So we're not allowed to make political comments, but hints like these are allowed: "City that, once again, led the nation with the highest number of murders" "City in which anarchists established which quickly descended into murder and chaos"
Remove, the "once again" from the first clue and I suppose it can be salvaged. However, the Seattle hint isn't even a remotely accurate description of what happened in that city. I have a close family member who lived within a couple of miles of the single city block that was affected, and her life went on as normal throughout the entire incident. The entire city did not in any way shape or form descend into "murder and chaos".
If you're going to allow hits like this in featured quizzes, at least allow us to respond in the comments.
Good points. I did not view the Chicago statement as political, just a statement of fact.
I agree that the Seattle one is somewhat political. That said, I live even closer than your relative to the affected area. Seattle did not descend into murder and chaos. The CHAZ/CHOP absolutely did. The mayor finally dismantled it when Antifa "security" murdered two black teenagers. So sorry about the editorializing. The national media did a large disservice to the city by not telling the true story of what happened there. I witnessed some of it with my own eyes.
I am not from Seattle, I read about the situation from several people in Seattle, some of which are seasoned journalists, in and outside national media. The situation was described with different perspectives and nuances by everyone - to a point, where I, as an outsider, can reasonably assume that this issue is way more complicated than a short sentence on a quiz can give justice. And with complex situation, less aggressive phrasing might not be a bad idea.
Saying "descended into murder and chaos" is not really complete, if the context is people trying to get away from the chaos and murder brought by other actors. Not much descending to do to get to that point at that time.
Also, maybe a pet peeve, but using the word "Anarchist" here needs some citation. That people tried for an Autonomous Zone does not make them anarchist.
I also realize now that the clue had some words missing. This has now been fixed. The zone was absolutely chaotic and there were at least 3 murders there in a short amount of time. The city as a whole did not descend into murder and chaos. Thankfully!
We have no idea whether the killings in the CHAZ/CHOP were murders. Murder is an *intentional* killing. The CHAZ/CHOP shootings might have been manslaughter. To assume otherwise is disingenuous.
Are we working from the same info? Two teenagers were joyriding a stolen car. Someone (or multiple people) fired a hail of bullets into the car, killing the unarmed occupants. As far as I know, these facts are not disputed.
That said, you are absolutely allowed to talk about politics. However, the informational content of your comments should be higher than the emotional content.
Every comment I ever made that could possibly be construed as political had more information than emotion in it, yet a ton were still deleted. I'm sorry. A couple comments recently have made me pissed off again, some even directed at me. I'm going to go back to self-quarantine now....
This isn't a comment on the Seattle stuff, nor am I necessarily saying the quiz should be changed, but it seems somewhat odd to include the Chicago and Baby Shark clues. The former isn't really anything special to 2020 (as the clue itself points out) and the latter isn't solely an American thing (created by a S. Korean company and views of it were pretty much global).
That all being said, it's very odd that there's no question about the killing of Qasem Soleimani on here, one of the defining foreign policy events of the year. Or, for that matter, a question about attempts at troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, which might be the beginning of the end of American involvement in the country. Or a clue about the CARES Act, the largest economic stimulus package in US history. I feel like all of these clues would be much more appropriate on this quiz than "Chicago" or "Baby Shark."
Qasem Soleimani appears in a different 2020 year in review quiz. Also, no one CARES (get it) about the name of government stimulus programs, so long as the checks arrive on time.
Well considering multiple people were murdered on one city block over a week or two, with people violently attacking police officers, with burned down and looted businesses, I think it's pretty accurate to call it chaos.
Only issue I see with the Chicago clue is that it is often used by some for ill-informed political claims about the effect of gun laws that were repealed years ago on murder levels - the same people who don't understand rate vs. level.
In other words, I'd rather live in a city of 10 million with 500 murders a year than in a city of 1 million with 400 murders a year.
Too many people in my town attack Chicago over their murder rate, not even having a clue how much worse ours is.
