Why some political ethicists contend throwing your vote away is unethical, Roxane Gay on her upcoming comic book, the latest research on lithium batteries.
Uninformed? Don't vote, ethicist suggests
As convention season comes to a close, voters across the country are now turning their attention to the general election; it's a time for voters to mull and consider how to cast their vote come November.
Watchers of the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia have likely noticed that there are plenty of Democrats who don't feel that Hillary Clinton is quite the right fit for them; there are plenty of Republicans who feel similarly about Donald Trump.
So what is a voter to do? Suck it up and vote for the candidates officially nominated this month? Vote for the other party's candidate in protest? Go third party? Or perhaps stay home come November 8th?
Take Two put that question to Jason Brennan, author of the book, "The Ethics of Voting." Brennan is also the Flanagan chair of economics, ethics and public policy at Georgetown University.
Answers have been edited for clarity.
Highlights
I'm going to do the ethical thing here and admit I haven't yet read your book, but I did read about it and was rather shocked to hear that you argue that many people owe it to the rest of us not to vote. How so?
When you think about what it takes to be a good doctor or a good parent, what it takes is that you are well informed about what's at stake, and you process the information you have in a rational way. You expect your doctor to pay good attention to your symptoms; you don't expect them to — say — pour out a can of alphabet soup and give you whatever prescription happens to be spelled out by the letters. We call this a duty of care; we expect these people to behave in a rational and informed way.
When we look at most voters, they don't behave that way. They have very low levels of knowledge. They don't process information in a rational way. Voting for them is like waving a flag or wearing a Metallica t-shirt, or wearing team colors — it's not about taking care.
What do we do with this information? Because it seems to me that it wouldn't be very just equal or fair to say 'hey, you have to take this test, and if you're up to date on all these issues, then we'll let you vote.'
I think if you have power, but you admit that you don't know what you're doing with your power, the civically virtuous thing that you could do would be to not exercise that power. Or, alternatively, you could become informed, but that takes a major investment.
Despite taking an elitist view about voter knowledge, I also have a populist view about civic virtue. The average person does a lot for their country, but they don't necessarily do it through voting. They do it through other means.
Many Americans feel as if the candidates who have been nominated don't truly reflect their ideals. And so they say 'I'm not going to vote at all,' or 'I'll vote for the opposing party's candidate.' What should people be thinking about if they are considering that stance?
There's this question about — if you are going to vote — are you supposed to vote in a pure way for your sincere preferences, and I guess I don't really see there being a compelling argument against what economists call strategic voting: you vote not for what you really want but for the lesser of two evils, or something you think will produce better outcomes even though it's not what you really want.
A lot of Sanders supporters, they want to show their purity, but really as a block, there's a question about what influence they might have. It's possible that if they collectively abstain from voting then in the future the Democrats might be a little more left-wing than they otherwise would be, but it's also possible the Democrats would just write them off. Trying to produce better outcomes, even if they're not the outcomes that you really want, seems like a good thing.
As one of my colleagues put, suppose you can't get the best doctor for your kid, you still want to get the best doctor that you can, even if you can't get the best doctor period. It still seems like the responsible thing to do is pick the best doctor that you can get, rather than not give your kid any medical treatment at all or let them get treated by an even worse doctor.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full conversation.
(Note: The title of this story has been updated to more accurately reflect the interview.)
State of Affairs: Sanders supporters shift tone and Hillary Clinton takes the DNC stage
On this week's State of Affairs, President Obama makes the case for Hillary Clinton, California Governor Jerry Brown talks climate change, and Tom Torlakson steps up to lead the state.
Joining Take Two to discuss:
- Marisa Lagos, political reporter for KQED
- Ben Bradford, Capital Public Radio's state government reporter
- Thad Kousser, political science professor at UC San Diego
Tensions at Democratic convention still high with some Sanders supporters
As the Democratic National Convention heads into its final night, tensions remain high between supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders and backers of party nominee Hillary Clinton — at least according to some Sanders delegates, including Dallas Fowler.
