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Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

theguardian.com

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Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#41

Post by thaumasiotes »

pjreddie wrote: post #27
newtem0 wrote: post #24

What a crock of utter and complete nonsense. If you isolated the simple statements of fact then this article would still be a long and enjoyable read, but instead i am assaulted with corresponding insane ranting; accusations against huge swaths of people that are totally unsupported. So nobody googles if their daughter is smart? Maybe its because parents are worried that looks and not intelligence are important for c…

> accusations against huge swaths of people that are totally unsupported. The search data is meant to support the accusations. A main point is that other methods of supporting such statements (like surveys) are unreliable. > So nobody googles if their daughter is smart? The article doesn't say that, it says parents are about twice as likely to google if their son is smart vs daughter. > Maybe its because parents are…

> Society values appearance above intelligence in women. This is apparently also true in how parents see their children.

Sure, parents who are interested in their children's well-being will also be interested in what society thinks of their children.

This data seems like a weird source for the claim, though; I'll bet the people searching the internet for "is my daughter smart" significantly outnumber the people searching for "is my daughter pretty".

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#42

Post by belorn »

pjreddie wrote: post #27
newtem0 wrote: post #24

What a crock of utter and complete nonsense. If you isolated the simple statements of fact then this article would still be a long and enjoyable read, but instead i am assaulted with corresponding insane ranting; accusations against huge swaths of people that are totally unsupported. So nobody googles if their daughter is smart? Maybe its because parents are worried that looks and not intelligence are important for c…

> accusations against huge swaths of people that are totally unsupported. The search data is meant to support the accusations. A main point is that other methods of supporting such statements (like surveys) are unreliable. > So nobody googles if their daughter is smart? The article doesn't say that, it says parents are about twice as likely to google if their son is smart vs daughter. > Maybe its because parents are…

While we can blame society for it, we can also see the same pattern in dating strategies of men and women. Men selects mates on appearance, causing social status for women to be primarily based on appearance. Women selects mates on wealth, causing social status for men to be primarily based on having or the ability to raise money. A theory would thus be that parents that want their child to have the highest social status will among other things try to maximize those attributes.

The author conclude that this mean there is a bias against girls.

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#43

Post by coldtea »

newtem0 wrote: post #24

What a crock of utter and complete nonsense. If you isolated the simple statements of fact then this article would still be a long and enjoyable read, but instead i am assaulted with corresponding insane ranting; accusations against huge swaths of people that are totally unsupported. So nobody googles if their daughter is smart? Maybe its because parents are worried that looks and not intelligence are important for c…

>What a crock of utter and complete nonsense. If you isolated the simple statements of fact then this article would still be a long and enjoyable read, but instead i am assaulted with corresponding insane ranting; accusations against huge swaths of people that are totally unsupported. So nobody googles if their daughter is smart?

Millions do. Just 2 times less millions that people who wonders if their sons are smart. Which was explained in depth in the article.

>Maybe its because parents are worried that looks and not intelligence are important for cohesing in school and not getting bullied, for girls. (...)

This sounds more like a "totally unsupported" claim that what the article suggests. And even if that was the case, it would show the same stereotyping done by the parents as the article already suggests.

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#44

Post by pjreddie »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #41
pjreddie wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> accusations against huge swaths of people that are totally unsupported. The search data is meant to support the accusations. A main point is that other methods of supporting such statements (like surveys) are unreliable. > So nobody googles if their daughter is smart? The article doesn't say that, it says parents are about twice as likely to google if their son is smart vs daughter. > Maybe its because parents are…

> Society values appearance above intelligence in women. This is apparently also true in how parents see their children. Sure, parents who are interested in their children's well-being will also be interested in what society thinks of their children. This data seems like a weird source for the claim, though; I'll bet the people searching the internet for "is my daughter smart" significantly outnumber the people searc…

I'll take you up on that bet.

http://imgur.com/a/SqCKL

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#45

Post by thaumasiotes »

pjreddie wrote: post #44
thaumasiotes wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Society values appearance above intelligence in women. This is apparently also true in how parents see their children. Sure, parents who are interested in their children's well-being will also be interested in what society thinks of their children. This data seems like a weird source for the claim, though; I'll bet the people searching the internet for "is my daughter smart" significantly outnumber the people searc…

I'll take you up on that bet. http://imgur.com/a/SqCKL

"is my daughter smart" and "is my daughter pretty" both show up as 0 in google trends (as I search today). What does "daughter pretty" include? I would predict massive public interest in questions of the form "is Reese Witherspoon's daughter pretty?"

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#46

Post by pjreddie »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #45
pjreddie wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take you up on that bet. http://imgur.com/a/SqCKL

"is my daughter smart" and "is my daughter pretty" both show up as 0 in google trends (as I search today). What does "daughter pretty" include? I would predict massive public interest in questions of the form "is Reese Witherspoon's daughter pretty?"

Yeah, they don't show up with a zero, it just says not enough data to show so hard to draw any conclusions. I agree this is an imperfect proxy and it's not definitive but I'd still absolutely take you up on that bet (conditioned on there being some way of actually resolving it).

But maybe the real question is, why aren't people asking "Is Reese Witherspoon's daughter smart?"

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#47

Post by thaumasiotes »

pjreddie wrote: post #46
thaumasiotes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"is my daughter smart" and "is my daughter pretty" both show up as 0 in google trends (as I search today). What does "daughter pretty" include? I would predict massive public interest in questions of the form "is Reese Witherspoon's daughter pretty?"

Yeah, they don't show up with a zero, it just says not enough data to show so hard to draw any conclusions. I agree this is an imperfect proxy and it's not definitive but I'd still absolutely take you up on that bet (conditioned on there being some way of actually resolving it). But maybe the real question is, why aren't people asking "Is Reese Witherspoon's daughter smart?"

In specific, obviously because Reese Witherspoon is known for being pretty. I'd also bet that "Is Bill Gates's daughter smart?" is a more popular search than "Is Reese Witherspoon's daughter smart?"

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#48

Post by mijowi »

Graphon1 wrote: post #31
alexmat wrote: post #28

The article suggests that racist jokes are a problem to be solved, but racist jokes serve a noble purpose according to Slavoj Zizek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IISMr5OMceg

Can't bear to watch that guy; the constant face & nose touches are very distracting.

Wow you're right. I'm just listening to him (although that's hard too with the accent and lisp or whatever that is)

Re: Everybody lies: how Google search reveals our darkest secrets

#49

Post by agumonkey »

cko wrote: post #2

I'm not sure that counting gay porn searches (example they gave in the article) is a reliable indicator of whether the seeker is gay. This may be TMI for HN but once in a while I (a straight male with zero attraction to men ever) have searched for and "enjoyed" gay porn. I was curious about this phenomenon and found many forum posts where straight guys say they've watched gay porn.

Sexuality is quite known to be "undecidable"; by that I mean, there's little data you can gather by signals.
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