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Aunt Pythia’s advice
Time passes quickly, my friends. It seems like only yesterday that Aunt Pythia was answering really long questions, and today her questions seem to be extra short. Last week it was cold outside – freezing! – but this week it is warm and snowy (but not for long!). Last week she was knitting a cowl, this week a colorful scarf. Crazy changes, in other words.
Indeed the only thing that hasn’t changed is an absolute willingness, on the part of Aunt Pythia, to offer up irrelevant and terrible advice to you earnest people. Many apologies, you definitely deserve better, but this is just something Aunt Pythia was born with, there’s nothing for it.
My suggestion for you is to just turn away and stop reading. I mean, how many obscene images must one be subjected to??
This is a liqueur filled sperm-shaped bottle. I know it really exists because I bought one at a liquor store in San Antonio a couple of weeks ago, no shit. No, I haven’t opened it yet.
Wait, you’re still here? Really? Well, in that case, come on in, enjoy the warmth, get under a hand-knitted blanket, and don’t forget to:
ask Aunt Pythia a question at the bottom of the page!
By the way, if you don’t know what the hell Aunt Pythia is talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.
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Dear AP,
is it worth saving, or should we just burn it all down and start again?
Sick of Bull Systems
Dear Sick,
I’m going to assume you’re talking about the financial system. I’m tempted to say “burn it” but there would actually be severe short-term problems caused by there being no financial system. Moreover, it isn’t clear that a new one would be built better than the existing one. I know that sounds disappointingly unrevolutionary, but there it is.
If you are feeling desperate, may I suggest ignoring it and starting a new one. If I had time I would be more active in the public bank movement in this country, which seems like a better alternative to ours and can exist in parallel.
Aunt Pythia
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Dear Aunt Pythia,
Have you seen the Celtic Oracle designs? I made a deck but would like additional divination material.
Oracular Designs
Dear Oracular,
Nice! And flattering to oracles such as myself! Can I make a wee request? More naked people, especially men? Thanks.
Aunt Pythia
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Dear Aunt Pythia,
I would like to start watching Dr. Who but I’m intimidated by 50+ years of shows. How do you get started?
Dr. Who Ignoramus
Dear DWI,
Common problem, I sympathize. The truth is, it doesn’t matter much. Let me give you a cheat sheet which should be more than adequate:
- Dr. Who is always a man who talks fast and is incredible smug, although usually in a lovable way.
- He sometimes has a dog named K-9 with him. If he does, you’re watching an earlier show.
- He almost always has a “companion” with him, who is almost always female, mostly young, and sometimes a love interest, although not in earlier shows.
- Sometimes his companion has other companions, who are often there as comedic relief.
That’s about it! Oh, and they travel through time solving problems on earth and on alien planets. So there, now you have no excuse not to watch.
Aunt Pythia
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Hello Aunt Pythia,
Not a question, but a thank you for your answer to my previous question. It was helpful, and you are right! College towns are still towns, and as such the occupants must take the usual precautions when going out. I knew this, from personal experience walking home many a late night during grad school. But somehow the father in me did not want to admit it.
After I first wrote, a talk with my daughter segued into a talk about college, academics, academic pressure, and campus safety, and I was once again surprised by how grown up my daughter is. She and her friends are well aware of the risks, and do watch out for each other. And now that she has been accepted at Cornell (we found out last night), we’ll no doubt have these talks again, at which time I will mention Aunt Pythia’s advice.
Thank you once again,
Worried In Academia
Dear Worried,
Wow, wonderful! I almost never know if my advice actually helps, so this is amazing feedback, thank you for giving it to me!
Aunt Pythia
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Dear Aunt Pythia,
I’m in my first year in a Phd program in math. I’ve always been academically successful, especially in math, and this semester is no exception. Although I know it will be difficult and take a lot of hard work, I’m moderately confident that I have the ability to get through my qualifying exams. After all, my aptitude for high stakes testing is what’s gotten me this far.
It’s what comes next that concerns me. Specifically, I’m not at all confident that I have what it takes to actually do research in math. I generally have a good memory (especially in the short term); I’m good at reproducing proofs I’ve seen before and at applying techniques in ways I’m familiar with, but I worry that I’m not an especially creative thinker and also that I coast by via collaborating with others. (I realize that the second concern can be irrational, at least from a coursework perspective, since I do comparably well on exams as on homework, but it’s still in the back of my head.)
(It’s probably also be pertinent to mention that I’m male, and haven’t ever felt invalidated either institutionally or on an individual level with respect to my ability–these concerns are entirely my own.)
I’ve had only two research experiences up until this point. The first I don’t put much weight on, since it was in another field that I quickly realized I was not that interested in (which contributed to my decision a few years ago to focus more on math). The second was a project I worked on with a faculty advisor throughout my last year and a half of undergrad. It was in an area that I was interested in and my advisor was great. However, I often would become consumed with anxiety and overwhelmed to the point that I was unable to get anything done.
Part of it was adjusting to working independently and in an unstructured environment, but even when I was given a list of moderately specific things to do it didn’t necessarily help. Despite having plenty of time available to devote to the project, I would put off working persistently, often getting to the point where I would stay up later and later the hour before my next meeting, becoming more and more panicked but for some reason still incapable of working. By the time I’d snap out of it, it would be so late that I would be too exhausted to really do my best work, and it definitely showed. It was stressful for me, frustrating for my advisor, and (clearly) not really productive mathematically. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to change, week after week!
I felt especially bad for being a disappointment for someone who has done a lot for me and who inspired me to seriously pursue math in the first place. Especially, since to anyone not in my head this all came across as purely poor work habits/laziness–my advisor told me shortly before graduation that I have everything it takes to succeed in grad school, as long as I work hard enough, which was simultaneously affirming and distressing. Part of me also thinks that this was all just garden variety laziness and that if I just had worked harder and focused better it wouldn’t have been an issue.
So I guess my question is, where do I go from here? What can I do to keep this from happening in the future? Do I really have a problem, or is it just a combination of laziness and lack of self-confidence?
Apprehensively,
Uneasy New Scholar, Upbraiding or Reassurance Essential
Dear UNSURE,
First off, amazing sign off. Much appreciated.
Next, thank you so much for asking this question. And, given that you are a highly successful and encouraged male, the issue is nicely isolated: how does doing well on highly structured undergrad work and standardized tests relate to being a good researcher?
The answer is unclear, actually, in general. I mean, I don’t want to panic you, because I actually think math research is a skill you can pick up if you are smart and work hard, but on the other hand, it might not be that easy, especially for you.
Let me put it this way. Theoretically, we want to attract to math research a bunch of people who:
- love math,
- work hard and don’t mind being wrong and can live with not knowing whether they are, and
- are “good at math”, where I’m going to ignore what exactly that means, partly because I don’t want to get drawn into the genius myth discussion and partly because I actually think the first two qualifications are dominant.
But here’s the thing. Instead, we attract to math research, via our post-college applications selection method, people who:
- may love math but may just have been told they’re “good at math” and may not know the difference,
- know how to master a well-defined skill where they get continuous feedback from tests and other people that they are making progress, and
- are probably plenty “good at math.”
So you see, there is likely a mismatch between the first two points.
I’m going to hope, for your sake, that you love math. Because you’ll need it, believe me.
Assuming you do, then you’ll need to spend time on #2, which means you (ironically) need to stop caring about outside measures of progress so you can lose yourself in your work and make progress. Get it? It’s confusing when you first encounter it, and unintuitive, and it might be extra hard for someone who is addicted to external evaluations and encouragement, which honestly it sounds like you are to some extent. Just as an example, you don’t owe your advisor anything except your gratitude. You are doing math for yourself from here on in.
The good news is, it often sucks at first, so don’t think you’ve already failed. You just need to develop new skills. It’s kind of like a muscle you didn’t know you had that you need to make super strong.
I suggest trying it out in short bursts. Find yourself a few hours of time, where you are not urgently needed by some classwork or something, and lose yourself in thought around some mathematical object, with no specific need of a milestone. Play with the math, see what you find, and don’t feel like you’ve wasted your time at the end, even if you feel like you have. It was your time to waste, after all.
Anyhoo, that’s the muscle you will need to develop. Once you get good at it, you can lose yourself for days or weeks at a time and then every now and then stumble on actual progress. You can do it! Start small!
At least that’s how it has always worked for me. Other mathematicians, feel free to chime in if you disagree.
Good luck!
Aunt Pythia
——
Well, you’ve wasted yet another Saturday morning with Aunt Pythia! I hope you’re satisfied! If you could, please ask me a question. And don’t forget to make an amazing sign-off, they make me very very happy.
Click here for a form or just do it now:
Intentional discrimination versus disparate impact
I’m paying lots of attention to the Supreme Court’s coming decision on The Fair Housing Act. A New York Times editorial of this morning does a good job explaining the issues, including the concern that Chief Justice Roberts seems to think we’ve moved past racial discrimination in this country.
The burning question is whether housing developments and the like are responsible only for intentionally discriminating against individuals, or whether they are responsible in a more general, statistical sense, of having disparate impact on groups of people. The New York Times, like me, hopes for a broader reading, consistent with the 11 courts of appeals decisions over the last 40 years. From the Times:
The ability to show discriminatory effect has only become more important as intentional discrimination has become harder to prove. To take one prominent example, the Justice Department relied on it to negotiate the largest-ever fair-lending settlement — $335 million — with Bank of America in 2011. The bank’s mortgage unit, Countrywide Financial, had charged higher average fees and interest rates to black and Latino borrowers than to whites with the same credit risk, a practice that former assistant attorney general Thomas Perez called “discrimination with a smile.”
This case is focused on housing, but of course it could generalize to all sorts of other systems, including job applications and credit applications among others.