The Baby Shark clue is political. It insults an entire important demographic. Fortunately they can't read, so like many unpopular political statements we put on false smiles and endure hearing it for the 80th time that day.
Then we vote thumbs down and it overrules the popular view count.
That isn't actually very controversial. Whether or not Biden won fairly is a whole different topic. The fact of the matter is that he will be inaugurated on January 20th, and is President-Elect.
Funny with the 100s of 1,000s of people in on the alleged conspiaracy all across the country (sitting right beside people of opposing political views) that they didn't take the Senate too.
Funny that if it's so easy for one side to cheat then it is just as easy for the other.
Funny that never in the history of rigged elections did the people NOT in power rig the election.
I don't think that the "Annoying Baby Song" is majorly US related, as it became the most watched video on YouTube and YouTube is an international platform and website. People not from US also use it and several parents play this song for children outside US.
Funny you say that because I don't I've ever heard of 'Baby Shark' before. Kept trying 'Johnny Johnny Yes Papa' though (which I have unfortunately heard thanks to Instagram).
Even if the 0.000000001 percent chance that congress flipped the election happens, Biden still won the election. It would just be that trump flipped congress and was inaugurated cuz of it.
I was surprised to see the question about Musk and Grimes since Musk is South African and Canadian and Grimes is Canadian. It turns out that Musk got triple citizenship and has also been American since 2002.
Yikes. Reading “President” instead of “Presidential” in the first line was a bad omen here. Overall I felt like I was doing a crossword in Newsmax more than a quiz on Jetpunk. The “Seattle” and “Operation Warp Speed” entries are questionable and doubtful, respectively (and in the case of the former, I’m writing this after the edit). And the “Chicago” entry reads a bit gleefully, perhaps because it’s the kind of phrasing I hear right-wing pundits use.
The usual content here - featured quizzes especially - is impressively neutral. This was jarring
I believe Texan was referring specifically to "once again," as though that implies the right wing is right to depict Chicago is a liberal hellscape. I'll add only that as a proud and protective of Chicagoan, I didn't particularly mind the clue. I will add context though (see my comment below for more!).
I am thinking about your comment. Here's the deal. We live in a very annoying world right now. One where simply stating who won the Presidential election is controversial to some. Likewise, there are a lot of people who want to pretend that the riots never happened this summer, or downplay them, or blame them on Republicans, or whatever. To me, both sides are playing a dangerous game where party allegiance is placed ahead of truth. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to create a quiz like this in the future because passions run too high.
Personally, I'd appreciate it if you, and other commenters (I've deleted the most unhinged ones) would assume good faith. Saying things like "Yikes" or "this is like Newsmax" is not doing that. We're doing our best to provide a balanced quiz.
Providing a balanced quiz would mean removing terms like "anarchists" - there is a clear political slant to these prompts, which is undeniable given how many people are reacting.
"Anarchy" is a defined political stance though. I know some self-professed anarchists. I don't know whether the term is fairly applied to the people in Seattle because I didn't follow the issue that closely, but merely calling people anarchists isn't controversial if they are in fact anarchists.
QM, appreciate your sincere response. Hope you can appreciate that mine was, too. Said Newsmax not to rib you, but because that’s what I picked up: flat/serious presentation, 90% inarguable hard facts, 10% right-wing-friendly interpretations of hard news blended in. Not saying you’re right-wing, or anything-else wing! Just that it came off that way to me, and since I’ve been reading that junk since 1998 (yikes!), it jumps out wherever I see it.
Since 2017 or so however, I’ve been absorbed in Jetpunk, and that mainly is why all this stuff is so jarring to me. The site is impressively, at times C-SPANishly neutral on many political topics, especially on various thorny geopolitical things. So this quiz stuck out in a big way. I mean, are you getting the kind of discussions you’re been in on this page, on many other comment pages?
In any case, thanks for doing what you do, and big thanks for staying engaged and slugging it out with us in the comments here. For real, no matter the result.
