the sources in the video descriptions, but that he was correct in being skeptical even though the things in the video sounded good. Hank and John, your videos all across RUclips have been an invaluable tool for helping my wife and I teach our kids how to be curious, skeptical, and empathetic. For us at the very least, the world is a better place because of everything you do. Thank you so much.
I've been feeling like I'm going crazy the past few days watching all this detailed analysis happen when we don't even have all the data yet. And not just with social media randos, this is coming from respected journalists too, who should know better.
Because you are in a high density population area. Two or three big cities (bubbles if you will) in the country should not dictate what the ENTIRE nation is subject to. Hence the electoral college to try and prevent that.
This is a mindset, though. With the first graph, you're being mislead. But with the other graphs and maps, you need to remember it's not about you, nor is it about me. It tells the truth. No graph or map can tell the whole truth, so we show different perspectives to simplify and digest reality. Unless someone is saying that the land area coloring corresponds to popular vote, then it's just a map, and it may not be what you're looking for. But that's not the map's fault or its creator's.
Thanks for this, Hank. Those maps always irritate me for a lot of the reasons you said. My parents are also liberal but living in largely conservative, less populated areas, and I know seeing their areas painted entirely red bothers them, too. Thanks for taking the time to make a video, though we'd have understood if you didn't. Keep taking care of yourself ❤
I feel like the question of "how did this happen?" isn't as important as "what do we do now?", and even that question is one that has to wait on folks currently in power to decide what safe guards theycan put up. The hardest part is always the waiting.
I think those questions have a lot of bearing on each other, though. If this only happened because of inflation, then we probably don't need to change much, if it happened because the internet created a huge shift toward a world that is distrustful of institutions, we need to change tack dramatically.
@@vlogbrothersI would love to have a video on how we can rebuild trust in those institutions (not saying they were untrustworthy in the first place) and how we can better create equitable information that isn't so heavily skewed
@jttinsleyjoey you talking about during the pandemic when the economy almost crashed and gas was only cheap because of that fact? The memory of people is short and history was left behind where it does no good. Maybe look into how mass deportation went for Germany in the late 30s.
I can see the deep sadness in you that I also feel. I haven't had it in me to be angry yet...just an intense sadness...and I'm trying desperately to not fall down the hopelessness hole. This time is just different... I hope you and yours are doing ok. Thank goodness for spaces like this♥️
It looks like Trump is still on track to win the popular vote with the new ballots reported out of California. IF Trump actually does win the popular vote, then the Democratic party has at some level objectively failed to convince people that their methods are the best. I hope that the Democratic party takes this as a moment to self-reflect and emerge as a stronger party that better represents the interests of the nation. The DNC has hardly improved since Bernie had the nomination stolen from him. There's just no good candidates at the moment. Buttigieg and Newsome would lose because of how unpopular they are outside the core party. If the DNC can't get their act together, we might very well see a JD Vance 2028. I'm praying for a Tulsi 2028 to shatter the glass ceiling if the DNC keeps failing Democrats with their Super Delegates.
I’m also sad that we won’t be able to brainwash children into thinking they’re mentally ill. Maybe if we keep calling people fascists they’ll let us get back to having fun. Orange man bad.
The part where he says "land does not vote", but that's kind of what the electoral college does, give more voting power to people in lower population density areas
@@Ben-wp5rx no it shouldn't regional representation is important. just because 4 states have a majority of the population doesn't mean that the issues of the rest of the states don't matter and that their interest shouldn't be taken into account. failing to do that and bowing to the Austrian majority all the time is the main reason the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed. our system was EXPLICITLY designed to prevent New York and Pennsylvania from dominating the nation every election by virtue of their massive population(in the modern day you would include California and Texas on that list.) for a local election Majority should matter. but at the national level. REGIONS should matter. not individual people. that's what makes local and federal government different things. federal government represents the Union of States. State government represents the people.
Hank, thank you for lending your critical eye to this. We all need to use logic and love moving forward, rather than jumping to conclusions and division. We're in this together!
@@scratch7971 1. Calling me a dolt is unnecessary. 2. If we do not see other people as humans we will fall apart. Yes, the overall right wing movement is about division and working against us. But that movement is made of a lot of people. Some of whom agree with everything the movement stands for but many of whom who do not. Do we need to be friends with them? Of course not. Do we need to find those that are reachable and have conversations? Yes. Do we need to counter misinformation (like the graphs Hank showed) and point out flaws in the logic, rather than dismiss them as stupid? Yes.
@@scratch7971 the movement is about affordable groceries, government overreach, and safe streets. Take some time to feel your feelings about the election, they are valid. But try to calm down and just see how things go. The news has been so hyperbolic about Trump for years that otherwise reasonable people are having a legit fight or flight reaction for no reason.
I prefer to view it as that Alaska, the biggest state by total land area, also has the single largest county in the US, Alaska County which takes to the whole state.
That special edition was the thing I needed to finally feel the sadness. To grieve as you put it. Now I’m doing things. If my existence is protest I’ll keep being loud about it. I painted my nails. Writing poetry. Connecting with friends. Thank you
I've been thinking for a long time that we need kids to get a "Defense Against The Dark Arts" class where we specifically train this sort of critical thinking. There are dark wizards out there working hard to deceive you - for political reasons (propaganda), but also for commercial ones (advertising and marketing). Not to mention just good old fashioned scamming and phishing and hustling. They use bad graphs, bad data, yes - but also fallacious arguments, psychological tricks, and lots and lots of money. We need to teach these examples in schools; how to spot them, how to analyze them critically, how to talk about them productively to others who are being misled. You do such a good job of this. Your recent video on Elon Musk's factually incorrect tweets was another gem. I feel like this could be a whole series, or even a whole channel. Keep up the good work!!!
Critical thinking and media literacy are sorely needed in this country, and that's exactly what the republican party wants to make sure people don't get.
@@devinglass9967A lot of "us" read her books before she came out as a transphobic ghoul. It was a quite popular book series! Culturally important, even, for a lot of us who tend to be rather nerdy.
One of the other ways graphs lie to you is that it assumes that the body of voters is the same each election, but the breakdown of those voters changed. In many cases, there were people who were non-voters that decided to vote for Trump, or Biden voters who decided not to vote for Harris. I don't know the number of "Biden voters turned Trump voters" but I'm wary of graphs that make it seem like that's what happened.
NBC had it as about 5% of folks who voted Biden voted Trump, 79% of new voters voted Trump. They didn't have the opposite statistic up there, which I found strange (what % of 2020 Trump voters voted Kamala)
"People live in cities" is a phrase I think about a lot when faced with any type of map data. A LOT of that red is in places that people just *don't live* or has a low, rural population.
What I learned is that these maps are useful for actual analysis by the right people but all of them are bad for hot takes and are abused as a political misinformation tool
Greetings from Juneau. Alaska is organized into boroughs, which essentially function like counties. Some boroughs, like The City and Borough of Juneau, are unified with a city and also function the same as a city. Others like the Mat-Su Borough may incorporate many smaller cities and function as an umbrella entity above them. But boroughs are created by the people who live in the given area, and it's possible to simply not choose to have (or not have the political infrastructure to create) a borough. Much of rural Alaska is within "the unorganized borough," which is really just no borough at all. But with so much of Alaska so sparsely populated and difficult to access, a defined county system doesn't really work up here.
One piece of advice, as an argentinian having had similarly awful elections for the past 3 iterations: the election was lost months ago, when the candidates got locked in and they were two awful old men with terrible reputations. Kamala was a weird twist but the bottom line is that something is failing WAY before the elections if you're having to make these kind of decisions.
I feel like it was lost in 2021 when Joe Manchin blocked the BBB plan. All that Biden was going to do to help ordinary people fizzled, and he never regained his prestige. Nobody really liked him again.
Hank, leading up to the election it was framed as a coinflip - 50/50, anyone’s game. Now that it's over, there's a flood of analysis from one side, digging into all the reasons for the loss. It makes me wonder: Was there a hidden factor missing in the simulations, and it wasn’t really a coinflip after all? Or if it truly was a coinflip, what’s all this post-analysis actually giving us that we didn’t have before? It’s like I’m picturing a literal coin flip, it lands, and suddenly experts are brought in to explain why it landed heads instead of tails. 🤔
Most analysis is back looking and seeks justification for things that happened. I wouldn't put much weight into these people unless their forward looking analysis is also usually right.
