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​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

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​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

The dirtiest thing I've ever done on a table happened last Friday. I played a game about helping a human and tentacled alien get each other off.

Tentacle porn. It's quite possibly the perviest, most indefensible phenomena in all of geek culture. It's also the inspiration for a great new card game that debuted in New York City's Lower East Side this weekend, as part of New York University's annual No Quarter exhibition.

In game designer Naomi Clark's Consentacle—which features art from James Harvey—two people play the roles of a human spaceperson named Kit and Dup, an extraterrestrial with stretched-out appendages just aching to go around and into places. To be clear, everything happening in Consentacle occurs because the characters want it to. But, depending on the players taking on their roles, either the alien or human can get much more satisfaction out of their coupling. (Warning: Some of the images and content in this story might be considered NSFW.)

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

The game starts with each player drawing five cards that have specific actions on them, along with five interlocking red or blue plastic pieces called Trust Tokens. The cards' instructions can make players draw more Trust Tokens, put them into the Intimacy Pool and/or combine then to create Satisfaction Tokens. You need specific cards to take satisfaction tokens out of the intimacy pool and the goal of the game is get as much satisfaction as possible.

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

When I played Consentacle with Clark, we talked about our hands and what the actions would let us do to each other. The current form of the game consists of two decks that are pretty much complementary and Clark wants an eventual retail version to have more cards that would encourage competitive play and deck-building. Certain cards will pair up into combos with more powerful results, too, like the ones pictured below.

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

The game Clark and I played was a friendly one, where we tried to relieve each other of cards, keep things moving and let the satisfaction go to whomever had the luck of the draw. But, Consentacle can be played in a more selfish way, too. It's possible to "withdraw consent", too. This doesn't turn the game into a forced-sex encounter, though. It cancels a turn and lets the withdrawing player pull back a card at the cost of a trust token. Players can also go through their rounds silently, offering up looks, actions and gestures that suggest the cards they're holding and the things they'd like to happen. This could mean doing a saucy wink, sliding a tongue out for a lick or miming penetration.

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

"People were much less weirded out by the sexual content and the hentai reference than I thought they would be!" Clark told me today in an e-mail. "From what I saw, this had a bit to do with the lively social atmosphere and a bit with the fact that players could negotiate how they were going to play; some people who said they were a little uncomfortable playing this kind of game with friends told me that they played with talking, which made it a little more lighthearted. Another player wrote that she ended up playing a silent game with a guy she didn't know, but that they came to an unspoken agreement that they'd keep the sexual innuendo and overtly suggestive talk out of the game. It worked better than I hoped it would in terms of people finding their own way to play."

There's an echo with the kinds of board games sold at sex shops, which tend to be instructional in nature. Clark says that she wants Consentacle to be more of an exploration of physical interaction, rather than an incitement to it. "I put a layer of fiction on top of the interactions so that it wouldn't be as awkward to play," she told me last week. "But it's been interesting to watch how some couples can play without talking and still create lots of satisfaction with each other."

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

"I had a bunch of people tell me (some after multiple games, some from just playing silently once) that the silent version felt more like the "real game," which has also been my instinct from designing and playtesting," Clark elaborated.

"It's easier and safer to negotiate sexual practices (whether represented in cards or with your actual body) if you talk, obviously—but when we play games, we are often looking for more danger, surprise, and challenge. Which is great! We can explore stuff in the safety of games that I wouldn't recommend doing during actual sex, obviously! The silent games had a variety of communication styles — most people were "communicating" (so to speak) just by looking each other in the eye, but there were several games where people were touching each other, or making dirty or suggestive gestures, etc. That's all mentioned in the rules. It's pretty much up to players to negotiate how to play."

So why use a tentacle rape motif for a game that's about consensual, mutual pleasure? Clark says that she's got a few, complicated reasons. "The first one goes back to high school, when my sister and I first discovered hentai tentacle-rape porn at the video store where she worked, much to our horror," she starts. "We were like "oh, great... I hope there aren't more movies like this"—but there were, and it quickly become a trope or even a stereotype about Japanese pop culture. We're both half-Japanese, and I lost track of the number of times people mentioned hentai to me by the late 90s and early 2000s."

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

"My family's also from Seattle so I would get 'oh, do you drink lots of coffee? Do you know Kurt Cobain?' jokes when I went to college—but when talking about being Japanese, the most common thing people would joke about was tentacle hentai. Many years later, that kind of fraught, uncomfortable relationship with tentacle hentai made me want to take it back for very different purposes; I'm actually very down with the idea of unusual or alien body parts as a metaphor for queer sexuality or strange relationships that we have to our bodies, and I've found that resonates with a lot of queer & trans people I know— but the reputation attached to tentacle rape and hentai porn is extremely foul." "

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

"So there was an impetus for me to reclaim tentacles for the good, loving tentacle monsters out there. To my surprise, after I named the game and started Googling it I found that the term 'consentacles' was already being used as slang term with a similar meaning, by artists and fans that are drawn to tentacles but very much didn't like the rape connotations — there's a lot of cutesy, cartoony stuff out there involving tentacled beasties and aliens already."

At the end of each game of Consentacle, players can refer to a chart that breaks down the mutual and individual scores according certain categories. My game with Clark ended with a combined score of 12 satisfaction. I wound up with 8 purple pleasure tokens to her four. You can see what Consentacle thinks about my session on the instruction booklet chart below.

​Tentacle Alien Sex Card Game Isn't As Perverted as You'd Think

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Mother's Moving Climate Change Poem Brings World Leaders to Tears at UN

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By several accounts, the most interesting part of yesterday's United Nations Climate Summit was not a speech by any of the world leaders in attendance, but a poem read by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a 26-year old mother from the Marshall Islands.

Jetnil-Kijiner's poem, called "Dear Matafele Peinem," addresses her daughter, promising to stop the global warming and rising waters that threaten the tiny Pacific Ocean island nation where they live. (It begins at about 2:40 in the video above.) Climate change is easy to think of as an insurmountable force that's already gathered too much inertia to stop. "Dear Matafele Peinem" is a powerful reminder that that isn't true. It was enough, according to one U.N. Twitter account, to bring a few of the assembled leaders to tears.