George Floyd was not killed by a police officer. He died of cardiac arrest and was under the influence of heavy drugs at the time. And no this is not a political statement at all, it's merely a statement on what actually happened since apparently we have to clarify that to keep our accounts.
An autopsy found that Floyd's cardiopulmonary arrest was caused by the police officer (Chauvin) and declared it a homicide (source). Chauvin is, as of now, charged with second degree murder.
The Medical Examiner's report listed the "Cause of Death" as "cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.” It did not say that the officers caused the cardiopulmonary arrest. On a subject this sensitive, it is very important to be accurate.
There is a difference between cause of death and mechanism of death. Cardiopulmonary arrest would be the mechanism of death, i.e. the ultimate reason for the cessation of biological functions. The cause of death is the precipitating factors resulting in death. In this case the actions of the police officer led directly to George Floyd's death. Without these actions having occurred George Floyd would still be alive.
If we were to only focus on the mechanism of death in all circumstances then the only reason for any death would wind up being cardiopulmonary arrest. Victim of a car accident? Nope. You died of cardiac arrest. Lung cancer? Nope. You died from respiratory arrest. See, the events directly preceding death provide nuance and are what's really important when determining cause.
I think that Operation Warp Speed gets too much credit in the question. First, OWS was launched in May, while the vaccines were already being developed in January. Second, the first vaccine that was approved ("record time") is the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (called the 'Pfizer vaccine' in the US for obvious reasons), which was not funded by OWS (and in my few minutes of research, not funded with US money at all).
What Warp Speed did was to guarantee funding for companies that were not first to market, or failed testing. It also greatly increased distribution abilities. Without this, companies would not have been as incentivized to make vaccines, and the vaccines would not have reached people as quickly.
The name is kind of funny though because the Moderna vaccine was designed in 2 days. With a more efficient government, it could have reached patients much, much earlier. That said, by FDA standards, the vaccine rollout was extremely fast.
I agree. The development of the vaccine was a scientific effort, by plurinational teams, and the funding was guaranteed by several government programs. I'm more than willing to agree that Operation Warp Speed probably played a role, but it most certainly did not "develop the vaccines"!
Granted, Covid changed 2020 immensely, but I would have enjoyed this quiz more if 6/20 questions weren't dedicated to Covid. There was a lot more going on that went "unnoticed" due to Covid.
Also, even though I'm not a fan of the Baby Shark song, I would lose the leading adjective entirely, because not everyone thinks it's annoying. The quiz is about events of 2020, not the quiz-maker's opinion on said events.
I will again add the context that Chicago is, on the whole, a safe and beautiful city. The murders are overwhelmingly concentrated in a handful of distressed neighborhoods on the far south and west sides. That is not to belittle their significance or the gravity of the problem. Those neighborhoods are war zones, and the people there suffer immensely in terms of both safety and emotional well-being. But people unfamiliar with the city see "Chicago murders" and think the whole city is peppered with violence. That is not so. Most of the city is safe, especially in the areas where visitors sleep and explore. We also lead the nation in cased meat consumption, but nobody ever wants to talk about that.
Not even an American, but "once again" does carry some connotations that Chicago actually doesn't deserve. Although they may have the largest number of homicides, on a per capita basis they rank 10th. In terms of states, Illinois also rates as 10th. St Louis and Baltimore by far lead the US in homicide rates and as a state Louisiana is far ahead of the rest.
I got all answers except for 'Baby Shark', which I don't think I've heard of (probably thankfully). One wonders how it could accumulate so many views.
But still pretty good for a Malaysian who lives in China and who has been never been to the U.S. before, and has spent the whole year within China, except for a few days in January back in Malaysia to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
$200 billion is such an insane number that it's hard to even conceptualize. Here's one: if you made a million dollars every single year since the year 1 AD, you'd have....$200 billion. (And yes, I know about compound interest. Hush up. It's just a thought experiment.)
