The Undefeated: African Americans and Analytics

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I'm sick of hearing about race, homosexuality and transgender crap. Certain elements of our society have gone retarded with these issues, and totally obsess over it.
 
Sinobas said:
I'm sick of hearing about race, homosexuality and transgender crap. Certain elements of our society have gone retarded with these issues, and totally obsess over it.
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Ironically, I'm offended by your use of retarded in this manner. The word retarded actually means "slow", and the elements of society to whom you refer are obviously not going slowly over these issues, so you are clearly intending to use that in a pejorative fashion in relation to those who are mentally handicapped.

Please add this to your list of things you're sick of hearing about.
 
PtldPlatypus said:
Ironically, I'm offended by your use of retarded in this manner. The word retarded actually means "slow", and the elements of society to whom you refer are obviously not going slowly over these issues, so you are clearly intending to use that in a pejorative fashion in relation to those who are mentally handicapped.

Please add this to your list of things you're sick of hearing about.
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My brother, who passed away when i was 14, was severely mentally handicap. That word has always been offensive to me. Most of the time people tell me im being insensitive if i say anything. So i basically just started ignoring it. Its actually pretty sad. Because people that are mentally handicap cant stick up for themselves.
 
Mediocre Man said:
Here is my insensitive question.

How can their be sites and things like this dedicated to black people, but if someone started a site that only focused on white athletes or whatever, people would be up in arms?
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Given how often you wonder things like this, I can't imagine any answer would satisfy you. Maybe google "institutional racism" for one more answer that you won't accept.
 
Sinobas said:
I'm sick of hearing about race, homosexuality and transgender crap. Certain elements of our society have gone retarded with these issues, and totally obsess over it.
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So being sick of hearing about it doesn't count as obsessing? How about we summarize it as "I'm sick of hearing about problems people unlike me have in a world that advantages people like me" for short?
 
BlazerCaravan said:
I'll read the article in a sec, but I wanted to get this idea down before I do, to see if I touch on anything in it by accident.

I was thinking about analytics and how, depending on how they're implemented, they can be unintentionally (or intentionally) racist, sexist, etc. Social media keyword analytics is a good example; the analytics engines use contextual clues in the text of tweets and blog posts to make a judgment call on if your brand is being mentioned favorably, neutrally, or negatively. But language is used very differently between different groups of people.

If the analytics team making up the rules of judgment are a bunch of 30-something white men, are they going to accurately count Black Twitter's language usage, or Tumblr's more female/feminist leanings? Can the algorithms detect ironic usage of negative language that's sometimes used in marketing? The ownership of the business logic is very important for accurate results.

Anyway, yeah... like all things built by humans, analytics is only as unbiased as humanity is.
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I am going a bit off-topic here, but there are two points to make about this, imho:

1. If your analytic team is any good they learn to read the data and adjust it with time as more data is added - I have done quite a bit of work on financial data analysis - and you always adjust and improve your algorithms as you get more data and learn better - the same should be done anywhere else where analytic analysis is done. The data-driven corporations that succeed are those that learn to read the data correctly and adjust it all the time.

2. The amount of deep learning and AI being done is really moving a lot of this stuff into areas that whatever bias the original developers have/had is becoming less important - as the machines learn on the fly...
 
andalusian said:
I am going a bit off-topic here, but there are two points to make about this, imho:

1. If your analytic team is any good they learn to read the data and adjust it with time as more data is added - I have done quite a bit of work on financial data analysis - and you always adjust and improve your algorithms as you get more data and learn better - the same should be done anywhere else where analytic analysis is done. The data-driven corporations that succeed are those that learn to read the data correctly and adjust it all the time.

2. The amount of deep learning and AI being done is really moving a lot of this stuff into areas that whatever bias the original developers have/had is becoming less important - as the machines learn on the fly...
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Like microsoft's AI that became a Twitter Nazi in 24 hours. :lol:

I agree with all this and it wasn't meant as a specific example of any system I'm using. But it was a demo I saw from IBM, where they touted their keyword analytics but didn't show how the sausage was made at all.
 
