who do you trust?

[Matador]

He was charged for being a d-bag.  He wasn't advocating for constitutional originalism  or waxing poetic on the myriad benefits of low corporate taxes:  the dude thought women weren't suited to being computer scientists because of 'hormones' and 'biologic predispositions'.    I'm personally glad he felt emboldened to post freely about it in a private message board because it made it easier for him to be ushered to the door.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  if the big tech companies are trying to user in a leftist utopia, they're doing a horrible job of it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

He was charged for being a d-bag.  He wasn't advocating for constitutional originalism  or waxing poetic on the myriad benefits of low corporate taxes:  the dude thought women weren't suited to being computer scientists because of 'hormones' and 'biologic predispositions'. 

D bag?  I don't know him well enough to call him that... I recall a similar attack by the social justice warriors when Larry Summers (at Harvard) likewise made the bold suggestion that women were different from men... (vive la différence).

I personally can't wait for this PC bubble to deflate.  8)

I'm personally glad he felt emboldened to post freely about it in a private message board because it made it easier for him to be ushered to the door.

I am repeating myself but he was fired for misusing corporate assets, not his opinions.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  if the big tech companies are trying to user in a leftist utopia, they're doing a horrible job of it.

Be careful what you wish for.... 

JR

 

[Matador]

I recall a similar attack by the social justice warriors when Larry Summers (at Harvard) likewise made the bold suggestion that women were different from men... (vive la différence).

He didn't say women were different:  he said they weren't 'predisposed' towards management in tech companies due to their 'biological and hormonal differences', and that they 'favored different incentives than men'.  Imagine being a women with this guy deciding between granting a promotion to you versus your equally qualified male colleague, with him thinking, 'They are both great candidates, but I think the man should get the promotion because he's more biologically suited to the role'. 

I wonder if there was a case of a female doctor refusing to prescribe pain medication to a man after surgery, because they were 'biologically inclined to feel less pain', if the outrage on the right would have been the same.

In any case, it's horsesh*t, plain and simple, and it was a future lawsuit waiting to happen.

 

[boji]

Getting back to the topic of  'who do you trust' Are y'all talking about James Damore?  If he is in fact the one that's in the 'dbag' category, then that's interesting, as the media forwarded to me about his story had him looking more like a misunderstood victim.

Leads me to think the truth may be more in the middle (if we're talking about the same guy):
If any one of us met Damore, I'd wager he'd come across as a conscientious person without any overt misogynistic tendencies, while also getting the science blazingly wrong on the biological differences between men and women wrt job competency. Likely he's also since upgraded his software after feeling the full force of the social justice arm of the internet, but will nonetheless remain toxic to silicon valley employers for years to come.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/nov/16/james-damore-google-memo-interview-autism-regrets

Edit: Or is this 'middle truth' me being too soft on the guy?  I can't help but think this strong difference of opinion has come from our search habits or words we use that seed the 5000 data points each media giant has on us;  It's not that any one of us is avoiding the use of critical thinking, its that we've taken the differing narratives supplied to us at their word.

 

[JohnRoberts]

don't get lost in the weeds of identity politics..

This topic is (was?) about search engine bias... and its potential to influence elections.

JR

PS: IMO women are different.... It appears critical to the effectiveness of having two sexes. 

 

[living sounds]

Bipartisan congressional demand for internal documents from Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple as part of an anti-trust probe:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-committee-requests-tech-executives-emails-in-antitrust-probe-11568377800

Found this article via google.  ;D

 

[Winston OBoogie]

This topic is (was?) about search engine bias... and its potential to influence elections.

I have no information to back this up except for observation of others in my circle but, it would seem that the more "low information" folks don't even bother with a search engine all that often for info. 
Being in an echo chamber on FB or Twitter seems the primary source for a lot of folks.

 

[Tubetec]

'The bias modulator's my new name for it all.

 

[iomegaman]

Are we being manipulated? Most assuredly...

Is Tor a good place no hide? Most assuredly not.

Nation states are more powerful than tech companies...its the ones oyu don't hear about that you need to be concerned with...

Israel comes to mind.

Stuxnet was a wake up call that no one answered...we've all hit the snooze button because its results we approved of...but think about the layers of technology that it employed over 9 YEARS ago...

To this day we have no more proof who did it than when we started...technology that left no traceable footprint and affected machines not connected to the internet.

Let that sink in...

Manipulating our voting decisions is childsplay.

 

[boji]

Manipulating our voting decisions is childsplay.

I'd say it makes the technology and plot of the movie Inception look like child's play.