The biggest stadium in the world holds 114,000 people. Jeff Bezos could afford to give everyone in that stadium $1 million dollars each and still be one of the world's 10 richest people.
200 billion is 200,000 million, in the U.S. style of counting.
Hono sapiens were just barely evolving away from other hominids 200,000 years ago. That's twice as long as they've been beyond the continent of Africa.
There were literally 7 questions about death. No questions about the Chinese trade war? Israel's deal with the Arab Nations? And these have plenty to do with the US.
Remove, the "once again" from the first clue and I suppose it can be salvaged. However, the Seattle hint isn't even a remotely accurate description of what happened in that city. I have a close family member who lived within a couple of miles of the single city block that was affected, and her life went on as normal throughout the entire incident. The entire city did not in any way shape or form descend into "murder and chaos".
If you're going to allow hits like this in featured quizzes, at least allow us to respond in the comments.
I agree that the Seattle one is somewhat political. That said, I live even closer than your relative to the affected area. Seattle did not descend into murder and chaos. The CHAZ/CHOP absolutely did. The mayor finally dismantled it when Antifa "security" murdered two black teenagers. So sorry about the editorializing. The national media did a large disservice to the city by not telling the true story of what happened there. I witnessed some of it with my own eyes.
Saying "descended into murder and chaos" is not really complete, if the context is people trying to get away from the chaos and murder brought by other actors. Not much descending to do to get to that point at that time.
Also, maybe a pet peeve, but using the word "Anarchist" here needs some citation. That people tried for an Autonomous Zone does not make them anarchist.
"City where an 'autonomous zone' was established, which was then dismantled after two murders took place within it"
The CHAZ/CHOP shootings might've been manslaughter and they should be referred to only as "killings" unless new evidence emerges.
In other words, I'd rather live in a city of 10 million with 500 murders a year than in a city of 1 million with 400 murders a year.
Too many people in my town attack Chicago over their murder rate, not even having a clue how much worse ours is.
Then we vote thumbs down and it overrules the popular view count.
Funny that if it's so easy for one side to cheat then it is just as easy for the other.
Funny that never in the history of rigged elections did the people NOT in power rig the election.
The usual content here - featured quizzes especially - is impressively neutral. This was jarring
Personally, I'd appreciate it if you, and other commenters (I've deleted the most unhinged ones) would assume good faith. Saying things like "Yikes" or "this is like Newsmax" is not doing that. We're doing our best to provide a balanced quiz.
Since 2017 or so however, I’ve been absorbed in Jetpunk, and that mainly is why all this stuff is so jarring to me. The site is impressively, at times C-SPANishly neutral on many political topics, especially on various thorny geopolitical things. So this quiz stuck out in a big way. I mean, are you getting the kind of discussions you’re been in on this page, on many other comment pages?
In any case, thanks for doing what you do, and big thanks for staying engaged and slugging it out with us in the comments here. For real, no matter the result.
If we were to only focus on the mechanism of death in all circumstances then the only reason for any death would wind up being cardiopulmonary arrest. Victim of a car accident? Nope. You died of cardiac arrest. Lung cancer? Nope. You died from respiratory arrest. See, the events directly preceding death provide nuance and are what's really important when determining cause.
The name is kind of funny though because the Moderna vaccine was designed in 2 days. With a more efficient government, it could have reached patients much, much earlier. That said, by FDA standards, the vaccine rollout was extremely fast.
Also, even though I'm not a fan of the Baby Shark song, I would lose the leading adjective entirely, because not everyone thinks it's annoying. The quiz is about events of 2020, not the quiz-maker's opinion on said events.
But still pretty good for a Malaysian who lives in China and who has been never been to the U.S. before, and has spent the whole year within China, except for a few days in January back in Malaysia to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
200 billion is 200,000 million, in the U.S. style of counting.
Hono sapiens were just barely evolving away from other hominids 200,000 years ago. That's twice as long as they've been beyond the continent of Africa.
That is rather long term investment though.
I've been to Newport. Drove through the state in less than a half hour.