This is the answer in addition to the stories being more subtle in many cases than implied by the term "Hyper-partisan". While "subtle" seems to imply less damaging to the political system, much like many people complain the media lies as being a large issue, this is pretty much the same thing except with a super PAC behind it.
Someone else brought up Facebook -- that's the other thing -- these sites are typically linked or used as sources during election season.
I think the amount of sway these sites has is small, but moderately effective. In a day and age where 70k votes can swing an election in a country of millions, it is just one of many tools in the bucket of lobbyists and political parties.
Obama was also the "tech" president. I wonder to what extent this increased surveillance is a result of the scalability advantages software brings. More than all previous presidents combined is pretty significant. Did he spend that much more?
The premise of "The Three Body Problem" is that the fastest way to make a technological leap is to find another species that has already developed the technology. Even seeing what can be done would make a huge impact. China's effort in the article parallels what happens in the book. Surprising that they don't mention this when talking about the motivations of billionaires and nation-states.
I don't think that was the premise at all; what you're describing sounds closer to "Signal to Noise" [1], another book that covers a lot of the same themes as Three Body Problem (first contact, the dark forest hypothesis, etc.)
The point of this is what is known as model-based learning. Basically, the long-term goal is to be able to predict the output of a given action (jumping, walking left, etc.) by an AI agent. When you can do this, then the agent doesn't need to die to know that jumping down a hole will end the game-- it can predict it. Once you've done this, AI techniques like that of Watson can control robots. They won't need to kill someone to know that driving a pole through a head is no good. They'll be able to 'reason' it out.
And then there's roommates... I used to pay $600 a month for an SF house, and did this by having 2 roommates and a live-in girlfriend. Saved enough for a house. Much comes down to delayed gratification.
And then there's the ability to sleep at night without your roommate having a conversation next your door at 2 AM, a different set of roommates that expected only you to take out the trash, another roommate that blasted tv next to your door at 2 AM, having to switch out a good roommate with someone who might also be terrible when they leave, not having your own space to work and focus on the job and hobbies, etc. etc. There is no delayed gratification when there is nothing to work towards to as you slowly go insane living with people who have no idea what it means to be "quiet" at night nor have a basic level of accountability/self-awareness, even if they say they do.
But I still wonder, how is Grooveshark still online legally? They let people upload their music and other people listen to it. It's basically Napster in 2012.
My read: it's in their interest to seem balanced until the moment that it matters--when covering candidates or policy.