finite_jest

Interesting observation. I have not read the whole document, but based on Table 6.2 (page 34 of the PDF) it looks like almost all of the difference between ethnic groups comes from the people who took the test in French:

           |  % Successful (EN) |  % Successful (FR)
     White |        86%         |        84% 
 Non-White |        82%         |        55%

This seems quite strange to me. I am curious to know whether the French version is merely a translation of the English version, or there are other differences?

-------------------

PS. I just realized these so I'm gonna add them here.

There is a little bit of ambiguity about Table 6.2. Does the it French column refer to people who wrote the French version of the test (as the paragraph [33] of the ruling suggests), or does it refer to the languages the candidate spoke (as the existence of a "English+French" column suggests)?

Also, the vast majority of the candidates are Anglophones, so the overall difference is not as large as the above numbers may suggest. Overall, it's more like 80% (Non-White) vs 86% (White). (https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28526%2B33%29%2F%2852...) Table 7 of the ruling has a more detailed ethnic breakdown.

Practically speaking, it seems unlikely to me that a "big tent" coalition could be formed if some of the would-be occupants of the tent think of the others as the moral equivalent of the Taliban. [1]

[1]: Shtetl-Optimized: Exciting opportunities at Kabul University! https://archive.ph/GhNGd

I apologize for that.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29563781

Here's the archived link, in case don't want to feed the prestigious trolls out there [1]: https://archive.ph/APXsC

[1]: https://i1.wp.com/www.opindia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01...

Just for the sake of geeking out, here are some definitions from other dictionaries I could find:

Macmillan [1]: someone who believes that vaccinations are harmful to human health and so refuses to vaccinate their children against childhood diseases

Lexico (Oxford) [2]: A person who is opposed to vaccination.

Cambridge [3]: someone who does not agree with vaccinating people (= giving them injections to prevent disease) and spreads and encourages opinions against vaccines

Wikitionary [4]: A person who opposes vaccination, as for its purported dangerous effects.

Dictionary.com [5]: a person who distrusts or is against vaccination, especially a parent who refuses to have a young child vaccinated.

American Heritage [6] and Longman [7]: It seems that they do not have an entry. Collins also doesn't have an entry, but apparently there was a suggestion for adding it in 2015. [8]

[1]: https://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/anti-...

[2]: https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/anti-vaxxer

[3]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/antivaxx...

[4]: https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=anti-vaxxer&oldi...

[5]: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/antivaxxer

[6]: https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=anti-vaxxer

[7]: https://www.ldoceonline.com/spellcheck/english/?q=anti-vaxxe...

[8]: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/submission/15399/Anti-Vaxx...

Merriam-Webster, the Orwellian dictionary which changed the definition of "sexual preference" just after Amy Coney Barrett used it in her SCOTUS appointment hearings? [1][2]

[1] Snopes: Did Merriam-Webster Update Its Entry on ‘Sexual Preference’ After Barrett Hearing? https://archive.ph/dFEIk

[2] Of course, they say only changed it merely "after" she used it, not "because" of it. But come on...

One could certainly argue that for the most part, news shouldn't be our source of information (especially the semi-propaganda type rampant on Twitter). Aaron Swartz [1] and Rolf Dobelli [2] argue for this reasonably.

[1]: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews

[2: https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2010-dobelli.pdf

:-) I personally have nothing against cryptobros, but this reminds me of this tweet [1] by creator of Signal:

> I rarely have much use for ML, but I made a chrome extension that auto-blocks anyone with laser eyes in their Twitter avatar and I gotta say that so far it really seems to improve the experience!

[1]: https://nitter.net/moxie/status/1466454602337771521

Censoring Joe Rogan episodes seems pretty evil to me. [1][2]

[1]: https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/514665-con...

[2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/JoeRogan/comments/ikf9at/full_list_...

:-) 640x480, also known as God's preferred resolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=TempleOS&oldid=10...

I stand corrected then.

However, there is no "even" about it. They should control for age (as they purportedly did), or the results are probably meaningless.

I think it is deceptive that they emphasize the numbers which don't account for that, and I can't find the numbers they get after controlling for age.

A̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶o̶u̶r̶s̶e̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶c̶c̶o̶u̶n̶t̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶a̶g̶e̶,̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶c̶h̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶o̶b̶a̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶i̶g̶n̶i̶f̶i̶c̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶d̶e̶m̶o̶g̶r̶a̶p̶h̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶d̶i̶f̶f̶e̶r̶e̶n̶c̶e̶.̶

Sorry, I was wrong about that, see timmytokyo's comment below.