[h/t Slate]

Facebook Users Flip Out Over Ancient "Monthly Fee" Hoax

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Facebook Users Flip Out Over Ancient "Monthly Fee" Hoax

This week, social media users staged a collective shit-fit after "satire" site National Report published an article titled "Facebook To Begin Charging Users $2.99/mo Starting November 1st." According to the story, the only way to escape the subscription fee was to post a status update bearing the hashtag ‪#‎FacebookMonthlyFee‬, an instruction dozens of people immediately (and irately) followed.

Why a business that makes over 90% of its revenue selling its user's eyeballs to advertisers would suddenly start kicking those same eyeballs out wasn't especially clear, but credulous netizens were nonetheless incensed, taking their anger and confusion to social media.

Facebook Users Flip Out Over Ancient "Monthly Fee" Hoax

Of course, not only is this story a complete hoax, it's so old it's practically prehistoric in Internet years. Since 2009, "news" of an imminent subscription charge have haunted Facebook, rumors the company has repeatedly denied.

Asked for comment about this specific iteration of the hoax, a Facebook spokesperson replied to Gawker with a screenshot of the site's log-in page, saying, "That's the best response in this case." As it has for years, the page reads, "It's free and always will be."

[Image via Shutterstock]


Antiviral is a new blog devoted to debunking online hoaxes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

This Week in Tabloids: J. Lo's Exes to Reveal She Sacrifices Chickens

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This Week in Tabloids: J. Lo's Exes to Reveal She Sacrifices Chickens

Welcome back to Midweek Madness, in which we grapple with the storied and horrible mythical beasts known as Star, Us Weekly, OK!, Life & Style and InTouch. This week: Jennifer Lopez's exes might write a tell-all alleging that she sacrifices chickens; the Duggars dispense some deplorable sex and love advice; and Kylie and Kendall Jenner are at war.


This Week in Tabloids: J. Lo's Exes to Reveal She Sacrifices Chickens

Star

BABY JOY!

Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi are having a baby. We know this because Portia "appears to have gained about 10 lbs." and is also "glowing." Also, a photo exists of Ellen touching Portia on the stomach, meaning that all the signs have aligned. Apparently, the couple picked an unnamed (NOT FAMOUS) sperm donor who was "well educated and charitable, with few health issues in his family." Why couldn't the editors just make up that Lenny Kravitz was going to be the sperm donor, like in that recent tabloid story about Queen Latifah? This is lazy gossip-mongering. I am disappointed. In other news, the young woman whose butt was groped by Robin Thicke has come forward with her story, in case you had lingering questions about it. She says that she met the disgraced former Leighton Meester back-up singer at a party; shortly after, he led her to a dark back room, where they had sex. "Minutes after their copulation," as Star puts it, he introduced her to his wife all smug-like. Robin Thicke is a big dick, etc. Moving on: Rihanna spends $25k a week on her hair, according to a source. "She has a team of experts around the clock to cater to her every hairstyle whim," says the informant. Literally anyone in her position would do the same. The American dream is spending $100,000 a month on luxurious wigs. Finally, Mila Kunis is going to give birth any day now, which means it's high time for a story about how Demi Moore is teetering on the brink of emotional collapse, not to mention old. Here is the thesis statement of this piece: "With Ashton's impending fatherhood, she feels like she's too old to find that kind of love again." 'Kay. Whatever.

GRADE: F (Medusa in a selfie sombrero)


This Week in Tabloids: J. Lo's Exes to Reveal She Sacrifices Chickens

OK!

DELIVERY ROOM DRAMA!

There is no delivery room drama, but Mila Kunis is 9 months pregnant. Other celebrities are pregnant as well, prompting a three-page spread entitled "HOLLYWOOD BABY BOOM." Facts gleaned from this informative article include: Kourtney Kardashian's doctor is encouraging her to let Scott Disick pull her third child from out of her as a bonding thing, I guess?; Hayden Panettiere drinks a lot of Sprite, which is a habit she keeps secret from the world; Rachel Bilson likes flowers. Riveting stuff. Next: Prince Harry and Cressida Bonas are back together. They went on a date to the movie "Sex Tape," which, like, come on. You own castles, man. You don't need to be doing that. On the bright side, this article contains the single most beautiful sentence I've ever read in a tabloid: "Their once cold romance is reheating faster than crumpets in a microwave!" Someone PLEASE call the Pulitzer committee. And be sure to mention to them this sentence, which was in a story about how Avril Lavigne and Chad Kroeger are having marital difficulties: "Just weeks earlier, Avril had gushed on Instagram over a 17-carat diamond ring Chad bought her for their first anniversary. The photo has since been deleted — and their marriage may soon be too." THIS IS THE BEST WRITING IN THE WORLD. And let us close with a pretty boring rumor to get everyone's heart rate back to normal after all that stunning prose: Allison Williams wants to quit Girls because she wants to be a star and/or have a baby. Allegedly, Lena wouldn't want a pregnancy interfering with the show. Idk. A baby on Girls could be cool. They could have a plot line about it applying for internships and another one about how the baby and Adam keep pooping their pants in unison.

GRADE: B (one of the less popular Neopets)


This Week in Tabloids: J. Lo's Exes to Reveal She Sacrifices Chickens

Us Weekly

OUR RULES FOR LOVE & SEX

This cover story on the Duggars' rules for love and sex is just as ghastly as one would expect it to be. Every pre-marriage rule is a variation on the terrifying theme of "Do not ever think about sex. Your body is a fleshy cage of vices and you must not ever trusted to be alone with it." Here are some highlights: "Before the first date, the singles and parents agree on rules that rein in raging hormones"; "The girls agree being alone with guys puts them in 'moral danger'"; "Chest-to-chest contact is strictly forbidden until 'I do.'" But once they are married, the girls are expected to be constantly sexually available — Rule 7: "ONCE YOU'RE WED, GET BUSY OFTEN." "Duggar women don't get headaches," says Us. As in, they never feign illness to get out of sex because that's not an option for them. In the words of Duggar Mom, "You always need to be available when he calls." ("And prepared for the results," adds the mag — "My mom has a bunch of pregnancy tests at her house!" says Jill Duggar.) So, just to reiterate: the Duggars are forbidden from making bodily contact with men until married, but after marriage they must be willing to have sex whenever their husbands want. And all of this is presented in cheery, blithe tabloid-speak as though it's at all normal or acceptable. I have seen such festering piece word-detritus in my life; I hope the Rat King builds his fortress out of it once I throw it out. The rest of the magazine's pages are filled with news that is either immensely boring or stuff we've heard before: Jennifer Lawrence went to a Coldplay show and "was spotted in the VIP section putting her hand over her heart when her rocker boyfriend, 37, took the stage," which is Peak Uncool. George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin: still getting married. She will wear a dress. There will be a party. Sick. And, uh, Nick Jonas' girlfriend gave him a box of cigars for his birthday. Thanks for the update.

