Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/10/25/you-treasure-what-you-measure.html
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So is this like a Con Census Reality they are building?
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Expect all of the large, blue, coastal states to inexplicably lose millions of residents.
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I think that I’ll take issue with the description of the 2020 census as the first “high tech” census. Our definition of “high tech” has just changed over time. Certainly the 1890 census was considered “high tech.” at the time. It was the first large scale use of Hollerith punched cards. This enabled automatic sorting and tabulating of data in ways that were not practical before. The result was a census that ended up being just as expensive as previous censuses (censii?) but one that netted vastly more usable information from the data.
NB my parents’ town always has issues with the census because they don’t have home delivery of mail and the Census won’t mail forms to a PO box.
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I guess the Republicans could claim that, under the Criminal Clintons and the Socialist Muslim Regime of Barack Hussain Obama, the census figures in Blue States were artificially inflated; and now, the Internet Census is providing an accurate representation of the population. True and accurate, people, TRUE and ACCURATE!
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Good information based in reality is the enemy of the modern GOP, so it’s understandable that they’d deliberately attempt to debase its sources. See also public education.
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'Course, when the Democrats attain an advantage through gerrymandering, it’s totes legit, amirite?
It seems to me that the topological chaos of gerrymandered districts is rather strongly dependent on pinpoint accuracy unreachable if the data collection is botched due to crappy tools.
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And, of course - if your not enumerated - your needs don’t get addressed.
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So instead of only counting blacks as three fifths of a person, now America will only count three fifths of black people 
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In case anyone had doubts, there really is data to back up the argument that online surveys miss poor and minorities.Pew Research Center analyzed their data a couple years ago and that’s exactly what they found:
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So… buying health insurance on line is a disaster of a train wreck, but this one should be easy-peasy.
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Yeah, it’s a no brainer.
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It was the same with Harper in Canada. He didn’t want inconvenient facts getting in the way of his preconceived notions.
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At some point America’s motto seems to have become: “We’re all fucked. But if we’re privileged enough, we’ll get to decide how we get so.”
When did we decide that settling for bullshit was our best option?
I miss George Carlin.
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The constitution of 1789 did, in fact, “count three-fifths of black people” for the purpose of apportioning Congressional representatives. The notion that the constitution legally defined blacks as “three-fifths of a person” is one of the most persistent misconceptions liberals and lefties have about American history. I blame Howard Zinn.
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Firstly, what’s yer point?
Secondly, if we’re going to get all pedantic about it then I’d like to point out that 0.6 ∑(n) = ∑(0.6 n), so semantically speaking you may be correct but effectively yes, the US constitution bloody well did too define a black person as three fifths of a whitey.
Thirdly, I’m sorry my joke didn’t meet your semantic standards, but not half as sorry as I am that American citizens have to put up with this sort of shit from their own government and have been putting up with it in one form or another for centuries and counting. I kind of feel like you’re not only missing the point of the joke but maybe also the point of life in general.
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“A nation that doesn’t understand its own makeup is a nation hamstrung by its own ignorance”
This made me laugh because it seems that the United States is well into this scenario right now.
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You don’t gerrymander based on census data - at least not only on census data. If the census was accurate, that would be gerrymandering data you were just giving away to the other party. You collect your own separate accurate databases, confidential information belonging only to your party, and make sure the census data is inaccurate enough to be useless in gerrymandering, and useful in supporting your preferred policies.
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Yes. Not one brain will be spent making the census better, if the TGOP has its way.
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