This is the problem I have with polling. All of the polling data and surveys indicated that people would vote for Harris about as much as they would vote for Trump; so it’s a coin flip, and the campaigns felt comfortable going into the race with that information. What campaign strategy often misses though, is putting together the head to head polls with “country vibes” polling questions like “do you approve of the current administration” or “do you think the country is on the right track”. Biden stayed in the race because he was winning head to head polls, but an incumbent admin will LOSE if the vibes questions are overwhelmingly negative, and they were. The Biden admin, as Hank said, is historically unpopular to a ridiculous degree, which should have indicated a much lower voter turnout than Dems claimed they expected, and a much higher turnout for Trump, which is what we saw on election night. We need to stop staring at the “people will vote for Harris 50% more of the time to Trump 49%”. Or whatever the head to head polls are saying, and we need to stop campaigning off of margins like that. Control the vibes questions. Those should be the only priority, and it’s why we’ve needed a stronger labor movement candidate.
i think being able to properly capture the entirety of the dynamics impacting one of the world's largest regular elections is a mathematician's wildest dream. i'd compare the reaction less to scientific analysis, but to how humans process unwanted outcomes (similar to the stages of grief) it's part of our nature to reflect upon circumstances outside of our control (because let's be honest, on an individual level that is true) and to try to rationalize our way into a comforting understanding of the why and how. we like to think that things are predictable, we are comforted by the concept of control. our analysis is biased by this undying desire to be able to do something different next time. we are still in the emotional aftermath of this event, real rational analysis is a long ways away.
It wasn't a coin flip. Polling averages showed Trump leading in all/almost all swing states, and slightly ahead in the popular vote. Betting markets clearly favored Trump. Wishful thinking clouded people's judgement, but the result was not surprising given the data we had.
That is exactly what's happening. None of the analysis is good faith attempts to understand, either. The choice of what to blame is entirely strategic (also these people have no clue why anything happened, they just get paid a lot to pretend they do)
I needed to clear my head on the morning of the 6th and I went hiking. Someone broke into my car while I was doing so and robbed me. Came home and my PC died, then the handle broke off of my toilet. This has been a very bad few days, I'm weary.
On a totally positive random note, Hank, you convinced me to drop some big bucks at the Good Store and do my holiday shopping all in one go. Hopefully it helps! Thank you for the rec. I do actually really like the stuff there. I'm excited to try the tea. (I'm more of a tea drinker, so I'll let you know what my family says about the coffee.)
I’m really glad Hank (and by extension John, even though he avoided election talk) are being really level-headed and such when it comes to the election and such, at least so far. Cuz it’s really difficult seeing SO many people resort to doom and gloom, some even already deciding to flee the country. I’m just happy they aren’t mongering anything and just being factual and stuffs. It’s good to see, at least to me.
@@EmogetaMost people don’t have the means to leave a place they’d rather not live in. People staying when times are bad for them is an indicator of unfreedom.
@@Emogeta 1. … what? 2. Suggesting that the average person escape into cyberspace to avoid their real problems ignores every possible reality of that situation. It’s unbelievable that some people actually hope for Ready Player One or worse to come true.
Thank you for the we're here special edition, hank. I read it on Wednesday when I was feeling very fragile and tense and it made me cry, but it also made me look forward and get me out of bed for the day.
Thank you, Hank. I’m a queer person living in Missouri, a very red state. The LGBT+ people I’m around are extremely sad but also more motivated than ever to fight for change. We’re getting organized and preparing for the next four years. To my fellow LGBT+/queer friends- talk to those around you, get organized, and prepare. Look into online activist spaces and try to bring those topics up in real life conversations. But more than anything else, enjoy the holidays and enjoy your life now. We don’t know what will happen, but for now we are okay. Hope is not lost, and you are not alone. Taking care of yourselves is a fantastic act of protest.
Also, Hank- I’m graduating at the beginning of December with a degree in comp sci and minors in math and philosophy. I used to hate all of those subjects actually because I found them too challenging. Your videos inspired me when I was younger. I wanted to challenge myself to learn more and develop strong, informed beliefs. You helped give me the framework I needed to make informed decisions. I’m certainly not alone in that. Right now things feel bleak, but you have made a huge difference in so many people’s lives and can continue to do so. Thank you again, and I wish you the best in whatever is to come in the next 4 years.
I lived a long time in a 2016 Trump + 60% county and a friend of mine had a young adult trans daughter. I can guarantee that if anyone tried to hurt this trans individual that there would be a dozen people who would immediately kick the shit out of them for that. A few years ago there was a controversy around the song "Try That In A Small Town" because to some it conveyed a negative message around what sort of people are not welcome in a small town, but when I heard the lyrics, I thought the "try that" could refer to someone hurting this trans person. This was in the upper great plains, though, which I know is different from Missouri (where I also lived for several years), but the point is that to a fair extent many Republicans do not care how adults live their own lives--including sexual orientation--as long as they aren't hurting others. I know that Matthew Shepard was famously and brutally killed in Laramie over his sexual orientation, but culture has really shifted in a positive way towards greater acceptance since then, even among conservatives (minus some stuff dealing with children, but that's a whole other issue). Anyway, hopefully that makes things seem less bleak in terms of what the next few years might look like.
The maps are completely fine. If you're looking at them with the intention of taking away what the map is actually showing. It's the people who post the map with inaccurate/misleading captions, or in a way that tries to make the map imply something that it's not actually designed to make commentary on. The map with the arrows is a very useful map if you're wanting to look at trends of what areas of the country/state are shifting in whatever direction. It's NOT a useful map to show that 'look at all this red, nobody likes Kamala!'
Yeah, I have no idea how you can possibly look at arrow maps and have an issue beyond it not differentiating between swing for R because Ds didn't vote and swing to R because they gained a million votes in the county, and that would be a hard to read, messy map if you included it. Also not really particularly relevant unless you're a campaign manager because people not showing up to vote is usually is usually only a few steps removed from them swapping their vote entirely. I can also definitely see the gripe that arrows are a bad symbol for the map because it's hard to read their magnitude, but that's a very different gripe from the one in the video. The gripe in the video honestly feels like he's forgotten that people not in cities also vote and that it's the suburbs and small cities that represent most of America. If you look at Pew's urban vs suburban vs rural county map, you'll see that only really the western midwest is "misleading" with that kind of map. There's not very many large stretches of not many people outside of that area. And because we're commenting on maps anyway, I absolutely loathe the "make the states as big as their electoral count maps". You're making it hard to find where states are because they're no longer where they actually are in reality, and the supposed benefit is dubious at best. People don't mentally integrate area. The information you're trying to convey is easily conveyed with a number like we did for decades until it became a trend in what, 2012ish?
@AOC recommendations also were: "Make sure to be part of a community, because communities is what we will need to defend ourselves." I also think the most important thing we can do is get together, be sure to have each other within reach, and brace ourselves for next year.
Community is dead. I came home yesterday to a note on my van saying it was reported for being parked in the same spot for over 4 days, when there was an empty spot next to me. Today is street sweeper day, so I had to drive my 7.3 liter diesel van to work instead of ride my bicycle because I couldn't park in an empty parking lot for one more day.
Yeah, try to get to know people in your area who can actually do things for each other. Sympathetic people especially, but maybe cautiously sidle up to a few who, as long as they're not dangerous to you, aren't so sympathetic as well. If you can safely do it, be the counterexample someone thinks of when authority tells them a group you're a part of aren't real Americans or good people.
I saw this graph on twitter, and also immediately realized all of those issues in it, not because I am that smart, but because tons of people pointed them out in the comments! This is the steelman for why open discourse helps elevate truth.
2020 was still the first time in history we broke 130 million votes. The counting isn't finished, but it will STILL be a tad sus if the total vote count goes down by almost TEN PERCENT in a MORE HYPED ELECTION just because everyone has bodycams and is on the alert for election fraud...