GRADE: F- (whatever loathsome creature is lurking in the collective subconscious of the Duggar family)


This Week in Tabloids: J. Lo's Exes to Reveal She Sacrifices Chickens

Life & Style

A BABY AT LAST

Oh, my God, Jennifer Aniston is having a baby at last. I haven't been this excited since three weeks ago, when I read that she was having a baby at last. This definitely fabricated "Jennifer Aniston is having a baby" tale differs from all the identical ones that have preceded it because it alleges she's adopting, not pregnant. Twist!!! (It was a big decision because she didn't want people to think she was copying Angelina Jolie, the only other woman to have ever adopted a child, but she's managing.) Elsewhere in the magazine, the editors ponder why Eva Mendes went into hiding throughout her pregnancy and immediately after. Why didn't she and Ryan Gosling display their infant to the world, like Rafiki atop Pride Rock at the beginning of The Lion King? Why didn't they SnapChat us all a pic of the newborn babe? "Eva's a deeply private person to begin with," says Life & Style. Oh. There's your answer. Moving on: Kendall and Kylie Jenner are at war because Kendall is more famous and Kylie "doesn't really have anything" and is stuck "passing her time posing selfies." Okay, that is way harsh. She is also in a teen sex cult, in case you forgot!!! Anyway, to put this sad sibling rivalry in Kardashian terms, their "brand is broken." RIP, brand. You will be missed. In other news, Jennifer Lopez's exes have all become friends, and, in a gender-revered John Tucker Must Die sort of thing, they could maybe write a tell-all about her. The tell-all could make them $50 million, says some guy who does not have any evidence that said tell-all will ever come into fruition. But they could reveal some nasty secrets, hints the magazine, including the fact that "J. Lo secretly practices religious rituals of Santeria — including sacrificing chickens! That's the last thing her image needs." WHAT. Is that even the last thing her image needs? I am not sure how to respond to this, other than saying that it's not illegal to sacrifice animals in religious ceremonies in the United States, so let us live.

GRADE: D (a minotaur that haunts the aisles of Ikea, preying upon you only when you are at your most disoriented and confused. Mostly by the shelves where they keep all the wood bits, I would say.)


This Week in Tabloids: J. Lo's Exes to Reveal She Sacrifices Chickens

InTouch

NASTY $250M DIVORCE

Kim and Kanye's marriage is on the rocks. According to a source, they had a massive fight during a "romantic night in" at Kanye's house (is the source Baby North? Does an InTouch informant live in their walls? Maybe!). During the fight, Kim reported said that it's unfair that she's expected to follow Kanye around the world; Kanye responded that "he has an obligation to his art and asking him to set that aside is cruel and a crime against humanity." Fair enough? From this kind of innocuous premise, though, the article quickly veers into the realm of just horrible: a psychiatrist who has never treated Kanye before diagnoses him with narcissistic personality disorder in a side bar that's titled "IS KANYE CRAZY?" and the magazine accuses Kim of "embarrassing him once again" for having her nude photos stolen. Yeah, because that was totally her fault. Elsewhere in the magazine, "exclusive" photos show Mama June looking a bit grumpy while Sugar Bear hangs his head. TELLING SIGNS OF A BREAKUP. A grainy and definitely staged picture is worth 1,000 words, as the saying goes. In other news, Robin Thicke needs to go to rehab for drinking. "Robin, sources say, is lost." Moving on, Mila Kunis had to part ways with her doula, Ashton Kutcher's twin's wife, because the Kutcher twin and her ended their marriage. That is quite an unconventional tabloid story, good work keeping it fresh, inTouch. Finally, the magazine made an infographic of various celebrities at high school outlining what their roles would be. In "THE HONOR ROLL," we are told, Jennifer Lawrence and Chloe Grace Moretz are members of the drama club. In "THE OUTCASTS" section, we learn, Kristen Stewart and Selena Gomez belong to the Coachella club. I… don't think that is a club. Who knows, though. Teens these days are wild and unpredictable.

GRADE: F (the conniving matriarch of a Baba Yaga family with its own reality tv show)

Texas Pot Smokers Filling Up Colorado Homeless Shelters

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Texas Pot Smokers Filling Up Colorado Homeless Shelters

There are plenty of good reasons to move to a state like Colorado or Washington—the scenery, climate, schools, economy…

But for fuck's sake, please don't move to Denver or Seattle or anywhere just for marijuana.

Colorado officials say that they are seeing a big jump in the number of homeless people—an alarming number of them from Texas—in the state pretty much just to smoke weed.

"We were averaging 190 people a night. Now we are averaging 345 people a night," Murray Flagg, the Salvation Army Intermountain Divisional secretary for social services, told Houston's KPRC-TV.

Flagg says that a quarter of the new arrivals to their shelters are in Colorado for marijuana. The director of another shelter says that over 10 percent of their new clients are from Texas, and they are there for the legal weed as well.

"People tell us is that they think they can get a job because marijuana is legal here," said Tom Luehrs, executive director of the St. Francis Center, a day shelter in Denver.

"It wasn't the only reason but it was one of the main factors," Runa Renee Townsend, a homeless woman from Fort Worth, said of her reason for moving to Colorado.

Cannabis is a remarkable substance. It can ease tension, relieve pain and bring comfort and relief to a myriad of physical and emotional ailments. It also, of course, gets you really damn high.

But unless you are in that actually quite small percentage of medical marijuana patients who genuinely need the relief that only cannabis and its by-products can provide to live something resembling a normal life, picking up and moving to another state to be homeless just so you can smoke up is something only a complete and hopelessly burned-out stoner would think is a good idea.

