Things Recently Planted

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Objects of the class I can't even

This captures so much of my frustration with the "liberal" NPR and Times.  It reports attacks on the FBI for being a criminal cabal but is indifferent to the accuracy of the attacks.  Interestingly even by the "we want to report on what both sides are saying equally" metric it still fails, giving only one sentence on "Democrats say" and giving no time whatsoever to the idea that the attacks are without merit.

Journalists are following a set of professional guidelines that were developed in a different time.  Players have learned how to game the system, in this case being well aware that the media will report what people say rather than what a thing is.

Increasing the NIH budget by 1% may not cure all diseases

The Grandiosity/Contribution Ratio

Perhaps the most interesting part of Zuckerberg's language here is that it reminds us just how much the Titans of the Valley have bought into their own bullshit.

Fake Discourse

This is one of those disturbingly captivating stories that make me think I'm not too cynical but too naive.  It's not the litany of harassment the author endures but the story about USA Today trying to fake a debate, contacting the author to tell her what they want written:

The Editorial Board plans to publish a piece arguing that the reckoning on sexual harassment is healthy and overdue, but every case is different and the accused deserve due process. If you are interested, we would love to have you write the opposing view

Ijeoma Oluo respnds

"I can’t write a rebuttal to that because of course I believe in due process [ . . . ] But I’d be happy to write a response.”

I told her that I’d be happy to write about how the fixation on “due process” for these men was an attempt to re-center the concerns of men. [ . . . ] Due process. Women would love ANY process. They would love to even be heard.

This seems like a good response.  There is room for debate.  So they ran it?  The USA Today representative again:

But what they really want is to write that they believe that it’s great that these women are coming forward but that they believe in due process, and they want you to write that you don’t. They want a piece that says that you don’t believe in due process and that if a few innocent men lose their jobs it’s worth it to protect women. Is that something you can do?

USA Today ran their editorial with no "rebuttal."   That's the kicker.  Presumably they shopped around a bit, and found people who oppose due process rarer than they thought.  That perhaps they didn't understand the "other side" after all and so certainly weren't giving it enough coverage.  That's one thing they found out.

The other thing they found out is that they don't care.  That they'd rather pretend to be the adults in the room rather than act like adults.

Tremontaine

Tremontaine by Ellen Kushner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a cooperatively written, serialized prequel to the "fantasy-of-manners" Swordspoint (which in turn is followed by the heavily recommended The Privilege of the Sword). I haven't read the background but it feels like it was handed around between authors with a rough outline of where they wanted to end up, and everyone seemed to be on the same page when it comes to the spirit of the work. It's mostly solid storytelling and really has the feel of a 19th century serialization. Occasionally this doesn't work--a few chapters felt like they'd be heavily abridged in most editions, as characters seemed stuck in bland dialogue and parties while waiting for the story to pick up.

It is a pretty good story when it is going full steam. The Riverside setting is a late medieval or early renaissance world, fantasy in the sense of being ahistorical instead of magic heavy. The depiction three different cultures--the local nobles, the Riverside lower class, and a group of foreign traders--is done skillfully and the interactions feel quite natural.

The main selling point Duchess Tremontaine, much young than her appearance in Swordspoint. She's a vain, evil, manipulative and a genius, much in the mold of Francis Underwood in House of Cards. She has a few rivals with the wit to stay in the game, most notable the Balam "trader" Kaab, a young foreign merchant trained in the subterfuge-and-spying part of the family business. A young genius mathematician, kind and vulnerable and somewhere "on the spectrum" while she's working on Copernican solutions to astronomy, is a brilliant addition to the cast too.

It's not our fault if you can't earn a living off the land rich men own

The rise of serfdom in Hungary was connected to the desire of rich people to be rich, which meant own landing and having serfs:

Stephen ordered that 'those who do not want to live under the authority of the monastery . . . shall be driven out of that place against their wish and their will.' Count Peter handed over one of his villages to the Abbey of Szazd with the condition that 'everyone who lays claim to status of freedom shall depart from there with the exception of the family (i.e., the serfs) of the church.' By the mid-11th century the kingdom was full of fugitive freemen, who posed a constant threat to public order.

Pal Engel, The Realm of St. Stephen p.78

Not understanding the math behind the rule does not make it a good rule

Treating the output of an "algorithm" as inherently more objective or insightful than an expert opinion or even a gut feeling is really not defensible, though it is often treated as such.  Especially I've noticed when it confirms existing biases.

A decent if short interview plugging a paywalled article is here:

[T]ransparency is needed where technologies affect us in significant ways. Algorithms decide if individuals are legitimate candidates for mortgages, loans, or insurance; they also determine interest rates and premiums.

[. . . ]

But algorithms trained with biased data pick up and replicate these biases, and develop new ones.

[ . . . ]

If you’re hiring someone for a management position and you feed your algorithm data from the last 30 years, the data will be skewed, and the projected ideal candidate will be someone male, white, and in his 40s or 50s. I am a woman in my early 30s, so I would be filtered out immediately, even if I’m suitable for that position. And it gets even worse, because sometimes algorithms are used to display job ads, so I wouldn’t even see the position is available.

Quick additional note: Feeding in data without explicit race and gender markers does not solve the problem, since if these are powerful factors they will be inferred from other traits in the data set.