Oh, Hank.. Thank you for creating this comfortingly informed and conscientious community and for reassuringly being here, even in times when I'm sure you must feel as deflated, frustrated, and tired as many of us.. but also with the millions of RUclips and other social media subscribers and companies that most of us don't have to think about. Please take care of yourself (first)! You and your brother are so appreciated and cared for by us. ❤️
Well the opposite direction would be... um, I don't know, radio? Some kind of magazines? They are all compromised. People spend a lot of money to ensure their lies are everywhere. The key is - even on Twitter - what parts you get information from. If you didn't choose to follow the person/company, then why would you listen to them.
@@CleverGirlAAH reddit isn't the opposite of twitter. The opposite direction would be google scholar (a great resource for finding actual studies on things).
1:58 Hank, I'm curious-is there a situation in which you find that the use of a non-zero y-axis would be legitimate? I feel like high school taught me never to trust one, but I'm seeing them more and more, and I'm trying to figure out whether it's ever used in a helpful way.
hi! data viz person here! you can use non-zero y axes for line charts because the point you're making is the trend/change over time. for bar charts, the point you're making is magnitude, which is why a truncated axis is a no-no. :)
@@captainottermoose Omg of course!! And that's almost certainly where I saw most non-zero y axes... in line charts. It feels like you just unlocked something in my brain that I didn't know was bugging me! Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. The nerdfighteria comments section is awesome.
Mainly when miniscule differences matter (we're not going to look at the change of the world's average temperature in kelvin with 0 axis when a 4 degree change can cause mass extinction, would we?) And, as the well informed data visualiser put it, also for rates of change I'm just a mech engineer so this isn't my specialty, but I imagine my point to have some validity
I'm right there with you Hank I don't know how to think about this I don't know how to understand this and I'm trying my hardest not to fall into this pit of mistrust and darkness thank you for your video I believe it did what you wanted it to do
Thanks for making stuff, Hank. It's very understandable that a lot of people are feeling uninspired right now & needing a break from everything. Today I walked my dogs in the woods & saw lots of cool moss & ravens.
I make maps for a living. I studied to do that. Thank you, because it's so easy to make them lie or say whatever we want them to say, and people don't have enough knowledge about them in general to question them.
"A lot of bad takes that are not representative of reality" Very very true, but, we're now in a country that seems utterly impervious to facts and that entails massive boding of the horrific kind.
Congrats, your sport team won, see how it will actually improve your life in the next four years 😂 your president only cares about his rich friends. he will not do anything for your gullible ass and it’s so obvious. we’re all laughing at you from outside the US
@@Mars20231 Your inability to recognize that it is very reasonable to be upset at the dramatic decrease in media and graphical literacy no matter which "side" you're on is the reason these deceptive things keep going viral...
Have you ever considered that those things you consider to be misinformation are in fact correct? Reducing the opinions of the other side to being the result of misinformation is not helpful.
@@euphoricpoptarts Sorry, if you don't realize the MAGATs are so blatantly, obviously, and hilariously full of shit, nothing can help you shoirt of deprogramming.
I think in the case of that specific chart, it was needlessly misleading because it exaggerated the relative anomaly that was the 2020 election in terms of turnout
@@alquinn8576 That's only because you want it to be exaggerated. The difference between vote counts was the difference between winning and losing the popular vote and probably the election. The only fair point is that California is still trying to count their votes so that the delta will drop. However, it is pathetic when other states were able to finish on the same day.
At this point, you need to stop emotionally reacting to ignorance. It's been like this for a long time. You know this is the world you live in. Stressing about misinformation will only waste energy and drain your emotion health.
As someone who makes a lot of electoral maps as a hobby (mostly for Wikipedia pages on elections in Texas), I constantly struggle with how to balance the simplicity of the map with trying to explain its context. I can look at a map of Wisconsin and instinctively know that the blue dots of Milwaukee and Madison represent a lot more people than the blue dots of La Crosse and Eau Claire, but someone who doesn’t do this all the time won’t, so I have to explain it to them. I prefer making precincts maps, since most precincts are supposed to be within roughly an order of magnitude of population from any other given precinct in a state, but that comes with its own set of problems (namely that there are thousands of them and that you have to zoom in and out a bunch when looking at different cities). There is no perfect solution, but it’s always important to try to understand the context of maps you’re looking at, and if you’re the one making the map, make sure that context is easily attainable or directly explained.
When I learned about graphs in 8th grade math class, we did a whole section on ways that graphs can be misleading or confusing. They even gave us data and asked us to graph it in a misleading way, explain the problem, then draw a corrected version. I don't know if that was a regional curriculum difference or just something my own math teacher thought was important to include, but I'm very glad I learned it, because it's clear that a lot of people on the internet did not.
Hank I find your presence very comforting, no matter the subject. I don't think you need to make super relevant stuff right now if it's going to effect your mental health. I think we're all here because we care about you, the world, and learning. So like. Anything to do with any of those three is cool, and I think you'll find an easy time finding something to learn about at the very least
Thank you, Hank! There's a lot of panic and finger-pointing going on right now and I am also not in the mood for dissecting all the "reasons" this happened. We just need to be vigilant and keep doing what's right.
I did not realize this video was going to "pop off" so a little addendum here:
1. I don't want people to watch this and think "Oh, so Trump didn't do as well as everyone is saying?" No, Trump got way more votes than in 2020, and Kamala Harris got way fewer than Joe Biden. The swing was decisive and national and not something to be ignored.
2. I don't think these maps are trying to mislead anyone intentionally, but as a person who communicates for a living, I am very aware of times when someone might walk away with the wrong idea in their heads.
3. Alaska does have county-like things, but they don't report the vote by them so it just gets one arrow.
Thank you for this clarification/expounding of the situation.
I didn’t understand anything you said.
Aren't Trumps votes this year still less than 2020? Is he projected to gain more?
Its somehow a Democrat plot to gives so many Electoral Votes to California and New York. The Electoral map will always mostly be red, and the densely populated areas will be Blue, at that point you think the whole system is rigged, and Republicans feed that beast. Its reactionary thinking, for a reactionary party.
Yeah, Alaska is super weird. They report their votes by state House of Representatives districts. People often have to use precinct results to manually reconstruct the results by borough/census area, which are the county equivalents in Alaska.
Thank you! I've been shouting this from the rooftops.
Yeah it's been driving me nuts watching people say that there's like 15 million democrat votes missing when you can just... look at the results and see that there's something like 15 million votes left to count. Like California is still left with 7-8 million uncounted votes. And that's California alone.
oh legaleagle is a nerdfighter. I guess I'm not surprised! But it's good to know.
I think the confusion came from reporting that there were "record numbers" of votes cast. Which would indicate that there should be more votes than were cast last cycle. So if Biden had 81M and Trump had 71M that means there should be OVER 152M votes. Plus whatever made up those record numbers.
So far, there are only about 130M votes accounted for. And even if you add on 8M for California, the math is still not adding up for people.
Hello eagle 🦅
@@mandirants There were record numbers of *early votes* cast, and there were predictions that that would mean "record numbers of _total votes_," but that didn't pan out. A bunch of people just sat this election out.
When my husband was getting his Geography degree, he read a book called How To Lie With Maps, and that idea has always stuck with me.
I still own this book before I found it so important to keep in mind!
I teach How To Lie With Statistics in my social science classes
@@JoannaLovesHistoryBooksYeah, I was just going to say that we were taught from how to lie with stats in my MPP program.
@@JoannaLovesHistoryBooks We do "how to lie with graphs" in my grade 9 (and other) math class. Let's just say Fox News has a good chunk of the examples in many different ways to lie. But, I've chastised MSNBC and other channels for doing exactly the same y-axis manipulation that Hank pointed out here.
Geography degree? My condolences.
Thank you, I did not realize that half of votes in California were not yet counted.
AP is currently showing 58% reporting
This is true. In my district there is a .2% (
That percent usually is about counties, not the number of votes. Some counties, especially in California have upward of 10 times the number of voters as others.
Even then only another about 5 million is left which still doesn't add up to the number that voted in 2020
the fact the count is still ongoing yet was called so quickly will never sit right with me
@@illiterobecause it is mathematically impossible for it to be otherwise.
John and Hank, thanks for being here through these tough times and continuing to make videos. Seeing a new vlogbrothers video get posted is incredibly comforting.
Trump 2024
@@laxattack032Why do you wanna vote for a felon who thinks his daughter is hot?