5000 data points on each person.  This sounds like an exaggeration but was quite literally part of the 2017 sales pitch of CA, and we only know of this one company's methods because they got caught using spider and scraper tools that looked like spider and scraper tools.

Predictive behavior modeling using FMRI scans has been around for awhile now. What's so scary is, if algos cross-reference and share the unconscious inputs we feed our phones and IoT devices, then the best predictive simulations of human decision making will be able to tinker with our choices while having us think we're the ones in control. The point we lose agency really will come like a thief in the night.

 

[JohnRoberts]

As often happens you guys took this to a darker place than I did. (I still believe the google search engine manipulation may be mostly innocent unintended consequence of corporate culture).

The easiest way to lose any competition is to not know you are in a competition*** . I shared this so we can all be more aware of how we are being influenced. Advertisers have been doing this forever, but modern tools keep getting improved and more subtle.

JR

*** perhaps amusing anecdote... On news year's eve 1971 while serving in the army at Ft Riley, I did what most GIs did that night, I got very drunk with a few fellow soldiers in a bar off base.  While walking back to a friend's car I happened to see another drunk GI standing on the side of the road. He asked me what was I looking at, and I innocently answered him. He decided this was a provocation and started punching me in the face. He was about to land his third punch when one of my friends came back and dragged me to our car. I was too drunk to realize I was in a fight, or even to leave.  I suspect I would have lost that fight for sure.  :

 

[iomegaman]

Haha! Good point John...!

Yea the race to the bottom should never be a competition, but we're human and survival of the fittest seems to be part of our Darwinian legacy...even the fittest loser.

I do get a little concerned when ads pop up in news feeds and sites that are completely unconnected to my shopping habits...

It means on some level that Safeway/Albertsons/Ace Hardware/Home Depot etc are selling my data and someone somewhere has written a bot to scrape it and send me enticements for things I've already purchased...

The concerning part is the speed at which this happens...like right after I get back from the store and check my email there's an ad for Stain Remover...

Makes me want to use DuckDuckGo more and google less...its not about tracking its about being a product myself.

Someone is buying you.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Haha! Good point John...!

Yea the race to the bottom should never be a competition, but we're human and survival of the fittest seems to be part of our Darwinian legacy...even the fittest loser.

we are already thwarting natural selection for better or worse, but unclear what attributes will better serve the future us. 

I do get a little concerned when ads pop up in news feeds and sites that are completely unconnected to my shopping habits...

It means on some level that Safeway/Albertsons/Ace Hardware/Home Depot etc are selling my data and someone somewhere has written a bot to scrape it and send me enticements for things I've already purchased...

The concerning part is the speed at which this happens...like right after I get back from the store and check my email there's an ad for Stain Remover...

I have long been suspicious of advertising, and now the more targeted it gets, I even get a little angry... I actually enjoy when merchants are wasting money pushing ads at me, but still get annoyed.

Facebook is a little schizophrenic perhaps because of the privacy attention. A few months back they stopped pushing local ads at me, and started pushing NJ ads, because the only personal data I provided them was that I graduated HS in NJ over 50 years ago. That was both amusing and easier to ignore.

Then they flipped back with some local ads, maybe they paid more for the real deal.

Makes me want to use DuckDuckGo more and google less...its not about tracking its about being a product myself.

I stopped using google some time ago... but I am not sure that slowed down the cookie monsters inside  my computer.

Someone is buying you.

If the service is free.... YOU ARE THE PRODUCT.

JR

PS: I thought price fixing was illegal (checked it still is). I recently purchased a new K&N air filter for my car (old one was 20 years old). The price was exactly the same to the penny from Amazon, Walmart, and even K&N... Coincidence?

 

[iomegaman]

PS: I thought price fixing was illegal (checked it still is). I recently purchased a new K&N air filter for my car (old one was 20 years old). The price was exactly the same to the penny from Amazon, Walmart, and even K&N... Coincidence?

Yep same the same...went to get a battery for my 18 year old Jag last week, fortunately I had spent some time last month learning about the basis for "Battery Specifications and Classes" (short version, they are classed by physical size and cold cranking amps everything else is window dressing)...

Autozone/Pep Boys/O'Reilly's same price the only variance was WalMart...local pickup...EXCEPT they did not actually have the battery they advertised online, price at checkout was $50.00 more  (30% markup?)than rack price and I thought core charge return would even things out...BUT you have to go stand in line at customer service in spite of having the core in your basket...

Go stand in line customer service to get refund on core...rings up at $12.00 credit...I'm like "WAIT"...online price is $50 dollars less and you're only giving me $12 for the core????

