Are calls for unity too weak and too generic to move Americans? What are the hard truths that stand in the way of unity?
Educator, activist, and author Tim Shriver joined the Braver Angels podcast to talk about his new book, "The Call to Unite," and the budding nationwide movement to unite America.
The Call to Unite | Tim Shriver with John Wood, Jr. & April Lawsonwww.youtube.com
A sign fell to the ground outside the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the central ballot counting facility in Philadelphia, on Nov. 5, 2020.
Kickols is the communications manager for the Election Reformers Network.
Several election law authorities, elected officials and election administration experts came together recently to discuss potential mail-in ballot counting delays, the challenges of reporting on inaccurate fraud claims, and other election dynamics on the horizon in Pennsylvania. And yet they had a positive message: The Keystone State is well-positioned to count ballots faster this fall.
The discussion took place during an online event with media hosted by the Election Overtime Project, which supports journalists in their coverage of close and contested elections. Election Overtime is an initiative of the Election Reformers Network.
The panel featured esteemed experts including U.S. District Court Judge John Jones, who presided over critical 2020 election challenges; former Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, who was a defendant in suits filed by President Donald Trump against Pennsylvania officials; Jennifer Morrell, a leading consultant on election administration and auditing; and Emma Shoucair, a legal specialist focused on voting issues.
The event was the third in a series of media briefings that will continue through the election cycle. (A video of the briefing is available here.)
Panelists agreed that state election officials are in a good position to finish the count earlier this year than in 2020, when “four excruciating days” passed before Pennsylvania issued preliminary results, in the words of Shoucair. She cited several reasons for the 2020 delay, including the pandemic and the very recent adoption of universal mail-in voting, which was passed at the end of 2019. Reasons to expect a quicker turnaround in 2024, according to Shoucair, include that “the boards of elections have refined their processes for counting mail-in ballots and have invested in additional personnel and equipment.”
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But there are still structural hurdles. “What folks need to know,” said Jones, “is that because our General Assembly lacks the political will to fix a broken election code, we do not have appropriate pre-canvassing [preparing mailed ballots for tabulation] in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. That’s a dreadful flaw, and it leads to delayed results. It will be a couple of days, which will lead into the narrative that there have been these phantom vote drops and something nefarious going on. And that’s not it at all.”
Jones urged reporters to reality test allegations before reporting on them.
Boockvar agreed, and she pleaded with journalists on the call to be informed and thoughtful about their election reporting. Boockvar pointed out the importance of not allowing reporting the news of something outrageous said by a politician to look like confirmation of that politician’s statement. That “can end up unintentionally becoming a source of disinformation that then leads to threats against election officials,” she explained.
Morrell, the co-founder of The Elections Group, cautioned against misrepresenting audits and recounts as an indication that voting results are flawed.
“An audit is a routine part of the post-election process,” Morrell explained. “It’s designed to ensure the systems work as expected. It’s not a bad word. A recount is performed in response to something that happened in a specific contest, such as a close margin, or it could be initiated automatically by statute or requested by a candidate.”
Getting more information in circulation about these procedural elements of election is the goal of Election Overtime. The project website offers a comprehensive set of resources for journalists including guides for reporting on election transparency, verification processes and judicial procedures. The program also offers an extensive speaker bureau to connect journalists with expert commentary for local and national coverage. The program focuses on Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
As ERN Executive Director Kevin Johnson explained, the program is anchored in the idea that, just as in sports, “who won an election is not a subjective question. It’s a matter of fact and a matter of law.” Johnson stressed the importance of helping “voters see the full process of what happens when elections are close and ‘go into overtime” so that it will be “well known and clear that elections, too, have rules that make it absolutely clear who won.”
ERN Vice President Heather Balas called attention to key facts voters should know about presidential elections. “We believe that sound news coverage of the election process — not just of the horse race — is crucial to the future of our democratic republic,” said Balas. “So, with humility, we offer our support to the hardworking election reporters of this nation.”
Materials used on this program have been produced with the generous support of The Carter Center, the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, and the Bridge Alliance (which publishes The Fulcrum).
Spectators look at Tesla's Core Technology Optimus humanoid robot at a conference in Shanghai, China, in September.
Frazier is an assistant professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University and a Tarbell fellow.
Artificial intelligence will eliminate jobs.
Companies may not need as many workers as AI increases productivity. Others may simply be swapped out for automated systems. Call it what you want — displacement, replacement or elimination — but the outcome is the same: stagnant, struggling communities. The open question is whether we will learn from mistakes. Will we proactively take steps to support the communities most likely to bear the cost of “innovation.”
We’ve seen what happens when communities experience sustained loss of meaningful work. Globalization caused more than 70,000 factories to close and 5 million manufacturing workers to look for new jobs. Those forced to find work elsewhere rarely found a good substitute. The remaining jobs usually paid less, provided fewer benefits and afforded less security in comparison to a union job at a factory, for example.