If we stick to the “intentional discrimination” only, we are opening up a door to (even more) widespread use of algorithmic decision-making that produces unfair and discriminatory results. And as it turns out, it’s easy to produce a model that effectively discriminates.
And if you are not in charge of your own system, then who is?
Two articles on feminism
I’m neck deep in writing nowadays, but I wanted to share two extremely interesting and provocative pieces around women which come at feminism with from very different angles.
First, this essay, entitled If we liberate men’s sexuality, the war against women can end (hat tip Susan Webber), was written by a professional dominatrix, which is always an eye-opening perspective. She suggests that if we promote a new kind of feminism which she calls intersectional feminism, rather than depending on the old-school moralistic feminism, then we have a better chance to reach men, especially the men who might otherwise join the extremist misogynistic “men’s right’s” movement or become part of the vile pickup artist movement.
I think she has a bunch of interesting points. It is clearly true that men are boxed in in terms of their sexuality just as women are, and for men that don’t fit the standard mold it amounts to a kind of torture; the answer then is to promote a kind of sexual license for all people, not just women. Also, I think she’s absolutely correct to focus on sexual frustration as a major cause of all sorts of bad things. It’s not just about competing for jobs with women, it’s also about not getting laid.
Second, this Science Friday piece (hat tip Thessy) on the perceived requirement of innate genius as an obstacle for women in various fields. I wrote about this issue recently.
In particular a caller named Emily tells the guests how she was a straight A student at NYU, who graduated summa cum laude, and was passionate about philosophy, but was told by her advisor that she “just didn’t have what it takes” to go on to graduate school.
I cannot tell you how many people I know who have gone through something similar. And, I might add, such stories, which are generally completely unreported, flies in the face of ridiculous claims such as those made in this recent New York Times opinion piece that sexist mistreatment in science is minor and anecdotal.
Last thing: it’s cool and interesting how many conversations are being conducted around these important issues. I see it as progress just to be able to assume that other people I run into are sufficiently aware of the issues to talk about them, including my teenage sons.
Peter Woit: The NSA, NIST and the AMS
This was crossposted from Not Even Wrong and written by Peter Woit.
Last summer I wrote here about an article in the AMS Notices which appeared to make misleading claims about the NSA’s involvement in putting a backdoor in an NIST cryptography standard known as DUAL_EC_DRBG. The article by Richard George, a mathematician who worked at the NSA, addressed the issue of the NSA doing this kind of thing by discussing an example of past history when they were accused of doing this, but were really actually strengthening the standard. He then went on to claim that:
I have never heard of any proven weakness in a cryptographic algorithm that’s linked to NSA; just innuendo.
This appears to be a denial of an NSA backdoor in the standard, while not saying so explicitly. If there is a backdoor, as most experts believe and the Snowden documents indicate, this was a fairly outrageous use of the AMS to mislead the math community and the public. At the time I argued with some at the AMS that they should insist that George address explicitly the question of the existence of the backdoor, but didn’t get anywhere with that. One of their arguments was that George was speaking for himself, not the NSA.
The question of fact here is a very simple and straightforward mathematical one: how was the choice used in the standard of points P and Q on an elliptic curve made? There is a known way to do this that provides a backdoor. Did the NSA use this method, or some other one for which no backdoor is known? The NSA refused to cooperate with the NIST investigation into this question. The only record of what happened when the NIST asked about how P and Q were chosen early on in the development of the standard is this, which indicates that people were told by the NSA that they were not allowed to publicly discuss the question.
Remarkably, the latest AMS Notices has a new article with an extensive discussion of the DUAL_EC_DRBG issue, written by mathematician Michael Wertheimer, the NSA Director of Research. At first glance, Wertheimer appears to claim that the NSA was unaware of the possibility of a backdoor:
With hindsight, NSA should have ceased supporting the dual EC_DRBG algorithm immediately after security researchers discovered the potential for a trapdoor. In truth, I can think of no better way to describe our failure to drop support for the Dual_EC_DRBG algorithm as anything other than regrettable.
On close reading though, one realizes that Wertheimer does not address at all the basic question: how were P and Q chosen? His language does not contain any actual denial that P and Q have a backdoor.
For a careful examination of the Wertheimer piece by an expert, see this from Matthew Green. Green concludes that
… it troubles me to see such confusing statements in a publication of the AMS. As a record of history, Dr. Wertheimer’s letter leaves much to be desired, and could easily lead people to the wrong understanding.
In a recent podcast on the subject Green states
I think it’s still going on… I think that the NSA has really adopted a policy of tampering with cryptographic products and they’re not going to give that up. I don’t think that this is a time that they want to go out admitting what they did in this particular case as a result of that.
Given that this is now the only official NSA statement about the DUAL_EC_DRBG issue, the Notices article has drawn a lot of attention, see for instance here. The Register summarizes the story with the headline NSA: So sorry we backed that borked crypto even after you spotted the backdoor.
The publication of the George and Wertheimer pieces by the AMS has created a situation where there are just two possibilities:
- Despite what experts believe and Snowden documents indicate, the NSA chose P and Q by a method that did not introduce a backdoor. For some reason though they are unwilling to state publicly that this is the case.
- P and Q were chosen with a backdoor, and the AMS has been now repeatedly been used to try and mislead the mathematics community about this issue.
I’ve contacted someone at the AMS to try and find out whether the question of a backdoor in P and Q was addressed in the refereeing process of the article, but been told that they won’t discuss this. I think this is an issue that now needs to be addressed by the AMS leadership, specifically by demanding assurances from Wertheimer that the NSA did not choose a backdoored P and Q. If this is the case I can see no reason why such assurances cannot be provided. If the NSA and Wertheimer won’t provide this, I think the AMS needs to immediately cut off its cooperative programs with the agency. There may be different opinions about the advisability of such programs, but I don’t think there can be any argument about the significance of the AMS being used by the NSA to mislead the mathematics community.
Aunt Pythia’s advice
My, my, my. It’s been a while. Aunt Pythia plum forgot about her duties last Saturday, what with all the math nerds and such in San Antonio.
Many apologies! But don’t think Aunt Pythia didn’t miss you, because nothing could be less true: Aunt Pythia positively pined for you this last week. It was excruciating and slightly adorable. Trust me on that one.
Before I begin, Aunt Pythia wants to share her latest knitting pattern with you, since it’s butt cold here in the East and was even freezing cold in Texas, so we all need cowls. Yes we do, and here’s the one I’m making (along with the hat!):
Mine is burgundy and black. And I’ve heard from good sources that this doesn’t actually look like Klimt’s art at all, even though it’s called a “Klimt cowl.” Artistic license.
Isn’t that just darling? And warm? Aunt Pythia knew you’d agree.
OK, onto the day’s delightful task. I am feeling more than usually oracle-esque today, tell me if you agree in the comments below. And in any case,
please please please
ask Aunt Pythia a question at the bottom of the page!
By the way, if you don’t know what the hell Aunt Pythia is talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.
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Dear Aunt Pythia,
What has happened to the Occupy movement? In the media that I read, it is totally disappeared. I was thinking that you were still involved, at least in Finance. Right now, it seems like the current administration is owned by Wall Street bankers. That can’t be a good situation. Is there a mathematical angle to this?
Missing Person
Dear Missing Person,
The Alt Banking group still meets every week on Sunday afternoons. We often have super interesting guest speakers and we’ve been writing pieces for the Huffington Post. We also continue to get positive feedback about our book and our cards. Feel free to come to the meetings! And even if you can’t come, you can get on the mailing list by emailing that request to alt.banking.OWS@gmail.com.
In terms of the Obama administration, yes, it’s owned by Wall Street, and to be honest I didn’t think it could get worse but we’ll see if I’m wrong starting now. I hear the Republican congress has even worse plans for watering down Dodd Frank than have already been exposed.
Jesse Eisenger’s recent column was right on, in my opinion. If Obama wants to redeem himself and leave a less-than-shameful legacy, he needs to act big right now. Also, keep an eye on Bernie Sanders from now on, as well as Liz Warren.
There is nothing truly mathematical about this, sadly.
Aunt Pythia
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Dear Aunt Pythia,
I live in San Francisco, but I work on international human rights not in the tech industry. Naturally, a handful of my friends work at Google or at start-ups – things that fall under the umbrella of “tech.”
I had dinner with them tonight and I walked away feeling very agitated. Whenever I hang out with them, I always walk away with the sense that they think they’re smarter than me. I can’t figure out if this is my projection onto them or they really give off this attitude.
The night was going fine but then we talked about the Google shuttles fiasco. We had a friend visiting from out of town who was curious why people were protesting the buses. I told her that some people felt that it was reducing access to local transport, since they used government bus stops. All three of my tech friends, two of whom work at Google, scrambled to tell me 1. that I have a skewed perception, I’m blowing things out of proportion, and that I don’t have an accurate assessment of the situation 2. that they really haven’t caused an decrease in access to services and 3. that now that Google has an official contract with the MTA, that everything is fine and resolved.
My response to 1 was that I was merely explaining, in one sentence, why there were protests to someone who is unfamiliar with the situation. I wasn’t trying to capture all the nuances in one sentence. My response to 2 was that I actually met a group of people from a disability advocacy group that had to stage a protest because the shuttles were blocking access to the municipal buses. It was causing situations like making blind people or people in wheelchairs go around a Google shuttle to get on a bus in the middle of a street. I never got to respond to point 3.