Fowler is a California delegate for Sanders. Her mother, Carolyn, is team Clinton. You can listen to some of their past discussions with Take Two here and here.
Dallas told Take Two the frustration among Sanders supporters remained high heading into the fourth and final day of the convention. She described one incident in which food was allegedly thrown at the 17-year-old delegate Zenaida Huerta and another in which 20-year-old delegate Shawnee Badger was allegedly pushed down stairs.
While KPCC has not independently verified any claims about physical attacks, the frustration of Sanders supporters comes across loud and clear on the social media feeds of both young women.
A Facebook video posted to Badger's account appears to show the pushing incident happening in the stands at the convention.
Huerta, meanwhile, has posted a series of complaints about the treatment of Sanders delegates.
BREAKING: 3 of the 10 Bernie Arkansas delegates had their credentials removed yesterday for using non-Hillary signs.
— zenaida (@zxnaida) July 28, 2016
I am so proud to call myself a member of the CA Bernie delegation who stood bravely against our suppressors #StopTPP pic.twitter.com/UoqnQgKXXG
— zenaida (@zxnaida) July 28, 2016
Video from Huerta of more arguments on convention floor:
Her responses:
I was attacked by a Clinton delegate tonight. Here's what happened (video in the link): https://t.co/AitVNN5p0j pic.twitter.com/l55tF30Ame
— zenaida (@zxnaida) July 28, 2016
I understand that this delegate is not a reflection of the entire delegation but when I spoke w/a Hillary campaign whip, they dismissed me.
— zenaida (@zxnaida) July 28, 2016
The following interview has been edited slightly for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
On Tuesday, it seemed like you had some mixed feelings. You were still quite staunch in your support of Bernie Sanders. How are you feeling at this very moment?
Dallas Fowler: At this moment, I think there's just a high level of frustration with the treatment of Sanders supporters. I have been privy to many unfortunate events that have happened here, one that included food being thrown at our youngest delegate, who is 17 years old — Zenaida Huerta — and our 20-year-old delegate being pushed down the stairs on the convention floor. Her name is Shawnee Badger, and she was pushed by a gentleman named John Hanna, who works with the California Democratic Party. So when you have incidents like this, our young people being attacked physically, it's very disheartening on how we can come together as a party, and it's highly misrepresentative of their candidate. I do not believe that Secretary Clinton would condone any of this type of behavior. However, it makes it very hard for us to unite as a party, and it keeps our frustrations and tensions very high.
I can't imagine you're just sitting there in the cafeteria and someone throws a piece of pizza at a delegate's head. What are some of the conversations that are leading up to some of these more temper-fueled moments?
In the incident of the food being thrown last night, we were on the convention floor. We were sitting there, 17-year-old Zenaida was holding up a no TPP sign. She does not support the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement that is happening, and there are specific items that are alarming to her, and as well as many other members of our party, on both sides of the primary. And there was another older woman that threw food at her, because she was standing with a sign. She wasn't yelling, she wasn't making noise — she just carefully stood there with her sign. And we have First Amendment rights in this country, and I think that everyone should try to be as respectful as possible. And in her form, in her mind, she was being respectful by allowing people to hear what was being said by the speaker. However, she also wanted to reserve her right to protest, which in this party, we are a party that has protested historically. And so that is something that I think is, frankly, a disgrace to the representation that the California delegation brings as the largest delegation that is here at the convention in Philly.
Food fights and pushing aside, how do you think you and other Bernie supporters are feeling? We've heard speeches over the week — Bernie Sanders himself came out and said, hey, it's time to get behind the nominee. What do you think? Are people when they go back home ready to say, OK, I'm going to vote for the Democratic nominee, despite who I initially was here as a delegate for? Or do things like food fights and stair incidents change that decision?
No, I don't know that that's going to specifically change that, but I think it's going to make it a harder road to tow in terms of getting everybody on board. For me, specifically, there are some things I am looking forward to hearing the secretary speak about this evening that are potentially very strong uniters for us.
What could she say this evening?