I'm sick of gay and transgender people being scapegoated. I'm tired of spending 7 years at a job with increased responsibilities and no promotion and when I got fed up and left they hired a man from outside the company two levels higher. I'm sick of sexual assault being called a mistake while the victim is called slut. I sick of lame and retarded and gay as all purpose pejoratives.
 
JFizzleRaider said:
But you acting like they werent discriminated against is ironic.
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This literally never happened.

dviss1 said:
Sigh... And why are Irish and Italians largely not descriminated against now?
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The bolded text represents tense. Present tense. Meaning that I'm at the very least insinuating they were at one time descriminated against. But the truth of the matter is that in the early 1840's the Irish immigrated...

In their own boats...

And they really began to assimilate into the culture like 15-20 years in.
 
Anyway, back on the originally poster's article. I don't know if sports analytics is something that you can define by race. Its a massively growing concept, a tech movement that coming through all sports and displacing people (scouts basically) in pro sports departments. To longtime writers like Wilson it must be annoying to hear nerds comment about WAR and Wins Share Method. But that's the future. But it's only a matter of time before EVERYBODY in sports appreciation, from basketall to soccer, is using some form of it. Once analytics becomes as disposable as MckyD's, then the entire spectrum of sports fans will grow up with it. I talk people of all races about Didi Gregorius's range factor compared to Derek Jeters..... but they are nerds like me.
 
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dviss1 said:
This literally never happened.



The bolded text represents tense. Present tense. Meaning that I'm at the very least insinuating they were at one time descriminated against. But the truth of the matter is that in the early 1840's the Irish immigrated...

In their own boats...

And they really began to assimilate into the culture like 15-20 years in.
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What does them immigrating in their own boats have to do with anything? People of every race are born here and discriminated against daily. That doesnt mean anything really.

My point was, america wasnt only created by non white labor. Irish people contributed too. Thats literally the only thing i corrected. And agreed with bc on everything else. Not sure why it bothered you so much? Ive also conceded irish assimilated faster multiple times. Which literally had nothing to do with my correction of bcs post.

Not once did i compare irish vs. Black in this thread. You did.
 
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BlazerCaravan said:
Like microsoft's AI that became a Twitter Nazi in 24 hours. :lol:

I agree with all this and it wasn't meant as a specific example of any system I'm using. But it was a demo I saw from IBM, where they touted their keyword analytics but didn't show how the sausage was made at all.
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If memory serves, this chatbot was supposed to act like a teen-ager on social networks. News flash - teen-agers make stupid mistakes and this system was fed bad data by people that enjoyed it. Bad data will get you bad results in any kind of analytics.

Microsoft has a more interesting caption bot for recognizing subjects in images. Early v days but I actually am impressed with it and CV is a much harder problem than traditional mathematical analysis
 
JFizzleRaider said:
What does them immigrating in their own boats have to do with anything? People of every race are born here and discriminated against daily. That doesnt mean anything really.

Not once did i compare irish vs. Black in this thread. You did.
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That's exactly what you did. You might not have meant to. But you did. You did compare them if even inadvertently. And it always continues to happen.

Because you did bring up the fact that your people were descriminated against since Irish were not included in BC's post. Therefore comparing it to our struggle. You did the same thing with your "it's not just black people" quote above. Not sure why you want soften the blows we take daily. Of course other brown people are being targeted. We're all brown.

It's the reason UCD said "The Irish (for a much shorter period of time) did have it as bad as blacks". Emigrating in their own boats means they never had it as bad as us so all of you need to stop making the comparison. Dealing with their brand of slavery for 15-20 years pales in comparison to over 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow... So no...

Do you get descriminated against now?

"Today they don't have it as bad"...

I don't even know where to go with this one... :nerd:
 
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I am also sick of straight white dudes mansplaining/whitesplaining that racism does not exist or that sexism is what women really want or that they are not antigay, it's just Jesus.