Yes, the most important one is the idea that censorship is ok.

Very cool hardcore minimalist aesthetic! Do you use it yourself for reading your feeds?

Maybe not in this particular case (though I'm not sure about that), but they certainly do care what people post (irrespective of their ToS). Remember the "communist bandit"/"50-cent party" fiasco? [1][2]

Also, their terms of service are not divine unambiguous laws. They makes the the rules themselves, and enforce them as selectively as they please.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219

[2]: https://reclaimthenet.org/youtube-was-censoring-china-propag...

> The paper may merit retraction on the grounds of error or even scientific misconduct ‘‘by reason of insanity,’’ but such a retraction raises the issue of discrimination against the mentally ill.

From Wikipedia: "The United States does not have hate speech laws, since the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that laws criminalizing hate speech violate the guarantee to freedom of speech contained in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution." [1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hate_speech&oldid...

I am generally against dystopian ideas like "predictive policing", and I used to like Doctorow very much. I vividly remember being inspired by Little Brother. Also, of course he is right in saying that crime data is not completely objective.

But TBH, the article itself is also guilty of confirmation bias. It is full of "everybody knows" [1] kind of arguments and exaggerations. "Driving while brown" isn't really a "de facto crime" in any reasonable sense.

The analysis of leak by The Markup he endorses doesn't look very objective either. The fact that the Predpol's algorithm suggests that the police should patrol the more dangerous neighbourhoods isn't really a good argument for showing that it is racially biased. At the very least, they should try to control for other factors somehow (e.g. by comparing poor neighbourhoods with different racial compositions).

There is indeed "a pool of mathematicians who can produce convincing confirmation bias as a service", as Doctorow says, but their prejudices are not mostly in the category and direction he suggests. [2]

[1]: https://archive.ph/VYsZ3#selection-335.61-335.76

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_American_ac...

Well, it's a ruling by a judge appointed by President Obama [1][2] who is very sympathetic to leftwing causes [3], so he has his biases. My own personal (non-expert) take on this is that if we want to preserve free expression, we should perhaps bring back a version of fairness doctrine (or right of reply) targeted at platforms (which I think were killed by President Reagan, unfortunately).

Do you happen to happen to have a link to the ruling on DeSantis's version of the law? I thought they were still waiting for the appeals.

I also thought DeSantis's rendition was more clever, as they tried to frame the selective enforcement of the ToS as a form of fraud. I would be interested in knowing your opinion on this.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Pitman

[2]: There are studies have that confirm that who judges appointed by Democrats and Republicans do indeed make different decisions.

[3]: I think he is the same judge who blocked the heartbeat law and the boycott ban.

Good old days of the yore, when Twitter's general manager quoted the CEO saying "We are the free speech wing of the free speech party" [1], and the ACLU would rigorously defend free expression.

[1]: Guardian (2012) https://archive.ph/0HnBB#selection-2031.1-2031.153

Maybe not glorified, but certainly whitewashed. The "Fiery but Mostly Peaceful" chyron will remain in memories for a long time. [1]

[1]: The Hill: "CNN ridiculed for 'Fiery But Mostly Peaceful' caption with video of burning building in Kenosha" https://archive.ph/oTwP7

I really think we should bring back a version of fairness doctrine [1] or right of reply [2] targeted at platforms like Facebook or Twitter. This is not really my area of expertise, but I suspect that might be more effective and practical than repealing Section 230 for addressing blatant censorship like this.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_reply

I don't think we should puritans in this case. Signal is an important force against pushes for building the panopticon.

This video by Veritasium on the unexpected effects of the cosmic rays is pretty interesting: https://odysee.com/@veritasium:f/how-distant-galaxies-mess-w....

You could argue the opposite, that Twitter is part of the open internet to some extent: unlike Facebook, it is fairly searchable with normal search engines [1] and unlike Instagram, it doesn't actively discourage linking to other websites. Long time ago, it even used to offer RSS feeds [2]. There are custom clients for it too. Apparently, Jack tried to push for decentralized social media protocols [3]. However, I would certainly agree that it is getting closer to a being yet another brick in the wall.

As for free expression on the open internet, I think it is under active threat. The centralization [4] makes the job of the censors much easier. The calls for internet surveillance and censorship are ubiquitous.

[1]: e.g. https://google.com/search?q=site%3Atwitter.com+jack+open+int...

[2]: https://archive.md/IPLAx#selection-215.17-215.123

[3]: https://cointelegraph.com/news/what-does-twitters-new-decent...

[4]: e.g. https://easydns.com/blog/2020/07/20/turns-out-half-the-inter...

Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29394945.