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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

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Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#301
post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been advocating for the rights of my own group "left handed 1/64 cherokee Americans with hazel eyes and slighly wavy brown hair" forever and I've been STUNNED at how quick people are to ignore the systemic bias against us. Some other categories of people seem to be doing much better than us, which is only explainable from systemic bias. Unless we are down with being complicit in a "right handed non partially che…

We've banned this account for trolling. That's what flamebait on inflammatory topics is, intentionally or not.

He has a point, though.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not true. It’s just that racist intend is almost always impossible to prove. Outcome therefore becomes a needed proxy, but only after excluding other factors, by, for example, normalizing for age and income. Two landmark studies in this regard come to mind are (a) how the success rate at an orchestra doubled among women after auditions were changed to a “blind” format not allowing the decision-makers to see th…

You use the word racist to mean two different things. The basketball team being all black isn't racism and it isn't due to racism. If I saw a basketball team (in the NBA) of all white people, I would suspect racism, but it's important to point out that the outcome (an all white NBA team) is NOT racist in itself. Even if it is likely due to racism. So, I think we should stop calling the outcomes 'racist' and say what…

I fail to see a distinction b/w “racist” and “due to racism”. In any case, I feel large parts of society, including major media outlets, already tend towards caution, c. f. the reluctance in calling the President’s “both sides” comment “racist”, instead opting for “racially charged” or “insensitive” or similar.

> There is one party in particular that I think relies on people to believe that their problems are outside of their control, so that maybe they'll outsource the problem solving to the government.

That’s a rather unfair characterization of the Democratic Party. But I find it even more interesting to know why you feel the need to superficially obfuscate who you are talking about?

I’ve also provided two examples above that clearly prove that racism and sexism do exist. If gender-blind hiring doubles the chances of female classical musicians, aren’t they right in pointing the finger at that result and complaining about white men playing life on easy?

But apart from such narrow situations, most left-wing advocacy is decidedly altruistic: college students supporting a raising of the minimum wage aren’t doing so for their own benefit. Unless, that is, they are terribly pessimistic about their personal future. Neither are voters and politicians advocating for DREAMERs, who by definition are neither. Nor are Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Bloomberg, LIN-Manuel Miranda, or any number of billionaires or otherwise successful people advocating on behalf of the less fortunate.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#303
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, Asians are "underrepresented" at Harvard relative to what they would be if Harvard judged candidates based on SAT scores, scholastic achievement, and other seemingly-objective-and-reasonably-sensible metrics. They're "underrepresented" relative to the pool of candidates who are qualified to be at Harvard. But they are "overrepresented" compared to the general population of the United States. Which…

> if Harvard judged candidates based on SAT scores, scholastic achievement, and other seemingly-objective-and-reasonably-sensible metrics I think this type of statement represents the main problem that folks who run down the “Asians at Harvard” rabbit hole. People assume that Harvard admissions is all just based on who is the biggest brainiac based on grades and SATs, and that’s simply not the case at Harvard or any…

Then why do their admissions numbers line up neatly into racial buckets that match exactly what a social justice person would like to see?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but when their internal paperwork seems to indicate an ASTOUNDING difference in "personality" for blacks vs Asians, at a large-numbers level.. I mean do we really buy that? Can we even just consider for a moment how racist that sentiment is? Against both races?

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#304
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, “procedural fairness” or “equality of opportunity” (if I understand it correctly) is directly opposed to “representative fairness” or “equality of outcome”. In many situations, prioritising one will compromise the other. As an example, Harvard admission of Asian students. Perspectives differ on which one is more important. Personally, I’m absolutely for the former, but it increasingly seems I’m a p…

I think the most useful way to think about this is that unequal outcomes almost always lead us to unequal opportunity upstream. If, for example, you made admission to elite colleges(which is a whole other can of worms) ignore ethnic backgrounds, you'd get a result where far fewer applicants of certain ethnicities would be accepted. In an arbitrary sense, this could represent "equal opportunity" if you believed that t…

Can you please explain how Obama’s daughters are disadvantaged based on ancestral violence?

The point is, racist discrimination, even if “positive”, produces unfair outcomes. Obama’s daughter don’t need even more advantages. If you want to help kids from disadvantaged backgrounds (and I think that’s a worthy cause, even if you ignore “fairness”, simply because it increases the odds of finding the next Ramanujan and improves the well-being of the society), you should help people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Admitting them to degrees they don’t deserve isn’t actually helping them - it’s mainly just fixing superficial statistics and perpetuating harmful stereotypes (e.g. people not wanting black doctors because they suspect they’re worse because they weren’t subject to as strict standards as white, let alone Asian, doctors). To ensure actual equality of opportunity, you need to help them when they’re young, improve their school system, help their families, etc. Everything else is just a bandaid, at best masking rhe underlying problem.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#305
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory I agree but in practice that often leads to racism. For example, some people support discrimination for blacks (& against whites) at e.g. college admissions, purportedly to offset their (statistically) worse family background (in terms of education and wealth). Clearly, that's a terrible and racist solution, with the better and obviously correct solution being... to support people from worse family backgrou…

The flaw with this argument is that if you recognize that for example, black people are generally worse off in family background than white people, then you end up back at the point where you on average offer more aid for black families than white ones which by your argument would be racist. You're not solving the problem at all by attempting to sweep racism under the rug; quite the opposite in fact because it fails…

> which by your argument would be racist.