I know that the situation with Google and other tech industries is nuanced, but the lack of scrutiny and the immediate scramble for defending a large player like Google seems so ridiculous to me. I’m not a Google fangirl or any sort of product fangirl, so I don’t understand this mentality. When I gave the example of the disabled people lacking access to the city buses, one of the Google employees stated that it must have been some individual case of a badly trained bus driver. My response was that it happened enough that they had to protest, and that they’re going to hold Google responsible not the individual bus driver. He said they were wrong for doing that. I think he’s wrong for thinking that!
I guess my questions are this: Are my tech friends assholes? Is the future of America doomed if privileged people are so threatened by simple conversations like this? And how do I engage with people like that without feeling like I’m being talked down to/talked as if I’m not smart enough to understand?
Don’t Understand My Brethren That Emphasize Constant Hurrahs In Electronics/Tech Seriously
Dear DUMBTECHIES,
First of all, awesome sign off.
Second of all, this is not about you being dumb. This is about them being defensive. Defensiveness leads to terrible reasoning abilities, so the only way for defensive people to win arguments, since they can’t do it with their logic, is to do it with a bullying attitude. In other words, they aggressively describe their stupid reasoning, and then act like you must be an idiot if you don’t see what they are saying as obvious. But it’s all a front because they know they have nothing to stand on. If they weren’t defensive, they would treat you like an intelligent person and ask you what you think.
Important Life Lesson: 99 times out of 100, if you are in a conversation where the person talking to you is making you feel dumb, then it’s about them, not you. It means they feel dumb about something and they are compensating. If you can, turn it around on them immediately, even if it’s as simple as saying, “you’re acting like my points are dumb, but I don’t think they are, I’m just trying to have a conversation. Is there something about this topic that makes you uncomfortable?”
So, why the defensiveness? Here’s the thing, Google employees work for Google, and it’s kind of a cult, like many companies are, and they feel lucky to be there and want other people to think they’re lucky too, so they defend things even when those things don’t make sense.
I actually don’t think they are any weirder in this regard than people who work in other industries, defending things like the wisdom of financial engineering or the wisdom of promoting fossil fuel. People are pretty good at defending their own interests. These guys just happen to be working at a very recognizable place.
In terms of approaching the topic, if you ever choose to discuss this again, I would suggest talking about what would happen if the Google buses ceased to exist – how would Googlers get to work? To what extent would that interfere with municipal buses? Certainly traffic would increase, for example. And since everyone has the right to go to work, you are working from a super reasonable starting position, namely thinking through the pluses and minuses of the Google bus system. Admit there are pluses and maybe the other side can start to admit there are minuses.
Or you could just hang out with other folks.
Good luck!
Aunt Pythia
p.s. I could be wrong, they could just really think they’re smarter than you. Cults also have a way of encouraging that kind of thing. But if they really think so, they might admit it. Ask them if they think they are smarter than “non-Googlers” and see what they say.
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Dear Aunt Pythia,
What are your predictions for kinky sex in the UK now that they banned all fun porn?
Curious Sub
Dear Curious,
What? Seriously? Oh wait, yes. Among the outlawed activities is “facesitting,” which makes little sense to me, given that “unlike smothering, in facesitting the bottom partner is not deprived of air.” What’s next, banning doggy style?
Also, female ejaculation is now banned. What? This is one of the few indications in porn that the woman is alive, and now we’re banning it. That makes sense.
OK, well, it’s dumb. And stupid as well, since the internet will provide horny people from the UK with plenty of facesitting and female ejaculation opportunities if they so desire. Basically it’s a loss of market share. I’m tempted to add “and nothing else” but when market share gets moved to places further in the shadow, things get less consensual and more coerced, and that’s never good.
Auntie P
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Aunt Pythia,
Fivethirtyeight recently published the article “Economists Aren’t As Nonpartisan As We Think”. What really interested me in this piece was the author’s chart that demonstrated that on average, political bias has crept into the numerical results of economic research.
In the footnotes they explained a bit more: “Specifically, we ran a regression of numerical results, which were standardized within fields, on predicted ideology while controlling for field. Among the models we ran, the R squared ranged from 0.07 to 0.14.”
I did a little searching and found that R squared values can be misleading. Either way this single result with a R squared value of 0.07 – 0.14 seems a bit weak-sauce if you are trying to support such a broad claim as “economists are partisan”.
So, my questions for you is what does the chart in the Fivethirtyeight article mean? What is the meaning of the R squared value in this research. Is this a robust claim?
Many Thanks,
Mr. Should be studying for finals
Dear Mr. Should,
I’m gonna have to go Bayesian on your ass and mention that the title of the piece should have been, Economists Aren’t As Partisan As We Wish They Were, But We Knew That Already. Anyone who has ever read or spoken to economists would already suspect this.
Which is to say, I have a bayesian prior that this result is true, and their R squared value is enough to add fuel to my fire.
It’s not just economists, though. It’s everyone! See above w.r.t. Googlers, for example.
Here’s another thing getting in the way of me critiquing this paper: one of the authors, Suresh Naidu, is a good friend of mine.
In general, though, even when I already think something’s true, and when my friends are involved, I try to remember that data analysis is, at best, an evidence-gathering activity, not a proof. After it’s done a bunch of different ways and remains robust to various important choices, I start believing it more and more. For example, global warming is real.
Aunt Pythia
——
Well, you’ve wasted yet another Saturday morning with Aunt Pythia! I hope you’re satisfied! If you could, please ask me a question. And don’t forget to make an amazing sign-off, they make me very very happy.
Click here for a form or just do it now:
Representation of women and the genius myth
In a recent issue of Science, there was an article entitled Belief that some fields require ‘brilliance’ may keep women out (hat tip Gary Cornell) that absolutely resonates with my experiences, both as a mathematician and as a teacher.
Namely, it talks about the extent to which women are discouraged to go into a field because that field is somehow reserved for “geniuses,” and women are rarely if ever bestowed with that label. Mathematics is definitely one of those fields; if you are exceptionally successful in mathematics, people call you a genius, and it’s pretty hard to be successful if people don’t think you’re a genius.
But other STEM fields have less of a reputation for geniuses, and they have correspondingly more women. Biology, for example. Moreover, there are some fields outside of STEM that have way fewer women, which seems unexplained unless you have the “genius” theory. Philosophy is the obvious example here, a very macho field.
In the Science article, they were reporting on a study done by Sarah-Jane Leslie, Andrei Cimpian, Meredith Meyer, and Edward Freeland, in which they surveyed researchers from all sorts of fields in all sorts of research universities and asked them to rate, on a scale of 1-7, statements about their own discipline along the lines of, “Being a top scholar of [discipline] requires a special aptitude that just can’t be taught”. Here’s the critical graph:
STEM subjects above, non-STEM below. The negative correlation is the key to this study. I am particularly struck by the difference between statistics and math.
It’s just one study, and the response rate was small, so the word is not final. Even so, I think this proves that we should look into this more, gather more evidence, and see where it leads.
Personally, I have already spent quite a bit of time trying to deal with this very problem in mathematics. For example, I’ve explained before how I deliberately teach kids an introduction to proof that emphasizes practice over the silly and distracting concept of having an innate gift. It works, and it’s more fun too, for both men and women.
If I were designing a curriculum for STEM subjects I would rely heavily on this idea to inform my approaches to all sorts of things, partly because I think it’s true, but partly because the other things we think might matter are harder to change.
If you think about it, it’s actually a pretty reasonable roadmap for how to attract a more diverse group of people to mathematics or other subjects. You just need to create an environment of learning that emphasizes practice over genius. Actively dispel the genius myth. Achieving that cultural shift gets harder the higher up the research ladder you go, though, partly because it’s hard for older people to give up the “genius” label they worked so hard for. But it’s worth a try.
The Black Box Society by Frank Pasquale
There’s a new book out, called The Black Box Society and written by Frank Pasquale, a lawyer focused on technology and a friend of mine. It’s published by Harvard University Press and it looks like this:
To be honest, when I first received it I was a bit worried that it would make my book, which I am utterly engaged in writing, entirely moot. After all, Frank and I had discussed his book and I’d seen earlier versions. I knew it contained information about racist secret algorithms in finance and tech, and there were also other issues in common with our two books.
Now that I’ve had a chance to read it, though, I’m not as worried. First of all, Frank’s book is aimed at a different audience, which is to say a somewhat more academic and technical audience. In particular his policy recommendations near the end of the book seem to be written for lawyers who know the current laws and need arguments to improve them.
Also, his focus is on secrecy itself as a means of power, whereas I focus on models as the object of interest.
I like a lot of what Frank says, and I think his metaphors work really well. For example, he talks about the early promise of the internet to expose information of all sorts, on powerful corporations as well as individuals. Then he talks about how reality has been a disappointment, and we’ve ended up with an internet that acts as a “one way mirror,” whereby powerful corporations can see into individual’s lives but those individuals can’t look back.
He also makes the important point that, when it comes to the NSA and other government agencies snooping around, while they might be legally prevented from gathering certain kinds of data about people, nothing prevents them from buying information and profiles from data warehouses like Acxiom, which can do the kind of collecting that they can’t. In other words, the data warehousing industry acts as a giant loophole in the set of rules protecting our civil liberties.
For another really interesting review of Frank’s book, written by a software engineer, take a look at David Auerbach’s Slate review (hat tip Jordan Ellenberg). In particular he has interesting things to say about the extent to which algorithms are intentionally evil (they’re probably not) and the extent to which engineers can fix problems (they probably can).
In any case, I recommend The Black Box Society, it’s a fascinating and important book.
Link to my JMM prezi talk
I seem to have caught a break at the San Antonio airport, with free wifi. So I will take this opportunity to offer a link to my prezi talk.