Do the laws in Texas (and most other states) governing marijuana use and possession range from silly and unfair to downright draconian and cruel? Abso-fucking-lutely. But making a mad dash to the Rockies with nothing more than an empty hash pipe in your pocket isn't really going to make anything better for you or anybody else.

There are already plenty of painfully real causes for homelessness in America—the shitty economy, the collapse of the mental health system, abuse—and the desire to smoke a bowl doesn't come even remotely close to those things.

The ONLY reason that the marijuana laws in Colorado and Washington State were changed is because concerned individuals who believed the existing laws weren't fair got together, organized and risked their freedom and livelihoods by putting years of hard work into convincing a majority of voters to change the marijuana laws in their states.

In short, they worked their collective asses off and earned an extra bong hit or two for showing the rest of the states how it can be done, and saved the rest of the nation—and world—a lot of legal and political legwork in the process.

So if you don't like the marijuana laws in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Alabama, Mississippi, New York or any of the other 48 states where weed is still illegal—do what Colorado and Washington did and stay the fuck home and put some time and energy into changing the laws. Stop whining about how much the laws in your state sucks and how you can't wait to leave and get to work organizing and electing people who will change the laws.

Stop being a goddamn victim, and start being a goddamn citizen.

This is still a republic, and you still have the right to vote and make your voices heard.

Hell, run for office yourself—you don't need to be a president or a senator to make a difference. Start with a town council or county commissioner or school board or whatever. Most of the real change that happens in this nation starts locally anyway. It always has.

Besides, if you think your voice isn't being heard in Austin, do you honestly believe that smoking a bowl in a Denver homeless shelter is going to make it louder?

Image via Shutterstock

Activists Will Gather This Weekend to Protest Imaginary Chemtrails

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Activists Will Gather This Weekend to Protest Imaginary Chemtrails

Activists in dozens of cities across the globe are preparing to chant "hey hey, ho ho, chemtrails have got to go!" this weekend as part of the Global March Against Chemtrail and Geoengineering. Hoo boy.http://thevane.gawker.com/heres-a-list-o...

If you aren't familiar with the chemtrail conspiracy theory, it's a growing belief that the contrails—short for "condensation trails"—left behind by the moist exhaust of high-flying aircraft are really chemicals being sprayed by The Man in order to make you sick and control the weather. The existence of contrails is the same reason you can see your breath or car exhaust on a cold morning. If the upper-atmosphere is very humid, the contrails can stick around for hours and spread out, forming a thin deck of cirrus clouds.

The activists plan to hold numerous marches across the United States, including one in New York City:

PLACE: The Local - Rooftop bar - West 33rd St and 8th Ave NYC (there is a court yard next to this restaurant) We will march towards 34th St to WNBC Studios (34th St & 5th Ave) from there we will go back down 5th Ave to WABC Studios (Penn Stat), TIME: 13:30 (EDT)

Here's a full list of these chemtrail protest locations, which I have forwarded to the proper spraying auth...I mean, linked here for your information. If you have a few hours to kill on Saturday and head to one of these groundbreaking protests, send in your pictures and stories! We'd love to have them.

What is the end game for these protests, you might ask? The protest's organizers hope to use awareness to stop "high altitude aerosol spraying" and the subsequent ecocide being perpetrated by The Man. Instead of "clap harder or Tinkerbell will die," it's "think harder and physics will cease to be."

Geoengineering activists almost never offer plans on how to stop chemtrails (since they don't exist), but they want you to be aware. Be aware and look up. Watch their YouTube videos and look up. Give them advertising money. Be aware. Look up. Get scared and give them money.

And don't forget the vinegar.

If you're interested in learning more about the theory (including why it's hogwash), here's a handy list of previous posts in The Vane's coverage of the chemtrail conspiracy theory.

[top image by the author | h/t Raw Story]


You can follow the author on Twitter or send him an email.

Missouri Cops Are Wearing "I Am Darren Wilson" Bracelets Now

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Missouri Cops Are Wearing "I Am Darren Wilson" Bracelets Now

Yesterday, after reports that a mysterious fire had been set to a Michael Brown memorial, a photo allegedly depicting a Ferguson, Mo., police officer wearing an "I am Darren Wilson" bracelet, in support of the officer who shot and killed Brown, began to circulate on social media.

The photo was first published on the Instagram account MediaBlackOutUSA. In a press conference today, Missouri Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson confirmed the bracelets' existence and argued that they were a personal statement for the officers wearing them, BuzzFeed reports. "I think that was not a statement of law enforcement. I think wearing that was an individual statement," he reportedly said.

According to St. Louis alderman Antonio French, Johnson also said he would "have a talk" with whatever agency the bracelet-wearing officers work for.

The burning of the Brown memorial appears to have stoked renewed unrest in Ferguson, where the 18-year-old was killed August 9.

[Image via Mediablackoutusa/Instagram]

As we suspected, Emma Watson's nudes won't be released tomorrow.


White Evangelicals Are an Oppressed Minority, Say White Evangelicals

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White Evangelicals Are an Oppressed Minority, Say White Evangelicals

Most Americans believe gays and lesbians face the most discrimination in the U.S., followed closely by Muslims, blacks, and Hispanics, according to a new Pew study. But weird things start happening when you look at, say, how conservative Caucasian proselytizing Protestants feel.

Ah, white evangelicals. Still the cream of the crop in America, yes? No! White evangelicals were more likely to consider themselves a religious minority than blacks or Hispanics of any faith, according to Pew's Monday poll:

Among religious groups, fully half of white evangelical Protestants (50%) say evangelical Christians face a lot of discrimination compared with 31% of the public overall saying this...

[E]vangelicals are less sanguine about their position in American society, with one-third (34%) saying it has become more difficult to be an evangelical Christian in the U.S. Consistent with this, three-in-ten white evangelical Protestants say they think of themselves as a religious minority because of their religious beliefs.

Even better, white evangelicals as a group believe there is more discrimination against white evangelicals than against Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, atheists, or Catholics, and they say they face about the same amount of discrimination as lesbians and gays:

White Evangelicals Are an Oppressed Minority, Say White Evangelicals

Nearly half of white evangelicals also believe the Democratic Party is "unfriendly" toward religion. No more than a quarter of any other group agrees with them. Fifty-seven percent of white evangelicals also say President Obama is unfriendly toward religion. That's 21 percentage points higher than the next-highest group.