We really still want to hear that she's not going to support TPP, or support it going to the floor in a lame-duck Congress. We also want to hear her stance on environmental issues, like fracking. Have you changed your position, and those are some of the issues that I think could really unite people and get them on board with Team Hillary in the fall. So those are some things we want to hear her say. Also, where do we fall in line? Do you have a place for me? What do you have for these people who have supported Senator Sanders and have done a great amount of work to move our party platform forward, which has been a huge win — but I was speaking to some other people earlier in this week. There's a right way to win, and there's a wrong way to win. And there's a right way to lose, and there's a wrong way to lose. And I think that Senator Sanders ran a historical campaign, and he has still won. He has won with his platform, and the movement that he has created. And I think there's still a lot to be excited about. It is very much an honor to be able to be a witness to the nomination of our party's first female president of the United States. However, we still have much work to do to come together.
Dallas, it sounds to me as if you're keeping an open mind. You're waiting to see what Hillary Clinton has to say tonight, and see how things play out in the months to come between now and November. We've heard a lot about this "Bernie or Bust" campaign, and speaking with fellow Bernie Sanders delegates there, and especially the delegates from California, do you get a sense that there are some who feel like, no matter what happens, I'm going to not vote, or I'll even vote for Donald Trump?
Oh yeah. Yes, there are definitely factions that will never support Secretary Clinton, and they have their own reasons. And then there are people who are going to leave the party. And quite frankly, with some of the actions today, it puts it on the table for me as to whether or not I want to be a part of a party that treats its people like this. So I do believe that, by me speaking out this morning with some of the delegation, that there are maybe being some actions taken. However, we want to just wait and see. And you are correct, we are definitely waiting to hear from the secretary as to how she plans to unite us for the fall. Because we do have to come together. No one wants to support Donald Trump. However, we may have several that would go to the Green Party. There will be some that will not stay, but there will be some that do believe that the party is worth staying and fighting for. And hopefully we can maintain most of them, however, the party is not making it easy right now.
San Francisco to decide noncitizen voting rights for school board elections
There are about 100 days left until Americans go to the polls. Both parties will be working hard to get out the vote, and activist groups will monitor polling sites to make sure that no citizen is denied their right to cast a ballot.
But in San Francisco, voters will be asked to decide on a voting question: Should noncitizens be able to participate in local school board elections?
Sup. @ericmar415's measure to allow non-citizens to vote will go on the Nov. ballot; 10 of 11 supes support it (not @MarkFarrellSF)
— Emily Green (@emilytgreen) July 26, 2016
is the city hall reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. She joined the show to explain more about this proposal — including the track record of narrow failure it has seen in previous elections.
As Tesla Gigafactory officially opens, what's the future for lithium batteries?
The invitation for Tesla's July 29 Gigafactory grand opening gives the street address as 1 Electric Avenue in Sparks, Nevada — as if guests would have a problem finding a place so large it can probably be seen from outer space.
2 million square feet, and counting
Growing to as large as 13 million square feet, Tesla’s new gigafactory isn’t just big. It’s epic.
“This is really quite an enormous facility. In fact, it will produce more lithium ion batteries than all other factories in the world combined,” Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk said in March, just before throwing off the covers on his highly anticipated entry-level Model 3 sedan. Almost 400,000 Model 3s have seen been pre-ordered.
To produce so many cars, Musk said, "We would need to absorb the entire world’s lithium ion production.”
Which is a lot of lithium ion. But where will it come from? And are there other battery chemistries on the horizon if it runs out?
Lithium demand is on the rise
"The global lithium market is in a tight supply situation," said Joe Lowry, aka Mr. Lithium, who runs a lithium advisory firm. "Now with the sudden demand boom in both electric transportation and electric storage for renewables, we’re in a situation where the market’s tight and it’s probably going to be tight until 2021.”
Lowry has been in the lithium industry since the early ‘90s, when lithium’s light weight and capacity for energy storage made it the hot ticket for rechargeable batteries in handheld devices.
At Tesla’a current production level of 100,000 cars per year, Lowry said Tesla uses less than two percent of the world's lithium.
Even when the Gigafactory reaches full capacity of 500,000 cars annually, it will only use 10 percent of the world’s lithium, he said.