I'm a lot more sick of more than 500 restrictions on women's bodies passed in the past 5 years by the party of small government, of male legislators telling women we really don't know what pregnancy is and they have to explain it to us, 11 states suing the federal government to be able to stop transpeople from taking a piss, and Congress blocking a routine bill because it does not include an anti-gay provision.

Believe me, I'd LOVE to stop talking about racism, misogyny, homophobia/transphobia, religious bigotry, barriers to people with disabilities. When differences in gender, ethnicity, nationality, orientation, gender identity, abilities, are considered trivialities and no longer a basis for discrimination and intolerance, I'll be happily able to shut up.
 
crandc said:
I am also sick of straight white dudes mansplaining/whitesplaining that racism does not exist or that sexism is what women really want or that they are not antigay, it's just Jesus.

I'm a lot more sick of more than 500 restrictions on women's bodies passed in the past 5 years by the party of small government, of male legislators telling women we really don't know what pregnancy is and they have to explain it to us, 11 states suing the federal government to be able to stop transpeople from taking a piss, and Congress blocking a routine bill because it does not include an anti-gay provision.

Believe me, I'd LOVE to stop talking about racism, misogyny, homophobia/transphobia, religious bigotry, barriers to people with disabilities. When differences in gender, ethnicity, nationality, orientation, gender identity, abilities, are considered trivialities and no longer a basis for discrimination and intolerance, I'll be happily able to shut up.
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:smiley-hvala:
 
"Believe me, I'd LOVE to stop talking about racism, misogyny, homophobia/transphobia, religious bigotry, barriers to people with disabilities. When differences in gender, ethnicity, nationality, orientation, gender identity, abilities, are considered trivialities and no longer a basis for discrimination and intolerance, I'll be happily able to shut up."

- crandc

Drops the muthafuckin' mic!
 
dviss1 said:
That's exactly what you did. You might not have meant to. But you did. You did compare them if even inadvertently. And it always continues to happen.

Because you did bring up the fact that your people were descriminated against since Irish were not included in BC's post. Therefore comparing it to our struggle. You did the same thing with your "it's not just black people" quote above. Not sure why you want soften the blows we take daily. Of course other brown people are being targeted. We're all brown.

It's the reason UCD said "The Irish (for a much shorter period of time) did have it as bad as blacks". Emigrating in their own boats means they never had it as bad as us so all of you need to stop making the comparison. Dealing with their brand of slavery for 15-20 years pales in comparison to over 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow... So no...

Do you get descriminated against now?

"Today they don't have it as bad"...

I don't even know where to go with this one... :nerd:
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I literally did not mean in anyway shape or form to compare irish to blacks.

I didnt know someone saying "non-white" only meant blacks?

All i did was point out that there were irish people that did help through cheap or "free labor". Chinese, japanese, mexixans, blacks have all gone through that same struggle.

In no way am i lessening what blacks have gone through. What i do think is important, is for everybody to know where each other came from and the struggles each group of people came from. That doesnt take away anything from blacks, or try to diminish the struggles they endured.

You seriously are making this something its not.
 
I'll say this and get crushed, but why is it that the white Christian male is the only one who doesn't seem to understand the plight of others? Why did I have to hire an African American female for a position a couple of years ago, when a white male was clearly my best candidate? Is it because of all the awful things that happened long before either one of them were born?

Does racism and sexism exist today? Absolutely, but it may have more teeth because of things like this. Things like my daughter missing out on scholarship money because it had to go to a minority, even though my daughter was more qualified. That same student lives in a neighborhood about a mile from me, in a nicer home and went to the same school.

I don't know what the answer is.... LOL obviously, and I wish I did. I hate that my wife makes less for the same damn job a guy does. I hate that I don't go to certain areas because I'm likely to get shot for being there. I hate that a black man or woman feels uncomfortable in a setting of mostly white people because those white people. It sucks. All of it, not just white Christian males.

It seems to me, and maybe I'm just wrong, but it seems like everything we are doing to try and combat racism is backfiring.
 
JFizzleRaider said:
I literally did not mean in anyway shape or form to compare irish to blacks.

