Posted on 09/07/2016 12:20:44 PM PDT by PROCON
It's no surprise that inequality in the U.S. is on the rise. But what you might not know is that math is partly to blame.
In a new book, "Weapons of Math Destruction," Cathy O'Neil details all the ways that math is essentially being used for evil (my word, not hers).
From targeted advertising and insurance to education and policing, O'Neil looks at how algorithms and big data are targeting the poor, reinforcing racism and amplifying inequality.
These "WMDs," as she calls them, have three key features: They are opaque, scalable and unfair. Denied a job because of a personality test? Too bad -- the algorithm said you wouldn't be a good fit. Charged a higher rate for a loan? Well, people in your zip code tend to be riskier borrowers. Received a harsher prison sentence? Here's the thing: Your friends and family have criminal records too, so you're likely to be a repeat offender. (Spoiler: The people on the receiving end of these messages don't actually get an explanation.)
The models O'Neil writes about all use proxies for what they're actually trying to measure. The police analyze zip codes to deploy officers, employers use credit scores to gauge responsibility, payday lenders assess grammar to determine credit worthiness. But zip codes are also a stand-in for race, credit scores for wealth, and poor grammar for immigrants.
(Excerpt) Read more at money.cnn.com ...
Black Lives Matter is calling for a nationwide boycott of all Prime Numbers.
“If you can’t get a job because of your credit record”
An important part of culture is informing others about the lessons you’ve learned, encouraging them toward better behavior.
Don’t do stupid things that damage your credit record.
If you do, and realize it was stupid, teach your kids & others to NOT do such things.
I learned to do multivariable calculus and differential equations in college. I suppose that somehow makes me extra-racist.
Do I really need a close-sarcasm tag?
I’ve never been asked, but I do feel that this is a good practice. I’ve been known to put some of the things that they cannot legally ask on my resume such as marital status. Maybe I’ll add my 790 credit report.
I even managed to maintain that while being unemployed for six months.
You were paying $1100 per month for auto insurance? Where?
Yes indeed. Common sense must be eradicated in order to make certain classes of people feel equal.
This is the same mental disorder that’s given us affirmative action which is one of the worst scheme’s to ever to be foisted on society from the left. Affirmative actions actually end up hurting those it claimed to want to help. Instead of giving people the tools of opportunity to lift themselves up out of the ghettos and the gutters, affirmative action says, ‘oh no, just bring the ghetto and gutter with you and we’ll just claim you’re equal now. Thereby, keeping them unequal in many key ways and destined to fail in the long run because of it.
Egalitarianism is an impossible goal and is a folly to those who believe in it.
OK, so what does O’Neil conclude from all this? That companies and business stop it? Voluntarily? Or by law?
They’ll just find another way.
The better thing to do about the poor is to let the captains of industry lead their specialties without government constantly looking over their shoulders, and without passing laws based on the biggest campaign donations.
Let the economy grow and need the poor to hire and labor and let the poor become working class, and the working class to become the middle class.
That’s the ONLY way that actually works to end most poverty in the world.
I taught myself to do trigonometry because I needed it in the machine shop so I could get a promotion and get a raise. I guess that makes me a racist now.
Mark Twain said “There are three types of lies: Lies, Damnable Lies, and Statistics”
I would add a fourth: Liberal Talking points.
How’s most of ‘Frica doing?
In the Beginning God derived the first function value that we came to discover as mathematics.
Readin’, Writin’, and ‘Rithmatic B racis’? I doubt it.
Reminds me of the AI internet robot that let its interaction with the world program its own thinking.
Didnt take 48 hours till it was ranting and raving and spewing racist electrons all over cyberspace.
As long as you never got into the cheating of numerical approximation, you’re fine....
Yes, it did.
You were no longer living in an area where the person you had a collision with was likely not to have insurance.
You were also living in an area where it was less likely your car would be vandalized or stolen.
Your insurance rates do not solely depend on you but on the people around you.
If they are more likely to commit property crimes your rates will be higher.
OR you could put it like this:
"Once ... WMDs digest that data, it sends more police to protect you and when aggressors are convicted it sentences those who commit crimes against you and your community to longer terms."
If you aren't a criminal, this is all to the good.
Undergraduate and graduate numerical methods. There are a lot of diff-e-qs that don’t have definite solutions, the only way to get to a solution is via numerical approximations. Fortunately PCs came out right as I was graduating undergrad, so I was able to do my graduate numerical methods in interpreted BASIC on an IBM-PC in my apartment, instead of going down to the computer center to use the terminals into the mainframe. Many of the solutions would take hours to converge to a solution on my PC, but that was OK, I just let it run overnight.
So I was PC when PC was still cool!
Yes, it is evil to use “hate facts” against the poor, uneducated and unmotivated slob, or the violent thug.
Interferes with the re-distribution of wealth, don’t you know.
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