151–160 of 165 posts
People ask me why I use cash, why I use bitcoin, why I think Uber and Deliveroo and their ilk are poison - this is why. Take your data and shove it up your arse. If you work on this stuff, you're a cancer cell. You just haven't realised it yet. I don't need your "credit". I don't even need you. No-one does.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Have you considered the logical endpoint of your line of reasoning? In fact I have. In my estimation, if we adopted a model of interaction that emphasizes consent, the incapable and unfortunate among us would rely on charity to have their needs met, as they have for most of history. This seems much more ethical than to rely on force through taxation. It can't be compassionate to impose your idea of compassion onto…
Two wrongs don't make a right. Maybe we can only fix one evil at a time. The approach that rejects the rusty-tools dentist is also more likely to reject the offshored oppressive offshored (or quite frequently, domestic) labour, rather than binning all empathy looking at either, other similar situations, or worse, and shrugging it off with a "meh, not my problem". The worldview you're expressing has absolutely no dign…
Also I don't think we agree on the definition of dignity. In my eyes it's perfectly possible to die of disease or starvation with dignity. Otherwise you're implying that nature itself is bereft of it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot to unpack here, let me try. Are machine learning algorythms capable of stereotyping people? How accurate does a stereotype have to be before it's a useful predictor? If these models lead to good data, then what's wrong with them? If people who follow the NBA do in fact default on their loans more, shouldn't they pay higher interest? I agree that the healthy should not be compelled to subsidize the costs of heal…
Algorithms: - May be based on bad, inaccurate, or nonrepresentative data. - May be based on factors intrinsic to individuals which they cannot change . - May mask underlying bias factors (as in the NBA example above.) - May reflect existing biases in behaviours. E.g., arrest, promotion, recruitment, or admissions data used to encode an AI selector, which merely codify biases reflected in the underlying historical dat…
Doesn't a more accurate model in fact ensure that fewer people are lumped into groups they don't belong to, and that more deserving people (ie. people who are likley to repay loans) have access to credit?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Algorithms: - May be based on bad, inaccurate, or nonrepresentative data. - May be based on factors intrinsic to individuals which they cannot change . - May mask underlying bias factors (as in the NBA example above.) - May reflect existing biases in behaviours. E.g., arrest, promotion, recruitment, or admissions data used to encode an AI selector, which merely codify biases reflected in the underlying historical dat…
I would say that accuracy is a greater concern than "fairness" or "equity" since it's quite hard to agree on the meanings of the latter terms (and as pointed out above, these are political, not statistical concerns, and the distinction is meaningful). I would expect that inaccuracy in such models would be iteratively improved. If the models are already more accurate than existing methods, doesn't that make them bette…
I give you Karl Marx:
As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land.
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Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
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The interest of [businessmen] is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public ... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ... ought never to be adopted, till after having been long and carefully examined ... with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men ... who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public.
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The masters, being fewer in number, can combine much more easily; and the law, besides, authorizes, or at least does not prohibit their combinations, while it prohibits those of the workmen. We have no acts of parliament against combining to lower the price of work; but many against combining to raise it. In all such disputes the masters can hold out much longer.
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Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate. To violate this combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of reproach to a master among his neighbours and equals. We seldom, indeed, hear of this combination, because it is the usual, and one may say, the natural state of things, which nobody ever hears of. Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.
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A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation.
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No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.
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Wealth, as Mr Hobbes says, is power.
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POLITICAL œconomy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.
The first object of political economy is to provide subsistence for the people.
Oh, silly me, that's Adam Smith. So hard to tell them apart.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations/
http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/smith-an-inquiry-into-the-...
As well as your politics and economics, your morals and statistical understanding are deeply flawed.
People ask me why I use cash, why I use bitcoin, why I think Uber and Deliveroo and their ilk are poison - this is why. Take your data and shove it up your arse. If you work on this stuff, you're a cancer cell. You just haven't realised it yet. I don't need your "credit". I don't even need you. No-one does.
How does Uber violate privacy? People are carrying their phones at all times, so THE BIG BROTHER knows where everyone is anyway.
But since you ask, there was "God View":
"'God View': Uber Allegedly Stalked Users For Party-Goers' Viewing Pleasure" (Kashmir Hill)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/10/03/god-view...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would say that accuracy is a greater concern than "fairness" or "equity" since it's quite hard to agree on the meanings of the latter terms (and as pointed out above, these are political, not statistical concerns, and the distinction is meaningful). I would expect that inaccuracy in such models would be iteratively improved. If the models are already more accurate than existing methods, doesn't that make them bette…
All these criteria are value judgements and exquisitely political. I give you Karl Marx: As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land. ... Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is…
Liberty itself is in opposition to flourishing and collective good. Is it right to murder a man to save 1000 innocent children? What about 5? What about one? If it is right, please do explain why.
All of this treats "the people" as entities without agency, some formless mass that the enlightened politicians have a duty to care for, whether they like it or not. In absence of divine authority, there is simply no basis for this sort sense of superiority. You decide what's right for you, and leave others to do the same. Then we can all get along.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All these criteria are value judgements and exquisitely political. I give you Karl Marx: As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon land. ... Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is…
You cite all of this as though it has been haded down by a supreme authority and I implicitly have to agree with what is written. I do not and Adam Smith had many contemporaries who did not as well. Liberty itself is in opposition to flourishing and collective good. Is it right to murder a man to save 1000 innocent children? What about 5? What about one? If it is right, please do explain why. All of this treats "the…
There are numerous holes in your view. You seem strongly motivated to avoid seeing or admitting any of them.
Cheers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You cite all of this as though it has been haded down by a supreme authority and I implicitly have to agree with what is written. I do not and Adam Smith had many contemporaries who did not as well. Liberty itself is in opposition to flourishing and collective good. Is it right to murder a man to save 1000 innocent children? What about 5? What about one? If it is right, please do explain why. All of this treats "the…
Point being that the mainstream and foundation of economic thought are quite strongly at odds with your minority, fringe, and amoral views. By your own admission. There are numerous holes in your view. You seem strongly motivated to avoid seeing or admitting any of them. Cheers.
You've not described how my views are amoral either. What's wrong with consent exactly?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Point being that the mainstream and foundation of economic thought are quite strongly at odds with your minority, fringe, and amoral views. By your own admission. There are numerous holes in your view. You seem strongly motivated to avoid seeing or admitting any of them. Cheers.
I'm afriad you've not pointed out any holes. Where does "the mainstream" get its moral authority from? Just from being mainstream? Don't you see how that's massively problematic? You've not described how my views are amoral either. What's wrong with consent exactly?
Smith makes his case. He is the father of modern economics whether or not you subscribe to his beliefs or not. The question of equity specifically is addressed in the passage:
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.
That makes measurement unambiguous and shows the failure of your multiple assertions otherwise.
The values you propose of "accuracy", "efficiency", "dignity", and political vs. economic concerns (Smith clearly combines the terms) are equally if not far more arbitrary and poorly supported by empirical evidence.
I'm not going to spoon-feed him to you, though the curation of passages posted above would be an excellent starting point for one actually capable of benefiting from exposure.