"If you took a Model S, 85 kilowatt hour battery, you’ve got less than $500 worth of lithium in that. The Model 3 will have a smaller battery," Lowry said. "It’s not going to be a deal breaker."
So even though supplies are tight today, there should be more than enough lithium to go around, right?
Lithium is plentiful
Unlike petroleum, which is used once and gone forever, lithium can be endlessly recycled.
And there’s a lot of lithium in the world. The supply problem isn’t abundance so much as availability. It takes time and money to get new mines up and running in the parts of the planet with high concentrations — places like Chile, Argentina, Australia and China, which is the world's largest consumer of lithium.
Then there's the remote area that may have influenced Tesla’s decision to set up its Gigafactory in Nevada rather than California.
It’s a parched No Man’s Land called Clayton Valley -- in Nevada. Home to one of the only lithium reserves in the U.S., it’s 200 miles from the Gigafactory. Last year, Tesla signed agreements with two companies there, even though Clayton Valley’s lithium quantities are low.
So what’s the big deal with lithium?
Lithium's allure
"Lithium is the lightest element at room temperature. It's tough to beat, " said Mark Verbrugge, director of General Motors' Global Research and Development Lab.
"In terms of a battery where you have solid state materials where you can package them efficiently, lithium is a very, very strong contender. It's doubtful nature’s going to give us something better," he said.
Before the end of the year, General Motors will beat Tesla to the punch with a mass-market, affordable, long-range electric called the Bolt. GM says it will go at least 200 miles per charge.
And it will be powered with lithium ion, but a chemistry that is 50 percent more efficient than the lithium ion batteries GM used to power its plug-in-hybrid Volt just six years ago. So the chemistry is evolving, and evolving quickly.
New battery technologies on the horizon
Still, in the fairly near future, GM is "looking very much to cannibalize, eclipse and move on to the next thing," Verbrugge said. "My guesstimate would be that post 2020, you’re going to start to see silicon-enhanced electrodes come into the marketplace.”
That’s a lithium ion battery technology also, but one that’s four times the capacity of current lithium ion systems.
With EVs poised to become The Next Big Thing in transportation, GM’s is one of several labs looking for the next big battery technology to power them.
“There are now lots of interest in the scientific community looking at different technology that are sort of beyond the lithium ion battery,” said Brian Ingram, a battery researcher with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago.
"Here at Argonne, we are looking at two different approaches, the first being exemplified by lithium sulfur chemistry” -- which is more energy dense and lower cost than lithium ion and could enter the market in the next few years.
The other, Ingram said, is multivalent batteries that don’t use lithium but magnesium, which is more readily available, lower cost and more energy dense. That’s still at least a decade away from commercial deployment, he said.
The next breakthrough battery won't be anything like lithium ion
"Every new battery is a disruptive radical innovation in battery chemistry," according to David Sadoway, chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and pioneer of a new liquid metal battery used for stationery energy storage.
"So lead acid is nothing like nickel metal hydride," he said.
Lead acid was the battery chemistry used in the earliest EVs from more than a century ago.
"Nickel metal hydride is nothing like lithium ion."
Nickel metal hydride is the battery that’s still being used in the Toyota Prius. And lithium ion is what powers pretty much every battery electric vehicle today, whether it’s the Nissan Leaf, BMW i3 or Tesla.
Now everyone's looking for the net big breakthrough.
Whatever comes along to replace lithium ion — eventually — is likely to be a radical departure. But it’s not a contest, Sadoway said.
"It’s not battery versus battery. It’s battery versus hydrocarbons. It’s battery against diesel. It’s battery against natural gas," he said.
"Lithium ion was a major milestone. It was a fantastic discovery, but lithium ion wasn’t designed for cars. It wasn’t designed for stationery storage. It’s made remarkable progress in both of those areas, but I would look at it more as inspirational than a final solution."
The future may find us using batteries based on magnesium, aluminum or even sodium -- salt. But for now, with Tesla's plan to quickly begi producing storage cells in giga-level numbers, expe t the soft, silvery white metal known as lithium to remain in high demand.
