Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

ethanzuckerman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 83 posts

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#51

Post by mcguire »

throwaway91321 wrote: post #29

The original blog post is pretty silly for a number of reasons, but I think this reply post is also pretty bad. For instance, the author makes it sounds like cheaper and better prisons would be a bad thing: > In other words, when Snow focuses on making prison safer and cheaper, he’s working on the wrong problem...If your solution only mitigates the symptoms of a deeper problem, you may be calcifying that problem and…

Once upon a time, Greg Bear wrote a novel called Strength of Stones, where the inhabitants of a planet built artificially intelligent, self-maintaining cities with the ability to exile criminals to protect the rest of the inhabitants. Then, potential criminals. Eventually everyone. I don't remember the rest of the book; it wasn't very good.)

Anyway, have you realized that cheaper prisons are a bad thing? (No one really cares about the safety of prisoners. Honestly, do you?) Cost is the primary limit on incarceration in the US; making incarceration cheaper simply means more people are kept in prisons. The US imprisons about 1% of the population (2020: 2,120,000 prisoners, 330,000,000 population); what proportion is about right, do you think? More or less?

A comment:

"Ethan, I’m glad you’ve mentioned Morozov’s writing in this post. His essay on “The Taming of Tech Criticism” http://thebaffler.com/salvos/taming-tech-criticism strikes me as examining the key issues here, particularly his line: “Disconnected from actual political struggles and social criticism, technology criticism is just an elaborate but affirmative footnote to the status quo.”"

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#52

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #48
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say “our current system”, which country are you referring to?

Contextually, I'm assuming the US, because they specifically mention Sirhan Sirhan, the Kennedy family, and high recidivism rates, all things applicable to the US justice system.

That is of course exactly as I suspected since an Americentric view of the world is depressingly common.

I think it’s not useful to form universal views of the world based on the status quo in the USA. The prison system is harsh in the USA, and recidivism is high. In some other countries however, the prisons are significantly more brutal, and yet recidivism is low. So it isn’t quite as simple as the the commenter was implying.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#53

Post by GavinMcG »

Moodles wrote: post #49
SavantIdiot wrote: post #43

I know most of you hate this word, but this is a great example of what privilege looks like: thinking you can solve a problem you have zero experience with, and not including people who do. Another example: I was at a hackathon and met this kid who wanted to build a wristband for domestic violence victims so they could push a button and call for help when they were being abused. Great idea, he wants to use his tech k…

I'm kind of with your point but also not. You don't have to actually be a victim of cancer or even know anyone personally who has cancer, to help cure it. To say "it's privilege" is a weird way of phrasing it. It's just a person who needs to do better user research before building a product.

We're not talking about cancer. We're talking about things that involve human psychology and behavior.

Privilege is why they didn't do "better user research": the person making the proposal doesn't even consider those they would impact.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#54

Post by SavantIdiot »

Moodles wrote: post #49
SavantIdiot wrote: post #43

I know most of you hate this word, but this is a great example of what privilege looks like: thinking you can solve a problem you have zero experience with, and not including people who do. Another example: I was at a hackathon and met this kid who wanted to build a wristband for domestic violence victims so they could push a button and call for help when they were being abused. Great idea, he wants to use his tech k…

I'm kind of with your point but also not. You don't have to actually be a victim of cancer or even know anyone personally who has cancer, to help cure it. To say "it's privilege" is a weird way of phrasing it. It's just a person who needs to do better user research before building a product.

I see what you're saying, but let me try to explain what I see as the difference between the two situations.

Curing cancer is about biology, chemistry, etc. It literally does not require any experience having cancer as you stated. Just lots of research and college education.

However, if you said you were going to write an app to cure "the mental anxiety associated with having cancer," and you've never had cancer, but in your mind the cure is to strap on VR goggles, isolate yourself and play minecraft, then yes, that would be "privilege".

You're assuming you have the solution but you have zero lived experience. That's the difference as I see it.

(Obviously I don't mean "you" as in you personally.)

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#55

Post by jjoonathan »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #43

I know most of you hate this word, but this is a great example of what privilege looks like: thinking you can solve a problem you have zero experience with, and not including people who do. Another example: I was at a hackathon and met this kid who wanted to build a wristband for domestic violence victims so they could push a button and call for help when they were being abused. Great idea, he wants to use his tech k…

Harsh words. If they can persuade even a single person to gather enough domain knowledge to validate their efforts, I suppose they could do some good.