Seventy percent of white evangelicals also identified as Republicans in the poll—the highest total since Pew started its tally in 1992—and only 20 percent identified as Democrats, an all-time low.

As the Daily Banter put it, "This is the white evangelical persecution complex quantified."

[Photo credit: AP Images]

Children's Books, San Francisco Style

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Children's Books, San Francisco Style

In San Francisco, kids are taught about the exciting investment opportunities in technology startups at a young age. Take this book of San Francisco ABCs: the "I" entry features internet investments and the adorable iguanas who make them.

I can only imagine what the "E" entry is about.

Jay-Z Was Better Than Beyoncé Is

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Jay-Z Was Better Than Beyoncé Is

The main reaction to Jay-Z and Beyoncé's On the Run Tour seemed to be some variation of "Jay-Z sucks! Get this old asshole off the stage!" I don't disagree—Jay-Z is old, and in 2014 he doesn't really belong on a stage with Beyoncé. But let us not forget that Jay-Z was better than Beyoncé is.

Beyoncé is an incredible artist and a great pop star. We're a decade into her solo career and she just put out her most acclaimed album. The world is at her fingertips, both musically and otherwise. This is not true for Jay-Z. His last album sprung a few major hits, but it was not very good overall. Jay-Z in his most recent incarnation is not necessarily a bad artist—he was the better rapper on Watch the Throne—but his best days are behind him. This is as obvious as Beyoncé's genius. Not even he would dispute this.

But those best days? Those best days were better than Beyoncé's best days. Let's just quickly look at each's five best singles:

Beyonce

"Countdown"
"Crazy in Love"
"Drunk in Love"
"Partition"
"Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It)"

Jay-Z

"Big Pimpin'"
"Can I Get A..."
"Hard Knock Life (Ghetto Anthem)"
"I Just Wanna Luv U (Give It 2 Me)"
"Nigga What, Nigga Who (Originator 99)"

Now, five songs does not a career make, and you could certainly shuffle some of those songs out for other singles. It also doesn't take into account Destiny's Child (or any of Jay-Z's guest verses). It is just to distill each artist down to their best solo work. I'd take those five Jay-Z songs.

This is not to compare the overall careers of Jay-Z and Beyoncé, primarily because—as noted—Beyoncé's career almost feels like it's just beginning. She may eventually put out more great albums than Jay-Z (who probably has half a dozen great albums), and if you wanted to say that the best current Beyoncé album is better than the best Jay-Z album I wouldn't argue too hard.

But we are probably at peak Beyoncé right now, and as great as peak Beyoncé is I just don't think she quite matches peak Jay-Z, one of the slickest and most vivid writers in the history of rap music and a thrilling pop star in his own right.

Jay-Z is old as fuck and should probably stop making music very soon, but for the kids growing up thinking that was always true: let the record show that Jay-Z was better than Beyoncé is now.

[image via Getty]

What Are the Odds of Derek Jeter's Last Game Getting Rained Out?

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What Are the Odds of Derek Jeter's Last Game Getting Rained Out?

As the sports world mournfully (or gleefully) waits for Derek Jeter to play his last game on Thursday night, the big question isn't whether or not the Yankees will win, but will the game go on at all? Let's look at the chances of this nor'easter raining out Jeter's last game.

As The Vane covered yesterday, a relatively weak nor'easter—the first of the year—is making its way up the East Coast this afternoon, bringing along with it some heavy rain and gusty winds. As of 100PM EDT, heaviest band of rain associated with the storm is north of New York City, with scattered showers and downpours threatening to move through as the system continues off to the northeast.

The experts are torn on how long this rain will stick around. The Weather Channel shows a 100% chance of rain at 600PM and 700PM, while AccuWeather (if you trust them) shows a 50% chance of rain around the time of the first pitch. The National Weather Service's forecast calls for a 29% chance of rain around 700PM.

To recap, the forecasts range from "it will definitely rain" to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Let's take a look at what one of the models has to say.

What Are the Odds of Derek Jeter's Last Game Getting Rained Out?

Multiple runs of the High Resolution Rapid Refresh (HRRR) model show heavy rain in and around New York City around 700 PM when the game is expected to begin. The HRRR does a pretty good job when it comes to predicting when rain will begin and end, so it's worth giving some consideration.

Given what the forecasts have to say, and after running the question through The Vane's proprietary algorithms, here's what we came up with:

Odds of a Rainout: 2%

Given the amount of hype (and money) poured into this game, we're tempted to say that they'll hold the game come hell or high water. They're much more likely to delay the game than cancel it outright, and even then they'll only put it on hold if an exceptionally heavy downpour sets up over Yankee Stadium.

[Images: AP, WeatherBELL]


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Beach-Blocking Billionaire Must Reopen California Coast to Commoners

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Beach-Blocking Billionaire Must Reopen California Coast to Commoners

Forgetful venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has been blocking public access to Martin's Beach ever since he closed its only access road in 2010. But a California judge ruled Wednesday that Khosla acted illegally in doing so, forcing the Sun Microsystem's co-founder to reopen the Half Moon Bay beach.

The ruling addressed the access controversy that begun when Khosla purchased the property surrounding the beach and had a group of surfers arrested for trespassing. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

Khosla, who could not be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon, paid $32.5 million in 2008 for the property, which includes 45 leased cabins along the coastal cliffs. He closed the only public access gate in September 2010, citing the high cost of maintenance and liability insurance. The nonprofit Surfrider Foundation sued last year, arguing that the sandy shoreline had been open to all comers since at least 1918 and belonged to the public.

[Judge Mallach] essentially ruled that Khosla's failure to obtain a coastal development permit before blocking access to Martins Beach was illegal.

The issue is far from over: the court's decision is already being appealed by Khosla's armada of attorneys. But the surfers are satisfied, telling the Chronicle the ruling "ultimately strengthens California's beach access laws by defining what development is in the Coastal Act."

Photo: AP

The Nude-Stealing iCloud Thieves Are Sad Their Party Is Over

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The Nude-Stealing iCloud Thieves Are Sad Their Party Is Over

For years now, a group of anonymous friends have been stealing photos of you from your iCloud accounts and trading them on a website called Anon-IB. Apple kept it easy to steal from you up until very recently. Now the Anon-IB boys are all upset.