You seem to have misunderstood my argument; maybe I wasn’t really clear in that part. I think a policy that helps lots of poor black people, some poor white people, and doesn’t help Obama’s daughters (because they don’t need help), is a good, fair, and most importantly effective policy. A policy that doesn’t help poor white people is racist. A policy that helps Obama’s daughters is ineffective (and I don’t want my tax money to go to that cause).

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#306
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More to the point, “procedural fairness” or “equality of opportunity” (if I understand it correctly) is directly opposed to “representative fairness” or “equality of outcome”. In many situations, prioritising one will compromise the other. As an example, Harvard admission of Asian students. Perspectives differ on which one is more important. Personally, I’m absolutely for the former, but it increasingly seems I’m a p…

I think the most useful way to think about this is that unequal outcomes almost always lead us to unequal opportunity upstream. If, for example, you made admission to elite colleges(which is a whole other can of worms) ignore ethnic backgrounds, you'd get a result where far fewer applicants of certain ethnicities would be accepted. In an arbitrary sense, this could represent "equal opportunity" if you believed that t…

with regards to Harvard et al., they have a harder time to do positive discrimination since some court decisions in recent years. all in all, they look at extracurricular stuff to try to give extra points, because they can't discriminate - even positively - based on race, as far as I know. (the legal history of affirmative action is pretty long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action_in_the_Unit... )

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#307
post #291
post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By changing the way schools are funded, and helping poor students. No racial discrimination necessary.

My point was principally about the issues with 'equality of opportunity' in the US because of the massive inequality already present. On your note though yes with unlimited money we could do that, given limited budget though targeting the assistance to those most affected makes sense. Also a program like that also does little to nothing for people who aren't very young when it's started. Also ultimately that's an equ…

> meaningful distinction to draw between inclusive discrimination like affirmative action and exclusive discrimination of groups.

The only distinction I see is in the rethorical spin that people make. A preferential treatment of a set of people is exactly equal to a discriminatory treatment of the complement of that set of people (e.g. positive discrimination of black people equals negative discrimination of non-black people).

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#308
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that black people are disabled in a way just because they are black?

...what? No. I'm asking about the equality of opportunity vs. outcome. Parent said he's for equality of opportunity rather than which accessible parking is most definitely not. I'm suggesting we need more nuance than just categorizing one as desirable and one as undesirable.

I mostly disagree with what “gdy” said but he might have a kind of a point. We, the society, choose to unfairly advantage disabled people, recognising that even with all their advantages, their lives are still pretty shitty. On the other hand, there’s plenty of black people who can, and do, raise to the top of whatever success hierarchy you want, so they don’t need to be treated better; they just need fo be treated the same. (As a thought experiment, would you rather be black like Obama or Kanye, or some disabled guy like Hawking or Roosevelt?)

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#309
post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flaw with this argument is that if you recognize that for example, black people are generally worse off in family background than white people, then you end up back at the point where you on average offer more aid for black families than white ones which by your argument would be racist. You're not solving the problem at all by attempting to sweep racism under the rug; quite the opposite in fact because it fails…

> which by your argument would be racist. You seem to have misunderstood my argument; maybe I wasn’t really clear in that part. I think a policy that helps lots of poor black people, some poor white people, and doesn’t help Obama’s daughters (because they don’t need help), is a good, fair, and most importantly effective policy. A policy that doesn’t help poor white people is racist. A policy that helps Obama’s daught…

A policy that affects one group of people more than others by racial lines sounds like a racist policy, don't you think? Which was my entire point. You're in effect, arguing for a policy that is racist by your own prior argument.

We have affirmative action policies and the like because we admit that some groups of people are disadvantaged due to a multitude of circumstances and we attempt to do things in such a way as to ensure that they can mitigate those circumstances.

Re: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Absolutely Right About Racist Algorithms

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is, we don't even know what "fair" means. What do we mean by fair? Say we want to base fair on group outcomes, in which ways should we divide people into groups in order to perform some sort of balancing? Is hair color or texture a relevant way of subdividing people for instance? Are we being "fair" to red haired people? What if red haired people for some reason seem to be less likely to pay back loa…

The problem is the self-reinforcing, external factors that these algorithms don't take into account. If you feed a ML algorithm crime stats, it will conclude crime is directly correlated to being black, or being a former criminal. But this correlation only exists because of how we've chosen to conduct the policing of black communities and treatment of ex-cons upon release that produced the the training data in the fi…

"Note how the fact that I wasn't at fault isn't factored in. This makes sense to you?"

Actually, yes. In Russia we have a principle called DDD which can be translated as Give Way to a Moron ("Дай дорогу дураку").

People who avoid dangerous drivers, even when it hurts their ego, are less likely to get involved in a collision.

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