tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14270191563026941462024-03-19T01:30:15.911-07:00Obsession with RegressionEmma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.comBlogger65125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-62113116225872534522018-09-03T21:03:00.003-07:002018-09-03T21:57:48.030-07:00Playboy, kittens, and deep learningIt was nearing midnight and it had been a long day, but I was excited. In the morning I had been reading about conv nets, a powerful deep learning technique that lets computers understand images; in the afternoon I had been chatting with one deep learning researcher about how to use them, in the evening I grabbed dinner with a second deep learning researcher, and now approaching bedtime I was tapping away on my laptop marveling at how, in a few lines of code, I could download a vast mathematical structure that could discriminate between a thousand image classes with near-human accuracy. I was messaging an economist friend about how my field was cooler than his because I was so damn excited.<br />
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But as I went through the code in a famous deep learning toolbox, I noticed an image file with an odd name -- lena.jpg. And with a jolt I realized who she was:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii5x38RjTcacdi8JowM_V7u1oAOrKu8BJinz8VTNdTqUNoiFi1YdqwtLcTixjBy3Oa9VdtICIF1f0Z_nUyZxvjTjhXyjVKLQv2pOwYaWRFerBfp_X9dsaYJXy_LG3O5clZ9Tgy7Qe4gN6f/s1600/lena.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="400" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii5x38RjTcacdi8JowM_V7u1oAOrKu8BJinz8VTNdTqUNoiFi1YdqwtLcTixjBy3Oa9VdtICIF1f0Z_nUyZxvjTjhXyjVKLQv2pOwYaWRFerBfp_X9dsaYJXy_LG3O5clZ9Tgy7Qe4gN6f/s320/lena.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is one of the most widely used images in computer science. If you’ve ever taken a computer science class that worked with images, there’s a good chance you’ve used it. It also has a lesser-known, controversial <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#History"><span style="color: blue;">history</span></a>. The image comes from a 1973 Playboy centerfold. It was originally used in a computer science paper because a bunch of USC scientists were writing a paper in a hurry and just needed an image to add as an example, and someone happened to walk in with a Playboy. The image has been widely used ever since then, and there have been complaints for decades that it’s sexist to use it as a standard test image: see Wikipedia's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna#Criticism"><span style="color: blue;">summary</span></a>, and also <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-playboy-centerfold-does-not-belong-in-tj-classrooms/2015/04/24/76e87fa4-e47a-11e4-81ea-0649268f729e_story.html?utm_term=.baa28b7ee763"><span style="color: blue;">this</span></a> Washington post op-ed from a female computer science student at my high school.<br />
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While I don’t think this is the biggest deal in the world, I also think it’s pretty obvious that we should stop using this image, for a couple reasons: <br />
<ol>
<li>The image has an inappropriate origin. You shouldn’t get your test images from a magazine famous for its images of naked women. </li>
<li>Separate from origin, the image is obviously sexual. It’s an attractive woman who’s naked from the waist up looking suggestively at the viewer. The titillating nature of the image is clearly part of its appeal: <a href="http://www.lenna.org/editor.html"><span style="color: blue;">here’s</span></a> the (male) editor of a computer science journal noting that “it is not surprising that the (mostly male) image processing research community gravitated toward an image that they found attractive”. </li>
<li>Machine learning already has a problem with sexualizing women. See Kristian Lum’s <a href="https://medium.com/@kristianlum/statistics-we-have-a-problem-304638dc5de5"><span style="color: blue;">piece</span></a> for some examples, among many others.</li>
<li>There are <span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">literally <a href="https://code.fb.com/ml-applications/advancing-state-of-the-art-image-recognition-with-deep-learning-on-hashtags/"><span style="color: blue;">billions</span></a></span></span> of other images you could use. </li>
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To return to the story: some version of the reasoning above flashed through my mind, and my temper flared. It had been a 15-hour day and I had been feeling good and productive and all of a sudden I was not. By midnight, I had stopped writing code and half-written an angry blog post instead. Here is a quote: <br />
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“It's a strange juxtaposition, to see this ugliness in the midst of such beautiful math; to feel walls thrown up around open-source code; to see this tired old image in the midst of such innovation; to feel sudden vulnerability when a second ago you felt invinceable [sic].”<br />
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Then I stopped and thought before posting it. The cardinal rule I adhere to when talking publicly about gender issues is <i>don’t do things rashly</i>. As a high schooler, I was a tournament chess player, and I like seeing the battle for gender equality as a chess game -- give long thought to every attack, try to look a few steps ahead, keep the end goal in mind. Reflecting on this potential blog post reveals two problems: <br />
<ol>
<li>The writing’s a bit sloppy. There’s a misspelling; the parallel structure is a little clumsy; the sentence is a little long. There’s nothing worse than a sentence which strives for eloquence but doesn’t quite achieve it.</li>
<li>The tone’s a bit harsh. It makes it sound like the person who used the image is severely, perhaps deliberately, harming female computer scientists on multiple levels. To see how this tone was likely to go over, I asked a couple of male computer scientists what they thought about the image. The first man I talked to laughed and said, “people are too sensitive”. The second man also thought the image was fine. Neither had ever heard of its history, and neither was particularly bothered when they did. Now, of course, I write things that others don’t agree with all the time. But their reaction suggested to me that my tone would not persuade most male computer scientists -- which is to say, a large fraction of my audience -- and would probably actually be counterproductive. </li>
</ol>
So I went to sleep without doing anything. Over the next few days I reached out to a few people I respected to see what they thought. My anger faded, but I remained convinced the image should be taken down. One option was to open a GitHub issue -- essentially, write a public note to the author of the code explaining the history of the image and asking that he use a different one. The upside of this would be to raise awareness of the image’s history and the prevalence of subtle gender bias in computer science, and make it harder for the author to ignore me. The downsides were that it’s a bit pointed to publicly point out sexism in someone’s work; there was also the risk that the whole interaction would end up on Hacker News or Reddit and waste a lot of my time (although this could also be an upside, if it offered insight into how discussions on these issues evolved). Instead, I decided to privately email the author. If he ignored me, I could escalate by making a public comment. We had the following exchange (I blacked out his identifying details).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlz_wlPxdFh-wsAbzd8lmQufEkBF2y8Ic4x_Cms2H4PcCJyyC4VYBn8tQErPgGRunrLneOEYknb5AsVF1T7AZ4lnM6uPNmrlCmn_x3HRojux_HSMmgOLsj4RbLkDH5ktfOYhIoXI6kLZ5b/s1600/email_exchange_smaller.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1258" data-original-width="1294" height="622" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlz_wlPxdFh-wsAbzd8lmQufEkBF2y8Ic4x_Cms2H4PcCJyyC4VYBn8tQErPgGRunrLneOEYknb5AsVF1T7AZ4lnM6uPNmrlCmn_x3HRojux_HSMmgOLsj4RbLkDH5ktfOYhIoXI6kLZ5b/s640/email_exchange_smaller.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Very gracious; totally painless. He was as good as his word: within a day, he replaced the original image with<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUS9WF6ZgG1nI3H-Zv9-PqsSlUcyIaMXGFzgG5aJJ8ThFExkUnsXMySTkWY5I-Sl6DcYlRRtOaUgmIW-IIexGGMT4eIkVOvHMzvZfkaabQ3f4w19YOfdTAbJwoUV_nckh4JSNcb7IV7QYi/s1600/cat_224.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUS9WF6ZgG1nI3H-Zv9-PqsSlUcyIaMXGFzgG5aJJ8ThFExkUnsXMySTkWY5I-Sl6DcYlRRtOaUgmIW-IIexGGMT4eIkVOvHMzvZfkaabQ3f4w19YOfdTAbJwoUV_nckh4JSNcb7IV7QYi/s1600/cat_224.jpg" /></a></div>
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Thus accomplishing the true goal -- to increase the number of kitten pictures in machine learning. Look at its little ears! <br />
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As I said at the outset, this obviously isn’t a tremendously momentous interaction. I share it for two reasons. First, women who speak up about gender issues are sometimes told that we should calm down or that we’re being too sensitive, and I wanted to illustrate that we’ve often already put a lot of time into calming down and choosing our words carefully. There’s a good chance that we were actually a lot madder than we’re acting, and it’s probably unhelpful to ask us to calm down further [1]. <br />
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My second reason for sharing this is that conversations about social justice issues these days feel so fraught and so frequently blow up, but this interaction gave me hope. When I talk to computer scientists about these issues, I don’t think they are usually as concerned as I am. But I also think that they are usually at least <i>somewhat</i> concerned and, if you reach out to them calmly and it doesn’t cost them anything, will be open to helping you out. So here’s to more kittens and fewer topless women in deep learning. <br />
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<b>Notes</b>:<br />
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[1] Of course, this isn’t always true. Everyone sometimes lashes out without thinking, and some women do this too. But given that most are thoughtful and restrained, I think it’s risky and unfair to assume someone who’s acting angry hasn’t thought about their words. Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com312tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-1964522249696847912018-02-28T11:17:00.000-08:002018-02-28T11:28:39.449-08:00Is Work Enough? <br />
<i>I wrote this piece three years ago and never published it. But I returned to it recently and it still resonates with me (though a lot has changed since then), so I’m publishing it now. </i><br />
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Recently I wrote my first <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/03/re-our-relationship/389030/"><span style="color: blue;">piece</span></a> for the Atlantic, and on the day it came out I woke up early because I was so excited. But people quickly started <a href="http://obsessionwithregression.blogspot.com/2015/04/whether-youre-crazy-depends-on-whether.html"><span style="color: blue;">writing</span></a> mean things about the piece, and because my skin isn’t as thick as it should be I called my mom in the hope that she would make me feel better.<br />
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“I’m a little stressed too, actually,” she said.<br />
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“Why?” I asked.<br />
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“Well, your grandfather just went to the hospital,” she said. “They think he might’ve had a stroke.”<br />
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Which reminds you that there are worse things than nasty internet comments. There are also worse things than strokes. The next week was a surreal blend of professional successes and family tragedies. A literary agent emailed an offer to represent me. My mom emailed that the true problem was not a stroke but a brain tumor. A national radio station asked for an interview. My mom said that the tumor was probably not a lymphoma but a glioblastoma, which has a median survival of 3 - 6 months.<br />
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My focus on my work has led a collaborator to label me a “serious workaholic”, and a friend to tell me that “you can choose to not care about people”. And yet. It has been made so devastatingly clear to me that my work is not enough.<br />
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Here is what professional successes feel like when a close family member is dying. It’s as if you’re sitting at an elegant restaurant with a spear through your chest and waiters keep bringing you beautiful courses. One asks you how your food is.<br />
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“It’s lovely,” you say, “but I’ve got this large hole in my ribcage…”<br />
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Work is not enough, but nor is it nothing. A few months after my grandfather died, it became clear that my relationship of four years was coming to an end. (This has not been the greatest year.) I was at a conference in Dublin, and I was supposed to give a talk, and I was a mess; I was sneaking into the bathroom between poster sessions to cry. But the talk went well, and I ended up winning my first best talk award. I accepted the certificate from the organizer, smiled at all the clapping scientists, and went straight outside to do some more crying. I was crying because I still felt terrible, but I was also crying because even in the midst of all the terrible, winning still felt good. As broken as I felt, my head was working fine, and that incongruity was surprising and reassuring: a fierce, raw triumph, this sudden awareness that, unlike the Titanic, I was mostly safely compartmentalized.<br />
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My life feels emptier of late. But I am happy alone in my head -- I am rarely lonely or bored -- because of my work. I do not think I would find my work comforting if I were pulling 90-hour weeks at Goldman Sachs, though. I am as addicted to pageviews and likes as anyone else, but I think I would find them less meaningful if they were for, say, a cigarette ad campaign I had designed. When I am at my computer, no matter what terrible things are happening, I can still put one word in front of another and think: the world may be bad, but maybe this will make it slightly better.<br />
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Or maybe I just find my work comforting because it is safe: it’s a world as still and beautiful as a frozen wasteland, filled with abstractions I understand, problems that demand my full attention and leave no room for sadness. Science fiction writers seem to like this sort of psychotherapy. In Ender’s Game, a 6-year-old genius <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jaM7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=%22he+would+not+cry%22+ender%27s+game&source=bl&ots=OI1Kasr4WY&sig=YjECC-Jkr7jsPjeNMkIRGx_AhqY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwingNT0p8nZAhXqiFQKHUldA2UQ6AEIKTAA#v=onepage&q=%22he%20would%20not%20cry%22%20ender's%20game&f=false"><span style="color: blue;">finds comfort</span></a> far from home by computing powers of two. I used to try this, but I mostly got irritated because, unlike the 6-year-old, I can’t get up to 67 million in my head. In 2001: A Space Odyssey, after a rather serious mishap with a computer [1] leaves a character stranded alone, he finds comfort by listening to the “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/529760-bowman-was-aware-of-some-changes-in-his-behavior-patterns"><span style="color: blue;">abstract architecture</span></a>” of Bach. There is, if not deep satisfaction, at least distraction in abstraction.<br />
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Notes:<br />
[1] Probably programmed by a Cal student.<br />
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Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com155tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-17566778481660056372017-12-18T19:29:00.002-08:002017-12-18T19:40:10.735-08:00Disagreeing without disliking each other<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">...increasingly seems to be impossible. Democrats dislike Republicans; Republicans dislike Democrats; even within liberal enclaves, very liberal campus activists dislike slightly less liberal campus activists. More than one of my friends has told me that, if they could work on any problem, they would want to stitch closed these schisms in our society. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently I had two experiences that renewed my faith that this was possible. I started contentious discussions with two very different groups: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Redditors</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: A bunch of Reddit fans of a popular blogger who, in my view, can be biased against feminists. He had written a </span><a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/04/against-overgendering-harassment/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">piece</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> arguing that the focus on powerful men’s sexual assaults was “a hit job” on men. I wrote a </span><a href="http://obsessionwithregression.blogspot.com/2017/12/no-scott-alexander-focus-on-powerful.html" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">rebuttal</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, decided I was feeling confrontational, and </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/7ihfr3/no_the_focus_on_powerful_mens_sexual_assaults_is/?st=jbd0vb64&sh=c80af07c" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">posted it</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> where all his Reddit fans would see it. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The AlterConfers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: The attendees of </span><a href="https://alterconf.com/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">AlterConf 2017</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a conference that “provides safe opportunities for marginalized people and those who support them in the tech and gaming industries”. I had been invited to speak about ethical dilemmas in computer science, and decided I would begin my talk by talking about criminal justice sentencing algorithms. I was going to argue that algorithms that created large racial disparities </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/10/17/can-an-algorithm-be-racist-our-analysis-is-more-cautious-than-propublicas/?utm_term=.422d2b320776" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were not necessarily unfair</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These groups, as you can imagine, followed profoundly different norms. When I arrived at AlterConf, I was asked for my preferred pronouns (she/her) and told that the bathrooms had been “</span><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%22liberated%20from%20the%20gender%20binary%22%20alterconf&src=typd" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">liberated from the gender binary</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”; when I posted on Reddit, a commenter immediately </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/7ihfr3/no_the_focus_on_powerful_mens_sexual_assaults_is/dqyvyx5/?st=jbd23epn&sh=b153be31" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">assumed I was male</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. At AlterConf I was asked whether my talk had any trigger warnings and handed red, yellow and green cards to indicate whether I was comfortable talking to other people; on Reddit, I found a similarly careful means of communication that relied on a totally different vocabulary -- “motte and bailey”; “toxoplasma”; “infinite regress”; “Taleb’s notion of time probability”; “eudaimonia”, “metis”, and “episteme”; "Foucaultian nihilism” and “biopower”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I doubt the two groups would get along that well. At AlterConf, multiple speakers attributed social problems to cis white men; on Reddit, </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/7ihfr3/no_the_focus_on_powerful_mens_sexual_assaults_is/dqzjlo3/?st=jbd1gdjf&sh=cc6873f9" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">multiple commenters criticized feminists</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> instead. At AlterConf, speakers discussed how to stop racial discrimination; on Reddit, commenters focused instead on discrimination against men. (Like African-Americans, they argued, men were discriminated against by the criminal justice system.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nor was I arguing positions that either group was particularly sympathetic to. Reddit isn’t known for loving feminist positions; similarly, arguing that the criminal justice system isn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as racist as it appears to be</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> isn’t a popular stance in activist circles. I was genuinely nervous before engaging with each group.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But in fact both interactions went remarkably well: no one got mad, I learned from both groups, and they learned from me. On Reddit, commenters pointed me to a </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/7ihfr3/no_the_focus_on_powerful_mens_sexual_assaults_is/dqz0u81/?st=jbd1hkzw&sh=61843a45" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">long line of papers showing discrimination against men in criminal justice</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which I wrote some code to check out -- more on this some other time. They also asked me for recommendations of other blogs to read, machine learning resources, why feminists acted the way they did, and why I had worked at 23andMe, so information flow went both ways. At AlterConf, I heard </span><a href="https://www.alterconf.com/code-of-conduct" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ideas</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for making tech conferences safer and more inclusive (take note, </span><a href="https://medium.com/@kristianlum/statistics-we-have-a-problem-304638dc5de5" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NIPS</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">); </span><a href="https://alterconf.com/talks/unlearning-toxic-behaviors-code-review-culture" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">making code reviews more pleasant</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; and finding </span><a href="https://www.alterconf.com/talks/creating-apps-benefit-marginalized-communities" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">books with more diverse protagonists</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, among many others. Conversely, many people came up to me after my talk to ask about tradeoffs in algorithmic fairness. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why was this communication peaceful and productive? Here are some thoughts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Both communities established strong norms of respectful discourse.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> These norms are wildly different, of course -- on Reddit, you get a lot of rationalist jargon, and at AlterConf, you get a lot of activist jargon. But they share a common goal: to allow everyone to participate in a free discussion without getting insulted or upset. And while I don't agree with all the ways these communities achieve this goal -- sounding super-rational can sometimes just conceal silly arguments or be pretentious, for example, and I think trigger warnings, while useful in some cases, are used over-broadly -- it helps to just establish a common intention that we're all trying to get along. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sometimes, the norms are very effective at preserving civil discourse. For example, the one Reddit commenter who was overtly disrespectful, questioning how I had managed to earn my professional bona fides when I wrote like a high schooler, was swiftly downvoted and told they were violating the rules of the forum; their comment was then deleted. One norm I particularly like is </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">charity</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a term I heard mentioned frequently on Reddit. As I understand it, charity means "assume good intent and respond to the strongest version of the opponent's argument". I love this ideal, although I don't always achieve it [1]. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. I showed willingness to learn.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> On Reddit, I began my rebuttal with a long paragraph listing all the things I had learned from the original blog post, and when commenters disagreed with me, I asked them for references. At AlterConf, I started by saying I was grateful to be invited to speak because I thought the wider CS community could take a lot of useful lessons from AlterConf. I also told them that I was about to give a short talk on a controversial topic to a new community, which was always risky, so I was nervous and if they disagreed they should come talk to me because I liked talking to people who disagreed with me. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="gmail-kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This willingness to learn was not an act: it helps me to approach new communities anthropologically, with openness, curiosity, and some degree of detachment, and view things I don't agree with as interesting and well-intentioned rather than stupid and malignant. Of course, I don’t always manage to do this. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. We came from </span><a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">similar tribes</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> On Reddit, I could credibly claim to be a rationalist math nerd, and the fact that I was in the Stanford CS program was a good thing; had I picked a fight on Breitbart, I suspect I’d have been cast as a liberal elite. Similarly, at AlterConf, I started by saying I studied police discrimination to try to establish that my heart was in the right place. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'm not sure any of these strategies would allow you to bridge a wider schism and engage with, say, Fox News commenters. But maybe we don't need to do that yet. Even within the Democratic party, there are schisms that if bridged would help us win elections. And, more broadly, if you start by reaching out to the most distant people who will listen to you, perhaps little by little that frontier grows more distant. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] In my experience, the activist community isn’t always charitable either; I dislike how people are sometimes demonized when their intent is benign, as </span><a href="https://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/08/25/the-dark-side-of-viral-rage/" style="color: #1155cc; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve discussed before</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. But at AlterConf everyone was nice to me. </span></div>