@@laxattack032 kamala 2024
@@cwutebunni cept she lost fam
How is it a tough time?
4:25 Alaska doesn’t have counties because we have boroughs! So it’s not like all 750,00 people are in one big county; there are still divisions
I'm actually a bit confused as to why the nyt had Alaska as a single unit in that graphic. Louisiana has a similar situation (parishes instead of counties) but it's still broken down into the individual smaller units.
I checked the numbers on saturday. Of the 110 ballots casted, 89 had been counted, 50 were trump and 39 harris.
JK love u alaskans
@@waywaywaywaywaytoolongtore7496 This comment made me laugh, thank you!
Hey, New York City has boroughs too. Those also aren't counties. Alaska also specifically segregates the idea of a county vs a borough in their constitution. So it does roughly mean that "750,00 people are in one big county" but that county has divisions.
Totally not having to do with this video but here it is anyways.
I feel like a lot of people have forgotten how to human. I saw a woman in a comment section say how scared she is of losing healthcare due to chronic illness. And a person responded some version of "ha ha, lib tears, move or die." And it just kinda shocked me.
I know this is the internet but when did it get where people are comfortable laughing at truly scared folks? I feel like I'm in a daycare watching a handful of 4 year olds running around biting people and laughing. And at least one teacher is egging them on, laughing along, and giving them gold stars for doing it.
I'm not talking about ethics or morals. Literally just being human. Holding doors for people, not tripping old ladies crossing the street, feeling sad when you see a sad person. These are just _human_ things and I don't know when being human became something to question in a significant part of the population.
I don't know. Just thoughts.
Because people suffering no consequences of being evil assholes on the internet has made them comfortable. Internet anonymity is both a blessing and a curse.
You do know half the internet isnt real people right? You almost know that trolls don't have lives or do what Trump or Elon does and tweet like 30 times a day.
I think because certain people choose who they are empathetic or sympathetic towards, and revoke that empathy and sympathy arbitrarily, based on who they feel would be sympathetic towards them.
It's my personal belief that humanity's greatest accomplishment is the ability to feel for *everything*, like feeling sad about dented cans at a grocery store, or saying sorry to a table you ran into. It is our greatest sin that humans can also revoke that feeling for anything, including other people.
I try to remember that everyone, *everyone* is human, and deserves a baseline level of respect for that. I don't know how to remind other people of that though, this is a personal understanding I came to privately and I don't know how to convince others of that, or even if it would be ethical to do so. That's just my two cents
That's what's shocking to me too. It's disturbing.
Thank you for your thoughts, Friend. INCREDIBLY discouraging to see such callous attitudes spread and fester online. But you sharing this makes a difference.🙏
Hank, I don’t know what to do or think this week, but thank you for being here with us ❤
p.s. I was assaulted in the train station this week, but rewatching you and John make tea on the livestream from last week has been keeping me together
Sorry reality is your leftist dream and never was
@@juliaxchung hope you stay safe ❤
@ oh didn’t know that
You are not a cartoon hero. You cannot change the world on your own. Instead, be where you are needed. There are people who need your help.
Wherever you look, you will find somebody that could use your help. If your thinking about giving up, I understand, but I also would feel bad for the people who could have used your help.
Something I heard someone say, that I think should be spread.
I work with Maps and one of the top books for GIS nerds and Cartographers is called "How to Lie with Maps". It's a good read and explains the bad use an manipulation of the data. Great video Hank!
First thing I do for every map: CHECK THE AXIS SCALES. It makes me unbelievably cranky.
"Check the axis (/) scales" is good advice for most figures.
Check both axes to prevent the Axis from reforming.
Absolutely, he did confused the x and y axis on the bar chart when saying the "non zero x axis" which should've been the y axis
And make sure a line has more than one point! That didn't have enough points to make a line.
@@DonNadie05I actually think nonzero x-axis is correct. The x-axis is zero if it goes through y=0, but in this case it didn’t, so it was a nonzero x-axis.
"America is weird" is the most charitable criticism of the country I've heard this week.
@@spagooter1807 Okay.
@@CanaanPoE nah it has everything to do with politics and people. I know for a fact what the leftists got up to with their new freedoms and abilities was toxic to America as a state having lived through woke college in Biden. I mean shit I was voting on policy up until the last day of the election I thought and researched about it so much and voted Trump.
@@CanaanPoE and besides trumps actual policy is his selling point btw he wants to change the horrible economy the dems are forging and I do think the dems created this bad economy. Only idiots support the idea of fully open borders without vetting and verification if you are one of those you deserve your L on a silver platter.
@@spagooter1807 You... Don't like how progressives "band together socially"? What does that even mean? Progressivism is a social movement, just like conservatism. Your implication seems to be that the latter somehow "deserves" to exist, while the former doesn't. I wonder why that is.
Not incidentally, I've observed plenty of Trump rallies, and if that's not the definition of "banding together", I don't know what is.
@@dem8568 not even mentioning that, the left talks a whole lot of shit for people that act like they would promote equality once they have a majority and just what I’ve seen last election yeah you guys don’t believe in equality.
0:48 “graph crime” becoming a real thing nowadays is so upsetting for me
He's just coping because he hates that his bad views go against the will of the republic.
To quote from a great book, "when you don't know what to do, do what's right, and do what's in front of you - but not necessarily what's right in front of you." I'm putting my phone away except for music today. Time to go for a hike.
@@VidelxSpopovich Be specific.
did the same thing, cleaned house
@@VidelxSpopovich What's right is what my grandfather did in 1942. Would you like me to elaborate?
Going for a hike myself sometime this weekend. Need to just get away from people in general for a few hours lol
I don’t get this. What would be the difference between “in front of you” and “right in front of you”?
Thank you for expressing your, "I don't know how to feel or what to do" moment at the end. I think so many of us can relate.
@@jttinsleyjoeyWhat do you people mean when you say "Open your eyes". Please, enlighten us with specifics. If you can.
I mean, four years ago, I just kept going to work when Orange Man lost.
Maybe just keep going to work?
@ I know he did? Is that what we're supposed our eyes to? He won fair and square, we got crushed. Let's hope your conservative utopia lives up the fucking hype.
@jttinsleyjoey Why does Trump have so many pictures hanging out with Epstein, why did Trump call his own daughter hot? Why was Trump walking into 12 year old dressing rooms?
The guy said he wouldn't accept any results that didn't say he won. Almost like he knew it was rigged in his favor. I'm not so sure it was a free and fair election @@jttinsleyjoey
As a geography teacher, I absolutely love this! My students often think coming into class that maps are just factual but there are so many limitations to what maps can tell you and if you aren’t looking carefully you can draw the wrong conclusions. That’s how maps are used to manipulate people.
Thank you for your service and I'm not kidding.
I took the tea quiz. pelicans are the kind of cat I am, how did you know
thank u hank. as a scared 19 yr old who watched crash course throughout high school. thank u for getting it, and breaking it down. hope you get some R&R. this whole country needs it right now.
@@phoebemelchor there is no reason to fear. Take time to process the election and see what actually changes. I’m betting not much
Dont watch fearmongering media. He was president before and it didnt lead to a fourth reich with people getting rounded up and shot in the head.
@@Grunttamercan you provide some insights? I work in a field that interfaces with government policies quite frequently and have heard the opposite.
A right wing controlled house (tentative), senate, and white house seems pretty impactful but maybe I'm missing something.
@@Cobalt_11 first, the news has been painting conservatives as actual monsters and it’s just not true. We just want less over reach, affordable groceries and safe streets.
Second, the policies laid out in agenda 47 are not things that are all that controversial. We want legal immigration, we want to deport criminal aliens, we want less taxes, we want to use our natural resources to become energy independent.
there's reason to fear, but there's some good in this world that is worth fighting for (best lotr quote ever)
Thank you for doing this video Hank. You have a very calming voice and your words are comforting. We love you.
On point with your Tucker Carlson impression 1:15
Yoooo you're here!
Something that people don't realize is that in 2020 a lot more people got an absentee ballot in the mail (you know due to a certain pandemic). This made it a lot more convenient for more people to vote. This helped cause a few things one of which was that people who felt like their vote didn't matter were much less likely to actually vote. ("Why wait in line to vote if it doesn't change anything?" as opposed to "my vote probably doesn't matter but I have the ballot already so might as well fill it out.") This makes red counties look redder and blue counties look bluer (on the arrow map). The pandemic totally changed the way the 2020 election looked and the way it took place which makes comparison very difficult, and usually misleading.
