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New "Weapons of Math Destruction How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy."
Tech Nation/npr
Destructive Data

Moira speaks with Data Scientist Dr. Cathy ONeil about her book, Weapons of Math Destruction How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy. Then on BioTech Nation, a new approach to achieving health with a compromised immune system. Dr. David Johnson is the Founder, President & CEO of GigaGen. And critically-ill newborns get the genetic information they need and fast. Gavin Stone is the Vice President for Marketing at EdicoGenome in San Diego.




er, *cough*, Me Droogies

We have found the enemy and..
New Accelerating inequality has always been the only possible "contribution" of computer technology.
Private use anyway. I've held that position since 1986.
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New Yeah, but being wrong is kind of a hobby for you, right?
:D
New In what way has private use of IT made life better?
There's an enormous amount of things made much worse by private use of IT and I can't think of a single thing that's been improved via private use of IT.
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New Ever read a 100-page legal "brief"?
I'm convinced one reason so much law is so unreadable is that lawyers used to dictate instead of typing for themselves. When I worked at a law firm, I'd see the older guys pacing their offices holding micro-cassette recorders talking for hours at a time.

Throughout the day they'd occasionally drop a tape off in the secretary's inbox to transcribe. When the pages came back that afternoon - or the next day - they'd go through with a red pen and mark them up.

I'm sure there are people who can keep tens of pages of legalese in their heads. (Remember that court cases sometimes turn on definitions of single words, and discrepancies in wording between statutes constitute ambiguity.) But for the most part there's no way they can talk that long without going in circles and contradicting themselves.

When I type for myself I edit and reorder as I go. Not only am I more productive, the quality of my output is far higher. This is likely true for many people.

But yes, there are people who just churn out shit faster than they used to. Net win/loss? Impossible to say.
--

Drew
New I don't even know what "private IT" means.
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New Bull By-products!
Private IT has made vast volumes of information available to millions of people, information that was once carefully secluded in the hands of specialists - or was simply not findable or affordable to normal people.

Just a single case among millions:

Private IT allows me to quickly acquire information I need for writing on my Clovegarden.com web site, and allows me to quickly compare multiple sources to assure accuracy.

Private IT allows me to write quickly, and to revise endlessly to get the exact wording I want and quickly correct errors in information - including quickly correcting errors even after publication.

Private IT allows regular people worldwide to access my site and view what I have written. The site gets over 100,000 page views per month. Most of them are very short, because personal IT allows people to judge in seconds if what I have written is what they are looking for. Untold millions of hours of frustration are avoided.

Private IT allows me to study history quickly and thoroughly, and again, quickly compare multiple sources for accuracy.

And many, many more things. Private IT enriches the lives of millions of people who could not possibly afford what they get from computers and the Internet.

Or, are you saying that Private IT increases the gap between those who seek knowledge and those who prefer to be ignorant? There you'd be right.
New Questions.
Of the billions of pages on the vaunted Internet, how many are accurate and how many contain false information? Is library usage up or down?

I'll grant your rebuttal this: for the reasons you listed, we don't need to know how to write in our own hand anymore, nor suffer the catastrophe of serendipitously discovering something whilst researching something else, nor, $DEITY forbid, actually have to interact with another human being. All thanks to private use of IT. We'll never learn anything we don't specifically want to learn. That'll broaden our horizons with additional benefit of making us even more isolated than even our culture dictated.
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New So you'd have the printing press controlled as well
New Curmudgeon much?
we don't need to know how to write in our own hand anymore

Thank the maker. Handwriting sucks.

nor suffer the catastrophe of serendipitously discovering something whilst researching something else

You've never been on Wikipedia then, I take it.

actually have to interact with another human being

*cough* What are you doing right now? There are many hundreds of people I've spent quality time with that I never would have known otherwise. Amazingly, we used to actually get together and drink beer and grill things too, every 4th (miss you, Bill).

We'll never learn anything we don't specifically want to learn.

That's not the fault of "private IT". There have always been and ever will be the willfully ignorant.
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New Utter Bull By-products, piled higher and deeper.
"Of the billions of pages on the vaunted Internet, how many are accurate and how many contain false information? Is library usage up or down?"

How many pages of books are accurate and how many contain false information? The ratio is probably quite similar, but on the Internet it is easy to find other sources to confirm or deny - and there's more information available on the sources than a paragraph of exaggerations on the back of the dust jacket.

