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

Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

desfontain.es

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 662 posts

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#201

Post by pas »

declan_roberts wrote: post #177

Census data is extremely powerful. It's why some states lost house seats and why some gained house seats. It must therefore be maximally transparent. Do you want president Trump or palantir to decide on the "noise infusion" algorithm?

headcount doesn't have to be granular, it has to be accurate. this is about the very useful street- and block-level data.

also, if how would anyone know how accurate the "transparent" number is? if Trump or Thiel can fuck with the fuzzing they can just as do so with the base data.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#202

Post by gpvos »

throw-the-towel wrote: post #174
pelorat wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, in Europe we don't because we already have databases of all citizens, also recording attributes like race, skin color, religious affiliation or political leaning in a database is highly illegal, both for the government and for private use.

Wait, are you saying Europe doesn't have censuses?

Correct. At least, not that I know of. On the other hand, when you move, you must deregister with your old municipality and register with your new one. The exact system differs a bit per country.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#203

Post by godelski »

gs17 wrote: post #141
estearum wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well right... you also need to vote for the correct ("less-bad") people and get your friends to do the same. Voting for the worse people makes things worse.

You also need the option to vote for "less-bad" people. Where I am now, my vote doesn't matter, even if it means the "less-bad" people win with no competition (as opposed to where I moved from where things were skewed the opposite way).

Vote strategically. Candidates notice btw.

So if you're in a heavily red state but you're blue, then vote in the primaries for the more centered Republican. If you're in a heavily blue state but red, do the opposite. Either way this actually helps because more people are centered and we're getting wilder and wilder candidates because there's increased tribalism. They go to the extremes because they get more voters that way. They figured out that the mainstay voters will just end up voting left or right regardless, and that by catering to the extremes it actually pulls the mainstream voters too. (Both Reps and Dems are using this strategy)

Remember, you don't have to vote for the person you actually like.

And keep doing this until we get a sane voting system which can embed actual preference (any of the cardinal systems: i.e. Approval or STAR). This strategy still works with ordinal systems (i.e. Ranked Choice) because a weak spoiler is still really good at splitting the vote (happened in a pretty famous Alaska election).

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#204

Post by talon8635 »

iririririr wrote: post #183
talon8635 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point might be going over my head… why does it make no sense?

why it makes sense? please try to answer. what action of the gov would change based on that data? then, make it so your answer is more valid than if they asked what you usually have for breakfast. i guarantee you more gov actions can be positively impacted by the breakfast question than the religion one. the ONLY use for religious data is to get it for free for campaigns.

Isn’t religion, for those who follow it (I don’t), one of if not the most important aspects of their identity and life’s purpose? I love breakfast food, but not that much.

Don’t some religions not get along very well?

Given your criteria, what should be asked? Check the boxes for the physical and mental illnesses you have? What’s your BMI? How much time do you spend online? What percent of your diet is highly processed foods?

Is gender/sex also nonsensical? Is languages spoken also nonsensical?

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#205

Post by JumpCrisscross »

patrick451 wrote: post #163
YeahThisIsMe wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people in power now are doing everything they can to make that as hard as possible by any means necessary. Good luck.

No, they are doing everything they can to ensure that only the people who are legally allowed to vote are the ones voting.

> they are doing everything they can to ensure that only the people who are legally allowed to vote are the ones voting

Illegal voting is so rare that almost every time folks go looking for it they come up empty handed. Examples of voter suppression, on the other hand, are trivial to fine. (And both parties do it, particularly around primaries.)

In my state, we’re trying to enact a citizenship-proof requirement which penalizes women who change their name on getting married and those who can’t afford a passport. In effect, a marriage and poll tax. Ironically, this will disenfranchise the MAGA voters who are themselves pushing for it, but I’m not really going to point that out aggressively.

(That said, a legitimate fraction of American politics right now is in convincing the other side’s likely voters that elections are rigged, the oligarchs are in charge, why even bother calling your electeds or voting, eat an ice-cream sundae and talk to your AI girlfriend.)