To be completely clear, it's still far easier than it should be to find, download, and store naked photos of you that you thought were safe on Apple's servers: the company still doesn't require two-factor authorization for iCloud accounts. But it's slightly better. The minimum amount better.

Even this slight security boost is making the iCloud ripping community—so far as any like-minded sociopaths are a community—frustrated.

"The game is over," laments one user, "and we lost despite a major lead." Paranoia over law enforcement and online monitoring abounds.

The Nude-Stealing iCloud Thieves Are Sad Their Party Is Over

"Y'all stupid muthafuckas fucked it all up," agrees another. "I warned you to stop trading but noooo. Now everything alerts btw. Let it go. The game is up. And we lost."

The Nude-Stealing iCloud Thieves Are Sad Their Party Is Over

Many Anon-IB'ers agree that leak "traders" spoiled the action for the people doing the actual hacking—no one seemed to care when it was photos of college classmates, but once it became Jennifer Lawrence, they drew global attention. What was once a semi-private hobby for a small set of predatory users turned into an international story.

"This was bound to be over at one point," agrees another. "I'm surprised it went on for a couple of years unsanctioned."

Some think this means they'll never get the full celebrity leak trove:

Sad thing is they ruined it for all of us and didn't even release all of the win. Still tons of kayla maroney pics and im sure there actual win pics of hayden and kaley which would actually make it more worth it.

Others would have been content to stay away from Hollywood:

Wouldn't be worth it for me. I'd rather be able to download backups of all of the chicks I know than a bunch of random celebs

Some iCloud violators are trying to look on the bright side:

eh whats it matter. most girls lost their photos anyway in this iOS 8 update debacle. apple can't do anything right

And then there are those that, undaunted, are still offering iCloud cracking services:

The Nude-Stealing iCloud Thieves Are Sad Their Party Is Over

They don't even want to be paid for it.

To contact the author of this post, write to biddle@gawker.com

Andy Samberg Is Surprisingly Good at Quickly Summarizing Movies

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Andy Samberg stopped by the Tonight Show last night to talk about Brooklyn Nine-Nine and make you jealous of Joanna Newsom and their presumably perfect life together. (Have you seen their house?) (It's good.) While he was there, he and Jimmy played a delightful round of "5-Second Summaries."

With time limits set at five, three, and one second, you'd guess Samberg and Fallon might have a tough figuring out the film their opponent attempts to describe. But they don't! You thought wrong. They get a lot of 'em. Ugh, you're so bad at guessing I can't even stand it.

[via NBC]


Why Shonda Rhimes Rules ABC's Thursday Nights

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As Avirex jackets and sweat pants replace tube tops and skort sets, we welcome the arrival of another barrage of good, terrible, and Tyler Perry television to love, hate and live-tweet each night. From ill-advised sassy Black makeover shows to cancelation-hungry cooking competitions, you'll have plenty of opportunities this fall to behold the maiden voyages of many a sinking ship. There is plenty of abysmal to go around. Don't you fret.

But if you're looking for spiffy editing and greatness, Shonda Rhimes has you covered. ABC widened the lanes on the ShondaLand Get Money Expressway and has granted her free reign over Thursday nights via a three-hour programming block. Her much-deserved primetime takeover, Thank Gods It's Thursday, kicks off tonight, and the powers that be hope to recreate yesteryear's Miller/Boyett reign here in the Age of Obama, one hashtag at a time.

Fan favorites Grey's Anatomy (11th season) and Scandal (4th season) are back to yank your heartstrings out of your chest. We will soon learn the fates of the beleaguered Meredith Grey and the absconded Olivia Pope, two powerful women who've both arrived at major crossroads in their respective lives. Stay? Go? Stay gone? You can bet your favorite jockstrap that social media will be ablaze with viewers predicting and (over)emoting the night away, as expected, realizing ABC's vision of harnessing the power of Twitter to strike ratings gold. Again.

Tonight is special, though. Tonight, during the third hour of TGIT, we meet law professor Annalise Keating, played by two-time Oscar nominee Viola Davis in How To Get Away With Murder. This legal thriller is a beautiful vehicle for allowing Viola the Great room to showcase the full range of her brilliance. Finally, she gets to be the Beyoncé rather than the LaTavia. Expect great clothes and oodles of snappy monologues. Count me in.

So why is ABC giving Shonda Rhimes the keys to the Thursday-night kingdom?

Because she gets it. The unforeseen success of Scandal, thanks in large part to social media, has proven the power of the ShondaLand brand. Starting with the infectious #WhoShotFitz hashtag, social media has latched onto this show, catapulting it into the stratosphere (and inevitable syndication). Now, cast members and writing staff live-tweet the action, watching and engaging with fans. Stylists answer questions about Olivia's wardrobe. ABC's social media-driven #TGIT campaign is the natural progression of such feverish beginnings.

With a decade of primetime hits and misses under her belt, Rhimes is a master at creating bustling content, hooking viewers emotionally, and assaulting the senses with just the right amounts the saccharine and the stomach turning. Her characters—whether gladiators, doctors, or otherwise—are cocktails made with equal parts ridiculous, despicable, and histrionic. And, I'm invested. Somehow, I am root for torturers and wishing gout upon surgeons.

Plus, her casts are as diverse as America itself. Nonwhite characters like Scandal's Papa Pope and Grey's Anatomy's Cristina Yang aren't black jerks and Asian jerks; they're just jerks who happen to be black or Asian. TIME calls this "casual diversity." I call it "reality." Whatever.

And there is also a lot of humping.

Specifics on what we can expect from Rhimes' trifecta this season are scare, but with her at the helm, they will all surely be jamdamnpacked with all that trademark straight-faced treachery, power whispering, and plot twisty goodness. So prepare the side eyes and replenish the wine: lies, fairy tales, and rushed sex cometh.

Morning After is a new home for television discussion online, brought to you by Gawker. Follow @GawkerMA and read more about it here.

Here Is the VICE Style Guide

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Here Is the VICE Style Guide

Many media outlets have style guides, which governs all matters related to writing style. We got a copy of Vice's style guide. Here it is.

