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These Maps are Lying (if you let them)

2024-11-08 · explainer · Hank · 6:39 · watch on YouTube

Topic: US politics & society · mode: News analysis · tags: timely hook, self promotion

Days after the 2024 US election, Hank argues that election graphs and maps can mislead: a viral Twitter graph used incomplete counts and a non-zero axis, land-coloured and electoral maps show states rather than people, and county swing maps show only margin changes; he says he is discouraged, advises viewers to do things that connect them with others, and plugs a Book of Good Times address survey and his Good Store tea quiz.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — How a viral Twitter graph of Biden and Harris votes lies: non-zero axis and incomplete 2024 counts

  • ★★★ Hank says a lot of the maps we see around elections are kind of lying to us. — 00:00:00 · United States presidential election
  • ★★ Hank shows a graph spread widely on Twitter to suggest Joe Biden got oddly many votes in 2020, as if many were fake. — 00:00:13 · Twitter, United States presidential election
  • ★★ Hank says the graph makes Biden look as if he got almost double Kamala Harris's votes, but the zero on its x-axis is 50 million people. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Hank says a worse graph crime, increasingly common now that being the media has spread to whoever gets the most attention, is that the data is wrong. — 00:00:47 · attention economy
  • ★★★ Hank says the graph's 2024 column shows only the votes counted so far; California and several other West Coast states count ballots extremely slowly. — 00:00:58
  • ★★★ Hank says using this graph to insinuate that Biden's votes were suspicious means its maker was either ignorant or had bad intentions. — 00:01:10
  • ★★★ Hank says the graph lied in two very different ways, first by having wrong data, which is kind of unforgivable. — 00:01:24

00:01:37 — Book of Good Times backers must fill out the Kickstarter address survey before shipping

  • ★★★ Hank says even with correct data the graph would still be kind of lying: a non-zero axis exaggerates the difference, and a graph should help you understand the actual situation. — 00:01:37
  • ★★ Hank says about 20% of Book of Good Times backers have not yet sent their addresses, and shipping starts next week (week of 11 November 2024). — 00:01:50

00:02:06 — Election maps: land versus people, electoral maps, gradients, and county vote-swing maps

  • ★★★ Hank asks backers to find the Kickstarter email survey in their inbox and fill it out now, to make life easier for the warehouse team. — 00:02:06 · Kickstarter
  • ★★★ Hank says maps that colour land make it seem the whole country votes Trump, but land does not vote. — 00:02:13 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says one such map (shown on screen) has only one purpose: to make people who live in cities look like they don't matter. — 00:02:20
  • ★★ Hank says election maps mainly show who won, because the US president is elected by the states, not the citizens; some variants show each state's electoral power. — 00:02:35 · United States
  • ★★★ Hank says we still look at these state maps and think they represent humans rather than states. — 00:02:45
  • ★★ Hank says showing how people voted needs colour-gradient maps; living in a red state, he dislikes that electoral maps ignore his existence. — 00:02:50
  • ★ Hank says maybe maps must also correct for population, which makes them look super weird. (hedged) — 00:03:04
  • ★★★ Hank says the popular vote-swing maps show something important but specific: the 2020-to-2024 percentage change in the Republican–Democrat spread in each county. — 00:03:04 · Republican Party, United States
  • ★★★ Hank says his brain reads the swing map as more people voting Trump, but Harris may have got fewer votes than Biden, or both changed; it shows only margin change, no absolute numbers. — 00:03:33 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says on a county map lots of red marks small counties rather than huge swings; some states have far more counties, and Alaska has no counties at all. — 00:04:03
  • ★★ Hank says swing arrows are sized by percentage, so Loving County, Texas, with 96 voters, gets the same scale as LA County. — 00:04:32
  • ★★★ Hank says these maps and graphs are super useful tools meant to simplify, but that can increase the risk of learning the wrong things from them. — 00:04:40
  • ★★ Hank says he is very discouraged and made a map video because he felt he had to reference the moment but cannot go deeper than that. — 00:04:58

00:05:01 — Hank's post-election discouragement, his We're Here essay, and what to do now

  • ★★ Hank says he does not feel at all qualified to do the election analysis. — 00:05:01
  • ★ Hank says maybe he will do some analysis on Hank's channel soon. (hedged) — 00:05:01 · hankschannel
  • ★★ Hank says there have been a lot of bad takes that do not represent reality. — 00:05:01
  • ★★★ Hank thinks over the next four years people will need energy to push back against the weirdest and wildest things the Trump administration will want to do. — 00:05:01 · Donald Trump
  • ★★ Hank says he wrote about this in a special edition of the We're Here newsletter sent earlier this week (week of 4 November 2024), linked below. — 00:05:01
  • ★★★ Hank says the answer to "what do we do now" is anything you want: get out of bed, go outside, do things you must, things that make you happy and connect you with others. — 00:05:01

00:05:49 — Do things that connect you with others; Hank's tea quiz for Good Store, profit against tuberculosis; sign-off

  • ★★ Hank says the election was long, stressful and a long fight; it is done now, and at least we know what we're facing. (hedged) — 00:05:49 · United States presidential election
  • ★★ Hank says he often responds to situations like this with work, and this week (week of 4 November 2024) made a very dumb tea quiz to help people pick a Good Store tea. — 00:05:49 · Good Store
  • ★★ Hank assures viewers the quiz is silly, their tea is magnificently good, and it makes a good present; Good Store also has a gift quiz he did not make. (playful) — 00:06:18 · Keats & Co., Good Store
  • ★★ Hank says 100% of the profit goes to fight tuberculosis, a fight that looks like it will need all the help it can get, and praises John's work on it. — 00:06:27 · tuberculosis, Good Store, John Green

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In a channel comment Hank clarifies that Trump got way more votes than in 2020 and Harris way fewer than Biden: the swing was decisive and national. — creator comment · Donald Trump
  • ★★ In a comment Hank says he does not think these maps intend to mislead, but as a professional communicator he notices when people may take away the wrong idea. — creator comment
  • ★★ In a comment Hank corrects himself: Alaska has county-like units but does not report the vote by them, so it gets one arrow. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: map · misuse of statistics · United States presidential election

Also: People: Donald Trump · Joe Biden · Kamala Harris

Projects: Good Store · hankschannel · Keats & Co. · We're Here newsletter

Works: The Book of Good Times

Organizations: Democratic Party · Kickstarter · Republican Party · Twitter · United States Electoral College

Concepts: attention economy · electoral fraud · misinformation · tuberculosis

Places: Alaska · California · Los Angeles County, California · Loving County, Texas · Texas · United States · West Coast of the United States

Also centred on map: 42 Amazing Maps · Thank God We Got This Right…

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