Roxane Gay: The first black woman to write a Marvel comic
The new Marvel comic book Black Panther, by Ta-Nehisi Coates has been a SMASHING success.
The series is the latest about the African King slash super-hero who rules the fictional country, Wakanda.
With huge sales and critical acclaim, it's little surprise that Marvel is expanding on the property with an upcoming title - Black Panther: World of Wakanda.
For this venture, Coates tapped another prominent Black writer -
.
She's a novelist and the author of the essay collection Bad Feminist.
To get her on board for the project, Coates made Gay an offer she couldn't refuse.
"A few months ago I got an email from Ta-Nehisi and he said, 'I have a crazy idea.' And I said, 'Oh I like crazy ideas. What is it?' And he suggested that I write about the Dora Milaje- the all women guard for Black Panther," she told Take Two's Alex Cohen.
Wakanda's Dora Milaje members are not only all black women but two of them -Ayo and Aneka- are also queer. "To write black queer women into the Marvel canon is just an opportunity I couldn't turn down."
Blazing a trail for other black women
Luckily for Gay, Marvel is giving her a lot of free reign to tell the story. "That's been one of the most exciting and intimidating aspects of working on this project," Gay says. "That they have basically said, 'You can do what you want.'"
One of the main things that Gay wants is to incorporate a better representation of black women into World of Wakanda; something's that still rare in most mainstream media.
"I think that we have to remember that there is no one representation of black women," Gay says. "And there are absolutely black women nerds out there ... and I'm really excited to see Black Women who are already working in comics, hopefully, getting more of these high visibility opportunities."
Black female representation is hard to come by in the main two comic book publishers. This is something that Gay is especially conscious of, being the first Black woman to write a comic at Marvel.
"I think it's really frustrating," she says. "But I know I won't be the last. I think [this] shows that change is possible even if it comes a lot slower than we would like and, quite frankly, slower than we need."
Transitioning to the story-telling of comic books
There's no doubt that Gay has clout as a story-teller, but she has never written a story for the comic medium. In fact, prior to this gig, the only comics she'd had extensive experience with as a reader were the Archie comics when she was growing up. So how does she plan on making this transition?
"Very carefully," she says. "I'm starting with the big picture. What's the over all story that I want to tell? And then I'm breaking it down into four to six episodes or issues. It's so different from anything that I've done, but at the end of the day, it's still story-telling. So I'm just remembering that I do know how to tell a story. And I think I know how to tell it pretty well. The things I don't know about comic book writing specifically, I'm going to learn."
And she's been doing her homework as well. She's picked up popular comics like "Saga" by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples as well as the recent DC reboot of Wonder Woman by Grant Morrison, Yanick Paquette and Nathan Fairbairn. Gay says, "I'm definitely seeing the relationship between word and image and seeing how there's a dimensionality to the story that you don't necessarily have in a traditional short story or novel."
The exciting and terrifying parts of a new medium
Black Panther: World of Wakanda was just announced last week at San Diego Comic-Con. Gay says that the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive. But she's got a lot of emotions as the project picks up steam.
"What excites me is having so much freedom to tell such a story and being able to write women that are fierce and capable... and becoming these figures of justice throughout Wakanda," Gay says.
"What scares me is being the first [black woman to write a Marvel series]. And all of the pressure that comes with that. And knowing that because I'm not from the world of comics, there's going to be a level of expectation. I just don't want to let anyone down."
Marvel's Black Panther: World of Wakanda will be on store shelves in November.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Heads Up Football was supposed to be safe
A few years ago USA Football, the national governing body for youth football, partnered with the NFL to create a new tackling technique teaching program that they claimed would dramatically reduce head injuries
The assertion was that if more kids learned this technique, the sport would become much safer. It followed a time where a lot of new information about head injuries was being discovered, like even seemingly moderate impacts to the head can have far more lasting effects.
The technique was geared to have players tackle with heads up, instead of using the helmet as a battering ram.
But now it appears the numbers that backed up the safety claims was miscalculated. We’ll talk with Alan Schwarz, the New York Times reporter that uncovered the discrepancy.