Libraries are revamping themselves to encompass this wider world where books don't need to be on the shelf, and can even be printed to order.

" . . nor suffer the catastrophe of serendipitously discovering something whilst researching something else."

Absolute Bullshit! Bullshit piled to a hundred orders of magnitude.

Have you ever even used the Internet (except to read Communist propaganda)?

When researching a particular food topic, I'm often distracted into a dozen distantly related or even unrelated subjects - and I can get to them in seconds. Things like the Crimean War, a lady pirate who once ruled the China Seas and defeated the Portuguese and the British, makeshift artillery used by the Boers in South Africa, Colossal Squid, tunnels under the Mexican pyramids . . the list goes on forever. The Internet is the CAPITOL of serendipity.

"$DEITY forbid, actually have to interact with another human being."

Have you ever heard of email? Probably not because it involves interaction with other human beings. It is fabulous for scheduling visits, organizing parties, introducing yourself to people you might not otherwise have an opportunity to contact. It even works if the other person isn't there to answer the phone right now. I use email to interact with other human beings every day (I'm not a Social Media person - I want direct private contact). Physical contacts are arranged much more easily this way.

"We'll never learn anything we don't specifically want to learn."

Well, apparently that does apply to you - your world does seem a bit narrow. Do not extrapolate that to other people.
New There's serendipity and then there's serendipity.
Search engines narrow your information search in ways that eliminate discovery. Here's an example. I'm a grad student in a university library. I'm struggling with a particular problem in algebraic topology, so I decide to take a break and get up to walk around a bit. I go down a floor and am just walking through the racks of books and periodicals when the title of a journal catches my eye. I take it off the shelf and sit down to read a few pages and discover that research is being conducted into ancient canal building in the US desert Southwest. Now, I'm sure that if I googled "algebraic topology" eventually a link about Native American canal building in the desert Southwest would show up, right?
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New There's grad students...
... and then there's the other 95%* of the population that doesn't have such "serendipitous" access to a university library. The internet is the great democratization of information that used to be the province of the elite. I'm astounded that you don't understand this.

I grew up in the age of World Books, and I went to a university. There's no comparison to the availability of information now. Go sell that disingenuous BS somewhere else. :-)

* 20.5 million university students out of 321 million, United States only.
Regards,
-scott
Welcome to Rivendell, Mr. Anderson.
New Re: Questions.
Belive that you recognize that ‘Private IT’ was quite unSpecific, opening to such masterful rebuttals as the replies, especially Andrew's--with more than one-liners)
As phrased re. "inescapable errata", here, isn’t this query akin to [does this have a TLA yet, elsewhere?] Someone is Wrong on the Intarweb.

I would go with …
The Corporation™©® et seq.. as the culprits in the Specific, intricate, premeditated purveying of *Self-serving unalloyed, Göbbels-Class" invariably-Greed-derived/perfected PROPAGANDA
(starting with virtually every BIZ-related preoccupation a one might find synonyms for (when ever trying for some complete-list fantasy, to make some Point.)

* That “Self-“ as we all know via all living experience: is, Duh, the Usual 0.1 or worse 0.001% who casually design and determine dis-USA policies
..and their egregious inescapable Hypocrisy-in-all matters, as: (Say one simple example)

(Story recently replayed on an NPR program)
George Washington’s vendetta against a Female Slave who Fled.. his tender, putative darkies-lovin? sinecure.
She, via underground Rwy and gumption and Righteousness, escaped the mofo-of-Substance's dragnet(s)
and lived a (..I guess rather ordinary) LIFE) dying elderly-enough: of natural causes.

Simple summary: just Follow the Money/Greed/Hypocrisy afflictions via ordinary inculcated mind algorithms, and you’ve also landed on that democracy-destroying,
inescapable by-product of Murican [and perhaps All..?] “capitalism-as-actually IN Situ" all along. "IT" encompasses Too Much, inextricable with its undeniable boons, so well limned above.



Hang in there; methinks that all here are on the Same-side of the seeming inevitable—and soon, should Drumpf escape Justice again—actual/authentic Barricades w/ torches

[ … and even aided-by my secret Phlogiston™ brought into use, via my revealing its simple ingredients]


I Who Be
(nemesis of all cha. cha. cha. ever found under that proverbial Rock, wherever my dull mind can actually spot real unalloyed Shit)
New Yes, I was ambiguous and overstated.
I should have not suggested that "nothing good" has come from the private use of computer technology. I should have said that private use of computer technology (like the Internet itself) has had a net negative impact on society.
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New It wouldn't have made any difference
Because you'd still be stuck at [citation needed].
New The OP would be a good start. And of vastly greater consequence ...
Horrible happenings in Manchester. I hope you and yours (including extended "yours") are all well and safe.
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New Thankfully the events in Manc have not touched me, mine or anyone in my extended circle
But that's a different thread, and we can talk about it at length there.
New If your own life were made worse by being on here, then you wouldn't be.
But here you are, so apparently you find that your life is somehow better being here than not.