Economists assumed that those workers would eventually move to more lucrative pastures and find the areas with more economic vibrancy. Workers stayed put. It’s hard to leave your pasture, when it’s the place you, your family and your community have long called home. This tendency to stay put, though, created a difficult reality. Suddenly, whole communities found their economic well-being on the decline. That’s a recipe for unrest.
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The same story played out in my home state, Oregon. New technology and policies rendered the timber industry a dying trade. Residents of towns like Mill City, a timber town through and through, didn’t jointly march to a new area but understandably stayed where their families had established deep roots.
It’s time to stop assuming that people will give up on their communities. Home is much more than just a job. So when AI eliminates jobs, what safeguards will be in place so that people can remain in their communities and find other ways to thrive?
I don’t have a full answer to that question, but there’s at least one safeguard that deserves consideration: a rainy day fund. We don’t know when, where and how rapidly AI will upend a community’s economic well-being. That’s why we need to create a support fund that can help folks who suddenly find themselves with no good options. This would mark an improvement on unemployment because it would be specifically targeted to assist those on the losing end of our AI gamble and should be available to both laborers and local governments.
The AI companies responsible for prioritizing their pursuit of artificial general intelligence — AI systems with human-level capabilities — over community stability should front the costs of that fund. Congress can and should tax the companies actively inducing a new wave of displacement.
The fund should be dispersed upon any sizable disruption to a specific industry or sector. Both cities and workers could apply for support to weather economic doldrums and find new ways to thrive. Such support helped us all get through Covid. A similar strategy might help mitigate the worst-case scenarios associated with AI.
The potential downsides of this fund are worth the certain benefits of more resilient communities. A tax or penalty on AI would hinder the ability of AI companies to develop and deploy AI as quickly as possible. The specific allocation of that revenue to a rainy day fund might also nudge companies to avoid creating models likely to disrupt various professions. That’s all fine by me. We have survived centuries without AI, there’s no need for the latest and greatest model to come as soon as possible, especially given the immense costs of that pace of innovation.
Now is the time for Congress to enact such a proposal. Following the election, we may find Congress to be even more gridlocked and fragmented than before. Elected officials should welcome the chance to tell their constituents about a policy to bolster their economic prospects.
The urgency to address the job displacement caused by AI cannot be overstated. By establishing a rainy day fund, taxing AI companies to support displaced workers and exploring additional policies to maintain community stability, we can mitigate the adverse effects of rapid technological advancement. Congress must prioritize the well-being of communities over the relentless pursuit of AI innovation. Doing so will not only knit a stronger social fabric but also ensure AI develops in line with the public interest.
Pearl, the author of “ChatGPT, MD,” teaches at both the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a former CEO of The Permanente Medical Group.
For years, patients have wondered why health care can’t be as seamless as other services in their lives. They can book flights or shop for groceries with a few clicks, yet they still need to take time off work and drive to the doctor’s office for routine care.
Two advances are now changing thisoutdated model and ushering in a new era of health care consumerism. With at-home diagnostics and generative artificial intelligence, patients are beginning to take charge of their health in wayspreviously unimaginable.
Patients can now bypass the doctor’s office and diagnose a range of medical conditions with home testing. Meanwhile,one in six Americans already use generative AI for medical advice. Together, these technologies are shifting health care away from the traditional, clinician-led model to one where empowered patients can make independent medical decisions.
But with this power comes responsibility. The shift to health care consumerism will require patients, doctors and government to assume new roles, ensuring people are protected and the medical profession remains sustainable into the future.
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The early days of Covid-19 showcased a stark contrast between what patients and clinicians expect from health care.
While doctors and public health officials prioritized PCR testing — accurate but uncomfortable and slow —patients flocked to antigen tests that were easier, faster andnearly as reliable.
Today, the preference for at-home testing is more entrenched than ever. Americans already use FDA-approved home tests for a wide range of conditions, from diagnosing urinary tract infections to confirming pregnancy. Home tests forcervical cancer and syphilis are now available, making it clear that patients will continue favoring the privacy and convenience of at-home options over the discomfort of doctor visits.Dozens more tests are soon to follow.
Generative AI is also gaining traction as patients become more comfortable using the technology to make health care decisions and choose the best treatments. A recent study found thatchatbot responses to patient questions were rated four times higher in quality and nine times higher in empathy than those of doctors. As AI continues to improve — becoming32 times more powerful in the next five years — consumers will increasingly trust it as a source of medical expertise.
These advancements will require fundamental changes to health care. The question is: How should doctors, patients and government officials approach medical care going forward?
Whether clinicians embrace it or not, health care consumerism is here. Patients now rankconvenience in health care as more important thanquality and even cost. This means doctors will need to adapt or risk losing patients toretail clinics and telemedicine platforms.
To respond to these changes, doctors must see home testing and AI not as threats, but as valuable tools to build a more collaborative relationship with patients.