This is an interesting point and I know that voting accessibility was compromised in quite a few areas. However, I don't think we currently have an idea of real numbers that would suggest the significance of those changes, e.g. how many people had mail-in ballot access in 2020 but didn't in 2024. But certainly a whole let less people voted this cycle
Absentee ballots, or mail-in votes, is the #1 source of election fraud according to a study from around 2012 I believe. Do with that information what you will.
Most neutral take (not a bad thing) I have seen on universal mail in ballots for 2020.
Intresting to think if it won Biden the election due to universal mail in balloting, based on this years election in conjunction with the fact Trump repeatedly told his supporters not to vote by mail and go in on election day for 2020.
Would people actually have gone out to vote for Biden? Would more people have voted for Trump if he didnt discourage mail in ballots
Maybe we need to start considering this. Sending ballots to people who asked to be registered, they fill it in and just put it in the mail. Will make people feel less exhausted about voting.
Fixing how hard it is to vote in America needs to Dems priority! In my country we're automatically registered since birth, voting is always at the same place. If you need to change it, it takes 5 minutes online and you can do it 3 days before an election. And it takes 5 minutes to vote!!! Oh, and vote is always on a Sunday, when most people are off from work.
No wonder your turnout is so low. I wouldn't want to wait in line either. Or spend all the mental energy to figure out what, where, why. Overwhelming, especially for new voters.
Thank you, this helped me feel a little better
PhilosophyTube!
@@brian8507America is a global superpower. What happens here affects the world. Or did you forget about that, mister "we probably have a military base in your country"?
Your comment history is public, by the way. We can see the daft things you say.
@@brian8507 So that's a yes on the short term memory loss thing. Neat.
@@angusmuir6180 ur the one who is obsessed with me and my opinions. I'm just enjoying the cope 🍿
You're a shill
I hate gerrymandering. Theyre literally misrepresneting how many people live in certain places. Like people think places that are bigger have more power but no its the amount of people.
This isn't exactly gerrymandering. But the fact that there is a huge rural/urban split in how people vote means all maps have to be looked at with a lot of skepticism. He showed a cartogram, which distorts based on population. Those are good for getting a sense of how the votes actually pan out, but aren't very good for actually figuring out how a given area voted.
@@biddinge8898 that why Northern California hates sf and la
This map (and presidential elections in 48/50 states) has nothing to do with gerrymandering.
They count vote totals by state, not by district.
@@nathanspear8035 The electoral college mechanics are arguably a subtype of gerrymandering, just by drawing up the value of each "district" to give more voting power to certain demographics, instead of drawing up borders which do so.
It's a vaguer use of a term which is more traditionally precise, but the outcome is the same.
@@falleithani5411 The only states where it's possible to gerrymander the Electoral College are Maine and Nebraska. Every other state assigns winner-take-all so there's no districts to fiddle with. Unless you're saying along the lines that it's gerrymandering to say, count Virginia and West Virginia as being split since it ends up with 13 votes blue and 4 votes red, but if you had combined the two, it'd be 17 votes red. Since the presence of West Virginia effectively cordons off a massive chunk of red voters that would have been have made Virginia's total election much more competitive. But for that point of view, you'll have to take it up with the states existing at all. Most didn't get much control over their original border, and even those who did, locked in what that border looks like over a hundred years ago.
Thank you for this, Hank. This community continues to be a good place to be even during times of complete and total bewilderment and frustration.
One of the proudest moments I had recently was when my son was watching a RUclips video with us where information was being presented as fact, and he blurted out, "She's not saying any evidence!" He was picking up on a perceived lack of cited sources, and we were able to have a discussion about how that particular channel does do a lot of research and posts the sources in the video descriptions, but that he was correct in being skeptical even though the things in the video sounded good.
Hank and John, your videos all across RUclips have been an invaluable tool for helping my wife and I teach our kids how to be curious, skeptical, and empathetic. For us at the very least, the world is a better place because of everything you do. Thank you so much.
I've been feeling like I'm going crazy the past few days watching all this detailed analysis happen when we don't even have all the data yet. And not just with social media randos, this is coming from respected journalists too, who should know better.
knowing better isnt where the money is
Maybe you need to know better … too?
As a fellow Montanan, I feel you Hank. At least when we look out across the land, we see blue mountains and rivers.
💙
My vote in California is equally as worthless. Only a few states matter.
@@JoshuaTootell Your vote still matters a lot for House and Senate, a lot of House Seats in California went red this election
@@JoshuaTootell hey, you helped push the popular vote and the house and senate seats.
Side note, Montana is a beautiful state!
1:15 his Tucker Carlson is spot on 👌
literally perfect 😂
Exactly
As someone who voted blue in a red area, I’m also incredibly annoyed when my (and many others!) existence is ignored in a lot of the maps being shown.
Because you are in a high density population area. Two or three big cities (bubbles if you will) in the country should not dictate what the ENTIRE nation is subject to. Hence the electoral college to try and prevent that.
This is a mindset, though. With the first graph, you're being mislead. But with the other graphs and maps, you need to remember it's not about you, nor is it about me. It tells the truth. No graph or map can tell the whole truth, so we show different perspectives to simplify and digest reality. Unless someone is saying that the land area coloring corresponds to popular vote, then it's just a map, and it may not be what you're looking for. But that's not the map's fault or its creator's.
Thanks for this, Hank. Those maps always irritate me for a lot of the reasons you said. My parents are also liberal but living in largely conservative, less populated areas, and I know seeing their areas painted entirely red bothers them, too. Thanks for taking the time to make a video, though we'd have understood if you didn't. Keep taking care of yourself ❤
The scale may be off but the numbers aren't.
"It bothers them most people in their area disagree with them"
@@orphanedhanyouThat's how I read that too. I'd be willing to bet their level of sympathy drops considerably when the shoe's on the other foot.
I am so tired of attention based media still kicking us while we’re down. First the polling data, and then the voting results. When will it stop 😭
But I’m also actually proud of Utah, for once
It won't, as long as you continue to willfully consume it.
@@Bluebloods7 Consume what?
When we start paying for news media that doesn't use ads to sustain it
No, it's good. We can't bubble, unless you want fascism forever.
THANK YOU FOR TELLING ME TO CHECK MY EMAILS GENUINELY THANK YOU SO MUCH
As a geospatial analyst, thank you for doing this breakdown! Graphical literacy is super important
I would settle for regular literacy.
As somebody into demography and analytics... I just gotta say that your job sounds so cool.
I feel like the question of "how did this happen?" isn't as important as "what do we do now?", and even that question is one that has to wait on folks currently in power to decide what safe guards theycan put up. The hardest part is always the waiting.
I think those questions have a lot of bearing on each other, though. If this only happened because of inflation, then we probably don't need to change much, if it happened because the internet created a huge shift toward a world that is distrustful of institutions, we need to change tack dramatically.
History has lessons to teach. Things don't get brighter from here.
@@vlogbrothersI would love to have a video on how we can rebuild trust in those institutions (not saying they were untrustworthy in the first place) and how we can better create equitable information that isn't so heavily skewed
@@jttinsleyjoey I think he's talking about History, not history.
@jttinsleyjoey you talking about during the pandemic when the economy almost crashed and gas was only cheap because of that fact?
The memory of people is short and history was left behind where it does no good. Maybe look into how mass deportation went for Germany in the late 30s.
I can see the deep sadness in you that I also feel. I haven't had it in me to be angry yet...just an intense sadness...and I'm trying desperately to not fall down the hopelessness hole. This time is just different... I hope you and yours are doing ok. Thank goodness for spaces like this♥️
It looks like Trump is still on track to win the popular vote with the new ballots reported out of California. IF Trump actually does win the popular vote, then the Democratic party has at some level objectively failed to convince people that their methods are the best. I hope that the Democratic party takes this as a moment to self-reflect and emerge as a stronger party that better represents the interests of the nation. The DNC has hardly improved since Bernie had the nomination stolen from him. There's just no good candidates at the moment. Buttigieg and Newsome would lose because of how unpopular they are outside the core party. If the DNC can't get their act together, we might very well see a JD Vance 2028. I'm praying for a Tulsi 2028 to shatter the glass ceiling if the DNC keeps failing Democrats with their Super Delegates.