Q.E.D, H.T.H!
--
Christian R. Conrad
Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi

(Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
New "Net negative" != "Entirely negative". HTH.
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New If it were net negative you wouldn't be here.
New That doesn't follow at all.
Sadly, this could be one of the good bits. ;0)
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New Please define the term
When​ you say "private", you mean nongovernmental, right?
New Non-governmental, Non-healthcare, Non-university, etc.
Probably more clear to say, "IT use by private corporations not directly involved in healthcare or at home use not related to healthcare maintenance (i.e. at home telemetry monitoring, glucose monitoring, etc.)"
bcnu,
Mikem

It's mourning in America again.
New Oh, you mean corporate use
Because of course if a corporation does it, it's bad.
--

Drew
New Yeah, I assumed as much but wanted to be sure
He means not controlled by whoever he deems "correct". He'd fall into a 1984 scenario in a blink. Worse than Luddite, far more dangerous.
New Demur.
It is not 'Luddite' to recognize and despise the actual effects of the dis-USA practice all along, loosely lumped as (no descriptors) 'Capitalism'
Evil is as evil does, even with such exceptions as: the guy whose steel foundry burnt down; he got mucho Insurance.
Then he REBUILT the sucker (obvious in the telling) to maintain the workers' JOBS.

(So Corps don't Have to Be Evil; simply the directors Choose their/and others' own poison, non?)
New Link to actual podcast of that episode:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/technation/episodes/2017-05-18T11_36_47-07_00

(Haven't listened to it yet.)

[Edit] Started listening; actual "Big Data" content starts at ca. 6:30 in. [/Edit]
--
Christian R. Conrad
Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi

(Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
Expand Edited by CRConrad May 26, 2017, 05:57:47 AM EDT
New Thanks for completing my
er, 'Being-Partkdolg Duty' (according to one Cosmology, known only to the Ancients.)

moi, Ancient
     "Weapons of Math Destruction How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy." - (Ashton) - (28)
         Accelerating inequality has always been the only possible "contribution" of computer technology. - (mmoffitt) - (25)
             Yeah, but being wrong is kind of a hobby for you, right? - (pwhysall) - (19)
                 In what way has private use of IT made life better? - (mmoffitt) - (18)
                     Ever read a 100-page legal "brief"? - (drook)
                     I don't even know what "private IT" means. -NT - (malraux)
                     Bull By-products! - (Andrew Grygus) - (11)
                         Questions. - (mmoffitt) - (10)
                             So you'd have the printing press controlled as well -NT - (crazy)
                             Curmudgeon much? - (malraux)
                             Utter Bull By-products, piled higher and deeper. - (Andrew Grygus) - (2)
                                 There's serendipity and then there's serendipity. - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                     There's grad students... - (malraux)
                             Re: Questions. - (Ashton) - (4)
                                 Yes, I was ambiguous and overstated. - (mmoffitt) - (3)
                                     It wouldn't have made any difference - (pwhysall) - (2)
                                         The OP would be a good start. And of vastly greater consequence ... - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                             Thankfully the events in Manc have not touched me, mine or anyone in my extended circle - (pwhysall)
                     If your own life were made worse by being on here, then you wouldn't be. - (CRConrad) - (3)
                         "Net negative" != "Entirely negative". HTH. -NT - (mmoffitt) - (2)
                             If it were net negative you wouldn't be here. -NT - (CRConrad) - (1)
                                 That doesn't follow at all. - (mmoffitt)
             Please define the term - (crazy) - (4)
                 Non-governmental, Non-healthcare, Non-university, etc. - (mmoffitt) - (3)
                     Oh, you mean corporate use - (drook) - (2)
                         Yeah, I assumed as much but wanted to be sure - (crazy) - (1)
                             Demur. - (Ashton)
         Link to actual podcast of that episode: - (CRConrad) - (1)
             Thanks for completing my - (Ashton)

God help us when the effects of "switch" are toted up.
171 ms