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Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com132tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-143958078487458292017-12-08T10:56:00.002-08:002017-12-08T22:28:55.153-08:00No, Scott Alexander, the focus on powerful men’s sexual assaults is not “a hit job” on men<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to rebut a recent </span><a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/12/04/against-overgendering-harassment/" style="text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">piece</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in which Scott Alexander, a widely read blogger, criticizes the focus on sexual assaults committed by powerful men (as opposed to assaults committed by women). I think this post is worth responding to because Alexander's blog is incredibly widely read among computer scientists and my other analytical friends -- it may be the most widely-read blog in my social circle -- and I don't think it covers gender issues fairly, and this post is an example of that. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a couple important things Alexander gets right. He's right that society decides not to care about certain classes of sexual assaults; there's probably been more coverage this year of Taylor Swift getting groped than all prison rape combined. He's right that society is wrong to make fun of men who are assaulted by women, and I agree the media should seek out reports from men as well. Reading his post and some of his references increased my already-held belief that we should take men more seriously when they are harassed or assaulted by women, so credit to him for that. He makes a thought-provoking argument that men might care more about assault if they believed it could happen to them too and they'd be taken seriously if it did. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But then the post says a bunch of things that are less reasonable. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First, he repeatedly implies that the current conversation is only about men assaulting women. This is factually incorrect; plenty of men have also gotten in trouble over accusations of assaulting men -- Kevin Spacey, George Takei, James Levine, we could go on. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then he says that the focus on male assaulters is "a hit job on the outgroup [men]. Do I think that sexual harassment is being used this way? I have no other explanation for the utter predominance of genderedness in the conversation."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here's another explanation: it's extremely obvious that male-on-female assault, a very common and damaging kind, has some unique characteristics worth discussing -- like the fact that men are generally physically, professionally, and economically more powerful, which fundamentally changes the dynamic of the assault. This discussion is long overdue, and we're having it now. Another reason the assaults of powerful men are worth discussing specifically is that it's a very bad idea to give assaulters, who definitionally don’t have enough regard for others' suffering, access to, say, America's entire nuclear arsenal. So the fact that two of America's last four presidents have been accused of assault or harassment by multiple people is worth talking about. When there are credible allegations of assault against female presidents, senators, media moguls, etc, we should absolutely talk about those those too. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Note, incidentally, that there are many other ways in which the current conversation is biased and incomplete: other groups being largely left out of the headlines are prisoners, people of color, transgender people, and people whose abusers aren't famous, but somehow his hypothesized "hit job" is against men only. This is odd.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alexander also says that focusing on male-on-female assault is like talking only about black-on-white crime or Muslim-on-Christian terrorism: it implies you have an insidious agenda, like Richard Spencer. (Comparing feminists to Nazis is a very tired rhetorical tactic -- feminazis, anyone? -- but let's move on.) These comparisons are wrong for three reasons. First, as explained above, the current conversation isn't just about female victims, though it does focus on male crimes. Second, it's entirely reasonable to have a conversation specifically about the crimes committed by one group. The media has been running non-stop articles about white supremacists, and that is not "a hit job on whites" but an analysis of an important social phenomenon. I don’t feel attacked when people complain about white supremacists; similarly, criticism of male assaulters isn't criticism of all men. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The third reason his examples are bad is that, in both his examples, the group being blamed is a non-dominant group that's been discriminated against for centuries. Contrast this with the group he's comparing to, men. A negative consequence of obsessing about black-on-white crime is a system of mass incarceration that wrecks millions of lives a year. A negative consequence of obsessing about Muslim-on-Christian terrorism was a war that killed </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In contrast, a negative consequence of obsessing about assaults committed by powerful men is...I'm not sure what it is, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't involve hundreds of thousands of dead people. It would've been easy for him to flip his examples around, which would have made them more apt but less persuasive, so this choice seems like sophistry here. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These counter-arguments are obvious, and Scott Alexander is smart and thorough, so the fact that he doesn't rebut or even mention them is worrisome to me. I think when it comes to gender issues and feminism, he has biases, perhaps driven in part by </span><a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/01/untitled/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">what happened to Scott Aaronson</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and I've had this feeling reading his blog before. And of course we all have biases, certainly I do, but I'm not the main source on gender issues for eight gajillion rationalists. (His post has been shared on several </span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/search?q=%22overgendering+harassment%22&sort=relevance&t=all" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">men's rights subreddits</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, so he's a source for other demographics as well.) So my request is -- please don't take Slate Star Codex as a definitive source on gender issues. He's smart and provocative and I read him, but please read people who disagree with him too. </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com221tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-40872907142441932312017-08-06T16:31:00.001-07:002017-08-06T16:31:26.338-07:00Testing for discrimination in college admissions<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recently, the Trump administration’s investigation into racial discrimination in college admissions has brought the topic back into the </span><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/01/us/politics/trump-affirmative-action-universities.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">news</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. But the claim that some races need higher GPAs or SAT scores to be admitted to colleges is, of course, an old one. This post discusses the statistical subtleties involved in proving such a claim: specifically, I examine some of the arguments that Asian applicants need higher SAT scores than white applicants. To be open about my beliefs at the outset, I think that colleges probably do discriminate against Asians, as they once discriminated against Jews, but the statistical arguments made to prove discrimination are often flawed. This also describes my beliefs about discrimination more broadly: while it is pervasive, quantifying it statistically is hard. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We’re going to use a hypothetical example where only whites and Asians apply for admission, Asians tend to have higher SAT scores than whites, and the only thing that actually affects whether you get admitted is your SAT score. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So in this hypothetical example, there is no discrimination; your race does not affect your chances of admission. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="254" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/QpjRTtKA_xnQguilKEUL4fHVzoHFpj-BmEfTSBYNnw-eCtbyZr9lJ3RMJPONhUjaZwIxoiGDZwA8XU3JCEJt76WgKuRwFGnPZS4X57H3Rn8DxNeHI3XTDc1m9IpJkrW0v_NdzrBD" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="490" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the left, I show the scores for Asian applicants and white applicants. On the right, I show how your probability of admission depends on your SAT score. So someone with an SAT score of 1400 has about a 50% chance of admission, regardless of whether they’re white or Asian. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Given that there’s no discrimination in our hypothetical example, if a statistical argument implies there is discrimination, that argument is flawed</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. So let’s take a look at some arguments.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most common argument I’ve seen that Asians are discriminated against is that the SAT scores of admitted Asians are higher than SAT scores of admitted whites. But </span><a href="http://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/faculty-experts/fellows/jackson.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kirabo Jackson</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, an economist at Northwestern University, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/KiraboJackson/status/893241923791663104" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">points out</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> the flaw in this argument. In our hypothetical example, where there is no discrimination, admitted Asians will have an average score of about 1460, and admitted whites will have an average score of about 1310. This happens because the Asian distribution is shifted to the right: even though a kid with a 1500 is equally likely to get in regardless of whether they’re white or Asian, there are more Asians with 1500s.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I ran this argument by a friend, he said that the </span><a href="https://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">study</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which people often cite when claiming Asians are discriminated against is considerably more sophisticated. So I read the study, and it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more sophisticated; it’s worth reading. They fit a model where they simultaneously control for someone’s race and SAT score, which lets you see whether people of some races need higher scores to get in. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the subtlety. The paper doesn’t actually look at SAT scores, but SAT scores divided into bins from 1200 - 1300, 1300 - 1400, and so on. Within those bins, the paper’s model assumes all applicants should have an equal chance of admission (all else being equal). But that isn’t quite right: an applicant with a 1290 will have a higher chance of admission than an applicant with an 1210. And because Asians are right-shifted in our example, that means that Asians in the 1200 - 1300 bin will have higher scores, and a higher chance of admission, than whites in the 1200 - 1300 bin, even though the paper’s model assumes that applicants in that bin should be equal if there is no discrimination. Below is a plot which illustrates the idea. Within each score bin, Asians (red line) have a higher average SAT score (left plot), and thus a higher chance of admission (right plot), then whites in the same bin (blue line). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="281" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/iOdxhJ58x95noq2ZiFzE52wIaUfpkCjnD4-0aCpReV31F5DXDro8eYJzUxvif3DTy6OjIafwaDOLymXyLgTLT1klbjM5nUIBuO7YDArqqili6pVtalSXHfjGuDahAEHaofy-RWxw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="498" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what happens when we fit the paper’s model on our hypothetical data? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now we find discrimination against whites. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This happens because the blue lines are below the red lines: whites in a bin have a lower chance of admission than Asians in a bin because they have lower average scores. So the paper’s model will incorrectly conclude that, controlling for SAT score, whites have about 20% lower odds of admission, a significant amount of discrimination. I should note it’s entirely possible that the authors fit other models that don’t bin SAT scores, although I couldn’t find those models mentioned in the paper [1]; please point me to anything I’ve missed. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Okay. So we took hypothetical data that had no discrimination. One widely repeated statistical argument shows discrimination against Asians. Another widely repeated statistical argument shows discrimination against whites. This isn’t good. The basic mathematical takeaway is that when races have different distributions over a variable (like SAT score) and you divide that variable into bins, you can get misleading results. (See the </span><a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3818/JRP.4.1.2002.131" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">literature</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on </span><a href="https://5harad.com/papers/threshold-test.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">infra-marginality</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for interesting discussions of related phenomena in tests for police discrimination). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The broader takeaway is that testing for discrimination is really hard. Which isn’t to say you should discount all evidence that it occurs; you should just be mindful of the caveats. Also, these statistical problems are tricky and fun to think about, so you should come work with me on them. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Footnotes: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] One of the authors went on to write a </span><a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9072.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">book</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on the topic, the one cited in the </span><a href="https://www.clearinghouse.net/chDocs/public/ED-MA-0002-0001.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lawsuit</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> against Harvard; I took a look at the relevant chapter, and it seems to use a similar binning strategy for SAT scores. To be clear, just because a model has caveats worth discussing doesn’t mean the work is bad or the conclusions are wrong; indeed, the book appears to be impressively comprehensive. Also, our hypothetical example actually suggests that this model might </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">underestimate </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the amount of discrimination against Asians. </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com163tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-88499498539638318532017-04-17T11:06:00.000-07:002017-04-17T11:06:12.080-07:00Proving discrimination from personal experience<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s an interaction you might’ve participated in: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Member of minority group: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I just had [negative interaction] with John. I don’t think he would’ve done that if I hadn’t been a minority. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Listener: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That sucks. But...how do you know it was because you were a minority? Maybe he was just having a bad day or he was really busy or …</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The negative interaction might be, say, that John talked down to them or didn’t include them on a project. The listener’s reaction is totally reasonable and well-intentioned (at least, I hope it is, because I’ve had it myself). Sometimes it isn’t even said out loud; the listener just thinks it. Here I argue that this reaction is not the most useful one. I explain why, both in English and in math, and then I suggest four more useful reactions. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problem with this reaction is not that it’s false. It’s that it’s obvious. If a minority tells you about something bad that happened to them, you can almost always attribute it to factors other than their minority status. (Throughout this essay, I’ll refer to negative behavior that’s due to someone’s minority status as “discrimination”.) Worse, this uncertainty will persist even if the discrimination occurs repeatedly and is quite significant. The core reason for this is that human behavior is complicated, there are lots of things that could explain a given interaction, and in our lives we observe only a small number of interactions. Because it is so hard to rule out other factors, individual discrimination suits have </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123500883048618747" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">notoriously low success rates</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Let’s be clear: I’m not saying you can </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">never</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> prove discrimination from someone’s individual experience. Obviously, there some experiences which are so blatant that discrimination is the only explanation: if someone drops a racial slur or grabs their female coworker by the whatever, we know they’re a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: line-through; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">president</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> bigot. But, in today’s workplaces, problematic discrimination is rarely so overt -- hence the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-generation_gender_bias" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">term</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “second generation” discrimination. Here’s a picture:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="212" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/FdETkXFagVFPQ3iSxzRRGZHL_dZLboNTHqav_psGs405eQCnILMWtQXu1kdRpHXR616eHNjfA4l55qVPi8d_FbRdt9cDsVR4h5ain26Kw7fv2oKZDNln8CJpnF5NKU6lYck4n8v8" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="284" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s a simple mathematical model that formalizes this idea. If you don’t like math, feel free to skip to the “What should we do instead” section. Let’s say the result of an interaction, Y, depends on a number of observable factors, X, one of which is whether someone’s a minority. Specifically, let: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2017-04-05 at 11.48.48 AM.png" height="69" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Ip4mvH-GpqNaf4VHNBDzC6CGiPInwdxd9wsZEHoKiZXVbWeX4akpqt_8voO8FJmnasMn1IWqEdMATXMhZDEEbl3z3nALuoRppuTXKZDZDYMjjKwZZtbsbyzg83ysRjp_wSyK3yr8" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="531" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">where beta is a set of coefficients describing how much each factor matters, and noise is due to random things we don’t observe. So, for example, Y might be your grade on a computer science assignment, X might include factors like “does your code produce the correct output” and “are you a minority” and noise might be due to stuff like how quickly the TA is grading [1]. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we want to know whether there’s discrimination, we need to figure out the value of beta</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 6.6pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">minority</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: this will tell us whether minorities get worse outcomes just for being minorities. We can infer this value using linear regression, and importantly, we can also infer the uncertainty on the value. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s the problem. When you do linear regression on a small number of datapoints (which is all a person has, given that they don’t observe that many interactions) you’re going to have huge uncertainty in the inferred values. To illustrate this, I ran a simulation using the model above with two groups, call them A and B, each half the population. I set the parameters so there was a strong discrimination effect against B. Specifically, even though A and B are equal along other dimensions, the average person in A will be ranked higher than about two thirds of people in B, due solely to discrimination; if you look at people in the top 5%, less than a third will be B. So this is enough discrimination to produce substantial underrepresentation. But when we try to infer the value of the discrimination coefficient, we can’t be sure there’s discrimination. In the plot below, the horizontal axis is how many interactions we observe; the blue area shows the 95% confidence interval for the discrimination coefficient (with negative values showing discrimination against B); the black line shows a world with no discrimination. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="282" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_tXELQIoOomDSiq98SgH6YElTv5C4m45VyFWU9lmr1z3Ny0rcRquuaqlporxFCplVGj4-c7OPYdEqJreFeZaoqIbKtub5AH0gJ5CMrrffX_bJGPu0vposD0bhqCqfhPXexyVDExJ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="420" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The important point being that the blue shaded area overlaps 0 -- meaning no discrimination is possible -- even if you have literally dozens of interactions, which is way more than you often have. (For fewer than about 5 interactions, the errorbars just blow up and you can’t even graph it.) You can alter simulation parameters or simulate things slightly differently, but I don’t think you’ll change the basic point: you can’t infer effect sizes on sample sizes this small with any confidence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This model also illustrates some features which make concluding discrimination harder. For example, our errorbars will be larger if other features in X are correlated with being a minority. (“No no, I didn’t promote him because he’s a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">man</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I promoted him because we work well together because we always go out to dinner together / play basketball together / he sounds so much more </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">confident.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Well, yes, my wife says I can’t go out to dinner with women…”) Also, your errorbars will be larger if you’re observing repeated interactions from the same person. (If you’re trying to compare your treatment to that of a single coworker, it’s even harder to be sure if it’s because you’re a minority or because of one of the innumerable other ways in which you’ll inevitably differ.) Last, you’re going to be in even more trouble if your minority is a very small fraction of the population whose interactions you observe (say, computer scientists) -- I don’t know if most computer scientists are prejudiced against African-American students because I’ve literally never seen them interact with one. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s worth noting that there are a lot of other subtleties in detecting discrimination which have nothing to do with small sample size and which this model doesn’t capture (see the </span><a href="https://5harad.com/papers/threshold-test.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">intro</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to this paper for a brief, clear introduction) but I think small sample size is probably the biggest challenge in the individual-human-experience-setting, so it’s what I focused on here. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What should we do instead? </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So it isn’t useful to tell someone that they can’t be sure their experience is due to discrimination, because even in cases when a large amount of discrimination is occurring, people often won’t observe the data to conclusively rule out other factors. What should we do instead? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s one thing I </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">don’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">think we should do: assume that discrimination is occurring every time a minority says they think it might be. (I do think we should assume they’re telling the truth about what occurred). The solution to uncertainty and bad data is not to always rule in favor of one party, since it creates perverse incentives and people’s lives get wrecked both by discrimination and by allegations of discrimination. Instead:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Recognize the severity of the problem that minorities deal with. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not that they hallucinate discrimination everywhere or are incapable of logical thinking or rigorous standards of proof. It’s that proving discrimination from anecdotal experience is frequently an extremely difficult statistical task. Also, it’s exhausting to continually deal with the unprovable </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">possibility </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of discrimination: to wonder, every time something doesn’t work out, if some subtle injustice was at play. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Use common sense. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Statisticians call this “a prior”: ie, you let your prior knowledge about how the world inform how you interpret the data. So, for example, if you hear someone refer to a black student as “articulate” or a female professor as “aggressive”, you don’t need to hear one hundred more examples to suspect prejudice may be at play. Your prior knowledge about how those adjectives are used helps you conclude discrimination more quickly. (I suspect that one reason female judges are </span><a href="http://www.yalelawjournal.org/pdf/211_35ddrdm9.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more inclined to rule</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in favor of discrimination suits is because they have different prior beliefs about how common discrimination is.) </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Aggregate data. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If one person’s experience doesn’t give you enough data to rule out other factors, aggregate experiences. Class-action lawsuits are an essential means of going after discriminatory employers for this reason. Climate surveys within departments are another example, as is publishing systematic salary gap data (</span><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/gender-pay-gap-reporting" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as Britain now does</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). The sexual assault reporting system </span><a href="https://www.projectcallisto.org/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Callisto</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which aggregates accusations of assault against the same accuser, is based on a related idea, </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nkVwWoRs8MvPQtRwDz_39F9zrkOgDOQLNxRICw106iI/edit" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as I’ve discussed</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Conduct workplace audit studies. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This idea is kind of crazy and might get you fired, but here it is: if it’s hard to prove discrimination because there are too many other factors at play, keep the other factors constant. Here are some examples: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When a female employee says something in a meeting and people ignore it and then a male employee says </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the exact same thing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and gets a more positive response, we’re more convinced that’s discrimination. (There are a </span><a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=men+get+credit+forwomen%27s+ideas&oq=men+get+credit+forwomen%27s+ideas&aqs=chrome..69i57.3124j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=men+get+credit+for+womens+ideas&start=0&*" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hilarious number</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of Google results for that phenomenon, by the way.) </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few years ago, I spent a few weeks emailing the NYT’s technical team and getting no response; finally I asked my boyfriend to send them the exact same question, and they immediately responded. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or take </span><a href="https://medium.com/@nickyknacks/working-while-female-59a5de3ad266" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this recent case</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, where a male and female employee switched their email accounts and were treated dramatically differently. </span></div>