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#206

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

throwawayffffas wrote: post #189
Bratmon wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely any such foreign occupier would just demand the unredacted data?

Exactly why a government may refrain from collecting such data, as it is not even relevant in any kind of policy decision.

What, religious data? Are you serious? That's one of the most critical things they can track about their citizens.

Let's say your town has a lot of pig farmers. The pig farmers are afraid their business is diminishing. So they lobby the local government to put a tax on chicken and beef, to encourage more pork consumption. Which local officials might be inclined to do for economic reasons. But then you collect religious data, and it turns out 50% of the population is Jewish, Muslim, and Hindu. So half the population now has to pay a tax, which is effectively a tax on their religion, because their religious belief says they can't eat pork.

This is a made up example, but the point is that you need to know about your citizens so you can make just laws that respect those citizens (and encourage businesses, job training, etc based on demographics). It's why we have a census.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#207

Post by gambiting »

monitorlizard wrote: post #173
gambiting wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, which is why the government shouldn't have this data at all in the first place.

Say you get your way, and, for fear of Mark Carney rolling the tanks in and taking over North America, the US stops collecting any data on its citizens. How is the IRS supposed to know how much tax to expect from you? How is SNAP supposed to determine your eligibility? How is unemployment supposed to know if you're ripping them off or not? Data privacy is a real concern, but you need PII to run government services ef…

I don't know why you understood my comment as saying government shouldn't have any data. I specifically replied to the comment about religion - there's no reason for the government to collect any data about that from individuals. Churches can report how many members they have if they want to. But it shouldn't be a question on the census.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#208

Post by kajman »

esseph wrote: post #182
kajman wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't work in this industry so I don't know their secret sauce, but I would be surprised if census data is not used as a baseline for what they're selling. It doesn't make sense to not want to use it if your next best sources are relying on everyone in the household having an app that sells their location to your network constantly. I see outdated data about me on the public versions of these sites all the time, so…

It is probably not a baseline for what they're selling. https://www.census.gov/about/history/bureau-history/agency-h... > Title 13 provides the following protections to individuals and businesses: > Private information is never published. It is against the law to disclose or publish any private information that identifies an individual or business such, including names, addresses (including GPS coordinates), Social S…

I am indeed sworn to not reveal lots of data I knocked on doors for. My memory isn't that good, especially compared to the database it went into, anyway.

I hope it's not a baseline for individual records, but my assumption was that the census data would be pretty useful as a baseline for aggregate information, especially when it comes to comparing to private sets they're working with.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#209

Post by NewJazz »

bee_rider wrote: post #137
arjie wrote: post #74

Pretty sad, in my opinion. In my ideal the state should have visibility into the shape of the people present so that we can make good decisions about our combined organization. I think we’re making a mistake we will come to regret by intentionally damaging our data collection infrastructure. I think a large amount of the US’s success is the result of good institutions handling granular data. Policies can be adjusted…

I’d be more interested in giving my state detailed info, letting them run programs. The country can have aggregate data.

That works great for real states, but some states are just three mining companies in a trenchcoat.

Re: Noise infusion banned from statistical products published by Census Bureau

#210

Post by rectang »

estearum wrote: post #115
p-e-w wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Turnout in the past few elections was already extraordinarily high. Clearly this isn’t the answer. And neither is protesting, considering that 4 of the 5 largest demonstrations in US history happened in the past 10 years and achieved nothing.

Well right... you also need to vote for the correct ("less-bad") people and get your friends to do the same. Voting for the worse people makes things worse.

Ranked Choice Voting makes it easier to vote for “less bad” candidates.

RCV also tends to work against polarization, since it rewards candidates who are at least acceptable to a broad swath of the electorate.

It may not be the “answer” for all that ails the American political system, but it would help.

ETA: Unlike many other reforms it's also doable within the constraints of the current constitutional order and is hard for SCOTUS to torpedo (though I suppose I shouldn't underestimate SCOTUS).

Post reply on HN