See the prezi here: http://prezi.com/makkue0d84nc/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
One embarrassing omission from my talk is the existence of many public facing math podcasts. Embarrassing not because I knew about them – I didn’t – but because I should have, since after all I participate in a weekly podcast myself, so of course I know it’s a new and exciting medium. Luckily, the audience member who pointed out my mistake has agreed to write a guest post surveying the math podcast landscape, so stay tuned for that.
Palantir’s leaked documents and the concept of uncertainty
Did you hear about TechCrunch’s leaked documents detailing the client list of Palantir, the super secretive data mining contractor (hat tip Chris Wiggins)? Palantir, founded by uberlibertarian Peter Thiel, had clients as of 2013 including the LAPD, the CIA, DHS, NSA, the FBI, and CDC. Besides data mining for government agencies, they also work in the finance sector and the legal sector.
Here’s the scariest thing about the TechCrunch article:
Samuel Reading, a former Marine who works in Afghanistan for NEK Advanced Securities Group, a U.S. military contractor, was quoted in the document as saying It’s the combination of every analytical tool you could ever dream of. You will know every single bad guy in your area.”
That quote, if true, belies a lack of understanding of what data mining can actually do in terms of accuracy. No data mining tool can be both comprehensive and accurate – find all the bad guys with no accidental good guys getting caught in the net. It’s just not possible, unless you have DNA samples with markers for “bad guyness,” and even then DNA tests sometimes get mixed up.
It behooves an expensive and fancy consulting company to act like their tools are prophetic, however, even if that means false positives or false negatives happen all the time, which of course they do, with any algorithm.
It’s bad enough when stupid start-up companies claim big data solves everything, when what they’re doing is trying to solve a problem nobody cares about. It’s another thing altogether when it’s our military and military contractors and police and secret services, and when we don’t have any view into what it actually does. Scary stuff.
Citation as received wisdom
So I’m here at JMM, hanging out with my buddy Aaron Abrams and finagling free wifi at the Hyatt (pro tip from Jonathan Bloom: sign up to be on their gold membership plan, which is free, and as a member you get free wifi).
Aaron and I started talking about the case of MIT professor Walter Lewin, and whether his OpenCourseWorks physics lectures should or should not have been removed after he was discovered to have been a sexual harasser.
UPDATE: Here’s an article giving some idea of what Lewin did, which was basically to harass women who were taking his online class.
I’ve already asserted that it makes sense to me that they are removed, but I wasn’t happy with my explanation. I think I’ve understood it better now, and I wanted to throw it out there.
To explain it, let’s move to a more cut and dry example, or at least an older one, namely Harvard mathematician George Birkhoff. That guy was a hugely famous and powerful mathematician in his day, which was in the 1930’s. He was also a huge anti-semite, and prevented Harvard from hiring jewish mathematicians fleeing the Nazis.
When it comes to doing math, I might write a paper that uses a result he proved. Will I cite him? Personally, I would feel weird about it. Citing someone, speaking their name, is not just a mathematical shortcut, a way of avoiding proving everything from basic principles, although it is that, of course. If you have no prior knowledge about someone, you might not see that, but I’ve set it up explicitly so you see more than that.
Here’s what I see. By citing him, I am doing more than giving him credit for proving something, I’m including him in the community of mathematics, which is actually an honor. And honestly I’d rather not honor the wisdom of someone I detest.
Update: to be clear I would cite him if I needed to. I just would actively feel weird about it. I might even add a note.
Going back to Walter Lewin. Supposedly he can explain certain kinds of physics really really well. People say this, and I believe them. But of course the physics is already known, he’s not inventing something, and other people can also explain it, just not quite as well, at least right now.
Why would a given person choose to watch Lewin’s lectures instead of someone else’s lectures on the same material? Well, what is the delta between those two experiences? On the one hand, it’s a better explanation, which adds, but on the other hand, it’s the knowledge that we are honoring a man with no integrity, which subtracts. If written citation is received wisdom, then actually sitting and listening to a person is even more intimate.
For me, personally, these two opposite considerations don’t add up to a net positive. I’d rather watch someone else explain the physics.
As for MIT’s OpenCourseWorks (OCW) platform, they also had a “delta” computation to make, and they had to take into account the community they are trying to build through OCW. They want women in particular to feel welcomed to that community, and they decided that the videos’ presence made that more difficult (and it’s already difficult enough in physics). I think they made the right call.
Guest post by Tom Adams: Obama homeownership push or mortgage market share battle?
This is a guest post by Tom Adams, who spent over 20 years in the securitization business and now works as an attorney and consultant and expert witness on MBS, CDO and securitization related issues.
Good news for would-be home buyers – the Obama Administration heard your concerns and has a new tool to help make homes more affordable!
Are they going to increase wages? Or reduce the price of homes? No, they’re going to attack mortgage rates for Federal Housing Administration (FHA) borrowers. Of course, mortgage rates are already at close to all time lows, having declined significantly over the past year to about 3.7% on conventional 30 year fixed rate loans. The Administration’s main tool for doing this is to cut the insurance fee charged by the Federal Housing Authority on new mortgages by 0.50%, from 1.35% to 0.85% (on top of the interest rate charged to borrowers).
This fee is paid by borrowers into a fund that the FHA uses to protect itself against losses in case borrowers that it has insured later default. In theory, this move was somewhat controversial because the FHA’s fund had incurred higher than expected losses during the crisis and the FHA had to ask Congress for money to shore up the fund not that long ago. Around the same time, the FHA raised this insurance premium to additionally replenish the fund.
If it’s already really cheap to borrow money, is another 0.5% reduction going to make that big a difference? Probably not, because historically low interest rates haven’t been the obstacle to buying a house. I expect the number of net, new home buyers produced as a result of this change will be considerably lower than the Administration is projection (“millions of homeowners,” according to Obama’s statement today).
Rather, would-be homeowners don’t have the income to support buying the houses listed for sale in their markets – which is another way of saying that, for average Americans homes are too expensive for them to afford (or wages are too uncertain for them to want to buy).
Also note that the new lower fee is primarily aimed at new home purchasers. In order for existing FHA borrowers to get the new lower premium they would have to refinance into a new loan, which means they’d have to incur new closing costs. The new closing costs would probably eat up most of the savings for a year or more. Presumably, this would discourage many existing borrowers from refinancing for the lower premium, which helps the FHA by allowing it to retain the old, higher premium on the borrowers who don’t refinance.
This highlights one of those fundamental conundrums in the housing market. Existing homeowners and home sellers want home prices to go up. Representatives of this group are great at lobbying and have convinced many people (including, by all appearances, this Administration) that rising home prices are a good thing for America. On the other hand, potential home buyers would rather not have home prices going up – because that makes buying much harder. For whatever reason, this group has about zero lobbying juice.
Making credit cheaper is a small tool the Administration has via this reduced premium, so they used it, I guess. But it’s an action that has consequences, including potentially running the risk of not having enough in the fund down the road if losses increase (not a risk I’m especially worried about – the Urban Institute did a fine analysis of why the lower fee is probably sufficient – but it’s a reasonable concern). In addition, it is somewhat disheartening that the Administration still seems to believe that the solution to consumer issues is to have the consumers take on more debt.
The most significant impact of this change is that it will make FHA loans more competitive with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans. You may recall that Mel Watt, the man in charge of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which manages Fannie and Freddie, made a big announcement recently that the GSE’s would offer 97% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio loans to qualified borrowers. Previously, that type of LTV had been mostly the territory of the FHA.
So, effectively, this is just a form of catch-up for the FHA. The various government housing agencies are competing for market share among the same limited universe of qualifying borrowers by trying to get them to take on bigger mortgages than they would qualify for previously. For the average would-be buyer of the average house, the new, lower FHA fee would be worth about $900 a year, equivalent to about a $75 reduction in monthly payment.
It’s hard to believe that anyone in the Administration believes that this will do much for making homes more affordable for Americans. Perhaps it is a measure, however, of how seriously the Administration is taking the issue of housing affordability. There are big issues in housing and the economy that need to be taken seriously – like resolution of Fannie and Freddie, home prices that still remain beyond the reach of many Americans, stagnant wages, on-going foreclosure and mortgage servicing problems – but the Administration seems content to tinker around the edges and try to sell it as important reform.
Going to San Antonio for JMM
Hey, so this is cool. The Alternative Banking group just came out with a second Huffington Post essay, this time on how the bailout isn’t over, how it didn’t work, and how we’re already preparing for the next one. I think it came out really well. You can read it here.
Also, I’ll be giving a talk at the Joint Math Meetings again this year, this time as an invited MAA speaker. My title is Making the Case for Data Journalism, and you can see the abstract here. I guess I’m speaking on Monday afternoon at 4pm in a place called the Lila Cockrell Theatre.
So, a few things. If you’re a math nerd planning to be in San Antonio this weekend, please don’t leave Sunday, because there are still talks on Monday! Also, if you want to hang out, leave a comment or send me email and I’ll try to figure out a way to meet up with you. I honestly feel like I don’t know too many mathematicians anymore, so it would be nice to see or meet a friendly face. I’m getting to San Antonio Friday.
Creepy big data health models
There’s an excellent Wall Street Journal article by Joseph Walker, entitled Can a Smartphone Tell if You’re Depressed?, that describes a lot of creepy new big data projects going on now in healthcare, in partnership with hospitals and insurance companies.
Some of the models come in the form of apps, created and managed by private, third-party companies that try to predict depression in, for example, postpartum women. They don’t disclose what they are doing to many of the women, or the extent of what they’re doing, according to the article. They own the data they’ve collected at the end of the day and, presumably, can sell it to anyone interested in whether a woman is depressed. For example, future employers. To be clear, this data is generally not covered by HIPAA.