</li>
</ol>
</ol>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All these examples feel like compelling evidence of discrimination because it’s hard to pin the different outcome on extraneous factors; everything except minority status remains the same. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br class="kix-line-break" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, could you do this in your workplace? More and more interactions occur online, making it easier to switch identities: for example, you could imagine switching Slack accounts for a week. Obviously there are 14 million ways this could go wrong, but drop me a line if you try it. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Footnotes: </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This is easily extended to binary outcomes: Y ~ Bernoulli(sigmoid(X * beta + noise))</span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com247tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-5334858767154571752016-10-15T09:33:00.000-07:002016-10-15T09:33:07.296-07:00Two short pieces on assaultI write in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/emma.pierson.77/posts/3319370554403?pnref=story"><span style="color: blue;">response to Trump's comments</span></a> and <a href="http://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/10/12/in-fighting-sexual-assault-we-need-to-argue-from-data/"><span style="color: blue;">discuss my concerns</span></a> about arguments made by Stanford advocates against assault.Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com143tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-58546246091871894722016-08-09T08:02:00.002-07:002016-08-09T08:02:34.263-07:00How much does losing the first round of a tournament hurt your final result? <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is the second half of a two-part piece about arguments I’ve had with </span><a href="http://www.shengwu.li/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shengwu Li</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><a href="http://obsessionwithregression.blogspot.com/2016/07/arguments-ive-had-with-shengwu-li-part.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Part 1</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> gives a statistical argument for why in some states it is rational to vote.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-2e40f3f2-6fd1-b023-e39a-c1a1adb7cdd4" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today’s question: can you sleep through the first round of a 9-round debate tournament, like the World or European championships, without hurting your final result?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You might think this question is only interesting to debaters, but the mathematical way of answering it is potentially applicable to any tournament with some randomness in pairings in which the winners play the winners and the losers play the losers; this also happens in chess and lots of other competitions. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Brief note for non-debaters: in each round of the debate world championships, you compete against three other teams, earn up to three points, want to accumulate as many points as possible. In each round, you’re paired against teams with roughly the same number of points, so if you win, you face better teams.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The argument that the first round doesn’t matter is that, if you lose, you face worse teams in the next eight rounds, an advantage you can capitalize on. Perhaps this evens out. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A first glance at the data would imply this argument is wrong. In the three debate world championships from 2013 - 2015, teams who earned three points in their first round ended up with about six more points by the end of the tournament than teams who earned zero points in their first round. This seems pretty amazing, because you only </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">get </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">three points from winning your first round, and then you have to face better teams; how do you end up six points better? Perhaps winning your first round gives you a confidence boost that improves your performance?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This reasoning is wrong. Winning your first round doesn’t necessarily </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cause </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you to do better in later rounds; it’s just a sign you’re a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">better team</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (Similarly, getting in an ambulance doesn’t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cause </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you to die; it’s just a sign that you’re sick.) The teams who win their first rounds would’ve done better whether they won their first rounds or not. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we want to figure out whether winning your first round causes you to do better overall, we need to control for the fact that teams that win their first rounds are better. In an ideal world, we’d just do an experiment: instead of running the first round, we’d divide teams into four random, equally-sized groups, give one group 3 points, one group 2 points, one group 1 point, and one group 0 points, run the rest of the tournament normally, and see whether the initial advantage ended up mattering. But we can’t run a real random experiment, so we need to find a random factor that affects who wins the first round. We call the random factor an instrumental variable. The math behind how exactly this works is beyond the scope of the post (</span><a href="http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/research-methods-politics/natural-experiments-social-sciences-design-based-approach" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here’s</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a less mathy reference, </span><a href="http://www.mostlyharmlesseconometrics.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here’s</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a more mathy one), but the basic recipe is straightforward. If you want to know how cause X affects outcome Y, you need to find a random factor Z which affects X (and is uncorrelated with Y when controlling for X). Then there’s some math that lets you put those three ingredients together to figure out how X affects Y. That’s a lot of symbols, so here are some examples. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How does X...</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Affect Y...</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Random factor Z which affects X</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reference</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Serving in the Vietnam War</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Future earnings</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Draft lottery number</span></div>
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<a href="https://sites.duke.edu/niou/files/2011/06/Angrist_lifetime-earningsmall.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Angrist 1990</span></a></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tea party protests</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Election outcomes</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rain on tax day</span></div>
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<a href="http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/08/11/qje.qjt021" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Madestam, Shoag, Veuger, and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yanagizawa-Drott 2013</span></a></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Iron metabolism</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Risk of Parkinson’s</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Genetic variants affecting iron metabolism</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3672214/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pichler et al 2013</span></a></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Height and BMI</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Socioeconomic status</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Genetic variants affecting height and BMI</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i582" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tyrell et al 2016</span></a></div>
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</div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To return to our debate problem: our X is how well you do in round 1, our outcome Y is how well you do in the tournament overall, and now we need a random factor Z that affects how well you do in round 1. One random factor that affects a team’s probability of winning round 1 is how good the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">other</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> teams in the round are, since teams are randomly matched in the first round. We estimate the likelihood that each team will win the round using a number of other factors, including their record in past tournaments, their school’s record in past tournaments, and their EFL / ESL status [1], and use these as our instruments. Then we use these instruments to estimate the true causal effect of winning round 1. (Another source of randomness you could potentially use is which position you’re assigned to; we discuss this further here [2]). </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are the results. The </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">red line</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> shows the estimated effect of your round one result on your score after each round (x-axis) using the naive, incorrect method we describe above; the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">black line</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> shows the estimated effect using the more sophisticated instrumental variable method.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="332" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/4XAJTYTF3pMbYUfCyBFIhV2kJGDcJGSR3l9yzma5ET_9CpprwAFIYngDz_1vnmGsfjBKFIpzkp0Jc3TQO31UtrVD-TsvMoriKIW7ZC6NPjNW8NKVVH061hL5XLzhBlcnSAgbqhPZ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="471" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A couple interesting things here. First, the red line and the black line are very different; in particular, the naive approach (red line) suggests that winning round 1 has a much larger effect, and this gets bigger as the tournament progresses, which is wrong for the reasons discussed above. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The more sophisticated analysis implies that while winning round 1 affects your performance for a couple rounds, by the end of the tournament (round 9) it doesn’t make much difference</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (The 95% confidence interval on the estimate is unfortunately large [3], because the instruments aren’t that strong.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Takeaways:</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; margin-left: 48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Don’t freak out too much if you do badly in an early round in a long tournament like Worlds or Euros</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -- our estimates suggest it doesn’t affect your final performance very much, if at all. On the other hand, in shorter 4 - 6 round tournaments, losing an early round can have a larger effect. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; margin-left: 48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If early rounds have a smaller effect on your final performance, it might be better to run controversial debates in earlier rounds</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; that way if teams had to opt out, they could do so without taking as large a hit to their final result.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; margin-left: 48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Storing comprehensive data from all Worlds in a single centralized repository, with a standard format, would make these analyses easier and is worth doing.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; margin-left: 48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Naive correlational estimates of effects are often different than those estimated using causal methods. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For the love of God, bear this in mind when reading popular social science coverage. Even if the authors claim to have “controlled for other factors”, this phrase does not work magic. It is </span><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22711757" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">very</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/gordon_b/files/kellogg_fb_whitepaper.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">difficult</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to control completely for other factors. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] This isn’t, of course, a perfect measure of team strength -- since Oxford A is usually composed of different people from year to year, and many teams do not appear in other Worlds. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2] In each round, every team will debate the same statement -- for example, “We should ban abortions at all stages of pregnancy” -- but because there are four teams in the same room, two teams will be randomly assigned to argue </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the statement, and two teams will be assigned to argue </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">against </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the statement. It’s hard to come up with statements which are perfectly balanced, so it’s often better to be on one side or the other. We found that a team’s score after the first four rounds was significantly associated with the positions they had been randomly assigned in those rounds, so position in the first four rounds could be used as an instrument. You have to use the first four rounds, not just the first round, to satisfy the exclusion restriction, since most debate teams cycle through all four positions in the first four rounds. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[3] I think you should actually compute standard errors clustering by round, since results within round are highly correlated; when you do this, the errorbars are slightly larger but the conclusions are the same. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-49180270223873780352016-07-25T13:23:00.001-07:002016-07-27T08:30:35.946-07:00Arguments I’ve had with Shengwu Li, part 1: should you vote? <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This piece comes from conversations with my </span><a href="http://www.shengwu.li/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">housemate</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Shengwu, who is leaving us for Harvard. We are all sad about this; I am sad about it in part because Sheng has sharpened my thinking as much as anyone I know. I still remember the first time we talked about math; sitting at a coffee shop I thought, shit, this guy with the Oxbridge accent and the penchant for Latin phrases might actually be as smart as he sounds. You won’t find someone who’s more fluent talking about both math and morality, and you won’t get a better intellectual guarantee than “this argument is Shengwu-proof” . I’m not really sure what we’ll do without him -- less rigorous social science, I guess. Any errors in this analysis remain my own. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are two questions we’ve been arguing about recently. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; margin-left: 48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it rational to vote in a national US election just because of the remote possibility you could change which candidate wins? </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; list-style-type: lower-alpha; margin-left: 48px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How much does sleeping through the first round of the debate world championships hurt your final result? </span></div>
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<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m going to talk about the first argument in this post and the second argument in a later post because I’ve been informed that there’s a limit to how much other people want to listen to Sheng and I argue. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are many arguments for voting -- “what would happen if no one did?” “people died for your right to vote!” -- but let’s consider a crazy one: you should vote because you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">might be the tie-breaking vote </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in an election. Obviously, this is incredibly unlikely. On the other hand, if you did, it would be incredibly important. So just how unlikely is it? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Say you live in a state with a million expected voters where one candidate is polling at 52% and the other at 48%. Here’s a first attempt at figuring out how likely you are to be the tying vote: if each voter is like a coin with a 52% chance of landing heads, what is the probability you get exactly 50% heads? The answer is so small -- less than one in 10</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: super; white-space: pre-wrap;">100 </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- that the computer returns 0. If you run a bunch of simulations of the fraction of heads, it looks like this -- pretty much every time you’ll end up with a fraction close to .52. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="158" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/P8lWGKlWxWSH5-hzenBDdzDZgDsHfPnVFPuhcSjYSV6-uAt_QZkpI9QjiwCZG_X9ADLTiLoo48dbbFqN11ysvwZAp68BBXqflODMxmfOcQwCd4lsaeQUvBBT7B7apzqGa-lXVpoB" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="298" /></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This implies that voting is a waste of time; you have no chance of influencing the outcome. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But this simple analysis turns out to be wrong for a simple reason: polls aren’t perfect.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Just because a poll tells you 52% of voters prefer a candidate doesn’t mean that 52% of voters actually do. One source of error is the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">margin of error</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in polls: as the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/upshot/confused-by-contradictory-polls-take-a-step-back.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Upshot pointed out recently</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, because pollsters only sample a relatively small group of people, polling results fluctuate just due to random noise. So if a poll tells you that 52% of voters prefer a candidate, the real percentage might be something like: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="202" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-puT_CUCYsh41YtmrQyuSTSgZdmpJprRx8FRNB1KHth57O98tyT5ccM6Hu2SaXvfj6h-E4xtb0RBQJ8BosyMefJhGmBzMQeVqghZDjBaVA5ErkEMKoeRc0fPIsBiUZphG72d7_8a" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="380" /></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which is a lot more uncertainty than we saw before. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> Given this uncertainty, it</span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> turns out the chance that you're the tying vote is not that low -- somewhere between 1 in 100,000 and 1 in 10 million (s</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">ee [1] if you want modeling details)</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Which sounds low but is actually astonishingly high. If the difference in value between the two candidates is, say, a trillion dollars -- which is plausible, given the size of the US budget and the very different uses Trump and Clinton would put it to -- then a 1 in 10 million chance of influencing the election outcome means that in expectation, you change the allocation of $100,000. Of course, I’ve only simulated a single state, not the whole election, using a very simple model. But after doing this I discovered a more sophisticated </span><a href="http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/probdecisive2.pdf" style="line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">analysis</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from Andrew Gelman, Nate Silver, and Aaron Edlin which reached a similar conclusion:</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> if you live in a state which is at all close, voting is probably worth your while simply because of the possibility you will be the tie-breaking vote in an election. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you are trying to decide whether your state is at all close, err on the side of “yes”; </span><a href="http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#plus" style="line-height: 1.38; text-decoration: none;"><span style="color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here are 538's predictions</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for every state. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This was surprising to both of us; I am definitely going to vote now (in Virginia, a swing state), and you should too! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Addendum: a corollary to this is that you should not vote for a third party candidate on the grounds that "my vote will never matter anyway, so I'll just vote my conscience". Vote for a third party candidate if you want to, but if your state is at all close -- and current polls imply that many states will be -- weigh your desire to vote your conscience against the fact that, mathematically, your vote really could affect the outcome of the election. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes: </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] Very simple model: draw the true fraction of voters </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">u</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">preferring a candidate from a normal, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">u</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">t </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">~ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">N(u</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">p</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sigma</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), where </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">u</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">p </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the fraction preferring a candidate according to polls and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sigma </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is the uncertainty on the polls (due not just to margin of error but to other things as well); then draw the number of voters voting for a candidate, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">V, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">from a binomial distribution, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">V ~</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> binom(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">u</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">t</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), where </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">T</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the total number of voters. What is the probability that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">V = T / 2? </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com49tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-27297447937599799942016-06-29T09:11:00.000-07:002016-06-29T09:11:50.044-07:00How Angry to Be<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This essay was written over the course of six months and was initially titled “Why I don’t write angry feminist essays”. Then I realized that I actually was pretty angry. The final product is two-part: first I talk about the benefits of staying calm, and then I talk about the benefits of anger. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The TV show </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jessica Jones</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> pits a woman with superhuman strength against her rapist, Kilgrave, who can control minds. Many people </span><a href="http://qz.com/559803/in-jessica-jones-marvel-takes-on-the-biggest-villain-of-them-all-the-patriarchy/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://mcuexchange.com/the-patriarchy-wears-purple-how-jessica-jones-kilgrave-is-even-more-insidious-than-you-think/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">commented</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://previously.tv/jessica-jones/ranking-jessica-joness-victories-against-the-patriarchy/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">on</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> how Jones is really fighting the patriarchy: Kilgrave forces women to smile for him and sleep with him, stalks them and threatens the people they love, and Jones confronts many lesser sexists throughout the season. It is deeply satisfying to watch her throw sexist assholes through walls; I watched the entire season three times in three months. As I did, however, I realized the very thing that made the show satisfying makes it a poor metaphor for fighting sexism. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Kilgrave is an Unequivocally Bad Dude -- a serial rapist and murderer who casually tortures people for no reason:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="227" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/vyAfhN-8NVFftGS5GIJWzGCjwaqhEwEwv1Zo1dopMO-A2Sxst9IqLeC4Qr0rBBICwYT6p1ZDRQxfA2LlK1i_S-ldZ9ROyu8dcMMkcx5iDVRYXSEjHXHNK4ZKCDa2OzgX6wpWbP1w" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="371" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Figure 1: Seriously, dude?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Few agents of the patriarchy are so one-dimensional. Consider: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Female engineer 1: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">God, this guy at work asked a coding question today -- and when I answered, he ignored me until a male engineer gave the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">exact same answer. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Female engineer 2: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I hate that. So what did you do? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Female engineer 1: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I threw him through a wall. Fractured his spine. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Female engineer 2: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You go, girl!</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">said nobody ever. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This isn’t a complaint about </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jessica Jones</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; it’s a superheroine show, not an advice manual. But it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">is</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a complaint about the tactics used by many people who claim to be fighting the patriarchy. Too often, I think, we treat people as Kilgraves when they aren’t. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are innumerable examples of this. Take the backlash against </span><a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2014/12/mit-professor-explains-the-real-oppression-is-having-to-learn-to-talk-to-women/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scott Aaronson</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (professor accused of being a sexist, entitled nerd) or </span><a href="http://www.stanforddaily.com/2014/08/25/the-dark-side-of-viral-rage/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chris Herries</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (student accused of comparing rape victims to bikes) or any of the targets of viral internet outrage, take this uncharitable </span><a href="https://medium.com/@glitterwitch/stack-overflow-s-developer-survey-analysis-hurts-women-ec4d568e2352#.a0i20vt6d" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">response</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to Stack Overflow’s well-intentioned attempt to get more data on women among their users, take many, many things written by Jezebel. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I try not to demonize people in my work for two reasons.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It paints a false picture. People are complicated and contradictory. There are rapists </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/oct/12/husband-rapist-shannon-moroney-book" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">whose wives love them</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [1]; fraternity men who </span><a href="http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/is-sexist-rhetoric-a-total-frat-move/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">call some women “slampieces” but treat other women with respect</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; men who </span><a href="http://gizmodo.com/npr-took-down-its-podcast-about-the-man-misrepresenting-1685502698" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">campaign for gender equality but talk over women</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; women who call themselves feminists but </span><a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1998/05/williams199805" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">attack Bill Clinton’s accusers</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; fathers who cheer on their daughters but are biased against their female employees; </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/02/what-happened-confronted-cruellest-troll-lindy-west" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">online trolls who feel remorse</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; philosophy professors who </span><a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/yale-ethics-professor?utm_term=.vyekQErZV#.jfj1y7aLX" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">argue for consent but harass their female students</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; men who can quote Simone de Beauvoir but won’t do the damn dishes. Demonizing people who do sexist things ignores these complexities. Worse, it lets us relax in the comfortable lie that only demons do sexist things. The scarier truth is that the great injustices in history have not been carried out by Kilgraves, but by ordinary people -- perhaps there was a psychopath at the helm, but they needed willing executioners. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Demonizing people alienates potential allies</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Take this recent </span><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/13/dear-white-people-you-suck-at-diversity/#.1nb7azp:MzXi" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">piece</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> criticizing tech CEOs who think “diversity” refers only to gender: “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Is it because they’re racist? Sexist? Ignorant? Some sick combination of all three? Probably.” This is a great way to make CEOs afraid to talk about diversity at all. Of course they should be thinking about diversity in more nuanced ways, but there are less vicious ways to convey that. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know that such rhetoric alienates powerful men because I’ve talked to them. One male tech leader told me that while he cared about diversity, he was reluctant to speak up about it publicly because he worried about incurring backlash. Another told me that he was less likely to hire gender studies majors because he thought they were more likely to sue for discrimination. Perhaps these men should not have harbored such views. But given that they do, we should adapt our rhetoric if we wish to be persuasive. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And if you’re saying </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">screw ‘em, I don’t care if my essays alienate men </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- I would submit to you that men rule the world, and if we really want to change it, as opposed to just writing echo-chamber clickbait, we will do so faster if we don’t lose 90% of CEOs, members of Congress, and tech leaders. Which is not to say that you should try to persuade </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">men -- but if you don’t persuade </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">any</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, you might want to revise your rhetorical approach. (It is of course sometimes necessary to voice difficult truths which will alienate people; I am not opposed to all radical feminism, but specifically to feminism which divides by demonizing. You are not speaking truth to power when you demonize people; you are simply being inaccurate in a way which also drives away allies.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I worry too that the more extreme voices in the feminist movement get disproportionate attention (a phenomenon my sister and I also </span><a href="http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/what-do-campus-protesters-really-want/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">observed</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> when studying campus activists). Anecdotally, men I talk to are more likely to have heard about public shaming campaigns than about the less controversial aspects of feminism. Zeynep Tufekci, a professor at UNC who studies activist campaigns, </span><a href="https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/738738293228113920" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">notes</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #292f33; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if a protest movement does not self-regulate and consciously decide its boundaries, it gets defined by its noisy, flamboyant outliers. Always.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet. I can make reasoned arguments for seeing the good in sexists, for preaching to the unconverted, for cutting out vitriol and sarcasm. But the truth is that I’m filled with so much anger. People read my statistical pieces about gender and tell me that they like that I can stay so detached and I laugh -- because why would I possibly spend so much time doing math about gender inequality if I were detached? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And I’m getting angrier with age. I am only 25 so this is somewhat concerning. I have lost the ability to laugh at things. I’m writing this in my room after watching Top Gun, an 80s movie about a bunch of military pilots. In one scene, the hero and his copilots surround a woman in a bar, much too close, red-faced and sweating, and drunkenly serenade her; she eventually escapes, so the hero follows her into the woman’s bathroom and tries to block her from leaving. On the one hand it’s dated and you want to laugh at these ridiculous men. But then I think about the rapes in the US military and how this movie was so influential that signups for the naval air force </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gun#Effect_on_military_recruiting" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">went up by 500%</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and I wonder how many rapes it helped cause. I read that the </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_McGillis#Personal_life" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">actress</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the movie, a lesbian, was actually raped in real life, and spent decades thinking the rape was a punishment for her sexuality -- these are the hilarious things that happen when you aggressively push heterosexuality on everyone, haha! I remember the thousands of sexually aggressive comments of the fraternity men I </span><a href="http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/05/09/is-sexist-rhetoric-a-total-frat-move/?_r=0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">studied</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/jhamlin/3925/4925HomeComputer/Rape%20myths/Prospective%20Analysis.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">papers</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that show how much more often rape occurs in fraternities and the </span><a href="http://obsessionwithregression.blogspot.com/2015/05/three-hundred-thousand-stories.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hundreds of stories</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> from survivors I perused and the ones who were brave enough to talk to me directly and the rape cases my mother prosecuted and I have to admit: I can no longer laugh at sexually aggressive bros. I close the door to my room and slam my fist into the wall over and over again, feeling nauseous. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On a day to day basis it isn’t the rapists who bother me; it is the subtle inequalities even among my progressive, thoughtful social circle. (I can only imagine how women who face more overt discrimination feel.) It’s the men who sit when the women clean after dinner; the women who don’t speak up when they’re uncomfortable because they want to be accommodating; the men who ramble at me even when I’m supposed to the one giving a talk or giving advice; the dates and friends who can lecture but can’t listen; the professional meetings where comments are addressed only to my male colleague. And if I can see these inequalities already, what will happen if we have children, when our incomes further diverge? I am afraid for my friends and afraid for myself. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Part of this increased awareness is the accumulation of slights that are each insignificant, the chafing of a blister rubbed raw. Part of it is that I spend so much of my research time looking for discrimination. Part of it is dealing with online responses to my writing. My writing voice is mild, but in response, I’ve had people call me a lying cunt; insult my body; speculate that I’m bitter because no one will sleep with me and I’m too prudish to get invited to parties; advise my boyfriend to break up with me; call me a token admit to the schools I’ve attended or the conferences I’ve been invited to. These commenters, of course, are the warts on the long statistical tail of readers, but you don’t forget them. On the advice of a male colleague, I now pay $100 a year to keep my personal information off the internet. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Part of it is that I’m now single. I could make a joke here about how attempting to date Silicon Valley men would make anyone a feminist, but that would contravene what I said above about not unnecessarily being an ass to men and isn’t the point I’m trying to make anyway. When I was in a relationship and I got angry about something, I’d come home to a boyfriend who, our breakup notwithstanding, was one of the most gentle and decent people I’ve met, and he would both calm me down and by his mere existence remind me that #NotAllMen are Satan. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These days I sleep alone. I wake at four in the morning and brood for hours; there’s no one to break up my thoughts, no one to vent to except the empty page. And I’m beginning to believe in the value of anger untempered. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few months ago I went to dinner with a man who wouldn’t let me get a word in and I came home to an empty house; soon my anger got the better of me and I wrote an </span><a href="http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/of-mansplaining-and-mastectomies/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">essay about mansplainers</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> so quickly it was as if it was torn out of me. It was one of the angriest essays I’ve written but also, I think, one of the better ones. Another night, I woke up so irritated about a male collaborator who was not pulling his weight that I couldn’t go back to sleep. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps men were simply better at getting credit for projects they hadn’t led, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I thought, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">while women’s contributions were ignored </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2]</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I grabbed my laptop and wrote a computer program to scrape a database of scientific papers and look for gender disparities. A few months later I published a </span><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-science-it-matters-that-women-come-last/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">piece</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> based on that 3 AM analysis. So there are times when I am glad I’ve had to reach for a laptop rather than a hug; when I’ve had to put my anger fresh onto the page because there was no one to dull it. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(My friend advised me to cut out the last three paragraphs because they invite nasty comments about how I’m just bitter because I’m single, but I want to trust you to read what I wrote and not skew my words.) </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So as I said at the beginning, I’m conflicted about how angry to be. Often when I work I’m not angry at all -- I’m looking at the world through twin lenses which both help me stay detached. The warm lens comes from years of counseling training: to listen without judging, to want to understand how someone who seems despicable can be the hero of their own story. The cold lens comes from years of quantitative training: rapists, like cancer cells, are simply high-dimensional mathematical structures to be parsed. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At times I can master this difficult balance: to humanize without exculpating; to be both furious and curious; to be motivated by anger but not overwhelmed by it. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then I read, say, the Palo Alto woman’s </span><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/san-mateo-county/ci_29975888/brock-turner-sexual-assault-case-victim-reads-letter" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">statement</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to her assaulter and my careful detachment shatters and I’m overwhelmed again.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes: </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] You might say, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t really care if a rapist had a golden childhood </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-- but I think you actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">should </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">care, not because it exculpates them but because the whole problem is to understand how people grow up to commit rape. If only devil spawn did evil things, we would have a much easier problem. Obviously, we need to put an end to media pieces which portray rapists as athletes first and criminals second. But we also need to analyze rapists as a complex human beings, not monsters, while still giving full weight to the seriousness of their crimes. David Lisak’s </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=339593542" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">seminal research</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on repeat rapists, which humanizes them without ever forgetting that they’re serial predators, is an example of this kind of work. </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2] There turns out to be some evidence for this: see </span><a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/sarsons/publications/note-gender-differences-recognition-group-work" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/upshot/when-teamwork-doesnt-work-for-women.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #3e433e; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
<br />Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-60632766150234468182016-05-19T10:15:00.000-07:002016-05-19T10:47:28.690-07:00Five things I learned from counting 900 engineers at Google I/O<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wrote this in a few hours to release it during the conference it discusses, so treat its conclusions with the appropriate grain of salt and let me know if you find mistakes.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-7ffcdc10-ca21-0294-2742-7c8b2c8a2c0d" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Google gave me a ticket to their annual developer conference, Google I/O. I am a computer scientist but not really a developer (edit: for the benefit of the person on Hacker News alleging "reverse discrimination" -- I won the ticket in a coding competition. Maybe be a little careful throwing around statements like that. I describe myself as “not a developer” because I’m better at other aspects of computer science, not because I can’t code) so I decided that, rather than bugging people about full stack development or cross-platform coding, I could make myself more useful by analyzing diversity data. By this I mean I spent 6 hours wandering into various conference venues and tapping “F” on my phone when I saw a woman and “M” when I saw a man; in total I counted 916 people. Shoutout to my extremely tolerant housemate Andrew Suciu, who received all these messages:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="233" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/R0KLMVN8REYuKHTHQX_NCREAJZcA_pntU_0c89bensN2AlqfBx6HRQ4vWEhGk9CHsWKBX4mf_bLI2dzVptzBhNZ77XDEe5zKlnDfjjPIiK8Z9bshdX6OQTrM-YxR_9kShRYY9wbS" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="376" /></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I focused on gender because I didn’t think I could guess people’s race with high accuracy. (I realize, of course, that inferring gender from appearance also has serious caveats, but the data is useful to collect and I wasn’t going to interrogate random strangers about their gender identity). Here are five things I learned.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women were unexpectedly well-represented. 29% of people I counted were women. (I tweeted at Google to get the official numbers and will update if they reply.) That means women were better-represented in my data than they are, for example, as software engineers at</span><a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/04/tracy-chou/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">80% of tech companies</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, or among</span><a href="http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm?version=meter+at+42&module=meter-Links&pgtype=article&contentId=&mediaId=&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F&priority=true&action=click&contentCollection=meter-links-click" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">software developers overall</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (21%) in Labor Department statistics, or among Google engineers (17%). I am puzzled by this and welcome your explanations. From what I saw at the conference Google made pretty good efforts on the gender diversity front: a) posting a very large sign with anti-harassment guidelines b) giving women free tickets to the conference (that’s how I ended up there) c) featuring professional woman emoticons in the keynote and d) having three women speak in the keynote.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There was surprisingly little variation in gender ratio between conference events. I computed gender ratios at about a dozen conference events, and they were considerably more stable than I expected them to be -- almost always within 10% of the overall average of 29%. (Whether the variation is even statistically significant depends on how exactly you define the categories -- perils of categorical f-tests and p-values!) Full data at the end of the piece. This is considerably less dramatic than, say, gender variation across developer subfields in</span><a href="http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2016#developer-profile-gender" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stack Overflow’s developer survey</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. One explanation might be that at a conference, people wander randomly into lots of events, which homogenizes gender ratios by adding noise.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women cluster together. We don’t just have the total counts of women: we also have the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">groupings </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of women, because I tapped “M” and “F” in the order that I saw people, and for lines that order is meaningful. (In cases where people are just sitting around, it’s a little more arbitrary, so I exclude that data from this analysis.) So if, for example, I tapped “MMMMMFFFFFFFF” that would be highly grouped data -- all the men are together and so are all the women. So we can ask whether the women group together more than we would expect if the line were just in random order, and it turns out they do (statistical details here [3]). At some events I could see this clearly without statistics -- at the machine learning office hours, for example, one table had only 1 woman out of 18, and the other table had 7 women out of 13 (fine, statistics: Fisher’s exact test </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">p = </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.004, t-test </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">p = </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.002). I think a large driver of the clustering is probably that women arrive in groups because they work at a company together, not that they preferentially connect at the conference, but the latter could play a role as well. (Anecdotally, three of the four people who spoke to me during the conference were women.)