That said, whenever I see someone doing the Dunning Kruger Maneuver, I try to approach with compassion and communicate the constraints they are missing without mocking them, humiliating them, and forcing them into a corner where they publicly lose face. Misplaced confidence is a universal and human problem, not limited to technologists, and it's an excellent place to apply the golden rule. Caveman Science Fiction illustrates it happening in reverse:

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bw3le/caveman_science...

For a real world reverse example, consider Jurassic Park. It convinced a generation of casual moviegoers that they understood the risks of genetic engineering to be severe and untamable, even though the movie was the furthest thing from a risk analysis: the dinosaurs were guaranteed to get out, otherwise nobody would pay to see the movie, including myself.

In any case, the moment anyone brings out accusations of arrogance, privilege, naiveté, etc is the moment that battle lines are drawn and all hope of civil discourse goes out the window. That's often a waste, because most of these situations can be course-corrected without verbal bloodshed.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#56

Post by Moodles »

GavinMcG wrote: post #53
Moodles wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of with your point but also not. You don't have to actually be a victim of cancer or even know anyone personally who has cancer, to help cure it. To say "it's privilege" is a weird way of phrasing it. It's just a person who needs to do better user research before building a product.

We're not talking about cancer. We're talking about things that involve human psychology and behavior. Privilege is why they didn't do "better user research": the person making the proposal doesn't even consider those they would impact.

> We're not talking about cancer. We're talking about things that involve human psychology and behavior.

Yes, it's a slightly different field. I don't see how that changes the point. The point is that plenty of people who aren't first hand victims of something still come up with solutions for it. This is just an example of someone who didn't. I don't really see how framing it about privileged vs not privileged inventors is helpful. All that matters is the technology ideas and how best to come up with them. And we all agree user research is good.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#57

Post by ModernMech »

xwdv wrote: post #33

If the linked excerpt is supposed to be the epitome of outrage, I don’t get it. The idea is a bit odd but seems worth exploring and is better than the current alternatives.

What are the current alternatives? That’s what is so irksome about this post to people in this field. It’s coming from the right place, but instead of even acknowledging the alternative solutions out there, it brushes them aside and jumps right to the most technical one imaginable - basically hook prisoners up to the Matrix. A thoughtful proposal would hold this idea up against other proposed solutions and weigh the pros and cons of each. I think even the most cursory analysis would have made the original piece much better.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#58

Post by Moodles »

SavantIdiot wrote: post #54
Moodles wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of with your point but also not. You don't have to actually be a victim of cancer or even know anyone personally who has cancer, to help cure it. To say "it's privilege" is a weird way of phrasing it. It's just a person who needs to do better user research before building a product.

I see what you're saying, but let me try to explain what I see as the difference between the two situations. Curing cancer is about biology, chemistry, etc. It literally does not require any experience having cancer as you stated. Just lots of research and college education. However, if you said you were going to write an app to cure "the mental anxiety associated with having cancer," and you've never had cancer, but…

Psychologists help cure anxiety, depression, addiction, etc. all the time without actually suffering from it themselves. They're "privileged" not to suffer from it themselves or even necessarily have any friends or family who suffer from it. They just do good user research before creating a solution presumably. Also, conversely, plenty of people who have "lived experience" of how they cured their anxiety with a cult religion or some placebo diet or something aren't necessarily very helpful experts for other people either. So I just don't see how framing the conversation about who is or isn't privileged is really helpful?

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#59

Post by gaze »

Veen wrote: post #3
sombremesa wrote: post #2

If people were actually worried about inmate mental health we would do away with incarceration. Being held against your will doesn’t exactly do wonders for you - and the consequences don’t end when you’re released. Sure, we have to “draw the line”, but isn’t that arbitrary?

> Sure, we have to “draw the line”, but isn’t that arbitrary? Perhaps, insofar as it's arbitrary to be more concerned about the well-being of victims than perpetrators. Personally, I have arbitrarily decided to care more about potential murder victims than convicted murderers, potential rape victims than convicted rapists, property owners than convicted thieves, and so on.

It's strange to put "property owners" in the same list of victims as murder victims and rape victims.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#60

Post by nemo44x »

stnmtn wrote: post #47
nemo44x wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like a pretty easy problem to solve with auditable surveillance that is redundantly deployed and has realtime ML algorithms that "watch" it.

"Here's a historically hard problem that we've had and experienced for decades if not centuries with multifaceted origins and no clear answer" HN: "Just use ML, seems pretty easy to me". I don't meant to disparage you, but that is how your comment came across to me.

We do it already. Within the context of this prison system (independent cubicles) I don’t think it’s very difficult.
Post reply on HN