I’m also sad that we won’t be able to brainwash children into thinking they’re mentally ill.
Maybe if we keep calling people fascists they’ll let us get back to having fun.
Orange man bad.
The part where he says "land does not vote", but that's kind of what the electoral college does, give more voting power to people in lower population density areas
Yeah and that’s a problem, on a national election it should be EQUAL. But mainly he pointed that out to show how misleading the graphs are
@@Ben-wp5rx no it shouldn't regional representation is important. just because 4 states have a majority of the population doesn't mean that the issues of the rest of the states don't matter and that their interest shouldn't be taken into account. failing to do that and bowing to the Austrian majority all the time is the main reason the Austro-Hungarian empire collapsed. our system was EXPLICITLY designed to prevent New York and Pennsylvania from dominating the nation every election by virtue of their massive population(in the modern day you would include California and Texas on that list.) for a local election Majority should matter. but at the national level. REGIONS should matter. not individual people. that's what makes local and federal government different things. federal government represents the Union of States. State government represents the people.
Yeah tell that to minnesota
@@scorpioneldar They should dominate the country if they're the majority.
@@scorpioneldar so a blue voter in a red state doesnt matter. or a red voter in a blue state.
Hank, thank you for lending your critical eye to this. We all need to use logic and love moving forward, rather than jumping to conclusions and division. We're in this together!
We are NOT in this together, you dolt. Conservatives WILL NEVER be on our side, their movement IS ONLY ABOUT DIVISION.
@@scratch7971 1. Calling me a dolt is unnecessary.
2. If we do not see other people as humans we will fall apart. Yes, the overall right wing movement is about division and working against us. But that movement is made of a lot of people. Some of whom agree with everything the movement stands for but many of whom who do not. Do we need to be friends with them? Of course not. Do we need to find those that are reachable and have conversations? Yes. Do we need to counter misinformation (like the graphs Hank showed) and point out flaws in the logic, rather than dismiss them as stupid? Yes.
@@scratch7971 the movement is about affordable groceries, government overreach, and safe streets. Take some time to feel your feelings about the election, they are valid. But try to calm down and just see how things go. The news has been so hyperbolic about Trump for years that otherwise reasonable people are having a legit fight or flight reaction for no reason.
@@Grunttamerhaha, hahahahaha.
Funny.
@scratch7971 You instantly yelled at someone on your side without hesitation. That's how divide and conquer works.
I prefer to view it as that Alaska, the biggest state by total land area, also has the single largest county in the US, Alaska County which takes to the whole state.
That special edition was the thing I needed to finally feel the sadness. To grieve as you put it. Now I’m doing things. If my existence is protest I’ll keep being loud about it. I painted my nails. Writing poetry. Connecting with friends. Thank you
6:09 Hank, bro. I just got no energy. I’m bout to tap out 😞
I understand but please don't tap out 🙏❤️
Totally get that man. Do whatever you need to keep carrying out. We can get through this together ❤
Don't tap out, please, that's what the powers-that-be wants. They want us to be afraid, fearful, and gloomy. We can't give them that.
But if you need to grieve and cry and process things, give the time you need, then please promise us that you'll help out.
1:38 A non-zero *Y*-axis. Also, I just recently learned that this can be called a “truncated Y-axis.” I now have two things I can call them! 😄
I’m pretty sure it would be non zero X axis, since the Y axis still is located at zero and the X axis isn’t.
I've been thinking for a long time that we need kids to get a "Defense Against The Dark Arts" class where we specifically train this sort of critical thinking. There are dark wizards out there working hard to deceive you - for political reasons (propaganda), but also for commercial ones (advertising and marketing). Not to mention just good old fashioned scamming and phishing and hustling.
They use bad graphs, bad data, yes - but also fallacious arguments, psychological tricks, and lots and lots of money.
We need to teach these examples in schools; how to spot them, how to analyze them critically, how to talk about them productively to others who are being misled.
You do such a good job of this. Your recent video on Elon Musk's factually incorrect tweets was another gem. I feel like this could be a whole series, or even a whole channel.
Keep up the good work!!!
But I thought you guys hate J.K. Rowling now? lol
Critical thinking and media literacy are sorely needed in this country, and that's exactly what the republican party wants to make sure people don't get.
@@devinglass9967God forbid people have nuance these days I guess
@@devinglass9967A lot of "us" read her books before she came out as a transphobic ghoul. It was a quite popular book series! Culturally important, even, for a lot of us who tend to be rather nerdy.
@@Kerry-uo6og[people]
One of the other ways graphs lie to you is that it assumes that the body of voters is the same each election, but the breakdown of those voters changed. In many cases, there were people who were non-voters that decided to vote for Trump, or Biden voters who decided not to vote for Harris. I don't know the number of "Biden voters turned Trump voters" but I'm wary of graphs that make it seem like that's what happened.
NBC had it as about 5% of folks who voted Biden voted Trump, 79% of new voters voted Trump. They didn't have the opposite statistic up there, which I found strange (what % of 2020 Trump voters voted Kamala)
@@titusbaum9690, my guess is that admitting that to an exit poller is either a socially or physically dangerous thing.
"People live in cities" is a phrase I think about a lot when faced with any type of map data. A LOT of that red is in places that people just *don't live* or has a low, rural population.
What I learned is that these maps are useful for actual analysis by the right people but all of them are bad for hot takes and are abused as a political misinformation tool
this
Greetings from Juneau. Alaska is organized into boroughs, which essentially function like counties. Some boroughs, like The City and Borough of Juneau, are unified with a city and also function the same as a city. Others like the Mat-Su Borough may incorporate many smaller cities and function as an umbrella entity above them. But boroughs are created by the people who live in the given area, and it's possible to simply not choose to have (or not have the political infrastructure to create) a borough. Much of rural Alaska is within "the unorganized borough," which is really just no borough at all. But with so much of Alaska so sparsely populated and difficult to access, a defined county system doesn't really work up here.
Greetings from POW. Excellent explanation of Alaska boroughs.
My statistics professor always says "Don't trust a graph that you haven't forged yourself."
"Graph Crime"!
I really want a graph investigation decision sketch, and possibly a graph vigilante character. Someone to fix visual data for all.
Straight to graph jail!
This feels like a PBS show skit ala Cyberchase or something.
Thanks for posting, even though you were already struggling leading up to the election. I see you, Hank. And I appreciate what you do.
Bless you, Hank, and thank you for your words!
One piece of advice, as an argentinian having had similarly awful elections for the past 3 iterations: the election was lost months ago, when the candidates got locked in and they were two awful old men with terrible reputations. Kamala was a weird twist but the bottom line is that something is failing WAY before the elections if you're having to make these kind of decisions.
Kamala never won a primary and would have lost to someone like Bernie. She has never had a huge following.
@@ekki1993 this is very true. The democrat party has a terrible primary system. What they did to Bernie in 2016 has lead to all of this insanity.
I feel like it was lost in 2021 when Joe Manchin blocked the BBB plan. All that Biden was going to do to help ordinary people fizzled, and he never regained his prestige. Nobody really liked him again.
Good luck with the chainsaw guy.
One more term of Trump won’t be a disaster. The concern is basically that it won’t be one term.
@@Justanotherconsumer exactly
Hank, leading up to the election it was framed as a coinflip - 50/50, anyone’s game. Now that it's over, there's a flood of analysis from one side, digging into all the reasons for the loss. It makes me wonder: Was there a hidden factor missing in the simulations, and it wasn’t really a coinflip after all? Or if it truly was a coinflip, what’s all this post-analysis actually giving us that we didn’t have before? It’s like I’m picturing a literal coin flip, it lands, and suddenly experts are brought in to explain why it landed heads instead of tails. 🤔
Most analysis is back looking and seeks justification for things that happened.
I wouldn't put much weight into these people unless their forward looking analysis is also usually right.