Perhaps the creepiest example is a voice analysis model:
Nurses employed by Aetna have used voice-analysis software since 2012 to detect signs of depression during calls with customers who receive short-term disability benefits because of injury or illness. The software looks for patterns in the pace and tone of voices that can predict “whether the person is engaged with activities like physical therapy or taking the right kinds of medications,” Michael Palmer, Aetna’s chief innovation and digital officer, says.
…
Patients aren’t informed that their voices are being analyzed, Tammy Arnold, an Aetna spokeswoman, says. The company tells patients the calls are being “recorded for quality,” she says.
“There is concern that with more detailed notification, a member may alter his or her responses or tone (intentionally or unintentionally) in an effort to influence the tool or just in anticipation of the tool,” Ms. Arnold said in an email.
In other words, in the name of “fear of gaming the model,” we are not disclosing the creepy methods we are using. Also, considering that the targets of this model are receiving disability benefits, I’m wondering if the real goal is to catch someone off their meds and disqualify them for further benefits or something along those lines. Since they don’t know they are being modeled, they will never know.
Conclusion: we need more regulation around big data in healthcare.
Big data and class
About a month ago there was an interesting article in the New York Times entitled Blowing Off Class? We Know. It discusses the “big data” movement in colleges around the country. For example, at Ball State, they track which students go to parties at the student center. Presumably to help them study for tests, or maybe to figure out which ones to hit up for alumni gifts later on.
There’s a lot to discuss in this article, but I want to focus today on one piece:
Big data has a lot of influential and moneyed advocates behind it, and I’ve asked some of them whether their enthusiasm might also be tinged with a little paternalism. After all, you don’t see elite institutions regularly tracking their students’ comings and goings this way. Big data advocates don’t dispute that, but they also note that elite institutions can ensure that their students succeed simply by being very selective in the first place.
The rest “get the students they get,” said William F. L. Moses, the managing director of education programs at the Kresge Foundation, which has given grants to the innovation alliance and to bolster data-analytics efforts at other colleges. “They have a moral obligation to help them succeed.”
This is a sentiment I’ve noticed a lot, although it’s not usually this obvious. Namely, the elite don’t need to be monitored, but the rabble does. The rich and powerful get to be quirky philosophers but the rest of the population need to be ranked and filed. And, by the way, we are spying on them for their own good.
In other words, never mind how big data creates and expands classism; classism already helps decide who is put into the realm of big data in the first place.
It feeds into the larger question of who is entitled to privacy. If you want to be strict about your definition of pricacy, you might say “nobody.” But if you recognize that privacy is a spectrum, where we have a variable amount of information being collected on people, and also a variable amount of control over people whose information we have collected, then upon study, you will conclude that privacy, or at least relative privacy, is for the rich and powerful. And it starts early.
Aunt Pythia’s advice
Didja miss Aunt Pythia? Because Auntie P sure as heck missed you all, over there in Utrecht, Holland, where all the food was fried and all the time was family time.
But! But! Aunt Pythia did not fritter away opportunities to do ground-breaking sex columnist research for your benefit. Oh no, absolutely not. In fact, Aunt Pythia has three – count them, three! – important things to share with you.
First, a book. It’s called How To Build A Girl, and everyone reading this should stop what they’re doing and go buy it and read it right now. Honestly, it’s one of the funniest coming of age stories I’ve ever read, and it’s about a girl! So exciting! Aunt Pythia lovers in particular will love it, because there’s lots of masturbation in it. Not enough, in my personal opinion, but a fabulous start. Hopefully the new trend in feminist autobiographies.
Second, this list of things that turn women on. Summary: almost everything except flaccid penises and Axe Body Spray. It’s not really a good list, but I get turned on by lists of things that turn people on, so I just threw it in anyway.
Third and finally, the most amazing technological invention ever, especially considering my addiction to Candy Crush! Namely, a combination kegel exercise machine, vibrator, and video game controller:
Ladies, it’s time to do your kegels. OK you can stop now. No, really.
Not really sure how this wasn’t invented as soon as people understood batteries, but whatevs, we’ve got it now.
OK, so are you ready for some amazing advice? Aunt Pythia is prepared to give legendary advice today, so buckle up tight. And don’t forget to
ask Aunt Pythia a question at the bottom of the page!
By the way, if you don’t know what the hell Aunt Pythia is talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.
——
Dear Aunt Pythia,
So I’ve been reading a math blog online, and like every other math blog I read, it provides fun descriptions of cool math, targeted at math people, without needless symbols or jargon. This is awesome.
Anyway, the author of this blog posted a picture of herself in one of the posts; it turns out, the author was an African-American female. When I saw the picture, I was pretty surprised. After I realized I was surprised, I was immediately ashamed. Why should it be a surprise that an African-American female runs a math blog post? By being surprised, I felt that I was contributing to the implicit white-male bias in math. (By the way, I’m society’s image of “normal”: a cisgender hetero white male.)
But that’s the thing; I’m *not* prejudiced, and I’ve thought about this. Having attended Mathpath, HCSSiM (2011), and Canada/USA Mathcamp, I’m totally used to there being extremely competent and smart women and members of racial minorities in mathematics. (I’m writing a letter to one such person!) In my undergraduate experience, the women in my classes have been just as competent as men. I have thought about how I behave, and I don’t talk down to female professors or nonwhite students. Partly nature, but also partly because of my high school experience.
I understand that there’s a problem with a lack of mathematicians who are not white males, and I understand that I probably assumed that the author of this blog (from above) was a white male simply because statistically, there’s an extremely high probability that being a math person, they were a white male. In my head, this makes that feeling of surprise seem like a symptom of the problem, rather than a part of its cause.
But I still keep thinking to myself that maybe I’m secretly prejudiced and I’m contributing to the problem. I can’t really shake that feeling, despite knowing in my head what’s really the case, as described above. And I’m kinda scared about that. What should I do?
Anxious Math Junior
Dear AMJ,
Yes, you are prejudiced! We all are! I am too! It’s an important part of growing up, admitting such things. We are flawed, and we are contributing to the problems of our culture. Fact.
Now, as to what you should do, I’m thinking the first step is admitting that you’re prejudiced. You’ve come almost all the way on this one, but it’s clearly difficult for you to step firmly up to the plate. Go for it! And keep in mind that you’re joining a whole bunch of well-meaning people once you do.
Next, make sure that other people join you on that plate. Talk about this experience you’ve had, and how it made you acknowledge a part of you you’d rather not exist, but out of sheer decency and self-reflection you have to admit does. Get other young men and women in STEM to talk about all the fine and competent people in math and how great math – or indeed, any intellectual endeavor – could be if people were just taken as they are, people learning and arguing and exchanging ideas and making discoveries.
Finally, be on the lookout for behavior or practices that expose, continue, or expand stupid prejudices. Call people on such behavior. Be outspoken and cool. Send your young friends to HCSSiM and other places that you think are good places to learn how to be thoughtful about this stuff.
Good luck!
Aunt Pythia
——
Dear Aunt Pythia.
A while back, you wrote about how you say and/or feel that you have crush on someone very often, and how this is something fun and playful for you. So maybe you can help me.
My problem is that I fall in love with practically every man that I like and that seems to like me back. For this reason, I have zero male friends. When I start to like a guy, notice that I get a long well with him, I always also have a reaction of weak knees/getting nervous around them etc., which at some point I also realize they notice, at least on a subliminal level, which leads to some kind of “flirting” behaviour (I put it in quotation marks because I am really not flirting on purpose, I just behave a bit awkwardly and sometimes guys behave back in the same kind of awkward way and so the situation feels charged. It is hard to describe but maybe you know what I mean).
I am in a long-term relationship that I enjoy and that I do not want to give up, so it is not that I am actually looking for a new love. I would however really like to have male friends because I would sometimes like to hear a male viewpoint regarding things I think about which is not my boyfriend’s or father’s.
But the only options I seem to have is either (i) avoid the guy and thus (again) contribute to the sad fact that I have zero male friends or (ii) get to know him better and risk some form of emotional chaos that scares me, like developing a more serious crush.
Of course, I would never choose option (i) if the guy is single and seems interested as I do not want to lead somebody on. But if the guy is also in a relationship, and has not expressed romantic interest in me, but just general interest (maybe in a friendship with me — but maybe also for something else, hard to say often), what do I do then? Is there a chance to develop a crush into a friendship? How do you do that?
It feels morally ambiguous to me to try to seek this guy’s company in those cases, like sitting next to him when I have the option, and so I don’t do it and the potential friendship cannot develop.
I feel like you might know how to deal with this problem, so that is why I am asking you, and unfortunately I cannot discuss this problem with my female friends (I have tried once or twice but nobody seems to have any idea what the hell I am talking about, since they claim to fall in love so rarely that it happens once or twice in their life.)
Of course, another idea would also be that maybe my boyfriend and I have a serious problem, otherwise those crushes wouldn’t happen to me, but I don’t think so.
Thoughts? How can I break this pattern?
Many thanks! (Sorry for the bad acronym and the long text! :))
Cannot Remain Unemotional — So Hide?
Dear CRUSH,
First thing’s first, great sign-off. I do NOT mind a bit of tortured punctuation in the name of appropriate acronyms! Nobody would ever accuse me of that!!
OK, now on to your fantastic question. I love it, and I honestly have an immediate crush on you for being so honest about it. I do have a bunch of advice for you as well.
First, listen to emo music. Seriously, there is sanctuary in emotional music. My favorite band for such purposes is Bright Eyes, Fevers and Mirrors (obv), as many of my closest friends will attest to. I listened to it non-stop for an entire year when I first discovered Bright Eyes, and this was in 2002, when I was pregnant with my second kid. So don’t think this stuff ever goes away, either, you will need coping mechanisms your entire life, so get started!
