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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

#311

Post by pas »

tomp wrote: post #304
ForrestN wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

We are talking about large, diverse groups and their median or average.

That said, usually the correct approach is not discriminating based on race, but discriminating on the actual "disadvantegedness" of the path taken by the applicant.

Accidentally that's how it's done around here for university (you get points for being disabled, poor, living far from the campus, and so on).

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

#312

Post by ForrestN »

tomp wrote: post #304
ForrestN wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

Oh wow!

Yes, that's very easy! Let me count the ways. First of all, Obama's daughters are much more likely to be murdered, abused or falsely accused by police than they would be if they were white. Even iconically famous black people are sometimes mistreated by police officers who don't recognize them. I'd say being at a high risk of murder counts as a disadvantage! I don't even need to draw a line back to ancestral violence for that one—that's just regular old present day violence.

Second, although the Obama sisters enjoy substantial family wealth due to their parents' incredible achievements, the fact that they were born black means that, statistically speaking, they would have been far wealthier if they'd been born to a comparably wealthy white family. For example, if the Obama's are the X richest African American family, they'd be far richer if they were the X richest white American family. Bingo! Disadvantage! Why does that wealth gap exist? There are many recent crimes, many tied to violence, that exacerbated the situation. But we can start by looking at the fact that Black people, including Obama ancestors, were violently forced to build wealth for white people without any compensation.

There are many more ways in which contemporary American society puts extra pressure and psychological burden on African Americans, yes even rich African Americans, all of which can be traced back to historical violence in our history, and all of which clearly affect the outcomes we associate with "success."

Whether you admit it or not, you're arguing that the person who "deserves" to win in our economy is the person whose ancestors perpetrated horrific crimes against his competitor's ancestors and who doesn't have to face the constant daily effects of ongoing racism in our society.

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

#313

Post by mehrdadn »

tomp wrote: post #308
mehrdadn wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 t…

I don't think this contradicts what I wrote. Like I wrote in the previous comment, all I'm saying we need more nuance on whether equal opportunity or equal outcome is better, because it's situation-dependent, and often some combination of both. On this point you guys are agreeing and then analyzing the situation which is... exactly what I've been saying.

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

#314

Post by gdy »

tomp wrote: post #308
mehrdadn wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 t…

You got my point correctly and I'm interested to know what you disagree with.

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

#315

Post by gdy »

mehrdadn wrote: post #299
gdy wrote: 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.

That's a fair point I agree with.

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

#317

Post by gdy »

fzeroracer wrote: post #295
gdy wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on Earth supporting poor people regardless of their race would be racist by anyone's criteria? It would seem you are the racist here thinking a person needs support because he is black, not because he is poor.

You need to reread my argument if that's what you came out of it with.

You need to reread my argument if that's what you came out of it with.

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

#318

Post by angusp »

> for example, have been found by MIT and Microsoft researchers to misidentify dark-skinned people at vastly higher rates than light-skinned people. That’s a near-perfect analogue of white people’s tendency to misidentify people of color, leading to higher rates of false arrest and conviction. > > It’s hard to describe that as anything other than “a racist algorithm,”

Surely to be racist, some degree of malice or ignorance is required - face recognition from visible light flat imagery will always struggle with low-contrast images, which is sadly what you get from a poorly lit black person's face. It's neither intentionally racist nor inadvertantly - there is just not the same amount if information available

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

#319

Post by fzeroracer »

gdy wrote: post #317
fzeroracer wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to reread my argument if that's what you came out of it with.

You need to reread my argument if that's what you came out of it with.

It's clear you're not here to actually argue in good faith, which is a shame.

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

#320

Post by csa »

yourbandsucks wrote: post #303
csa wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 bo…

1. Asians are over-represented by ~4x versus their percent of the population (5.6 in US and 22.9 at Harvard)... not that this is a useful metric. Is this a stat that SJWs are happy about? I genuinely wonder.

2. Affirmative action is a thing. If you stop the so-called “Asian quota” (e.g., by going race blind), then any slots gained will most likely result in losses for slots from other ethnic minorities. Some people believe that shaping the student body a certain way is good for the university. I personally agree with that general statement, but the specifics are not easy to hash out — there are many trade offs, and it’s not easy to determine where the magic cutoff is for too few or too many.

3. If Harvard goes race blind, don’t believe for a second that it will turn out like Stuyvesant or Berkeley. IIRC, when the change happened, Stuyvesant did not focus on the “multidimensional excellence” that most other elite schools do. Berkeley just lets in too many people to need to review to that level of detail. Harvard and other elite schools might see a very small Asian bump, but my guess is that it won’t be what people expect.

Note that I strongly advocate for fairness in the admissions process for all people, and I definitely think that some Asians get stereotyped poorly. That said, I also think that a lot of people, Asians as well as non-Asians, simply don’t make efforts to shape themselves in a way that optimizes their chance for elite school admission.

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