This is the problem I have with polling. All of the polling data and surveys indicated that people would vote for Harris about as much as they would vote for Trump; so it’s a coin flip, and the campaigns felt comfortable going into the race with that information. What campaign strategy often misses though, is putting together the head to head polls with “country vibes” polling questions like “do you approve of the current administration” or “do you think the country is on the right track”. Biden stayed in the race because he was winning head to head polls, but an incumbent admin will LOSE if the vibes questions are overwhelmingly negative, and they were. The Biden admin, as Hank said, is historically unpopular to a ridiculous degree, which should have indicated a much lower voter turnout than Dems claimed they expected, and a much higher turnout for Trump, which is what we saw on election night.
We need to stop staring at the “people will vote for Harris 50% more of the time to Trump 49%”. Or whatever the head to head polls are saying, and we need to stop campaigning off of margins like that. Control the vibes questions. Those should be the only priority, and it’s why we’ve needed a stronger labor movement candidate.
i think being able to properly capture the entirety of the dynamics impacting one of the world's largest regular elections is a mathematician's wildest dream. i'd compare the reaction less to scientific analysis, but to how humans process unwanted outcomes (similar to the stages of grief)
it's part of our nature to reflect upon circumstances outside of our control (because let's be honest, on an individual level that is true) and to try to rationalize our way into a comforting understanding of the why and how. we like to think that things are predictable, we are comforted by the concept of control. our analysis is biased by this undying desire to be able to do something different next time. we are still in the emotional aftermath of this event, real rational analysis is a long ways away.
It wasn't a coin flip. Polling averages showed Trump leading in all/almost all swing states, and slightly ahead in the popular vote. Betting markets clearly favored Trump. Wishful thinking clouded people's judgement, but the result was not surprising given the data we had.
That is exactly what's happening. None of the analysis is good faith attempts to understand, either. The choice of what to blame is entirely strategic (also these people have no clue why anything happened, they just get paid a lot to pretend they do)
The enemy within: Blackrock & the World enslavement forem
Correcting bad takes on Hankschannel seems like something a lot of us would like to see. Thank you, Hank!
I needed to clear my head on the morning of the 6th and I went hiking. Someone broke into my car while I was doing so and robbed me. Came home and my PC died, then the handle broke off of my toilet. This has been a very bad few days, I'm weary.
That is so awful man. I hope you’re doing a bit better today. Sending love from Missouri
I hope you get a moment to watch the sun set tonight. Many deep breaths friend 💛
Rest well friend. One bite at a time
And that is why you dont walk under ladders! (Tho seriously that sucks, hope things turn around)
Maybe write a country/western song about it??!
On a totally positive random note, Hank, you convinced me to drop some big bucks at the Good Store and do my holiday shopping all in one go. Hopefully it helps! Thank you for the rec. I do actually really like the stuff there. I'm excited to try the tea. (I'm more of a tea drinker, so I'll let you know what my family says about the coffee.)
Besides spite, you're one of my biggest inspirations to keep on trudging
I’m really glad Hank (and by extension John, even though he avoided election talk) are being really level-headed and such when it comes to the election and such, at least so far. Cuz it’s really difficult seeing SO many people resort to doom and gloom, some even already deciding to flee the country. I’m just happy they aren’t mongering anything and just being factual and stuffs. It’s good to see, at least to me.
They aren't going to flee. They said that last time and look what happened.
@@EmogetaMost people don’t have the means to leave a place they’d rather not live in. People staying when times are bad for them is an indicator of unfreedom.
@@CharlieQuartz Sounds like the technological new age and start of the transhuman era.
@@Emogetatake your meds
@@Emogeta
1. … what?
2. Suggesting that the average person escape into cyberspace to avoid their real problems ignores every possible reality of that situation. It’s unbelievable that some people actually hope for Ready Player One or worse to come true.
Y axis! I was going to let it slide, but then he said it again!
Thank you for the we're here special edition, hank. I read it on Wednesday when I was feeling very fragile and tense and it made me cry, but it also made me look forward and get me out of bed for the day.
Thanks Hank. Appreciating this channel this week.
God Bless people who seek truth relentlessly.
Thank you, Hank. I’m a queer person living in Missouri, a very red state. The LGBT+ people I’m around are extremely sad but also more motivated than ever to fight for change. We’re getting organized and preparing for the next four years. To my fellow LGBT+/queer friends- talk to those around you, get organized, and prepare. Look into online activist spaces and try to bring those topics up in real life conversations. But more than anything else, enjoy the holidays and enjoy your life now. We don’t know what will happen, but for now we are okay. Hope is not lost, and you are not alone. Taking care of yourselves is a fantastic act of protest.
Also, Hank- I’m graduating at the beginning of December with a degree in comp sci and minors in math and philosophy. I used to hate all of those subjects actually because I found them too challenging. Your videos inspired me when I was younger. I wanted to challenge myself to learn more and develop strong, informed beliefs. You helped give me the framework I needed to make informed decisions. I’m certainly not alone in that. Right now things feel bleak, but you have made a huge difference in so many people’s lives and can continue to do so. Thank you again, and I wish you the best in whatever is to come in the next 4 years.
Thank you. You are one of very few people I’ve seen in the past few days who hasn’t fallen to despair.
You are fired 😅
I lived a long time in a 2016 Trump + 60% county and a friend of mine had a young adult trans daughter. I can guarantee that if anyone tried to hurt this trans individual that there would be a dozen people who would immediately kick the shit out of them for that. A few years ago there was a controversy around the song "Try That In A Small Town" because to some it conveyed a negative message around what sort of people are not welcome in a small town, but when I heard the lyrics, I thought the "try that" could refer to someone hurting this trans person. This was in the upper great plains, though, which I know is different from Missouri (where I also lived for several years), but the point is that to a fair extent many Republicans do not care how adults live their own lives--including sexual orientation--as long as they aren't hurting others. I know that Matthew Shepard was famously and brutally killed in Laramie over his sexual orientation, but culture has really shifted in a positive way towards greater acceptance since then, even among conservatives (minus some stuff dealing with children, but that's a whole other issue). Anyway, hopefully that makes things seem less bleak in terms of what the next few years might look like.
^^^^These people want us scared and to go away. The best thing we can do is fight to live the best life we can and be happy.
We're STILL here because we're here! Nerdfighters- keep fighting 💪 this is not the end.
I see this title and immediately think of the book How to Lie with Maps by Mark Monmonier. As a GIS student, I'm so excited for this video
The maps are completely fine. If you're looking at them with the intention of taking away what the map is actually showing. It's the people who post the map with inaccurate/misleading captions, or in a way that tries to make the map imply something that it's not actually designed to make commentary on.
The map with the arrows is a very useful map if you're wanting to look at trends of what areas of the country/state are shifting in whatever direction. It's NOT a useful map to show that 'look at all this red, nobody likes Kamala!'
Yeah, I have no idea how you can possibly look at arrow maps and have an issue beyond it not differentiating between swing for R because Ds didn't vote and swing to R because they gained a million votes in the county, and that would be a hard to read, messy map if you included it. Also not really particularly relevant unless you're a campaign manager because people not showing up to vote is usually is usually only a few steps removed from them swapping their vote entirely. I can also definitely see the gripe that arrows are a bad symbol for the map because it's hard to read their magnitude, but that's a very different gripe from the one in the video. The gripe in the video honestly feels like he's forgotten that people not in cities also vote and that it's the suburbs and small cities that represent most of America. If you look at Pew's urban vs suburban vs rural county map, you'll see that only really the western midwest is "misleading" with that kind of map. There's not very many large stretches of not many people outside of that area.
And because we're commenting on maps anyway, I absolutely loathe the "make the states as big as their electoral count maps". You're making it hard to find where states are because they're no longer where they actually are in reality, and the supposed benefit is dubious at best. People don't mentally integrate area. The information you're trying to convey is easily conveyed with a number like we did for decades until it became a trend in what, 2012ish?
@AOC recommendations also were: "Make sure to be part of a community, because communities is what we will need to defend ourselves."
I also think the most important thing we can do is get together, be sure to have each other within reach, and brace ourselves for next year.
Community is dead.
I came home yesterday to a note on my van saying it was reported for being parked in the same spot for over 4 days, when there was an empty spot next to me.
Today is street sweeper day, so I had to drive my 7.3 liter diesel van to work instead of ride my bicycle because I couldn't park in an empty parking lot for one more day.