Vice confirmed for us that this is the current style guide for Vice.com. Though we have written extensively in the past year about various forms of fuckery at Vice Media, we do not claim any special scandalous angle here. This is just their style guide—yes, the very style guide that helped to produce "Sugar Cum Made My Jizz Taste Like Jamba Juice." Respect that.

A few key elements of Vice style:

  • "Avoid corny colloquialisms like bucks, smackers, or samoleons."
  • "—Trannies

    If someone is transgender, use the pronoun of his or her preferred gender."

  • "Limit use of really, very, kind of, sort of, gonna, kinda, literally, apparently, and so on. Similarly, chill out with all the cunts and fags you fucking cocksuckers. Keep it punchy, but avoid writing in an edgy voice like some people who wish they wrote for us tend to do."
  • "A handful of websites are actually becoming legitimate, respected news outlets; some might even call them 'online magazines.' On a case-by-case basis, we will italicize those.

    For example:

    'The Huffington Post ran an interesting rebuttal to an essay from the LA Review of Books, but Gawker made fun of both of them because those guys are mean.'"

The entire 26-page style guide, which clarifies the difference between come (vb.) and cum (n.), is below. Enjoy.

Vice Style Guide

[The apocryphal Gawker Media Style Guide sits in a long-dormant corner of the mind of Choire Sicha.]

​New Mexico Cop Sees Ghost, Says Possibly Related to Unsolved Murders

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​New Mexico Cop Sees Ghost, Says Possibly Related to Unsolved Murders

Goddamnit, New Mexico.

You know, if you live in the state long enough you learn to just sort of shrug off the more eccentric bits as the tax you have to pay in exchange for the awesome scenery.

Somebody says they saw Bigfoot up by Jemez Springs? Sure, why not.

Unexplained humming sound in Taos? I've never heard it, but fine.

UFO's near Roswell? Tourists love spending money that sort of bullshit—so whatever.

Skinwalkers out on the Navajo Reservation? Who am I to say there aren't?

But when your hometown cops start seeing ghosts—and then talk about them to the media in connection to actual, unsolved crimes—you start to feel a bit more concerned that maybe an intervention or some counseling is in order.

For example, Española police officer Karl Romero says that surveillance cameras at the town's police station recently captured a g-g-g-g-ghost wandering around a secured entrance at night.

The surveillance video shows a bright white blob making it's way across a secured area. According to KOAT-TV, Romero says he immediately reported the sighting to his supervisors—but they found no trace of anyone in the area.

KOAT reporter Nancy Laflin added—with an admirably straight face—that as far as anybody knows the police station wasn't built on an ancient burial ground and that no inmates have died in the facility.

Police say that there was no way into or out of the area without a gate opening and an alarm going off. Police Detective Solomon Romero told KOAT that he not only absolutely believes in ghosts, but...

"I do believe in ghosts — I don't know (what exactly was on the video), but we've had some unsolved murders in the area," Romero said.

Uh...wow.

Goddamnit, New Mexico.

Image via YouTube

Woman Collects Friends' Breast Milk to Feed Daughter

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"Suddenly I stopped producing breast milk, so now I collect breast milk from my friends," explained Apple Melecia on last night's TLC special Extreme Cheapskates: Guide To Love. Extreme Cheapskates is a show about people who do all manner of insane and/or disgusting things for the sake of saving some coins and delighting in others' disgust. For the cameras, Apple also proudly made her own baby wipes with a roll of paper towels and dish detergent (that she would reuse), shopped for lingerie in a thrift store, and asked a beautician to put used extensions on her head since they were just going to be thrown out anyway.

But the crowning jewel of Apple's thrifty yet questionable life decisions was giving her daughter the fruit of other women's boobs. There was the milk of Amy (from her yoga class), Jessica (a co-worker), Brandi (a woman that she regularly meets for playdates), Jennifer's, and Megan's. Chloe, Apple's daughter, likes Jessica's milk the best, go figure.

How Big Data Is Failing Us

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How Big Data Is Failing Us

Big Data: The phrase conjures up images of nerdy techno-alchemists finessing valuable information about the universe with complicated and expensive computers. It is that, yes—but it's also a necessary progression in technological evolution, a term for any complex analysis of large databases that would have been impossible using older technology. The potential benefits of its use are enormous, and the uses vary widely as the information collected about us grows exponentially and the ability to process it grows in tandem.

But like any powerful tool, Big Data has a dark side.

While the messages of data evangelists like Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane or ESPN analyst Nate Silver—or, more specifically, the press coverage of their accomplishments—seem to portray data as an impartial arbiter of "truth," the fact remains that any set of data is biased, and any technique for studying it is as well. In addition to statistical bias, the bleak fact is that institutional biases, discrimination, racism, sexism, classism, inequality, and their ilk are, too, part of humanity's dataset.

As Big Data becomes more sensitive to picking up these things and better at predicting, it also becomes better at reinforcing outcomes based on factors of inequality. Like most tools in the hands of unscrupulous or uncaring researchers, Big Data can be as destructive as it can be productive. So, the question must be asked: Is Big Data an instrument of prejudice?

How Big Data Is Failing Us

Answering may mean taking a long step back through history. As the capacity for analysis outstrips our ability to even apprehend it, let along ensure its ethical or moral grounding, even institutions like the White House have noted that the use of Big Data "raises crucial questions about whether our legal, ethical, and social norms are sufficient to protect privacy and other values." The ethical structures simply aren't in place yet to guarantee fair use and privacy in data. The challenges facing society and Big Data parallel the Wild West era of medicine and scientific discovery in the early 20th century that led to several terrible human rights abuses. For poor and minority communities in the U.S., one of the biggest blights was the 40-year long disaster known as the Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

The Tuskegee Study began in the midst of the Great Depression as an extension of studies on the advancement and treatment of syphilis. The study examined the effects on untreated syphilis in 400 poor black farmers for six to eight months under the guise of a last-chance treatment program. Ethical concerns, even in the 1930s medical frontier landscape, went mostly ignored in no small part because of the race and income of the study participants.

Many members of the cohort of black farmers were denied treatment and misled or developed permanent or fatal complications by the time the study was finally terminated in 1972. Whistleblowers within the government agencies that directly controlled the study, like Dr. Bill Jenkins, were ignored for years as the explicit research goal had shifted: to follow the men until their deaths. When the study was finally terminated after 40 long years, the carnage was unthinkable: only 74 members of the cohort still lived, almost half of the deceased had died due to syphilis or complications, at least 40 wives and sexual partners contracted syphilis from the group, and several of their children were born with congenital syphilis.