And if Bright Eyes doesn’t suit you – which would be weird – then go ahead and find something else. But definitely have a place to retreat to when things get super emotional.
OK, next piece of advice, which I think you’re anticipating: go ahead and have the crush. It won’t kill you. In fact it will (eventually) make you stronger, even if it takes a few months of pining and incredibly amounts of emo music to deal with.
Because here’s the thing, you’ve got to be brave. You’ve got to live your life fully, and engage in the things that attract you, and trust yourself not to lose it entirely. You’ve really got no other options. Otherwise you’re retreating away from the only thing you really have, which is this one life. Fuck that! Go ahead and take some risks, and sit next to that man or woman who might temporarily throw you for an emotional loop with their perfect wit and amazing smile.
And no, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just wired differently from other people (but not me, I’m just like you). You fall in love with everyone, all the time, and that means you experience more. It’s cool! We’re lucky! And eventually you will of course become friends with people who you originally crushed out on, and sometimes you won’t, but it’s worth a try.
Here’s a little secret that a very good friend told me: almost nobody gets sexier when you get to know them better. People are at their very sexiest when you know about 10 minutes about them, scattered over a few weeks or months. They put on the charm, they seem to listen and laugh at your jokes. It’s after 10 years of real conversations that you get to know people really well, well enough to see into their inner zits.
Which is to say, by getting to know these people more, by sitting next to that yummy guy when you have the chance, the problems you are dealing with will generally fade, not increase. And for those very rare few who actually become sexier when you get to know them better, well they deserve your crush so it’s all good.
Ha! I made it sounds pretty good, right? Remember, when you’re an emo, it’s all about enjoying the pain. I’m not called the Queen of Yearning for nothing.
As for your relationship, I don’t think you’re more likely to fuck it up by letting these crushes happen than by trying to suppress them. Suppression does weird things. I also don’t think you’re more likely to fuck up your relationship than people who only fall in love rarely. Personally I re-fall in love with my husband pretty much weekly, which might bore him but it’s absolutely awesome for me.
Good luck!!
Auntie P
p.s. May I suggest that you just go ahead and actively, deliberately flirt? First of all because it’s fun to flirt, and secondly because it might give you a sense of control of the situation, which you don’t currently have?
p.p.s. Also, here’s a suggestion for how you can do everything I’ve suggested all at once: you sit down next to that yummy guy and you say, “How’s about we flirt for a while, to acknowledge the sexual tension between us, and then after a memorably conversation, we lay down the foundations of a lasting friendship? I’ll start. You look amazing in that sweater.” I have found that being incredibly honest about my intentions sometimes helps. Also sometimes backfires, but whatevs! It’s a crazy mixed-up world!!
——
Dear Aunt Pythia,
Has anyone accused you of being a sex tourist for visiting Haiti? I’m just curious because as a single male there is practically nowhere that I could go by myself or with a buddy without accusations of sex tourism, especially Hispaniola. Nobody seems to care when women go to Haiti or Jamaica despite those places being well known for catering to ALL of a woman’s needs. This double standard reeks of cartel tactics. I personally believe that prostitution should be legal but regulated.
Globetrotter
Dear Globetrotter,
Nobody has. Most white women in Haiti are there for charity or on religious missions. I’m sure there is sex tourism there but it’s not on a huge scale.
Question for you: who accuses you of being a sex tourist? How does that come up?
Also, in terms of legalized prostitution, I don’t agree. I like that Dutch prostitutes have a union, but in places like Haiti I think legalized prostitution is one step away from paying people for their body parts. It’s not really a “chosen profession” if you are forced by dire need to do it. My two cents.
Aunt Pythia
——
Dear AP,
Should women compete in men’s sports? I’m thinking of games that are highly skill and determination driven (so there doesn’t seem an inherent bias for taller or stronger players) but where top female players are at a lower standard to the top male players.
Is it better or worse for women to have segregated leagues and competitions in these sports?
Always Separate but Equal?
Dear ASbE,
What sports are we talking about exactly? Most sports I know about have huge biases for strength. Even darts, which I watched copious amounts of in Utrecht (2014 World Darts Championship! Fuck yeah Michael van Gerwen!!), seems to favor huge men, maybe not for their strength per se but for their balance and inertia. Or maybe it’s all that time spent in pubs drinking beer.
I also watched an amazing round of the Dutch version of WipeOut, which was brilliantly combined with a blind date TV show, and I was amazed by how much easier it seems to be to jump from one floating disc to another if you’re a tall Dutch man than if you’re a tall Dutch woman. The winning couple was a charming pair named “Hippy” and “Hoppy”. They won because Hippy was willing to use his body as a prop to help out his partner. All the other couples had the men springing ahead and leaving their female partners behind. Let that be a lesson to all you non-hippies out there. Be more of a Hippy.
Not sure I’m answering your question, ASbE, but let me throw in one more unrelated opinion because I’m on a roll. Namely, American football is quickly becoming a sport to which poor minority men sacrifice their bodies. Richer and more educated parents don’t let their kids play the sport, and as we now know it’s incredibly traumatic for the players. We might as well just admit it’s a modern day Gladiator Contest, used to maintain a culture of violence for a people convinced they must be warriors, or at least that others should be. Instead of letting women play football, let’s just stop anyone at all from playing it, at least as it is currently being played.
Sincerely,
Aunt Pythia
——
Well, you’ve wasted yet another Saturday morning with Aunt Pythia! I hope you’re satisfied! If you could, please ask me a question. And don’t forget to make an amazing sign-off, they make me very very happy.
Click here for a form or just do it now:
Male nerd privilege
I recently read this essay by Laurie Penny (hat tip Jordan Ellenberg) about male nerd privilege. Her essay stemmed from comment 171 of Scott Aaronson’s blogpost about whether MIT professor Walter Lewin, who was found to be harassing women, should also have had his OpenCourseWare physics course taken down. Aaronson says no.
Personally, I think it should, because if I’m a woman who was harassed by that dude, I don’t want to see physics represented by my harasser up on MIT’s website; it would not make me feel welcome to the MIT community. Physics is a social community activity, after all, just like mathematics, and it is important to feel safe doing physics in that community. Plus the courses will be available on YouTube and other places, it’s not like the physics represented in the course has been lost to humanity.
Anyhoo, I did really want to talk about white male nerd privilege. Penny makes a bunch of good points in her essay, but I think she misses a big opportunity as well.
Quick summary. Aaronson talks about how he spent his youth and formative years terrified, since he was a shy nerd boy. Penny talks about how she did too, but then on top of it had to deal with structural sexism. Good point, and entirely true in my experience. Her best line:
At the same time, I want you to understand that that very real suffering does not cancel out male privilege, or make it somehow alright. Privilege doesn’t mean you don’t suffer, which, I know, totally blows.
So, I had two responses to her piece.
First was, she was complaining about her childhood, but she wasn’t even fat! I mean, GAWD. She was complaining about being too skinny, of all things. Plus it’s not clear whether or not she came from an abusive home. So I’ve got like, at least two complaints up on her. She thinks she’s had it bad?!
My point being, we can’t actually win when we count up all the ways we were miserable. Because the truth is, most people were actually miserable in their childhood, or soon after it, or at some time. And by comparing that stuff we just get stuck in a cycle of feeling competitively sorry for ourselves and pointing fingers. We need to sympathize, not only with our former selves, but with other people.
And although she does end the essay with the idea that we have to transcend all of our personal bruises and wrongs, and call each other human, and forget our resentments, it doesn’t seem like she’s giving us a path towards that.
Because, and here’s my second point, she doesn’t do the big thing of naming all of her privileges. Like, that nerds get good jobs. And that white people get loads of resources and attention and benefit of the doubt just for being white. At the end of the day, we are privileged to be sitting around talking about privilege. We are not worried about dying of hunger or exposure.
When Aaronson complained that naming male privilege is shaming, I’m prone to agree, at least if it’s done like this. What I’d propose is to figure out a way to talk about these structural problems in an aspirational way. How can we help make things fairer? How can we move this problem to the next level? Scott, you’re wicked smart, want to be on a taskforce with me?
Would it help if we gave it another name? Basic human rights, perhaps? Because that’s what we’re talking about, at the end of the day. The right to be free, to not get shot by the police, the right to hold a good job and care for your family, stuff like that.
Of course, there are plenty of people who are unwilling to move to the next level because they don’t acknowledge the structural racism, sexism, and other stuff at all. They don’t see the current situation as problematic. But on the other hand, there are loads of people who do, and Aaronson is clearly one of them.
As for problems for women in STEM, we’ve already studied this and we all know that both men and women are sexist, so it’s obviously not a blame game here. Instead, it’s a real cultural conundrum which we would like to approach thoughtfully and we’d like to make progress on as a team.
Vacation in Utrecht
Please ignore this post if you are at all squeamish or otherwise appropriate. I fully intend to offend people like you.
OK, so here’s the thing about family vacations, at least for me. They make you lose your genitals.
Seriously, I’ve misplaced my vagina, and for the life of me I can’t find it, or even remember when I last had it. I can barely remember anything at all about it.
This has happened to me before, on numerous occasions. It’s nothing new. It happened a couple of days after I landed in Orlando with the family for spring break a few years ago, and it happened within seconds of entering Great Wolf Lodge about a year ago.
Have you been there? It’s an indoor waterpark, and something about the chlorinated air and hundreds of dripping wet and screaming children made me instantaneously lose contact with my genitals. I know I’m not the only one, I polled the other grownups there and I got serious resonance with this sentiment.
In fact, I walked around for a day and a half (in order to get the most out of my one expensive overnight room) asking people if they’d seen my vagina anywhere. The reactions were mixed and were not always good. In fact once or twice the stares I got were so weird and intense that I was forced to blurt out, “Oh, here it is! In my purse! Just where I left it.” True story.