I didnt know someone saying "non-white" only meant blacks?

All i did was point out that there were irish people that did help through cheap or "free labor". Chinese, japanese, mexixans, blacks have all gone through that same struggle.

In no way am i lessening what blacks have gone through. What i do think is important, is for everybody to know where each other came from and the struggles each group of people came from. That doesnt take away anything from blacks, or try to diminish the struggles they endured.

You seriously are making this something its not.
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I specifically said that you may have done it inadvertently, but you still did it. It's like saying all lives matter when people say black lives matter. Well of course we know that all lives matter. This goes without saying. All houses matter too, but you don't go spray water on the house that's not on fire.

CLwXpvCVAAA-fB0.jpg
 
Mediocre Man said:
I'll say this and get crushed, but why is it that the white Christian male is the only one who doesn't seem to understand the plight of others? Why did I have to hire an African American female for a position a couple of years ago, when a white male was clearly my best candidate? Is it because of all the awful things that happened long before either one of them were born?

Does racism and sexism exist today? Absolutely, but it may have more teeth because of things like this. Things like my daughter missing out on scholarship money because it had to go to a minority, even though my daughter was more qualified. That same student lives in a neighborhood about a mile from me, in a nicer home and went to the same school.

I don't know what the answer is.... LOL obviously, and I wish I did. I hate that my wife makes less for the same damn job a guy does. I hate that I don't go to certain areas because I'm likely to get shot for being there. I hate that a black man or woman feels uncomfortable in a setting of mostly white people because those white people. It sucks. All of it, not just white Christian males.

It seems to me, and maybe I'm just wrong, but it seems like everything we are doing to try and combat racism is backfiring.
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When people argue against affirmative action like it's taking away jobs from white people they lose me there... It's proven fact that white women benefit from affirmative action even more so than black people but whatever... And I don't believe for one minute that you had to hire that black lady over the more qualified white male. If affirmative action is so great/bad it certainly isn't helping stem the tide against racial discrimination when it comes to hiring.
 
dviss1 said:
I specifically said that you may have done it inadvertently, but you still did it. It's like saying all lives matter when people say black lives matter. Well of course we know that all lives matter. This goes without saying. All houses matter too, but you don't go spray water on the house that's not on fire.

CLwXpvCVAAA-fB0.jpg
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I have no issues with blacklivesmatter. If you feel youre being discriminated against you have every right to fight for your rights.

Again, when bc said non-whites, i did not immediately think black. You did. You made that comparison. Ive been in multiple classes discussing the same exploitation of japanese, chinese, mexican labor, so i thought of each group. Im not saying they, or anyones plight is better or worse than blacks. All i did was state a fact, that irish did help with some of that cheap labor, irregardless of how long or short it was.
 
dviss1 said:
When people argue against affirmative action like it's taking away jobs from white people they lose me there... It's proven fact that white women benefit from affirmative action even more so than black people but whatever... And I don't believe for one minute that you had to hire that black lady over the more qualified white male. If affirmative action is so great/bad it certainly isn't helping stem the tide against racial discrimination when it comes to hiring.
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That was absolutely true. Don't get me wrong, she was qualified as well.
 
I have a problem with any organization who promotes violence because of race. Blacklivesmatters, at least some of them, are anti white. While they have every right to be angry, it shouldn't be at white people, it should be against the certain people that hurt someone. To me, shooting cops in the head at a gas station, like here in Houston, is dumb. The guy was heard to yell black lives matter before he executed the police offer in his car. That cop had done nothing to deserve that. It makes it no better than the ignorant fucks who were hanging people, and still are intimidating people just because they are black.

I'm all about black lives matter, in the sense that all lives matter. I am raising a damn black child for Christ's sake. Teaching him the joy of Neil Diamond and all that :)
 
dviss1 said:
Who made you hire her instead? Sounds like a load to me...
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I brought my recomendation to my HR VP and he said "what about her?" I simply said that he was more qualified. He asked me if she was qualified as well, and I said yes. He told me they were going to hire her then. Take that for what it is worth
 
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