For example, when patients receive a positive result from an at-home test for syphilis or cervical cancer, they are likely to feel a sense of urgency — even if immediate intervention isn’t medically necessary. Doctors who reserve time for same-day or next-day appointments will help build trust, minimize treatment delays and reduce the risk of complications.
Similarly, as patients increasingly use generative AI, they will come to their doctors not just with symptoms but often with a presumed diagnosis or suggested treatment plan. Given AI’s growing ability tomatch human diagnostic accuracy, clinicians will need to approach these AI-generated insights with an open mind. Rather than dismissing them or restarting the diagnostic process from scratch, doctors should integrate this information into their decision-making. And, when clinically appropriate, offering a same-day telemedicine consultation will help address patient concerns quickly while strengthening the doctor-patient relationship.
To a busy doctor — unaccustomed to this level of service — these changes might seem overwhelming. But with AI having already provided the likely diagnosis, the time required for doctors to confirm and treat the issue will be much shorter, helping to reduce appointment backlogs and streamline care.
With patient empowerment comes responsibility. Patients embracing health care consumerism must be prepared to take greater accountability for their health. Here are three key steps.
Consumer-friendly health care tools allow patients to stay on top of preventive care, better manage chronic conditions and avoid unnecessary office visits. But for this shift to succeed, government agencies like the CDC and FDA must take on new roles, as well.
First, the government must support companies developing safe and secure consumer health tools, from at-home diagnostics to GenAI platforms. Second, it needs to ensure these tools are accessible to all Americans, regardless of their location or income. Finally, agencies must prioritize educating the public on how to use these technologiessafely and effectively.
When done in collaboration with doctors and supported by government efforts, these tools will make health care more efficient and effective. Just as Amazon revolutionized shopping with speed and convenience, home testing and GenAI will drive consumerism in medicine. The combination of engaged clinicians, empowered patients and advanced technology will be far more powerful than any of these alone.
The consumerism train has left the station. It’s time for doctors, patients and the government to get onboard.
Patel is an executive producer/director, the creator of “ConnectEffect” and a Builders movement partner.
Doesn’t it feel like summer break just began? Yet here we are again. Fall’s arrival means kids have settled into a new school year with new teachers, new clothes and a new “attitude” for parents and kids alike, to start on the right foot.
Yet it’s hard for any of us to find footing in an increasingly polarized and isolated world. The entire nation is grappling with a rising tide of mental health concerns — including the continually increasing alienation and loneliness in children — and parents are struggling to foster real human connection for their kids in the real world. The battle to minimize screen time is certainly one approach. But in a world that is based on screens, apps and social media, is it a battle that realistically can be won?
If we want to reduce screens’ negative impact on our children’s mental health, what we need is a “hard reset” of their relationships with their devices by ensuring they are deeply aware of the difference between the real world and the screen world.
I’ve spent the last eight years focused on showing people the difference between these worlds, helping bring them back together, in person, to bridge divides and foster authentic human connection, conversation and community. Like the people I work with, parents can help their children understand the difference between the two worlds through a two-part plan: first, by hard-resetting their misguided relationships with their screen and, second, by intentionally connecting them to others in real life.
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Remember when the end of “The Wizard of Oz” revealed that the wizard was just a man behind a curtain? To break a child’s toxic relationship with their screen, parents need to pull back another curtain to show their kids exactly how all media works, from social media and news companies to search engines and apps. Almost everything kids see on their screens is an edit, and behind almost every edit is a similar intention: more likes, followers and users that can be monetized. Through the attention extraction model, most everything that appears on our screen is designed to maximize our attention for profit, feeding us more content, regardless of the impact it may have on us individually and as a society. If, as a family, you haven’t yet watched the documentary “The Social Dilemma,” the start of the year is a perfect time.
Helping kids realize that the structure of social media is not made with their well-being in mind — in fact, it has a very different motive — can help them recognize that they are not alone in their feelings and reactions to the screen. According to Pew Research, 31 percent of teens say social media makes them feel like their friends are leaving them out and 23 percent say what they see on social media makes them feel worse about their own life. Talking with their peers less about what is on their screen, but rather how their screen makes them feel, is a point of connection they may not realize.
Having spent nearly a decade connecting people, it is clear that one of the secrets to connection in the real world is the introduction. In other words, how people are introduced to one another often sets up the way they will see one another. Based on the primary-recency effect, when people first connect through the two-dimensional edits in the screen world, they make assumptions that lean into pre-conceived notions of how the “other” should be. In a country growing increasingly polarized and dehumanized by social media echo chambers and a profound lack of human connection, this reality impacts our children, who have less real world experiences under their belts.
The beginning of a school year offers a timely opportunity to allow children the space to paint a more complete picture of their new classmates before screens intervene. A simple initialism, EPIC, can provide parents with four techniques for making sure interactions are maximized for connection and trust.
If we use this time at the start of every year to teach children the realities of the screens they use and how to intentionally foster deeper, real world introductions, they will create a future for themselves and others empowered and enriched by social connections, not fearful of them.