Conclusion: family vacations are the ultimate birth control.
Honestly, there should be a law that anyone who is thinking of getting pregnant should spend a couple of days at Great Wolf Lodge. If they are still horny after that experience then they deserve whatever they get.
Why, oh why, did we decide to have so many kids? And how can it be so incredibly expensive to pay for them to complain about every moment of the day that doesn’t contain wifi?
Here’s another reason there’s no physical joy in family vacations. The food. The disgusting food you end up eating when with your entire family prevents you from feeling sexy. Never mind sexy, it makes you borderline suicidal.
Yesterday we had pannekoeken for lunch, poffertjes as a snack, and sausage wall frikandels, loompjes, and french fries for dinner. Just in case you are wondering if anything I just listed isn’t fried, the answer is no.
Seriously, it was hugely disgusting, although temporarily delicious. I now know exactly why people declare diets for New Years, it’s because of the food situation in the week beforehand. It’s not that you want to lose weight, it’s that you never want to eat again.
And yes, I know that you can technically eat better food here in Utrecht, but not, as it turns out, if you’re traveling with a 6-year-old. In that case, you have a tiny little hunger striker on your hands, and the longer the strike goes on, the more crying and whining you’ve got, which, since you’re sharing a small hotel room, is a huge hassle. It’s a cost benefit analysis, and the costs always outweigh the benefits. In other words, you decide to forgo actual food for one more day and give in to warmed up waffles with smeared nutella. Breakfast this morning, thankyouverymuch. Kill me now.
Dear readers, please do not judge me. Or at least, if you judge me, then be compassionate. Or at least, if you’re not feeling compassionate, keep an eye out for my vagina, I know it’s around here somewhere.
Mortgage tax deductions and gentrification
Yesterday we had a tax expert come talk to us at the Alternative Banking group. We mostly focused on the mortgage tax deduction, whereby people don’t have to pay taxes on their mortgage. It’s the single biggest tax deduction in America for individuals.
At first blush, this doesn’t seem all that interesting, even if it’s strange. Whether people are benefitting directly from this, or through their rent being lower because their landlord benefits, it’s a fact of life for Americans. Whoopdedoo.
Generally speaking other countries don’t have a mortgage tax deduction, so we can judge whether it leads to overall more homeownership, which was presumably what it was intended for, and the data seems to suggest the answer there is no.
We can also imagine removing the mortgage tax deduction, and we quickly realize that such a move would seriously impair lots of people’s financial planning, so we’d have to do it very slowly if at all.
But before we imagine removing it, is it even a problem?
Well, yes, actually. Let’s think about it a little bit more, and for the sake of this discussion we will model the tax system very simply as progressive: the more income you collect yearly, the more taxes you pay. Also, there is a $1.1 million (or so) cap on the mortgage tax deduction, so it doesn’t apply to uber wealthy borrowers with huge houses. But for the rest of us it does apply.
OK now let’s think a little harder about what happens in the housing market when the government offers a tax deduction. Namely, the prices go up to compensate. It’s kind of like a rebate: this house is $100K with no deduction, but with a $20K deduction I can charge $120K for it.
But it’s a little more complicated than that, since people’s different income levels correspond to different deductions. So a lower middle class neighborhood’s houses will be inflated by less than an upper middle class neighborhood’s houses.
At first blush, this seems ok too: so richer people’s houses are inflated slightly more. It means it’s slightly harder for them to get in on the home ownership game, but it also means that, come time to sell, their house is worth more. For them, a $400K house is inflated not by 20% but by 35%, or whatever their tax bracket is.
So far so good? Now let’s add one more layer of complexity, namely that, actually, neighborhoods are not statically “upper middle class” or “lower middle class.” As a group neighborhoods, and their associated classes, represent a dynamical system, where certain kinds of neighborhoods expand or contract. Colloquially we refer to this as gentrification or going to hell, depending on which direction it is. Let’s explore the effect of the mortgage tax deduction on how that dynamical system operates.
Imagine a house which is exactly on the border between a middle class neighborhood and an upper-middle class neighborhood. If we imagine that it’s a middle class home, the price of it has only been inflated by a middle-class income tax bracket, so 20% for the sake of argument. But if we instead imagine it is in the upper-middle class neighborhood, it should really be inflated by 35%.
In other words, it’s under-priced from the perspective of the richer neighborhood. They will have an easier time affording it. The overall effect is that it is easier for someone from the richer neighborhood to snatch up that house, thereby extending their neighborhood a bit. Gentrification modeled.
Put it another way, the same house at the same price is more expensive for a poorer person because the mortgage tax deduction doesn’t affect everyone equally.
Another related point: if I’m a home builder, I will want to build homes with a maximal mark-up, a maximal inflation level. That will be for the richest people who haven’t actually exceeded the $1.1 million cap.
Conclusion: the mortgage tax deduction has an overall negative effect, encouraging gentrification, unfair competition, and too many homes for the wealthy. We should phase it out slowly, and also slowly lower the cap. At the very very least we should not let the cap rise, which will mean it effectively goes down over time as inflation does its thing.
If this has been tested or observed with data, please send me references.
Aunt Pythia’s advice
Here’s the thing, peoples. I love you – I really do, each and every one of you, except the douchey trolls – but, holy crap, peoples!
Where are the sex questions?!
Have I been unclear? Have I been beating around the sex question bush?
I think not. I think I have been more than forthright in my request demand. And, since none – I repeat, zero – of the questions this week are in the least sex-related, I’m going to have to insert something kind of awesome myself, namely this picture of a bouncey house snowman’s vagina. Remember, you made me do it:
They originally planned a cylindrical tent attachment entrance for the bouncy house, but they thought twice.
Question: is that what you needed to see so early on Saturday morning, before you’d even put on clothes (I’m picturing you all naked or very slightly pajama’d) and before you’ve even finished your morning coffee (and I’m also picturing you all kind of sleepy)?
I think not! So let’s all do better next time, and we can avoid this awkwardness in the future. What that means in concrete terms is a request to:
ask Aunt Pythia your sex question at the bottom of the page!
By the way, if you don’t know what the hell Aunt Pythia is talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.
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Hi Aunt Pythia,
I love your blog and Slate Money Podcast and can think of few people better to share my early life crisis with.
I recently quit my consulting job in San Francisco to move back in with my parents for a year at 29 years young (how sexy is that) and take a few pre-requisite math classes while I study for the GRE in preparation for what I had planned to be admission into a dual MBA/MPP program. Except, something unexpected has happened, I’m finding myself enjoying mathematics for the first time in my life and it has me interested in pursuing something more quantitative than most MBA/MPP programs offer.
I’ve never been a math superstar, but I earned A’s and B’s at a UC in the math courses I was forced to take as a liberal arts major. I have a strong interest in learning how to solve problems and make sense of the world around me. And I’m beginning to see that math, as opposed to economics or finance, may be the best tool for doing so.
I spoke with a professor at the junior college I’m taking these math courses at and she suggested looking into an Applied Math program that would let me get exposure to everything from math, statistics, physics, computer science, and economics to different forms of engineering and finance. Her other suggestion was to remain enrolled at the junior college, complete their calculus sequence, real analysis/linear algebra, and other math electives that would allow me to apply to both undergraduate and graduate level math programs a year or so from now with a few more math classes on my transcript.
I took a look at a few applied math program curriculums and the courses look a lot more interesting than the marketing, strategy, accounting and finance I’d be stuck in at an MBA program.
But there’s a problem… being fascinated and interested by a math curriculum is great, working to gain the the skills necessary to handle those fascinating courses is the hard part.
Which leads me to my question (sorry for the wait): Do you know of any liberal arts undergraduates that have transformed themselves into successful Math or STEM related graduate students? Are their programs for students in my situation? Is this even a possibility? I’m not expecting to be the model candidate for MIT’s program but is their a path to an applied math program at a decent public/private school for someone in my position? Are there other programs outside of Applied Math that might better suit my math curiosity? Any books I could pick up at the library to help me figure out what may best interest me mathematically?
Keep up the good work and thank you for your math help!
Boomerang
Hi Boomerang,
I liked your letter, and I decided to print it, but to be honest I’m not convinced I know how to answer your question. I’ll just say a bunch of things that I hope will be helpful, and then I’ll sign off with some positive last words. Maybe my dear Aunt Pythia readers will have more concrete suggestions! Here goes:
First of all, I’m not familiar with people who have done what you’re trying to do after finishing college. I have met people who’ve gone back to finish a 4-year college program, got interested in math in the last year, and then furiously took a bunch of math classes. I even know someone who went to grad school in math after that. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done, just that it’s on the late side.
I also think the advice you’ve already received is good. Basically, take the fuck out of the available math classes and learn some good shit. Find out what your taste is and be an insatiable consumer of math. It’s all out there, waiting to be gobbled up by you. And to be honest, it’s never been a better time to learn math, the resources, online and otherwise, are phenomenal.
So I want to encourage your math habit, obviously, but at the same time, I do want to stress that any program in which you’re expected to learn and understand how to solve problems will or at least should involve math. Math is a field in its own right, of course, which I hope you find your way into if that’s your thing, but it’s also the major heavy lifting tool for all other fields. That’s just to say that, being a math nerd in an MBA program is still a good and useful thing, especially if you’re not an MBA asshole.
Good luck!
Aunt Pythia
——
Dear Aunt Pythia,
Is it possible to get over a crush and maintain a platonic relationship?