So they refund the entire amount...turns out you have to SHOW the cashier a picture of THEIR OWN ONLINE ADVERT to get that price...I google it, pull it up and now the manager refunds the original cost, rings up the new price and then CHARGES ME TWICE for the core charge...it took thirty minutes and arguing showing receipts BACK to them before they cleaned it up and gave me the price that was lower than Pep Boys etc...

It's like they were going to get the price everyone else was charging in spite of adverting it lower...

I've gotten anal about removing things from my check out that ring up at a different price than the shelf shows...I just hand them back to the cashier and say "Take that off the price is wrong"..."You don't want us to check?" Nope just take it back.

 

[Tubetec]

I dont think you've got a straight forward answer to the simple question yet John  ;D
'Who can't you trust' might be  a more fruitful question ,

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/sep/06/from-mind-control-to-murder-how-a-deadly-fall-revealed-the-cias-darkest-secrets

that article ties in quite a few loose ends for me ,anyone else ?

 

[boji]

we are already thwarting natural selection for better or worse

That interview I posted a while back from Daniel Schmachtenberger is long, but worth a listen.  He gets into ideas of how humans are trading-in genetic expression for memetic expression.

Here's where he starts in on the topic:  https://youtu.be/7LqaotiGWjQ?t=2776

 

[fazer]

That interview I posted a while back from Daniel Schmachtenberger is long, but worth a listen.  He gets into ideas of how humans are trading-in genetic expression for memetic expression.


Here's where he starts in on the topic:  https://youtu.be/7LqaotiGWjQ?t=2776

“Sociopaths will always rise to the top of a hierarchical structure” .

So what else would you expect, empathy?
I’m adding DS to my podcast searches.

 

[desol]

He didn't say women were different:  he said they weren't 'predisposed' towards management in tech companies due to their 'biological and hormonal differences', and that they 'favored different incentives than men'.  Imagine being a women with this guy deciding between granting a promotion to you versus your equally qualified male colleague, with him thinking, 'They are both great candidates, but I think the man should get the promotion because he's more biologically suited to the role'. 

I wonder if there was a case of a female doctor refusing to prescribe pain medication to a man after surgery, because they were 'biologically inclined to feel less pain', if the outrage on the right would have been the same.

In any case, it's horsesh*t, plain and simple, and it was a future lawsuit waiting to happen.

Biological predisposition isn't bullsh*t, it's evolution. How people use the subject matter is what's pissing you off.  Another example were small children that were drawn to certain colors without any previous affirmation of what they were supposed to like. I saw it on a TED video or something. It's fact. Either way, since when does political correctness merit more value than objective science? Since it started offending people.

Regarding the paper John posted, I don't believe it. You'd have to account for what people are 'already' inclined to do based on their 'existing' value system, education, etc. Search results alone is too simple an explanation.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Biological predisposition isn't bullsh*t, it's evolution.

yup

How people use the subject matter is what's pissing you off.

It seems too easy for people to use social media to "cancel" people for unpopular past history.  Today's latest victim is Canadian PM Trudeau, a kind and gentle pol from our kind and gentle northern neighbor.  Apparently like most kids he did the occasional  dumbass move... I'm glad there weren't so many cameras around when I was younger and wilder.  :

Another example were small children that were drawn to certain colors without any previous affirmation of what they were supposed to like. I saw it on a TED video or something. It's fact. Either way, since when does political correctness merit more value than objective science? Since it started offending people.

Regarding the paper John posted, I don't believe it. You'd have to account for what people are 'already' inclined to do based on their 'existing' value system, education, etc. Search results alone is too simple an explanation.

Search engine bias certainly deserves more study but the ephemeral nature of search screens makes this difficult to document to study in large scale. His study demonstrated a statistical difference between several different search engines, so that variable seems pretty well isolated and controlled for. 

At best this is only suggested to make a difference in the margin with undecided voters, while close elections can be decided by these slender marginal vote differences.

This is not a smoking gun but a ghost of a smoking gun since it will be so hard to document to study without huge investment of data collection.

JR

PS: Speaking of data collection, I think I read something today about banking regulators asking for ownership documentation regarding bitcoin held and sold through regulated exchanges. They are trying to thwart money laundering as the lack of an audit trail is what makes bitcoin so attractive for computer criminals to use for payoffs.  This will require an extra layer of infrastructure not planned for by most exchanges.

 

[desol]

PS: Speaking of data collection, I think I read something today about banking regulators asking for ownership documentation regarding bitcoin held and sold through regulated exchanges. They are trying to thwart money laundering as the lack of an audit trail is what makes bitcoin so attractive for computer criminals to use for payoffs.  This will require an extra layer of infrastructure not planned for by most exchanges.

That's alright. So be it...