Yeah, try to get to know people in your area who can actually do things for each other. Sympathetic people especially, but maybe cautiously sidle up to a few who, as long as they're not dangerous to you, aren't so sympathetic as well. If you can safely do it, be the counterexample someone thinks of when authority tells them a group you're a part of aren't real Americans or good people.
Yes!
Keep spitting Facts & Science - thank you
I saw this graph on twitter, and also immediately realized all of those issues in it, not because I am that smart, but because tons of people pointed them out in the comments! This is the steelman for why open discourse helps elevate truth.
2020 was still the first time in history we broke 130 million votes. The counting isn't finished, but it will STILL be a tad sus if the total vote count goes down by almost TEN PERCENT in a MORE HYPED ELECTION just because everyone has bodycams and is on the alert for election fraud...
Oh, Hank.. Thank you for creating this comfortingly informed and conscientious community and for reassuringly being here, even in times when I'm sure you must feel as deflated, frustrated, and tired as many of us.. but also with the millions of RUclips and other social media subscribers and companies that most of us don't have to think about. Please take care of yourself (first)! You and your brother are so appreciated and cared for by us. ❤️
2026-2028 is an opportunity to run up the score on number of times a president has been impeached.
Need you guys more than ever
Thanks for explaining Hank! It is so easy to be fooled by a map. I never actually stopped to check what exactly the arrows in that map really meant.
Putting a non-zero number on the x-axis without CLEARLY making it known is a sin beyond murder
This is the kind of stuff they should be showing on public TV, vital information about how to read statistics
Reminder: if you want to find the truth, turn towards Twitter… and head in the exact opposite direction
Well the opposite direction would be... um, I don't know, radio? Some kind of magazines? They are all compromised. People spend a lot of money to ensure their lies are everywhere.
The key is - even on Twitter - what parts you get information from. If you didn't choose to follow the person/company, then why would you listen to them.
Yeah Reddit is better 🙄
@@CleverGirlAAH reddit isn't the opposite of twitter. The opposite direction would be google scholar (a great resource for finding actual studies on things).
Yeah head to reddit which is heavily censored
@@matttrybus925 As if Twitter isn't...and in both, violent reactionaries have their voices amplified when they're on a disinfo campaign
Alaska not having counties is crazy
1:58 Hank, I'm curious-is there a situation in which you find that the use of a non-zero y-axis would be legitimate? I feel like high school taught me never to trust one, but I'm seeing them more and more, and I'm trying to figure out whether it's ever used in a helpful way.
hi! data viz person here! you can use non-zero y axes for line charts because the point you're making is the trend/change over time. for bar charts, the point you're making is magnitude, which is why a truncated axis is a no-no. :)
@@captainottermoose Omg of course!! And that's almost certainly where I saw most non-zero y axes... in line charts.
It feels like you just unlocked something in my brain that I didn't know was bugging me! Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. The nerdfighteria comments section is awesome.
Mainly when miniscule differences matter (we're not going to look at the change of the world's average temperature in kelvin with 0 axis when a 4 degree change can cause mass extinction, would we?)
And, as the well informed data visualiser put it, also for rates of change
I'm just a mech engineer so this isn't my specialty, but I imagine my point to have some validity
I'm right there with you Hank I don't know how to think about this I don't know how to understand this and I'm trying my hardest not to fall into this pit of mistrust and darkness thank you for your video I believe it did what you wanted it to do
@jttinsleyjoey troll go back to your bridge I doubt these fine people want your disgusting smell wafting about ruining everyone's day
@jttinsleyjoey Troll go back to your bridge we don't want you here unless you plan on actually saying something relevant
Thank you for not re-shooting the part of the video where you're clearly upset and exhausted. I feel so hopeless, but it's good to know I'm not alone.
Grow up
Thank you Hank please keep talking sense to us 💙
5:40 *hugs* We still have this community and that's awesome.
love your videos! stay safe and sane!
Stats 101: Always check the y-axis.
Thanks for making stuff, Hank. It's very understandable that a lot of people are feeling uninspired right now & needing a break from everything.
Today I walked my dogs in the woods & saw lots of cool moss & ravens.
I make maps for a living. I studied to do that. Thank you, because it's so easy to make them lie or say whatever we want them to say, and people don't have enough knowledge about them in general to question them.
"A lot of bad takes that are not representative of reality" Very very true, but, we're now in a country that seems utterly impervious to facts and that entails massive boding of the horrific kind.
Yuuuup.....
Congrats, your sport team won, see how it will actually improve your life in the next four years 😂
your president only cares about his rich friends. he will not do anything for your gullible ass and it’s so obvious. we’re all laughing at you from outside the US
@@Mars20231 Your inability to recognize that it is very reasonable to be upset at the dramatic decrease in media and graphical literacy no matter which "side" you're on is the reason these deceptive things keep going viral...
Have you ever considered that those things you consider to be misinformation are in fact correct? Reducing the opinions of the other side to being the result of misinformation is not helpful.
@@euphoricpoptarts Sorry, if you don't realize the MAGATs are so blatantly, obviously, and hilariously full of shit, nothing can help you shoirt of deprogramming.
Omg I’m one of the people who doesn’t read kickstarter emails. Thank you! Also thank you for correcting this misinformation
“There’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.” - Samwise Gamgee
I wish the ring never came to us. But it has....
The One Ring is big tech, what we have is social media, which is enslaved by the One Ring.
I want to say thank you to this whole community for making this a safe and loved place.
+❤️
Thanks I felt like this was the case but wasn’t gonna look into it bc I don’t have the energy for that.
Alaska doesn’t have counties?
*reads pinned comment * ,oh
Appreciate your work Hank. If you are going to stay in informed for these events. Know that I will too.
Nothing inherently wrong with starting y axis with a non zero value. Just requires context.
I think in the case of that specific chart, it was needlessly misleading because it exaggerated the relative anomaly that was the 2020 election in terms of turnout
@@alquinn8576 That's only because you want it to be exaggerated. The difference between vote counts was the difference between winning and losing the popular vote and probably the election. The only fair point is that California is still trying to count their votes so that the delta will drop. However, it is pathetic when other states were able to finish on the same day.
I knew this guy was a liberal 2 seconds into the video before i knew his stance on anything
This graph has been driving me insane since Nov 6th.... Thanks
At this point, you need to stop emotionally reacting to ignorance. It's been like this for a long time. You know this is the world you live in. Stressing about misinformation will only waste energy and drain your emotion health.
@@arckinenso7615 It's not that deep sport. The video is good because it reaches people at a level I could never even dream of reaching people at.
As someone who makes a lot of electoral maps as a hobby (mostly for Wikipedia pages on elections in Texas), I constantly struggle with how to balance the simplicity of the map with trying to explain its context. I can look at a map of Wisconsin and instinctively know that the blue dots of Milwaukee and Madison represent a lot more people than the blue dots of La Crosse and Eau Claire, but someone who doesn’t do this all the time won’t, so I have to explain it to them.
I prefer making precincts maps, since most precincts are supposed to be within roughly an order of magnitude of population from any other given precinct in a state, but that comes with its own set of problems (namely that there are thousands of them and that you have to zoom in and out a bunch when looking at different cities). There is no perfect solution, but it’s always important to try to understand the context of maps you’re looking at, and if you’re the one making the map, make sure that context is easily attainable or directly explained.
I love precinct maps! I'm in MN and our newspaper does data visualizations like that. Super cool.
When I learned about graphs in 8th grade math class, we did a whole section on ways that graphs can be misleading or confusing. They even gave us data and asked us to graph it in a misleading way, explain the problem, then draw a corrected version. I don't know if that was a regional curriculum difference or just something my own math teacher thought was important to include, but I'm very glad I learned it, because it's clear that a lot of people on the internet did not.
Hank I find your presence very comforting, no matter the subject. I don't think you need to make super relevant stuff right now if it's going to effect your mental health. I think we're all here because we care about you, the world, and learning. So like. Anything to do with any of those three is cool, and I think you'll find an easy time finding something to learn about at the very least
I love it when people explain maps and graphs like this, thank you!
awesome work!
Thank you, Hank! There's a lot of panic and finger-pointing going on right now and I am also not in the mood for dissecting all the "reasons" this happened. We just need to be vigilant and keep doing what's right.