At the end of the last school year, I developed a crush on a substitute teacher at the school where I’ve taught for 7 years. I’ve been married and monogamous for 23 years, and this is the strongest crush I’ve had in that time – lascivious thoughts and everything (thoughts only). Over the summer, I did some soul searching, and decided that even if I did connect with my crush (it was by no means clear that I would or could), it would be an incredible act of selfishness on my part and wouldn’t get me much in the long run. In fact, it was clear that I’d lose a lot that I value greatly: my marriage, the respect of my coworkers, my kids, my wider family, etc.
Since then, my crush has been hired to the regular staff at my school, and we have become close friends. I have decided that I am not available romantically, and have rededicated myself to my marriage. I am closer to my wife than we have been in a long time (I had been “phoning it in” for a long time – I am now more present in our marriage).
My new friend has confided in me that she and her children were abused in her previous marriage. I intend to be a “safe male” in her life – someone available to listen and support her while she gets her life back together, but I will not seek a romantic relationship.
Is this even possible? Likely?
A Male In Denial Or Obviously Making Everything Difficult?
Dear AMIDOOMED,
Gosh, I love your sign-off, and I love you. You just seem like a wonderful man.
Here’s the thing, some people are amazing and awesome and just plain old crush-worthy. And this is a good thing. An amazing thing, in fact, and handy. Think of adult crushes as a way for your body to force you to make friends with people when you’re busy.
You see, when you’re young, you just have this boatload of time to spend with people, and do ridiculous things like try to hide large objects in your stomach skin (I’m looking at you, Matt Cook), which overall serves as the bonding activity for life-long friendships. It’s amazing and wonderful, and when you finish college you feel like a like-long friendship pro.
You will never have as many friends again, however. Because soon after college ends, the harsh reality of adulthood sets in, and you often gain a spouse if you’re luck and into that, a couple of kids if you’re interested in that kind of thing, and a pile of responsibilities and time-consuming duties that keep you from spending ridiculous amounts of idle time bonding with random people. In other words, you’re at risk of never making another friend again.
Enter the adult crush. It’s a quick-bonding mechanism. Think of it as the super glue of post-college friendship. It can happen for men or women, to men or women, it doesn’t have to be romantic, and it supplies you with enough interest in the other person to care about maintaining a lasting and meaningful relationship. A rare event in these busy times!
So, to answer your question, no, you will never get over your crush, at least not if you’re lucky, and I think you’re amazing and awesome, and so does your family, and so does your new friend, and honestly she needs a good friend so good on you, and it’s all good.
And if I seem like I am enjoying your conflicted agony, then let me suggest it’s actually a huge improvement over not having it. So do your best to enjoy it. And don’t forget to have amazing fantasies.
Auntie P
——
Hi Auntie P
Two quick questions for you
1. Should I use dropbox?
2. How should I de-clutter my computer?
A bit of context, maybe. My private computers are full of stuff. We have 2-3 laptops and 4-5 back up disk which are all full of stuff.
Of course, it’s my own fault. Most of it is just old back up of my computer (so there is a lot of overlap), but I don’t (feel like I) keep a lot of stuff. Mostly music and pictures of my kids. Only I tend to listen to a lot of music and we have a lot of kids (so 2 private laptops and one iPad is actually not all that much). And as much as I like to de-clutter and get rid of stuff – on my computer or otherwise – I do wanna keep those. And I can do it too: my work computer is always completely empty. Since my private computers are so old, they don’t function well with that much stuff. I’d like to put my stuff on dropbox but then I’m not sure, you know with all the data stuff and all. More specifically:
1. I don’t know if I should really share my data – is there really a risk with my kids pictures and my music?
2. Is there a chance that dropbox actually gets hacked or collapses and my data disappears?
And of course, being a well structured efficiency nerd, (have you seen xkcd #1445? that’s me), and you being you, this brings up another topic: how should I go about organizing my stuff on my computer? I really like structured approaches to de-cluttering my life (thank you Gretchen Rubin) as long as they are practical and work. And you’re quite practical and you work. So I thought I might ask you.
Looking Forward to Saturday
Dear LFtS,
This is a non-problem. Data gets cheaper all the time and you never need to organize anything.
I’m sure there’s an app that collects all your music and picture files and makes scrapbooks for you. So don’t think about that for a moment longer. In terms of storage, if you’re worried about being hacked, which I wouldn’t be but don’t listen to me, then buy a couple of modern large hard disks and copy everything onto them. I say “a couple” because you should have more than one copy in case one breaks. Then after you have done that, throw away the 5 backup disks and 3 laptops you’re keeping around as inefficient storage devices.
Also, you can probably stop storing music altogether, unless you like Unbunny like I do, which is hard to stream. No, I take it back, it’s easy to find Unbunny everywhere. Phew.
Aunt Pythia
p.s. What’s happening Saturday? I hope you don’t mean my crappy answer to your question.
——
Aunt Pythia,
I’m a Junior studying Math, but I don’t know what I’m doing. I’ve told myself I like Math since Junior year of high school when I learned Calculus. It was like a lightbulb went off in my head. I thought, “finally, this is what its uses are!” And I found it beautiful. So beautiful I was ahead of the class for the last half of it. I couldn’t wait to go back home and teach myself more of it. That passion has gone away.
I tell myself I like Math. It’s why I majored in it. But I don’t like working most of the time. There are times when I do enjoy dedicating hours to a class, like when I prove the propositions left as exercises in lecture. It’s thrilling. But most of the time, it’s hard for me to get out of bed and go to class, or sit down and do the work.
I feel like I’ve squandered two and half years on a Math degree my school paid for, and my parents, potential employers, and myself won’t value because I’m barely able to put my GPA on my resume. As a Hispanic, I’m acutely aware of how little of us are STEM majors. If I walk into a class, I will be the only URM there. And because I’m lucky enough to have grown up in an upper middle class neighborhood, I feel like I’m doing a disservice to my people. For myself, it’s more frustrating because I have an interest in Data Science, but from what I’ve gathered, graduate school probably isn’t for me.
I don’t know why I feel like this. Is it because I’m lazy? Is it because I’m privileged and have never been challenged? Is Math not for me? Am I depressed? I guess the big question is, how should I figure these questions out?
Anxious Math Junior
Dear Anxious,
I’m feeling your pain. You feel stuck. It’s not uncommon and you shouldn’t beat yourself up about it. Plus, it sounds like you are carrying extra weight on your shoulders.
So, the first step, in my opinion, is to get rid of that extra weight. You are not living The Life Of The Upper Middle Class Latino. You are living your own, personal, never-to-be-repeated life, and you gotta figure out how you want to live it. And you’re still a junior and you can switch majors and still graduate, so don’t worry that things are too late.
Let me suggest you go to a counselor at your school and tell them you want to discuss changing majors. There are, for example, personality tests that people sometimes find very helpful in helping them figure out what to do with their lives. Two of my close family members have been aided by such tests. Sometimes they clarify something you already kind of know, other times they really point you to something you didn’t even know was an option. In any case, not a waste of time, and I encourage you to look into them.
And by the way, it’s a great sign that you once were passionate about calculus. You have the talent and ability to master a difficult subject when the moment is right. The goal is to figure out how to create those moments and see where they will take you.
Good luck!
Aunt Pythia
——
Well, you’ve wasted yet another Saturday morning with Aunt Pythia! I hope you’re satisfied! If you could, please ask me a question. And don’t forget to make an amazing sign-off, they make me very very happy.
Click here for a form or just do it now:
Wage Gaps Don’t Magically Get Smaller Because Big Data
Today, just a rant. Sorry. I mean, I’m not a perfect person either, and of course that’s glaringly obvious, but this fluff piece from Wired, written by Pam Wikham of Raytheon, is just aggravating.
The title is Big Data, Smaller Wage Gap? and, you know, it almost gives us the impression that she has a plan to close the wage gap using big data, or alternatively an argument that the wage gap will automatically close with the advent of big data techniques. It turns out to be the former, but not really.
After complaining about the wage gap for women in general, and after we get to know how much she loves her young niece, here’s the heart of the plan (emphasis mine, on the actual plan parts of the plan):
Analytics and microtargeting aren’t just for retailers and politicians — they can help us grow the ranks of executive women and close the gender wage gap. Employers analyze who clicked on internal job postings, and we can pursue qualified women who looked but never applied. We can go beyond analyzing the salary and rank histories of women who have left our companies. We can use big data analytics to tell us what exit interviews don’t.
Facebook posts, Twitter feeds and LinkedIn groups provide a trove of valuable intel from ex-employees. What they write is blunt, candid and useful. All the data is there for the taking — we just have to collect it and figure out what it means. We can delve deep into whether we’re promoting the best people, whether we’re doing enough to keep our ranks diverse, whether potential female leaders are being left behind and, importantly, why.
That’s about it, after that she goes back to her niece.
Here’s the thing, I’m not saying it’s not an important topic, but that plan doesn’t seem worthy of the title of the piece. It’s super vague and fluffy and meaningless. I guess, if I had to give it meaning, it would be that she’s proposing to understand internal corporate sexism using data, rather than assuming “data is objective” and that all models will make things better. And that’s one tiny step, but it’s not much. It’s really not enough.
Here’s an idea, and it kind of uses big data, or at least small data, so we might be able to sell it. Ask people in your corporate structure what the actual characteristics are of people they promote, and how they are measured, or if they are measured, and look at the data to see if what they say is consistent with what they do, and whether those characteristics are inherently sexist. It’s a very specific plan and no fancy mathematical techniques are necessary, but we don’t have to tell anyone that.
What combats sexism is a clarification and transparent description of job requirements and a willingness to follow through. Look at blind orchestra auditions for a success story there. By contrast, my experience with the corporate world is that, when hiring or promoting, they often list a long series of unmeasurable but critical properties like “good cultural fit” and “leadership qualities” that, for whatever reason, more men are rated high on than women.
mathbabe 