Despite being a publicly acknowledged program administered by the federal government and regularly cited in medical texts, national reactions at the end of the Tuskegee Study resulted in sweeping changes in medical ethics, racial dynamics in research, and research conduct in general. The 1978 Belmont Report, the first real code of research ethics in the country, was a direct result of the backlash against the Tuskegee Study. In it, researchers finally realized that "conceptions of justice are relevant to research involving human subjects." Groundbreaking.

How Big Data Is Failing Us

But what does the Tuskegee Study have to do with the price of tea? Just like those researchers in 1932, Big Data stands at the shallow end of an ocean of possibility. We now have the power to answer complex questions about things mundane and deep. But like those researchers, curiosity and potential profitability have much more momentum than the ethical considerations needed to keep subjects safe.

To Dr. Bill Jenkins, the epidemiologist who spoke out against the Tuskegee Study long ago, it is clear that ethics aren't often a primary concern for researchers. Jenkins said that "researchers don't even second-guess themselves; they just assume that the process is ethical." Like in the Tuskegee Study, the future is bleak for those with the least agency over the data collected from them.

The invasiveness of data collection is easy to overlook because of how ubiquitous it is. Like those spinal taps in the 1930s, the collection of data is often sold under the guise of helpful and essential services. Everyone who uses almost any social media or commerce site has vital information, often including IP addresses (which can be used to identify individuals with extreme precision), collected at many different points during the day. While people with lower incomes and persons of color are probably not more likely to have data collected on them than other populations, they have fewer consumer protections and less advocacy and information guiding them through such complex decisions (and privacy forms). Outside of internet data, disadvantaged communities are readily taken advantage of in surveys, polls, and other data collection methods, often through some form of coercion.

Truly informed consent in this age of research is a lost concept. To Dr. Jenkins, this is intentional. "The fact of the matter is that the data is often owned by whoever collects it," he told me. "For the federal government there are some policies on informed consent but any motivated collector can get around them. People who do research are very smart. They will always figure out a way."

The conclusions and aims of Big Data can also prove harmful to disadvantaged populations. As the research designs of the Tuskegee Study warped along racial and class lines, so do many projects involving Big Data. Attorney General Eric Holder has recently spoken out about the conclusions reached in using data analysis for criminal sentencing. Noting that basing sentencing and bail decisions on socioeconomic factors and generalized traits could result in discrimination and could even worsen existing bias in sentencing, Holder stated that these initiatives "may exacerbate unwarranted and unjust disparities that are already far too common in our criminal justice system and in our society."

Unequal outcomes are also popping up in other areas as well. In school admissions, moves to make admissions processes more automated using Big Data have amplified already existing racial and gender biases in admissions data and standardized tests. Analysts have developed extensive and complicated algorithms for predicting which students will fare well at universities and then using that metric as an "objective" admissions test. But that approach is equivalent to taking a calculus course to learn arithmetic.

We already know the two main factors that make a person most likely to succeed in college: race and income. Advanced metrics in this case are just more sophisticated ways to obfuscate decisions essentially based on the color of one's skin and how much money one's parents make. Big Data-assisted decisions to extend or deny credit or to offer employment based on complex metadata aren't fundamentally different than classical redlining or job discrimination. In fact, the perceived unbiasedness of Big Data makes these new forms of discrimination much more difficult to combat.

The final element of danger in Big Data is that of power. Who benefits from the data and are individuals entitled to gains made with data collected from them?

The Tuskegee Study was blasted commonly on the grounds of "beneficence," or the idea that research should in some way benefit the studied population. In an age where profiteers, corporations, politicians and media drive data and discovery as much as scientists do, the social responsibility inherent to scientific uses of human data has been swallowed whole by the newfound responsibility of data analysis to benefit the user. While disadvantaged populations never had the upper hand in control of the data gleaned from them, the Big Data revolution increases the disparity and concentrates the vast predictive power of metadata into already-powerful hands. If the decisions made from using Big Data already increase inequality, then the concentration of power it enables does so even more.

How Big Data Is Failing Us

Big Data needs a Belmont Report. But given the stakes, communities can't sit idly by this time and document abuses until the disaster has already happened. The Belmont Report and the ethical revolution that followed the Tuskegee Study focused on beneficence, nonmaleficence, autonomy, and justice as four key principles for studying human subjects. While these four don't quite appropriately address the concerns with Big Data of today, they are a starting point.

Researchers Neil M. Richards and Jonathan H. King at Washington University in St. Louis have identified four additional principles of privacy, confidentiality, transparency, and identity that are useful in creating an ethics structure for using Big Data. According to Richards, the ethical responsibility often extends to the algorithm and outcomes themselves. "We can't outsource responsibility to an algorithm" Richards said. "We have to have social confidence in the kinds of outcomes it's going to produce. All decisions to entrust a decision to an algorithm are relying on flawed human decisions and human creations."

Big Data users should have a burden placed on them not to harm individuals from whom data is gained. They should be held under the threat of criminal charges to absolute privacy and datasets should be limited to truly non-identifiable data unless the subjects explicitly agree otherwise. Privacy statements and consent should be written in 8th-grade language and limited to a few pages. Above all, persons should be respected as persons and not as faceless points of data. According to Richards, all of these solutions "mean that all of us, particularly politicians, policymakers and judges are going to need to get their hands dirty" in the actual meanings and intent of data use.

It's not clear right now how to get to the point where any of those recommendations are followed in any measure. We aren't even in a place yet where most or all scientific and medical researchers abide by the Belmont Report's guidelines. What is clear is that such an effort will be a monumental task between advocates, scientists, ethicists, legal systems and the government.

But the effort will be worthwhile as it will allow us all to move forward as a nation and to actually use Big Data to create a more inclusive and better society. The Big Data world is the new frontier. Its hazards are hostile to us all. But its conquest deserves the best of all mankind.

Vann R. Newkirk II is a data geek, fiction writer, sc-fi lover and professional curmudgeon. You can find him at @fivefifths on Twitter.

[Image by Jim Cooke]

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