</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Live-blogging is perilous. When I arrived at the conference at 8:30 AM, about an hour and a half before it started, a quick headcount implied that 90 - 95% of attendees were men, and I posted this online. But as the conference progressed and I got more data, it became clear the early figure was too skewed. I regret not waiting to get more data before posting. While I was clear about the lack of data, there was no advantage to posting so quickly. I often think about this when people rapidly tweet their reactions to complex events. It doesn’t matter how smart you are; you’ll still write a better piece if you reflect. And I realize, of course, that sometimes you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to work very quickly because an event demands it -- I wrote this post in a few hours so I could publish it during the conference, so take my statements with a grain of salt -- but I still wish we took more time to think. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Machine learning should not just be used for takeout delivery.</span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stand back, I’m going to use a metaphor. Imagine King Arthur came back to the castle to find his son cutting pizza with Excalibur.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Son, that is literally the magical blade of destiny I pulled from the stone to to become king of England.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Son: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, dad, but it cuts pizza </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">really well</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Arthur</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Sure, but can’t you think of anything more exciting to do with it?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is how I feel about a lot of applications of machine learning, which I’m using here to mean “statistical methods that computers use to do cool things like learn to do complex tasks and understand images / text / speech”. Machine learning is revolutionary technology. You </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">can </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">use it to build apps that will understand “</span><a href="https://live.theverge.com/google-io-2016-live-blog-android-n-vr-keynote/#/entry/81968/125000" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want curry</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">” and “</span><a href="https://live.theverge.com/google-io-2016-live-blog-android-n-vr-keynote/#/entry/81996/145000" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">play Viva la Vida</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”, but are those really the examples you want to highlight, as the conference keynote did? Let’s talk instead about how we can use machine learning to pick out police encounters before they become violent and stop searching and jailing so many innocent people; let’s talk about catching cancer using a phone’s snapshot of a mole or Parkinson’s using an accelerometer’s tremor or heart disease using a phone-based heart monitor. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Those </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are the technologies that deserve the label “disruptive”, the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you’re-a-goddamn-wizard</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Harry </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">applications that make your heart freeze. A few moments of the two-hour keynote emphasized big ideas -- the last ten minutes, an app to help Syrians relocate -- but most of the use cases were fixes to first-world problems [3].</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Part of this, of course, is that it’s probably more profitable to drone-deliver San Franciscans Perrier than to bring people in Flint any water at all. But part of it is that people’s backgrounds influence what they choose to create. A woman would’ve been less likely to create this</span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/17/findface-face-recognition-app-end-public-anonymity-vkontakte" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">app</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which lets you stalk a random stranger, and someone who’d suffered from racism or classism would’ve been less likely to create this</span><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/what-to-do-when-your-app-is-racist" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">app</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which lets you identify “sketchy” areas. Machine learning is revolutionary technology, but if you want to use it to create revolutionary products, you need people who want revolution -- people who regularly suffer from deeper shortcomings in the status quo than waiting 15 minutes for curry [4].</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m not that worried about double-counting because there were 7,000 people at the conference.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2] Call each MMMFMFMFMF... vector corresponding to a line at an event </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">i</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then I use the following bootstrapping procedure: compute a clustering statistic which I’ll describe below, randomly permute each </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">i </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">separately, recompute the clustering statistic, repeat a few hundred times and compare the true clustering statistic to the random clustering statistics. (I permute each </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">i </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">separately because if you mix them</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all together, you’ll be confounded by event gender differences). I tried two clustering statistics: first, the number of F’s who were followed by an F, and second, the bucket statistic, which is defined as bucket(</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">i</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, n, k)</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: the number of bins of size </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">n </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">within </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">L</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">i </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that contain at least </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">k </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">women, with </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">k </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">chosen to be at least half of n. I used the second statistic because I thought I might automatically group women together when there was </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2d30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ambiguity in the order of the line (people standing side by side) which I was worried would bias into the first statistic since it’s very local. For both statistics, the true clustering statistic was higher than the average random clustering statistic (regardless of the value of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2d30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">n, k</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2d30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I chose for the second statistic). For the first statistic, this was true for pretty much every random iterate, and for the second statistic, the percentage of random iterates it was true varied for depending on </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2d30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">n </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2d30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2d30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">k, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #2c2d30; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">averaging about 90% of iterates.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[3] This is based only on the keynote, not the rest of the conference. I think this is reasonable because the keynote was watched by millions of people, it was run by the CEO of Google, and a speech like that should reflect what you want to emphasize.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[4] To be clear, I’m not really blaming Google either for the trivial-app problem (although I think their examples could’ve been better chosen, as a company they do a lot of amazing things) or the lack-of-diversity problem; they’re industry-wide symptoms. But that isn’t really reassuring.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Full data:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People entering keynote speech, 9:30 AM: 65 / 236 are women, 28% .</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People exiting keynote speech, 12:00 PM: 25 / 88, 28%.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">High performance web user interfaces line: 21 / 58, 36%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Accessibility office hours: 10 / 40, 25%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Machine learning office hours: 8 / 31, 26%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People sitting around on grass: 33 / 87, 38%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Access and empathy tent: 13 / 38, 34%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Android studio / google play: 6 / 46, 13%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making music station: 4 / 18, 22%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Project loon (giant balloon): 5 / 11, 45%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Android experiments (random cute stuff): 15 / 46, 33%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Audience arranged in ring around robotic arm spewing paint to music: 17 / 48, 35%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Android pay everywhere line: 6 / 25, 24%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Engineering cinematic experiences in VR line: 15 / 62, 24%</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Devtools on rails line: 24 / 82, 29%</span></div>
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Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-4863250268891709422016-05-14T11:44:00.001-07:002016-05-15T10:39:58.532-07:00Sunsets, Fraternities, and Deep Learning<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some projects I’ve been working on recently:</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-93efb407-b580-bc8c-c49e-bf82a42b6d88" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sunset Nerd: a beautiful sunset detector. It’s a robot that monitors the number of posts tagged #sunset on Instagram (a picture sharing website) and sends you a message when there is a beautiful sunset happening in your area so you don’t miss it. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you live in a city -- currently the app works for San Francisco, NYC, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Washington DC, Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Miami, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Boston, and Seattle -- c</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lick</span><a href="http://m.me/sunsetnerd" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to try it out on Facebook -- just send a message! (It will only message you once a week on average, and you can unsubscribe at any time.) For example, Boston on February 5 had a</span><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BBa8AkzCQHS/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gorgeous</span></a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BBa76iJzTlA/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">pink</span></a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BBa9ofnlEwJ/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sunset</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as a snowstorm cleared, and the detector picked it up; the red line shows the number of posts on that day, and the grey lines show the normal number of posts.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="524" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/O2TENc6eElgvy6DqnfQB0iu8n3_bY2l3FagvlACpB9pSv_fFMOHBTXUf_Qyz9iJfQz0eK214wByge5WNQDQlDgMnuvwi71ogqkxUVb7rHOcvLUn3K3LLXQfL36UtfzYCcR-CRgTH" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fraternities: My</span><a href="http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/kristof/2016/05/09/is-sexist-rhetoric-a-total-frat-move" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times piece</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a shorter version of the piece originally posted on this blog; Total Frat Move’s</span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/a-response-to-the-new-york-times-hit-piece-on-total-frat-move/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">response</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Computational biology: I’ve gotten to work on two papers,</span><a href="http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/05/07/052118" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with</span><a href="http://koh.pw/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pang Wei Koh</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and</span><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/anshulkundaje/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anshul Kundaje</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on using convolutional neural networks to denoise epigenetic data, to be presented as a spotlight talk at ICML’s Computational Biology Workshop, and</span><a href="http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/05/09/052225" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> with</span><a href="http://www.serafimb.org/people.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bo Wang, Junjie Zhu, and Serafim Batzoglou</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on a method for clustering single-cell RNA-seq data, which has been presented at Cold Spring Harbor.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Relationship abuse dataset: if this is a research interest of yours, I have a dataset of more than 100,000 Twitter posts under </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the hashtags</span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/maybehedoesnthityou?source=feed_text&story_id=3163152289044" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4267b2; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">#MaybeHeDoesntHitYou</span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/maybehedoesnthityou?source=feed_text&story_id=3163152289044" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #365899; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and #MaybeSheDoesntHitYou. Filtering on tweets with form "#MaybeHeDoesntHitYou but" yields a large dataset of people's experiences with non-physical relationship abuse. Shoot me an email (emmap1 “at” cs.stanford.edu) if you have project ideas -- no time to pursue this project on my own, but happy to discuss collaboration.</span></div>
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Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-40857385602405373222016-04-21T08:31:00.000-07:002016-04-21T08:31:17.922-07:00Why Has The Number of NYT Headlines About Trump Fallen By a Factor of Two? <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Over the past few weeks I’ve gotten the sense that, thank merciful heaven, the New York Times has stopped writing so many articles about Donald Trump. First I downloaded their data [1] to see whether this was all in my head. It wasn’t. Whether we look at headlines per week mentioning Trump (top graph) or articles per week mentioning Trump (bottom graph) we see that the NYT has been giving him much less coverage. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="125" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/ZFlN3-EeccJJDQM6Py7KEAsPSgwQxMnKl2a6fHNB_qVlesWeiaWhySM85yMTMZdtRgnz9tPaBvYRTIFfKHqQXGNwNHcCcuHq_pHUVD2RKgo6fqZPAy5FkI6cCCAwshSrVlBRNAJj" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="624" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="125" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/yMcn5AQ84QcXA4lAGI8ASmIukfo1pQnGsctkIfDzWFEXv90VW87JeJrv825abaaTjn7vqLqKch8rmB-PeU2NDb7CHazwybGYlqx1fryebRQ0nAyuAV3_iZOOgZ2h8wYym9ltjA6J" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why? Here are a couple ideas.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-d583f7cc-3970-1218-c096-e264fe1d431e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe the NYT, after repeatedly complaining about Trump’s free media coverage, decided to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">stop giving him so much free media coverage</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-trumps-mammoth-advantage-in-free-media.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> their analysis of his free coverage on March 15 -- right around the time his coverage begins to decrease. (Nick Kristof, a NYT columnist, writes a </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/opinion/sunday/my-shared-shame-the-media-helped-make-trump.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">similar piece</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on March 26.)</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe this isn’t specific to Trump -- maybe the NYT’s getting bored of the primaries in general</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. So I looked at headlines about the other candidates. The Democratic candidates, if anything, have been getting more coverage in the last few weeks; top is Sanders, bottom is Clinton. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="125" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/VvOtCnztvjsTxICvdYn-LJl3CfYaiFjUhicFrcmZ5qQ4dyLhz7-2rI73nVoxHIixFx1m0KEePHgq0UyFdygIDf4448Wnak-d_lW-01EJstcrtHzdz6Cvghg52E5MZZblS1H7dQ3x" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="125" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/4NnFHpURZWEW7SBYgXP-pYUcUyPRBUK62TuzUcVSwtLLpDseupWnqJaXHBM4vebKaHnwPewhR2KXgNbq-HoLSMIc89UjCCesX-7TxG1wU7W-Rd6xYw76C2dJeT3sJYtaJiMn1a3L" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the other hand, both Cruz and Kasich have also seen drops in coverage. Here are Cruz, Kasich, and Trump at the bottom for comparison. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="125" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/juzI0r265kGqBoetBOO9ABdMzqKjcWywEPBzuvhjrahrimbM1DvKnATciXu1tz9P-Dk1BXI2npqNA6Az4ovbApiLJDOGHFU4L9yRnAAGWM1UvEprDUZTmcgvK-31QzJhVAjk5ohS" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="125" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/IVOEzbsoQTFJlDWJ1H2LxQ7ailsMIWwtwSbKbIdg7UB3F1lPS2ERxWt4UchB4Nke4pzB_clfLdUKZEc3nhzghHjWWcBLKdjh9Luzp7aNGpg0BZ9YrhaYovvB0FIwtH9qboXS8H0Z" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="125" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/qqzUHsBQ8gwhnEBnYN3jx95ylkqlpfKCEfAw8a78lvSgkD_ptV_j_9OyvnCqzI5KF_XOsw4Hq6AR63MxVC3NvoXNg80xJ_pZshahGAtgHErlwwAMnHUjshE5B9LDL6xWzs6f2Ey3" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So maybe the NYT is ignoring all the Republicans, not just Trump. (It’s worth noting that coverage of candidates may be correlated -- if you write about Trump fighting with Cruz, you’re covering both candidates.) </span><a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/faculty/susan-athey" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Susan Athey</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, an economist who studies the internet, points out that a lot of the difference between liberal and conservative media sources is not that they</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">cover the same topic differently, but that they cover different topics. (So if you read Fox News you’ll hear about Benghazi and if you read the NYT you’ll hear about climate change.) Given this, I’d be curious to know if you’d see a similar pattern in Fox News coverage of the Republicans.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">3. Maybe the NYT is covering Trump less because he’s no longer as strong a candidate. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are Trump’s odds of winning the Republican nomination as </span><a href="http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-republican-nomination" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">provided by PredictWise</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; Trump’s the red line. Note the fall in late March - early April. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="244" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/9K87dKbrP6wbV5OcyvHIKU58rjoKYjHVa7x3t5qa5VAuABJ3Dm23lzP99lMR9WcO-0glCAo9qLZdmPMJqXLskXk1xdUSoOrvGfYT8vjRkAp6cQAs86UM5__RpcWgNM1DiRQ2R12l" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="475" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Or maybe causality goes in the other direction? Trump’s odds fall because he no longer gets as much free NYT coverage? Or maybe there’s a third variable -- Trump’s odds fall and he gets less NYT coverage because it becomes increasingly apparent that he isn’t worth talking about? Time series are fun.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know which if any of these hypotheses is correct, so if you quote this post and say I’m making causal claims I will hunt you down. I’m just asking questions. Here’s a final one. No one reporter could account for the drop in Trump’s coverage -- it’s a difference of hundreds of articles. So something has to be coordinating the behavior of lots of reporters. How does that work? Is some editor at the NYT saying to the newsroom, “We SHALL NO LONGER write so many articles about the quasi-Nazi with little hands?” Or do the reporters look at what their peers are focusing on and choose to focus on that as well? Or are they all just responding to the same external factors? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Discriminating between these hypotheses is going to be hard using only data. But there </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> people who can help answer this question. So if you work at the NYT, feel free to explain what’s going on :) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] </span><a href="http://developer.nytimes.com/docs/read/article_search_api_v2" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Data</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; </span><a href="https://github.com/epierson9/NYT_trump_coverage" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">my code</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-5334797741640034272016-03-28T12:31:00.001-07:002016-04-24T20:16:35.710-07:00Protecting Yourself Against Statistical Crimes<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have a dream that one day every child will take a class which will teach them to recognize statistical crimes. It would replace another high school math or science class, like calculus, trigonometry, geometry, or Newtonian physics, because these are totally useless for 90% of the population. (I was a physics major. I’m allowed to say these things.) Statistics is not like that. Send a child into the world unable to recognize statistical crimes and you are preparing them to be perpetually lied to -- by politicians pushing agendas, journalists facing tight deadlines, and scientists trying to get published.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This class would not be a math class. I don’t care if kids understand how to do a chi-2 test. I just want to make them very paranoid. It would be like that the scene in Harry Potter where the students are taught “constant vigilance” against the Dark Arts. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“[The teacher] gave a harsh laugh, and then clapped his gnarled hands together. ‘The sooner you know what you’re up against, the better. How are you supposed to defend yourself against something you’ve never seen?’ ”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="256" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/ki70F0kV48UdTQDYeG03HZwIuDGgi7B93uxpX0sowXNVL4-I4nzgk0MvzVmkdVI1NLSnEjjNl5nwRfwPhcI8qqIo813oVIql18Jy75SDZl7yX1FWEPgpQJufpSdVWhu5nDj2mDEz" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="320" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then instead of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">torturing a spider </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(seriously, who hired that guy? Don’t wizards have any teaching standards?) you could enumerate a bunch of statistical crimes. Which, to reinforce the fact that this class is necessary, I’m now going to do. I spent a month annotating every single article I read that discussed data for a popular audience (sample titles: “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">White Female Republicans are the Angriest Republicans</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”, “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Study: More Useless Liberal Arts Majors Could Destroy ISIS”, “The Reproductive Rights Rollback of 2015”</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). In total I annotated 49 articles; you can see my annotations </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LGz7CXrALIpQK_p14gjan5Xy7R0f7K-aXXJ4VzPHhk4/edit?usp=sharing" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and a note on my methodology here [1]. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are my overall impressions. They are not statistical; they’re a qualitative summary. Throughout I use “article” to refer to the general-interest publication and “study” to refer to the original scientific work it describes. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sites which specialized in statistical writing, like the NYT’s Upshot and FiveThirtyEight, wrote about data more reliably.</span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Almost all the articles had something I could push back on. Most frequently, I had </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">questions </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the original article didn’t answer or caveats it didn’t mention. This isn’t necessarily the journalist’s fault: most general-interest articles are shorter than the studies they describe, and so details get lost. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I also found a third of the articles were substantially misleading</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (I’m not labeling those articles in the spreadsheet since I don’t want to be mean and the cutoff is somewhat arbitrary: maybe you could argue I’m an overly anal statistician and the actual fraction is a fourth or a fifth.) So </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if you want to know what a study says, reading a general-interest article about the study is not a reliable way to figure it out unless you really trust the journalist or outlet -- you have to at least glance through the study. General-interest articles often misdescribe studies, presenting correlational studies as causal, or presenting theoretical models as though they actually analyzed data. You don’t always have time to skim the original study, but I think you should before you repost it on Facebook or Twitter. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Article titles are particularly likely to mislead. Outlets have incentives to use clickbait titles, the title is often not written by the author of the article, and it’s hard to summarize a complex topic in a dozen words. Please do not repost something after only reading the title. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Be particularly suspicious of results which are politically charged or published in politically biased outlets (Jezebel, Breitbart), especially if the article substantiates the outlet’s worldview. (Also be suspicious of results which substantiate </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">your </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">worldview -- if you’re like me, you’re less inclined to question them.) </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are some questions to ask. If an article says, “A new study shows that X” your first question should be: </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">how</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">?</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was it an experiment? A survey? A meta-analysis? A theoretical model? Sometimes this will be pretty obvious. If an article says, “Study shows that ⅔ of Americans prefer chocolate to vanilla”, the scientists probably ran a survey. But if an article says, “Study shows that increasing the minimum wage increases unemployment” -- it makes a huge difference whether the authors found a new natural experiment or did a meta-analysis of the past literature or are a bunch of undergrads who wrote up a theoretical model after passing Econ 101. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once you understand how the study was conducted, push back on the study itself. If they claim to have “controlled for other factors” -- controlling for other factors is really hard. If they ran a survey -- was the population actually representative? Could non-response bias explain their results? In general: are the effects large enough to actually matter? Are their results statistically significant? Did they look at a hundred different things and only report the one which they liked? Are the numbers they are reporting the ones we care about, and are they properly contextualized? Try to think of other explanations for their data besides the one they favor. Be creative and obnoxious. You can find examples of how I think about articles in my annotations. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I close on a gentler note. The fact that you can make statistical arguments against an article does not mean that the author is incompetent or ill-intentioned or that the article is bad. All work has caveats -- certainly you can argue with all my blog posts -- and that’s fine as long as they’re clear. But some caveats are subtle and not clearly acknowledged (or deliberately hidden) which is why we need to teach our children to defend themselves. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Avada Kedavra! </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While I was working on this project, the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/opinion/sunday/the-wrong-way-to-teach-math.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the </span><a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/calculus-is-so-last-century-1457132991" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wall Street Journal</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> both published op-eds arguing we should teach statistics. I dream of a world where statistical literacy is so common that statistical errors, like spelling errors, make it impossible to be taken seriously; where publications that use only anecdotes get demands for data. It would be a world where we paid attention to gun violence not because of mass shootings, but because of the far larger numbers of people who are shot and go unnoticed every day; where terrorists could no longer sow fear by killing a far smaller fraction of the population than die annually from heart disease; where we donated to charities that saved lives as opposed to making us feel good; where we conducted randomized controlled trials to test which government programs worked best. I truly believe that millions of people would lead better lives if everyone understood and applied basic statistical reasoning. That’s just not true of trigonometry. Let’s teach statistics instead. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] When I first wrote this piece, it was 6:10 AM and I just couldn’t take it anymore and I ranted about three articles which I thought were bad. After I calmed down I decided that was both mean and unpersuasive, so I did a more systematic annotation. My reading material skews towards the New York Times, so to get a more representative sample I annotated not just the articles I would read naturally: I also went back and read statistical articles in other widely read publications like Gawker, Buzzfeed, and Breitbart (I Googled “new study” + publication name). (I was doing this quickly, so if you think I’ve been unfair or misunderstood an article, my apologies -- let me know and I’ll fix the spreadsheet.) </span></div>
<br />Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-45648120609442344232016-02-09T08:25:00.001-08:002016-02-09T08:25:34.455-08:00How Not to Talk to WomenI published two pieces this week:<br />
<br />
"<a href="http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/08/of-mansplaining-and-mastectomies"><span style="color: blue;">Of Mansplaining and Mastectomies</span></a>", for the New York Times' On the Ground blog.<br />
With <a href="http://maryknugent.com/"><span style="color: blue;">Mary Nugent</span></a>, "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/02/09/heres-what-people-say-when-they-attack-hillary-clinton-on-twitter/"><span style="color: blue;">Here's What People Say When They Attack Hillary Clinton on Twitter</span></a>", for the Washington Post's Monkey Cage blog.Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-20311663391796373932016-01-18T10:30:00.000-08:002016-05-10T10:40:44.761-07:00How Do Fraternity Men Talk About Women When There Are No Women Around? <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Content note: this piece contains quotes which are graphically sexual, sexist, and racist, as well as quotes which endorse rape. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are </span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/02/i-fought-back-against-my-colleges-sexist-fraternity/284040/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">numerous</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://valleywag.gawker.com/fuck-bitches-get-leid-the-sleazy-frat-emails-of-snap-1582604137/+sarah-hedgecock" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">allegations</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2512360/Frats-Colonial-Bros-Nava-Hos-party-investigated-racism.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/students-outraged-as-yale-fraternity-suspended-for-no-means-yes-chants-establishes-chapter-at-edinburgh-9092845.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">sexism</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/02/the-dark-power-of-fraternities/357580/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">against</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/mar/27/penn-state-fraternity-scandal-women-pictured-on-facebook-page-go-to-police" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fraternities</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">; men who join are </span><a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/09/opinion/foubert-fraternities-rape/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">three times more likely to commit rape</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, even though they are no more likely to commit rape before joining. This makes you wonder just what these men are saying behind closed doors, a question that becomes particularly pressing when you consider that fraternity culture doesn’t magically dissolve upon graduation: it becomes incorporated into bastions of power that include </span><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-12-23/secret-handshakes-greet-frat-brothers-on-wall-street" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wall</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/i-crashed-a-wall-street-secret-society.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Street</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2012/11/what-it-was-like-to-be-a-woman-at-goldman-sachs/265572/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">firms</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/making-sense/ubers-boys-club-whats-wrong-silicon-valley/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">billion-dollar</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://valleywag.gawker.com/snapchat-had-the-frattiest-creation-in-startup-history-639615051" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">companies</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> as fraternity members </span><a href="http://sociology.virginia.edu/sites/sociology.virginia.edu/files/Hughey.2010.ParadoxOfParticipation.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">disproportionately assume leadership roles in society</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s of course difficult for a woman to know how fraternity men talk when they’re alone. (My friends vetoed my plans to subpoena a fraternity’s emails or “fall asleep” at a fraternity party and listen to what happened.) But there is a public data source that claims to capture fraternity culture: the website Total Frat Move (TFM), which receives roughly 8 million monthly visits, according to a site administrator.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The site covers all aspects of fraternity life, but its “Girls” section posts pictures of women for site users to comment on. I statistically analyzed the more than sixteen thousand comments on the Girls section. Most posts fell into one of three categories. 56% were “</span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-linda-from-university-of-central-florida" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram Babes of the Day</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”, containing Instagram photos of a single woman; 14% were </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/rush-boobs-from-this-week-68-photos/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">collections of topless photos</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (careful where you open that); 17% were </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/you-need-to-see-the-photo-gallery-of-this-university-of-kentucky-sorority" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">collections of photos from a particular sorority</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. To provide context for my analysis of the comments, I also contacted fraternity men who posted on the site and fraternity men I knew socially</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While TFM does not provide a perfectly representative sample of fraternity members (and non-fraternity members can comment on the site), it does provide a far larger sample than, for example, a story about a sexual assault at a single fraternity. It represents a substantial slice of fraternity culture. To give you a taste of what wins you approval on this site, here are some of the comments about women which got the most upvotes. </span></div>
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<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="624"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“There’s just something about those knee-high socks that screams ‘I do anal’.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“10/10 would do… 0/10 would take home to mom.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“When I think of all the money I could save by marrying that ass and not having to buy tits or a brazzers membership, it’s really just prudent investing.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I bet her butthole tastes like fruit loops.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“She looks like her life will consist of manicures, attending her children’s equestrian events, and country club fundraiser dinner parties.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“9/10 would follow from a safe distance.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Dear Santa, I can explain… My dad wasn’t around much.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“I’ll say it, she’s getting fat. Those Hindenburg’s are great, but the tit-to-waist ratio is way off.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“She really needs to stop fucking around and just get fully nude.”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Someone tell Kelly that I’ve seen her butt, and I’ll pee there as soon as I can…”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Look, it’s not like this site could piss feminists off anymore than it already does. Can you just get rid of the fucking sailboats and let us see some nipple?”</span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Am I the only one who thinks an American flag somewhere on a women automatically makes her 10 times hotter?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“Why do some of these girls think it’s ok to take pictures with zits on their boobs and asses? I can’t unsee that shit.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most frequently mentioned body part is “ass” (outnumbering “smile” 25 to 1, and “eyes” by 10 to 1), followed by “tits”; “face” comes in third, followed by “butt” and “boobs”. After reading these comments, I had two questions: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 17.7778px; white-space: pre-wrap;">1. Do fra</span><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">ternity men really talk this way in person? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 1.2; white-space: pre-wrap;">2. Why do women submit their pictures to this site? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As you can perhaps guess, I went into this project with a strong distrust of both TFM and fraternities in general. I came out, however, both enjoying my conversations with every fraternity man I spoke to and fascinated by the complex and contradictory world they inhabited. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some of the men I talked to were more fluent in feminist tropes than I was. When I asked one if men ever tried to “steal” girls from each other at parties, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">he gently chided me, “The very language of your question reveals the problematic views on women that lead to sexual assault."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Most fraternity men I spoke to agreed that while men were much cruder when they were talking only to other men, they were not as crude in person as TFM implied. One said</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that fraternity men were more willing to push boundaries online, on the fraternity email lists, even though it created a permanent record and some of them planned to run for political office.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I got a contrary perspective from one of the widest-read authorities on fraternity culture: </span><a href="http://tuckermax.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tucker Max</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, who achieved notoriety by writing </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> bestsellers chronicling his drunken hookups. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2b2a2a; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #2b2a2a; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">course</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> frat guys talk like that. I would say the overwhelming amount of men AND women talk to their friends in ways that would shock people if they were displayed to the world...” Tucker told me. “You have to remember that young guys are basically animals that can talk. I don't mean that literally of course, but the developmental psych evidence is very clear; most young men have vastly underdeveloped empathy, compassion, and other higher order thinking capabilities as compared to women their age. If you make it a rule to assume that a guy under about 25 probably thinks like a sociopath, then you're going to be more right than wrong.”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Okay then. Of course, Tucker’s perspective is also influenced by his own debaucherous experience. The truth, I suspect, lies somewhere in between: as one TFM commenter told me, “</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I do think the vibe and attitude is not far off from how fraternity guys actually talk, but it's much less exaggerated and embellished in real life.”</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why do they talk this way? Several fraternity members emphasized the strong role of social norms within fraternities. One explained that fraternities seemed to create feedback loops that produced more extreme behavior (both positive and negative) because people did not want to disappoint their friends. Another explained that members would deliberately say edgy things in order to win approval, and that younger members might try to win status by pushing boundaries. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One man told me that sexually explicit commentary was encouraged within fraternities because social standing was tied to sexual prowess; men who could not get women, or who hooked up with women deemed unattractive, were mocked. He described how members of his fraternity would congregate for hungover Sunday sessions where they detailed their sexual exploits from the night before. (These stories sometimes clashed with reality: a guy would claim he had had “amazing” sex with a girl and spent the night with her, when other members knew he had never gone home with her at all because they had seen her at another party entirely.) One TFM commenter described how these discussions served as bonding rituals, “one of the things guys can do that separates them from the girls. I think we feel like in a society that is currently trying to knock males, especially white males down a peg, this is a way we can all go to try to maintain our masculinity that in the 70s and 80s was so prevalent but now we're being told is wrong to have. I think we feel it's natural, biologically, to ogle girls and think things about them, and this is a place where we can let that out.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many men emphasized that comments on TFM were jokes or satire, although it was possible to go too far: for example, a </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/woman-who-tweeted-2-drunk-2-care-before-killing-two-people-in-car-crash-sentenced/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">commenter who made light of driving drunk</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was brutally criticize</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">d. The line often seemed arbitrary to me: sexism was obviously acceptable, as was racism (“She definitely has sex with multiple black guys at the same time” one commenter wrote about a woman; someone responded, “Once you go black, we don’t want you back”, and another, “Once you go black… You’re a single mom”). Rape comments were sometimes but not always okay: “No shame in how rapey I just felt…” one commenter </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-jacklyn-from-pennsylvania-state-university/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">wrote</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #404040; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">about a woman, to which someone responded, “Well there should be”; on the other hand, “Ramming is [sic] in her ass while she’s sleeping and bragging to your frat bros you get her to do anal,” </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-felicia-from-eastern-washington-university/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">received</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> a dozen upvotes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I am skeptical of the “just a joke” defense when it comes to problems as pervasive as rape, sexism, and racism. The difference between a rape joke and a dead baby joke is that while very few people kill babies, </span><a href="http://www.davidlisak.com/wp-content/uploads/pdf/RepeatRapeinUndetectedRapists.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">5</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - </span><a href="http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2375127" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">% of college men admit to committing rape. If a rape joke on TFM is read by 50 average college men and 50 average college women, there’s a 99% chance one of the men will have raped someone and an even higher chance </span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/local/2015/06/12/1-in-5-women-say-they-were-violated/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one of the women will have been raped</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> [1]. This makes the joke slightly less funny. More importantly, jokes are not necessarily harmless one-liners that leave the listener unchanged: studies provide some evidence that hearing sexist jokes does </span><a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/brutereason/2013/05/01/does-sexist-humor-matter-a-review-of-the-research/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">make men more tolerant of rape</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I found the women of TFM even more interesting than the men: why would they submit their photos to the site?</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A TFM site administrator initially told me that the women volunteered, and several commenters told me that this made them more comfortable making crude comments -- perhaps the online equivalent of “she was asking for it”. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But not all the women volunteer. One of the women featured on the site told me that she had never heard of TFM before the site posted her pictures; possibly someone else had sent them in without telling her. While she was not upset by this, I found multiple cases in which the </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-noelle-from-west-virginia-university" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">featured</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-amber-from-arizona-state-university/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">woman</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-raquel-from-florida-state-university/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">had</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-peyton-from-texas-christian-university/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">subsequently</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-sophia-from-chapman-university/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">made</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-kylie-from-texas-am/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">her</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://totalfratmove.com/instagram-babe-of-the-day-alexa-from-long-island-university/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">profile</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://h/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">private</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (I took a random sample of women’s pages and found that roughly one in five had been taken down.) S</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">o TFM appears, in at least some cases, to be making money off the pictures of college women without their consent by posting them for thousands of anonymous viewers to ogle and abuse. At least some of the women are taking measures to protect their privacy after their pictures are posted on the site. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is legal: if a woman doesn’t like having her Instagram photos on TFM, she can request that they be </span><a href="https://instagram.com/about/legal/terms/api/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">removed</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (a TFM administrator said that the site honored these requests) although it’s unclear how many of the women are actually aware of this option, or that their pictures have been used at all. The pictures could also propagate further: for example, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #333333; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">the line between appearing on TFM and appearing on pornographic sites can be blurry. Many comments on TFM encourage the women to become porn stars, and several women who appeared on TFM also had their images appear on pornographic sites.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But while some women on TFM may have had their pictures used without consent, it seems unlikely that all of them have. There are good reasons to pursue such attention: it could increase a woman’s online presence or aid careers, like acting or modeling, that privilege physical beauty; separate from such rational calculations, </span><a href="http://www.vice.com/read/i-love-wolf-whistles-and-catcalls-am-i-a-bad-feminist" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://metro.co.uk/2014/11/26/am-i-the-only-woman-in-the-world-who-likes-being-cat-called-4944102/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://nypost.com/2014/08/18/enough-sanctimony-ladies-catcalls-are-flattering/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">women</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> dislike crude sexual attention. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(This is not to say catcalling women is ever acceptable, because </span><a href="http://www.ihollaback.org/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">many</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/10/29/7088867/catcall-video-hollaback-rape-threats" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">women</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/29/women-first-harassed-twitter_n_7463626.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/12/argentina-street-harassment-ban_n_7570564.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hate</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/12/how-teen-girls-feel-about-street-harassment_n_7570176.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">and</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://feminspire.com/your-catcalls-are-not-a-compliment-ever-2/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">feel</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.ebony.com/news-views/street-harassment-catcalling-rape-culture-476#axzz3d9lbZW5T" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">threatened</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/10/21/when-street-harassment-is-more-deadly-than-catcalls/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2013-08-stop-asking-me-to-ignore-street-harassment" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">.)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So let’s dig a little deeper. Individual women can apply to be featured on the site in two places: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">as “Instagram Babes of the Day” or “</span><a href="http://h/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">TFM Sweethearts</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”. There are important differences between the two. First, TFM users can comment on the photos of Instagram Babes, but not on the photos of Sweethearts. Second, Sweethearts have profiles, and Instagram Babes do not. I analyzed the profiles of 181 Sweethearts in an effort to understand them. Two thirds were single; they overwhelmingly appeared to be white; they were most disproportionately likely to come from Nevada, Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, and South Carolina, and most frequently majored in Marketing, Psychology, Nursing, Communications, and Journalism. Most said they were planning to have careers: 30% mentioned further schooling in their post-graduation plans, and 40% mentioned work (only 9% mentioned marriage, children, or family). They were impressed by men with manners, which were more frequently mentioned than other popular answers like good conversation skills or a sense of humor (more than two dozen mentioned liking it when men opened doors). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So why were career-oriented women who valued manners above all volunteering as sweethearts for commenters who talked about peeing in women’s butts? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The women on the site were not eager to answer this question; though I contacted dozens, very few were willing to talk to me. One Sweetheart explained that Sweethearts were not a TFM invention; some real fraternities have had Sweethearts for over </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweetheart_of_Sigma_Chi" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a century</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. A Sweetheart was “viewed like a member of the fraternity, privileged to wear their letters and learn some of their secrets...It’s a loftier position than dating the President or similar, and she's highly respected”. Perhaps it is this respect that makes TFM ban comments on the Sweethearts pages, even though it allows comments on the other women on the site: an administrator told me this kept the pages “clean”, which I guess is one way to put it. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was struck by the many contradictions in fraternity culture: by the respectful lack of commentary on the Sweethearts, contrasting with the comments directed at the other women on the site; by the fraternity members who </span><a href="https://www.sae.net/creed" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">aspired to be gentlemen</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> but spewed sexist vitriol; by the Sweethearts who admired chivalry, but nonetheless associated with such men; by the need to push boundaries to win social approval, but not to go too far; by the men who told me they loved their own fraternity, but thought fraternities in general were harmful; by the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">man who joked on TFM about girls’ daddy issues but addressed me via email as “ma’am”, and defended the site by saying: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We do not have prejudices, regardless of what the satirical comments may lead others to believe...We address social and political issues, we help people who need help, we offer prayers for those who need them and we love our girls and will defend them to our dying day.” </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The fact that fraternity men are often civil and thoughtful in isolation makes articles that dehumanize them simplistic. But the individual civility of fraternity men is if anything a criticism, not a defense, of fraternities. It’s a little like saying, of the characters in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lord of the Flies</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, “But they’re such </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nice </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">boys individually!” If that’s true, then take them off the island.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My journalist friends tell me that this piece does not adhere to journalistic conventions -- for example, it includes anonymous quotes. So please take it as creative non-fiction, not as journalism. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13.3333px; line-height: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Update: The original version of this piece used a public traffic estimator to estimate TFM's traffic at 1.2 million monthly visitors. The piece has been updated with their more accurate internal estimates. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Notes</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] I am aware that surveys of sexual assault often have low response rates. But even surveys with high response rates imply that the frequency of rape on college campuses is high, as Shengwu Li and I discuss </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/10/15/a-better-way-to-gauge-how-common-sexual-assault-is-on-college-campuses/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.333333333333332px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-33420907603658962742016-01-07T11:56:00.000-08:002016-01-07T11:56:44.181-08:00Racial Discrepancies in Police Shootings <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When the government </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/us/in-oregon-law-enforcement-faces-dilemma-in-confronting-armed-group.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">decided not to use force</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to remove armed antigovernment protesters in Oregon, </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/05/us/what-if-the-oregon-activists-were-black-or-muslim-debate-ensues.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">many people asked</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> if the police would’ve responded violently had the protesters not been white. It’s a question, of course, that has been asked increasingly often of late: do the police show racial bias in whom they shoot? That is, given a white American and a black American behaving identically, are they are more likely to shoot the black American? </span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-3e17424a-1da0-1424-672a-0af67d161618" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Prior to this year, there was </span><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-many-americans-the-police-kill-each-year/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">no good data on police shootings</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If it seems amazing that the American government wasn’t keeping proper track of how many of its citizens its police shot, I find this even more so: when independent organizations like the </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/series/counted-us-police-killings" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guardian</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and the </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shootings/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Washington Post</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> began tracking police shootings, they found that police shot about 1,000 people in 2015 -- a count more than </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">double</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that recorded by official FBI statistics. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This new data makes it clear that white, black, and Hispanic Americans shot by police are behaving very differently. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To be clear: most people shot by police are armed and are attacking. But there are substantial racial discrepancies. Black and Hispanic Americans shot by police are younger than white Americans shot by police, more likely to be unarmed, and more likely to not be attacking [1]. White Americans are more likely to be mentally ill. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<table style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none;"><colgroup><col width="145"></col><col width="176"></col><col width="170"></col><col width="219"></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><br /></td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">White Americans Shot By Police</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Black Americans Shot By Police</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hispanic Americans Shot By Police</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Average Age</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">40</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">32</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">33</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was Unarmed</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">7%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">11%</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Was Not Attacking</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">19%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">29%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">40%</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Showed Signs of Mental Illness</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">32%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">15%</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">20%</span></div>
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</tbody></table>
</div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These disparities are large, statistically significant, and and consistent with </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/31/the-counted-police-killings-2015-young-black-men" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">previous</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fatal-police-shootings-in-2015-approaching-400-nationwide/2015/05/30/d322256a-058e-11e5-a428-c984eb077d4e_story.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">analyses</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -- black Americans shot by police are more than twice as likely as white Americans shot by police to be unarmed, and more than 50% more likely to not be attacking. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I mapped shootings to zipcodes, I found that black Americans are also disproportionately shot by police in poor zipcodes: poorer than those in which white Americans are shot by police, and poorer than zipcodes in which the average black American lives [2]. Police shootings overall occur in zipcodes which are poorer and blacker than that in which the average American lives. (White Americans are also shot by police in poorer zipcodes than those in which the average white American lives; I found no large disparity for Hispanic Americans. These findings are broadly consistent with FiveThirtyEight’s </span><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-police-have-killed-americans-in-2015/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">analysis</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of a smaller dataset; I looked at a few other things which I describe in this footnote [3].) </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, one obvious explanation for the fact that white Americans are less likely to be unarmed when shot is that the police show racial bias in whom they shoot: given a white American and a black American behaving identically, they are more likely to shoot the black American. But there are other explanations as well. One is that white Americans are interacting with police differently: to take an extreme hypothetical, if every white American interacting with the police was carrying a gun, we would expect every white American shot by police to be carrying a gun as well. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To check whether white Americans were more likely to be armed when interacting with the police, I looked at FBI </span><a href="https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/NACJD/studies/36120" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">data</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> on crimes committed in the United States in 2013 from the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). I checked whether white Americans were more likely to carry weapons when committing the same crimes, focusing on white and black Americans because I could not find good data on ethnicity in the UCR. I checked both whether the perpetrator was carrying a gun and whether they were carrying any weapon at all, and I examined more than a dozen of the most common crimes where perpetrators frequently carried weapons [4]. And I actually found the opposite: black Americans</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">were in general </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> likely to carry weapons when committing the same crimes [5]. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">black Americans</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> are just stopped by police doing less severe crimes, where they’re less likely to carry weapons? I could not find evidence for this either in the UCR. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it’s not that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">all</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> black Americans who interact with police are more likely to be unarmed; only those </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">shot </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by police are</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want to be clear: this analysis doesn’t prove the police are more likely to shoot a black American than a white American behaving identically. In an ideal world, we’d have data on every police encounter and we could look at whether race was significantly correlated with whether someone was shot when we controlled for other factors. But instead we have one dataset of people shot by police (compiled by non-government organizations) and one dataset of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">some </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">police encounters (compiled by the government, and lacking many minor police encounters like traffic stops) which has completely different features. I can’t think of a way to match up these datasets neatly enough to rule out all plausible alternate explanations for the data. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe black Americans have more unarmed encounters with police which are too minor to be recorded in the UCR but might still produce police shootings; white Americans are in general </span><a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/15/the-demographics-and-politics-of-gun-owning-households/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">more likely to own guns</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Or maybe there’s a correlation with a third variable, like location: maybe black Americans tend to live in areas where police are more likely to shoot unarmed people of any race. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">(Neither of these alternate explanations is reassuring, of course, since they still imply that systemic racial disparities are a major factor in police shootings, but they do change our understanding of why they occur.) </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> All these explanations are very hard to rule out without a single complete dataset; </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">let me know if you have ideas or other approaches. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I also want to be straightforward with you about what I believe. Yes, if I had to bet, I’d bet that police bias plays a role in explaining these results. I believe this for three reasons. The first is that it’s a clean explanation for data which is otherwise somewhat difficult to explain. The second is that we know that bias exists at many other levels of the criminal justice system, and it would be weird if it suddenly disappeared when an officer was pointing a gun. The third is that experiments from social psychology do find that police officers are quicker to shoot black suspects in simulations -- though, importantly, they’re less biased than civilians are. (I liked </span><a href="http://www.vox.com/2014/8/28/6051971/police-implicit-bias-michael-brown-ferguson-missouri" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this summary</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of relevant social science research.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At the very least, this data points out a flaw in the argument, </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/upshot/police-killings-of-blacks-what-the-data-says.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">made</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> by MacArthur Fellow </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sendhil</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendhil_Mullainathan" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Mullainathan</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, that “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">eliminating the biases of all police officers would do little to materially reduce the total number of African American killings”. He bases this on the fact that while black Americans are much more likely to be shot by police than the general population, they are also much more likely to be in police encounters than the general population, and their odds of being shot </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">given that they are in a police encounter </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are roughly the same. The problem is that this argument doesn’t control for the nature of the police encounters. For example, if black Americans were only stopped by the police when jaywalking, and white Americans were only stopped by the police when brandishing large knives, it would be very weird</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if both groups were shot at equal rates. The new</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">data on police shootings shows us that this objection is more than hypothetical: white and black Americans shot by police </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">in fact behaving differently, and it is entirely possible that police bias plays a role. (I contacted Mullainathan for comment and will update this if he replies.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In closing: we need better data -- a single, complete dataset of police shootings that includes data on all police encounters. To quote the director of the FBI, the lack of data is “</span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fbi-director-calls-lack-of-data-on-police-shootings-ridiculous-embarrassing/2015/10/07/c0ebaf7a-6d16-11e5-b31c-d80d62b53e28_story.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">embarrassing and ridiculous</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”. It is not the obligation of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Washington Post </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Guardian </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to cobble together flawed datasets on police shootings; it is the obligation of the state that annually shoots 1,000 of its own citizens in ways that show disturbing correlations with race. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The code for this analysis is </span><a href="https://github.com/epierson9/police-shootings-analysis" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">available on GitHub</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I am a computer scientist with no background in criminology and this data is complex, so I welcome your suggestions, corrections, or extensions via email. Thanks to Simone Landon, Leah Pierson, Nat Roth, Shengwu Li, and Seth Stephens-Davidowitz for helpful thoughts. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] This uses the Washington Post’s data. All these differences are statistically significant (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">p <</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> .002) using logistic regression regardless of whether I coded race as a categorical variable or used “is_white” as a boolean variable. I examined only black, white, and Hispanic Americans because they were the only large groups in the data. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2] I used the Guardian’s data, mapped it to zipcode using Google’s API, and compared to zipcode data from the </span><a href="https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">American Community Survey</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. I also wanted to control for crime rate by sampling from the UCR rather than the overall population distribution, but unfortunately, so far as I can tell, the UCR does not include zipcode information for each crime; it’s only down to the police department level, and one department may include many zipcodes. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[3] I looked at a number of other zipcode features as well. Black Americans were shot in zipcodes that were about 33% black, about the same as the zipcode in which the average black American lives; white Americans were shot in zipcodes that were about 8% black, about the same as the zipcode in which the average white American lives; Hispanic Americans were shot in zipcodes which were about 50% Hispanic, slightly more than zipcodes in which the average Hispanic American lives (46%). (These numbers also speak to the extraordinary racial and ethnic segregation in living patterns.) I also examined whether black Americans tended to be shot in zipcodes with greater racial income inequality, but found no difference. My analysis disagrees with FiveThirtyEight’s on one point: they do not find that black Americans are shot in poorer neighborhoods than those in which black Americans live. I also looked at whether victims of police shootings were more likely to be unarmed when shot in poorer or blacker neighborhoods; I did not find a significant effect. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[4] I compared white and black Americans because I could not find good data in the UCR on Hispanic origin. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[5] This remained true when I ran a multiple regression controlling for the age, race, sex, and type of crime simultaneously, and was true regardless of whether I looked at all weapons or only at guns. </span>Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-44992510779486854772015-12-11T13:23:00.001-08:002015-12-11T13:23:18.791-08:00Cancer and Campus Protests<span id="docs-internal-guid-c9ee44d7-92ec-4ec3-b048-8fb23a9afb9a"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I discuss these topics (separately) for the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">New York Times</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/with-cancer-forgetting-the-stakes-becomes-its-own-disease/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/what-do-campus-protesters-really-want/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-69990839763668195542015-11-05T21:41:00.006-08:002015-12-08T15:49:32.536-08:00Who's Really Abusing Study Drugs? <span id="docs-internal-guid-a3c10dab-83ff-6c47-a462-7a1a28c06538"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I write about this question for FiveThirtyEight </span><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/college-students-arent-the-only-ones-abusing-adderall/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-81914254441718746862015-10-19T07:02:00.001-07:002015-10-19T08:25:10.990-07:00A Statistical Argument for Not Being Nervous on First Dates<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A few months ago I became single for the first time in four years. I went from</span><a href="http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-the-end-people-may-really-just-want-to-date-themselves/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">studying</span></a><a href="http://www.eharmony.com/blog/romantic-affectionate-why-the-adjectives-you-use-to-describe-yourself-on-eharmony-matter/#.Vh63XhNViko" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">online</span></a><a href="http://obsessionwithregression.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-statistics-of-love-and-love-of.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">dating</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to being a datapoint myself [1]. This has made me think more urgently about questions I once considered only abstractly. Today I write about the connection between testing statistical hypotheses and testing romantic attraction.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-0a7248e2-80b2-e71b-8a54-2e99ce01ccca" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Statisticians love to develop multiple ways of testing the same thing. If I want to decide whether two groups of people have significantly different IQs, I can run a t-test or a rank sum test or a bootstrap or a regression. You can argue about which of these is most appropriate, but </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I basically think that if the effect is really statistically significant and large enough to matter</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it should emerge regardless of which test you use, as long as the test is reasonable and your sample isn’t tiny</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. An effect that appears when you use a parametric test but not a nonparametric test is probably not worth writing home about [2].</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A similar lesson applies, I think, to first dates. When you’re attracted to someone, you overanalyze everything you say, spend extra time trying to look attractive, etc. But </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">if your mutual attraction is really statistically significant and large enough to matter, it should emerge regardless of the exact circumstances of a single evening</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. If the shirt you wear can fundamentally alter whether someone is attracted to you, you probably shouldn’t be life partners.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can argue against this by pointing out cases where a tiny detail </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">does </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">matter because it prevents you from having any future interactions: for example, you foolishly wear your XL Chess Team sweatshirt to the bar and your would be Lothario never bothers to approach you and thereby discover that you look much better with it off.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a risk. In statistical terms, a glance at across a bar doesn’t give you a lot of data and increases the probability you’ll make an incorrect decision. As a statistician, I prefer not to work with small datasets, and similarly, I’ve never liked romantic environments that give me very little data about a person. (Don’t get me started on Tinder. The only thing I can think when I see some stranger staring at me out of a phone is, “My errorbars are huge!” which makes it very hard to assess attraction.)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even on a longer date, there’s some risk that a disaster at the beginning will ruin your subsequent interactions. If you start by asking “how’s your relationship with your mother?”, you’ve torpedoed your chance to have a truly intimate conversation about how she ran off to train monkeys.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Still, I’m sticking to the principle that if your romance-to-be is statistically robust, whether you wear makeup or the moon is full should make no more difference than whether you compute the Spearman or Pearson correlation. (And if your date asks you if you want to bootstrap, the answer is always, of course, yes.)</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think there’s even an argument for being deliberately </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">unattractive </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">to your date, on the grounds that if they still like you, they must really like you. Imagine a cliched rom-com disaster [3]: you vomit on your date. This isn’t sexy. On the other hand, someone who finds you attractive after that is much more likely to still find you attractive when you’re puking during pregnancy or chemotherapy [4]. This is somewhat analogous to using a statistical test that makes very weak assumptions (</span><a href="http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/ShamenaAnwar/index_files/Anwar_motor%20vehicle.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #4a86e8; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here's</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">one example): if the test yields positive results, you can have high confidence they're real.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please don’t send me angry emails when you take this post too seriously and the love of your life spurns you because you didn’t shower for a week before your date. But I’d welcome your thoughts in the comments or via email. (Also hit me up if you have ideas for statistical projects that I can only conduct while single.)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Notes</b></span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] I recently received an email from a Stanford professor in a similar situation: his marriage broke up after 20 years, and he responded by writing a</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Everything-Needed-Economics-Learned-Online/dp/1422191656" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">book</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> about the connections between economics and dating.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[2] An economics friend points out a corollary to this principle: be suspicious of analyses that use really convoluted tests when it seems like simple ones should do, because that might indicate that the simple ones didn’t produce the results they’re reporting.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[3] </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">10 Things I Hate About You, 50 Shades of Grey, Mean Girls</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. What’s with this trope, and why are the pukers always female?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[4] You’re calling me crazy and I’m kind of kidding, but I’d also argue that the idea of testing one’s partner is a socially accepted one. (My scholarly attempt to do a lit review on this question -- I Googled “make them work for it” -- yielded</span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NwTUAL5lTLwC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=%22make+them+work+for+it%22&source=bl&ots=mMYo1daXAM&sig=JwetjgGJqyxR3GX6ZK44EHnWUDk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEoQ6AEwC2oVChMImJjJ9_eJyAIVESqICh2Ugwhu#v=onepage&q=%22make%20them%20work%20for%20it%22&f=false" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this text</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You’re welcome.) There are many </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">bad </span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reasons people are told to defer sleeping with someone, but a not-so-bad-one, from a probabilistic standpoint, is that someone who will wait might be more likely to really like you.</span></div>
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Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com71tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-54224751161230498492015-10-16T08:01:00.003-07:002015-12-08T15:51:20.644-08:00A Better Way to Conduct Sexual Assault Surveys<span id="docs-internal-guid-a3c10dab-8400-e402-2c78-03329317b834"></span><br />
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<a href="http://stanford.edu/~shengwu/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shengwu Li</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and I </span><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/10/15/a-better-way-to-gauge-how-common-sexual-assault-is-on-college-campuses/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">argue</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> in the Washington Post that universities who conduct sexual assault surveys often misunderstand the basic statistical goal: not to get as many students as possible to answer the survey, but to get an unbiased sample of reasonable size. We propose a method for doing this.</span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-49665955333204031212015-10-10T10:52:00.000-07:002015-12-08T15:52:45.916-08:00Analysis of the Online Abortion Debate<span id="docs-internal-guid-a3c10dab-8402-784a-3a7e-73feb95b3b52"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Brian Clifton, Gilad Lotan and I published an </span><a href="http://qz.com/520309/how-to-tell-whether-a-twitter-user-is-pro-choice-or-pro-life-without-reading-any-of-their-tweets/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">analysis</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of the fierce online debate about abortion. We visualize the spread of the hashtags #ShoutYourAbortion and #ShoutYourAdoption, develop a method for classifying tweeters as pro-choice or pro-life, and show that we can often predict someone's stance with high accuracy -- without ever reading their profile or tweets. Here is Brian's beautiful visualization of the spread of the hashtag.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh07ZiziYcUpk58V5bOKHsUTyN_TdMvTQNd6q2_YbHPF6MN3mkjBjrYpcnpttSsKc_LBnDbWHa7GwNldBsDxHe7sUCoXj3re6C7xITFHZxXTbbwu4DHl32y8-_3S550sR5-ROZ4SKgaACou/s1600/shout_your_abortion_brian_clifton.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="381" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh07ZiziYcUpk58V5bOKHsUTyN_TdMvTQNd6q2_YbHPF6MN3mkjBjrYpcnpttSsKc_LBnDbWHa7GwNldBsDxHe7sUCoXj3re6C7xITFHZxXTbbwu4DHl32y8-_3S550sR5-ROZ4SKgaACou/s400/shout_your_abortion_brian_clifton.gif" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com136tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-8454657756909653832015-09-21T08:03:00.000-07:002015-09-21T08:20:39.354-07:00A Tool for Mapping Drunk Tweets and Police Shootings<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How do we map the density of a set of events? For example, we might want to map locations of tweets supporting Bernie Sanders as opposed to Hillary Clinton or locations of housing evictions or locations of police shootings. I confronted this problem recently while writing a post for Quartz (which they split </span><a href="http://qz.com/504533/where-people-drink-wine-and-beer/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">into</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://qz.com/504779/maps-drunk-twitter-tells-us-what-europeans-drink/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">two</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">) about where people tweet more about wine and where they tweet more about beer. Here’s a finished map (you can see more in the Quartz posts); color shows the fraction of #beer or #wine tweets which are about #wine, with red denoting pro-#wine areas. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="275px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/CCDW5B0i64s9OXAFxTquOSKsLwJ_1-xypFt-mcla-dfqjvunjuNbGxQ1tdv4L5KlgyBqwJYA3HrIXzlNNfhE5WnHpNH31Lim8sJi0ijmpKy36GKZbZOs1sZGPw1by3wUJg=s1600" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="463px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I built a </span><a href="https://github.com/epierson9/densityMapping" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tool</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> which lets you make maps like this, and because I think this problem is often useful to solve and often solved badly, I provide some thoughts on how to make maps below. If you’re not interested in details, you should probably just look at the maps in the Quartz posts, but if you keep reading you’ll at least get to see me make a lot of bad maps. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One simple thing to do is just to make a state-by-state map where each state’s color corresponds to the density of events. This has a few problems. It requires us to map all the latitude, longitude pairs to their states, and if we want to look a country besides America, we need to adapt our method; more fundamentally, it’s not very high-resolution, and there are often interesting patterns at the sub-state level. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To get better resolution, people often just plot the exact latitude, longitude location of the tweets, so you get visualizations that look like </span><a href="https://cartodb.com/gallery/sb49/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="Screen Shot 2015-09-03 at 6.16.55 PM.png" height="247px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/65I89763pvBqWUxu2Si8OIF-genJSgPSA-Fov02kp8FeLAbHpcH6WOjGOXU6-Az0tpuQrSW8MEGZ5aCFMTGZbIowXrljUptm5oYM2VhbkveX5ly5TSo92DHqMKSfPLQKweRQn4M" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="534px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which is pretty but not very useful (like your momma!) because it basically just shows us where the cities are. (I have lost track of the number of data analyses I have read that can be summarized as, “when you have more people, more things happen”). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What I think you usually want to do is plot the density of events relative to some background. For example, I don’t care about the absolute density of wine tweets, which will be heavily correlated with population density; I care about the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">fraction</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of beer/wine tweets which are wine tweets. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So one thing we can do is estimate the density of wine tweets, estimate the density of beer tweets and then plot the difference: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">density</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">wine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> -</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">density</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">beer</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. (We can estimate density using a method called, appropriately, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_density_estimation" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">kernel density estimation</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). Here’s what happens when we do that; red denotes areas with more wine, blue with more beer. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="overdensity_problem" height="247px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/XSZfmg6-WM91vL4TTiveHFsMS7B8C-GVU0T40pMNysKozAPCOZP2GjJJg3XLue9xodd6Yoiu5BCY4ABU1ds5pZD4sIZjOKYGMa5Uj9KLa9X7xISu_GMY_WCYN6QU7FaA33fAt0M" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="494px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problem is that the reddest areas aren’t necessarily the areas where 90% of people are tweeting about wine; they might also just be the areas with a ton of tweeters (which will also have larger differences between </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">density</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">wine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">density</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">beer</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">). So maybe we really want something like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">density</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">wine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> / (</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">density</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">beer</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> + </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">density</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 8.799999999999999px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: sub; white-space: pre-wrap;">wine</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), which we can interpret as the fraction of tweets which are about wine. Here’s what that looks like. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="too_variable_problem" height="237px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/H3PK0BBWYbrHNDbqdbGht4Oz6uS-D2LHQZ9OmPD-xhYeyiyG0as7awOCMQH4kQcsWDM4TS221264oqCau3qJRpk92cr-GJu2lxlwCZCqUhzA_LVPzdn1oQN6PeCngZcJ-SEK_VI" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="474px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problem, basically, is that the ratio of two things is unstable when the denominator gets small, which often happens. I tried various ways of getting around this but they were finicky. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So here’s an alternate solution: for every point which you want to color, look at the closest 10 beer/wine tweets and see how many of them are about beer. It seems like this will take a really long time if we have, say, 10,000 points and 50,000 tweets. Luckily, computer scientists have devised an efficient way of doing this which takes about two lines of code and a second to run (#MyFieldIsCoolerThanYourField) [1]. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="hemorrhaging_problem" height="246px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/RENjCtcOG5eIF6HVTVUyQVIC-kf0FiGRGJ3KQcwBJ8OiV-nt-3HWO81MOs4T9fYHEIGp1SxZcPU5E-Zw6Tw_rMGGle2IrUFnkKgmPRQ9a_T-nw9tAPjmEMAnZjj_lAAc7OGL3Z8" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="491px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This doesn’t look so good because California appears to be hemorrhaging, but once we mask off the oceans we get a nice map: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="okay_thats_better" height="232px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/nnvk-Zvt40Hu3eZWfU1r3ttr3humimxza3ejfy3tdSS5PNQNxkWaGlvPkefHQKtBAvk3xwvCi33E2k5Q_k51RVXdM8rBT552t-XZ1n9WMQ-w4YnWYrcCLU4bK7Qgp-8eOIZuHYs" style="border: none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="464px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve posted the </span><a href="https://github.com/epierson9/densityMapping" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">code</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> to make maps like these on GitHub so you can make maps of your own (and let me know if you find anything cool)! Keep in mind that the map will be less reliable in areas with little data. You can use it on any data (not just from Twitter) that has latitude and longitude. It requires knowledge of Python, so shoot me an email if you get stuck. If I get enough complaints from people who want to make maps but can’t use Python, I’ll just build a web tool. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Also, I am not a mapmaking expert, so feel free to tell me how I could’ve used CartoDB or whatever to do all this! (My problem with CartoDB is that the free version won’t keep data private and limits the size of your datasets to 50 MB. I’m not really a 50 MB kind of girl.) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Notes: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">[1] We just train a k-nearest neighbors classifier and plot its classification surface. There’s also the question of how you choose the number of nearest neighbors to look at. If you choose too small a number, the map gets very splotchy: </span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img alt="too_small_bandwidth_problem" height="312px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/O2wIZcECBlWhPIb8cw01Rok_eV-XiPEGyKtk1eBBhls9Z6KuWkxHWC7-jPwfP7L_oD1NWCmdqIypkW2ivPLlZ0YzD8Lar9X1k1IZTWbZtZrByTu7bfN6EQw3KJNqX106cEdKmps" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="624px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And if you choose too large a number, you lose real details. I’m not exactly sure how best to choose, so hit me up if you have thoughts. Do not tell me to use cross-validation. Seriously, we’re mapping drunk tweets here.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A final note: this tool obviously relies on you having latitude / longitude data. Many datasets are not in this form (eg, they might include addresses instead) and I have not found a great way to rapidly convert between addresses and latitudes / longitudes, because many APIs are rate limited. Let me know if you have a good solution to this problem. </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com51tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-74901535347428697632015-08-29T14:17:00.001-07:002015-12-08T15:55:39.974-08:00Using Twitter Data to Study Men and Women's Drinking Habits<span id="docs-internal-guid-a3c10dab-8404-6d48-a9cc-f64c11cb5eef"></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.68; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My analysis of half a million drunk tweets, and more than two million tweets about alcohol, was just published by Quartz; you can read it</span><a href="http://qz.com/486704/this-is-how-men-and-women-drink-according-to-twitter" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (and the coverage by Slate</span><a href="http://www.slate.fr/story/106185/alcool-genres-hommes-femmes-twitter" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, if you speak French).</span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1427019156302694146.post-2808284601224519542015-08-07T09:31:00.000-07:002015-08-07T09:31:21.543-07:00I Look Like an Engineer<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This week tens of thousands of female engineers tweeted pictures of themselves and explanations of the work they do under the hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer. The movement made the </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/06/technology/hashtag-aims-to-break-gender-stereotypes-in-engineering.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">front page of the New York Times</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and so I decided to see what I could do with the tweets. Because this is a post about female engineers, I will describe the engineering steps in a little more detail: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I used a program to scrape roughly 100,000 #ILookLikeAnEngineer tweets. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From each tweet, I extracted any links to images, filtering out retweets and duplicate links. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using what Mark Zuckerberg in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Social Network</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> would call “</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odOzMz-fOOw" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">a little wget magic</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">”, I downloaded all the pictures from the links. This gave me roughly 10,000 pictures (1.2 GB). Then I created a site so that drunken fraternity men could rate the attractiveness of the women...no, never mind. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I programmatically cropped all 10,000 images into squares of uniform size. </span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; list-style-type: decimal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I wanted to see if I could create mosaics: compose a large image from tiled smaller images. There are websites which do this but I was pretty sure they would choke on 1.2 GB of pictures and not give me the freedom to experiment with parameters. The better solution was to write code to do it, and the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">lazier</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> solution was to see if someone else had already done that, which </span><a href="https://pypi.python.org/pypi/osaic/2.0.0" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they had</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. This allowed me to create mosaics using only one line of code, but I didn’t like the initial output so I added a bunch of my code to their code until it did what I wanted. </span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-6b6a6292-08ff-395d-e22f-3dc557a6e075" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here are the final results. From far away, the mosaics look like </span><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/96/Georges_Seurat_026.jpg" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seurat</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: for example, here is the woman who started it all. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="184px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/DTUP0jqrxSI64t_Qm5iC_bCegB8KwkDQchN76Vb5Fyun2WHYF7e4DC26ZjEEfy-ySb7skk1mRj_zY9V96iYVljKl6Aae5spNDNaJ5Mlgqux7VoSNOJA6BAOXc_mAMbO54chES_NQ" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="393px;" /></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Zoom in and you get lost in the individual pictures. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="323px;" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/tu0wJIMz0hrvz7slxDW1bnUsV0DTL-IIFTkEsG6nPba_TtCwPBgFu2aVyYxlqkPInswYQVLSm6FRqSoYFwbX9iJJMR10sXpWXKjwHaHugjwgqkdNO954UQe2a9hcTR6FQVViJKB3" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="489px;" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/~emmap1/i_look_like_an_engineer/mosaic_file10000.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/~emmap1/i_look_like_an_engineer/mosaic_file10001.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/~emmap1/i_look_like_an_engineer/mosaic_file10002.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">some</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/~emmap1/i_look_like_an_engineer/mosaic_file2420.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">high</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://cs.stanford.edu/~emmap1/i_look_like_an_engineer/mosaic_file10004.png" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">resolution</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> versions (warning: the files are large; zoom in). Please feel free to use them, with attribution, to persuade women to become engineers or do other socially useful things. (Do me a favor and let me know about it!) </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was working on this while watching the Republican debate, and at some point I got so </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">tired</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of hearing overconfident men pretend to know more than they did. (The line that did me in was </span><a href="http://fusion.net/story/179457/huckabee-says-dna-schedule-bad-science" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Huckabee’s assertion</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that scientists agree personhood begins at conception because of a fetus’s “DNA schedule”. What the hell is a DNA schedule?) So I went home and wrote code. I’m often comforted by the fact that, however loud and annoying the person lecturing me may be, they cannot get inside my skull: the silent sanctity of those </span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSTknzzBT9Y" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">few inches of space</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the infinite freedom to reflect and create, remain my own.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And yet. It’s naive to think that freedom of thought is enough. My work requires a computer, which I need economic freedom to buy. And Huckabee’s proposed restrictions of contraception and abortion </span><a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/social-economic-benefits.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">will</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><a href="http://www.nwlc.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/reproductive_health_is_part_of_the_economic_health_of_women_5.29.15pdf.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">reduce</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> women’s economic freedom. My work is funded by government science agencies which </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/08/23/139852035/shrimp-on-a-treadmill-the-politics-of-silly-studies" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Huckabee wants to cut</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. So even code is cold comfort at the moment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apologies for the slightly bleak ending. If you have a custom image you’d like female-engineerified or higher resolution versions of these images, I’m happy to do that. If you are one of the women portrayed here and are uncomfortable having your face composed of many smaller women, let me know and I will take your picture down. And if you have ideas for cool things to do with this dataset or ways to improve the mosaics, please let me know! (Some pretty obvious improvements one could make are a) filtering out non-faces and b) filtering out duplicate images.) </span></div>
Emma Piersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04768879770449093477noreply@blogger.com139