mathbabe

Who cares if the stock market tanks? No, really. I’m wondering who actually has a stake in the levels of the stock market.

The average person doesn’t have much savings, including retirement savings which is the standard way to have a direct stake in the market. In fact a majority of Americans, and more than that if you consider minorities, have less than $1000 put away for retirement. They might care about the few hundred dollars they have, but it’s really not much directly at stake, and it’s a long term abstract investment if it even exists.

For that matter, truly rich people have investment advisors that diversify their positions by using bonds, hedge funds, and so on to make their bet more market neutral. Plus, they have plenty of assets, so to the extent that the market goes down by a bit won’t overly concern them.

That leaves the well off but not rich people who are adequately long the market to care what it does, and still their stake is mostly via retirement savings. I’m not sure how much they represent as a percentage of the population, but it’s fair to say the average member of the population don’t really care about a market fall.

It’s been a long time since the market has been a good proxy for the economy as a whole. Thinking used to be that if corporations made more money, at least if it came from higher productivity, then some portion of that would be distributed to workers. But it was long ago that productivity decoupled from the median wage.

In fact, it’s become just the opposite: good news for workers means bad news for the market. That became clear recently when a substantial rise in wages led to a drop in the market. The argument went something along the lines of higher wages will cause inflation and then interest rates yadda yadda, but the bottom line is that shareholders have gotten used to keeping all the corporate profits.

Actually, this anti-correlation between the market and worker interests has actually been true for quite a while. The tax bill, which heavily privileges stockholders over wage earners, was slowly baked into the stock market as it became increasingly clear it would pass. In other words, good news for the market has meant bad news for workers for the past year and a half. It’s also why Davos loved Trump: he gave out goodies to rich people with the abstract promise that this will end up in the pockets of workers.

Of course, there are pieces of news that would be bad for both the workers and for the market, like a recession, and there are potential turns of events that would be good for everyone, like exciting new industries that hire lots of people. But for the foreseeable future, I’m thinking that workers should be cheering a tanking market.

This is a guest post by Eugene Stern, originally posted on his blog sensemadehere.

My friend Cathy O’Neil just sent me an article she wrote for the NY Times reviewing two books by technologists about virtual reality (VR). Part of her take was that neither book talked enough about ways that VR could be abused, and she speculated that worrying about VR was still mostly the provenance of science fiction writers (think Star Trek) rather than technologists.

I’m pretty comfortable around both sci-fi and technology, but you really don’t need to be an expert in either to worry about how VR could upend our lives and civilization. Just some sense of recent history is enough. If you think that massive computational power, the internet, and smartphones might have turned out to be a bit more than we bargained for, maybe it’s time to consider how amazingly well-positioned VR is to amplify some of the most troublesome aspects of the technology revolution:

Personalization. We’ve learned over the last quarter century that we don’t mind being monitored (cookies, GPS, Fitbits), just as long as some benefits (recommendations, special offers, traffic advice, a tailored Facebook feed, the ability to broadcast our 5.4 mile running route to all our friends) come from crunching the resulting data. Never mind who might be storing all that data or what they might be doing with it.

Now think about VR, which massively scales up both the amount of data and the ability to collect it. On one hand, VR is an immersive experience, generated by high dimensional data sets (indeed, one of the uses of VR is as a tool to allow us to navigate data sets that are otherwise too complex to make sense of; see here or here or here). On the other, VR is delivered through a device, which can be used to track eye movements, and VR technology to monitor other biometrics like heart rate, pulse, and  electrical activity in the brain is already on the way (see here or here). You’ve probably heard of Google’s A/B tests, which enable web designers to vary individual aspects of a web page and track how people respond. Now imagine such tests in VR space, targeted at each individual user, and able both to vary all kinds of stimuli affecting all the senses, and to measure all kinds of response. In a contest between your family, friends, and VR set over who knows you better, it’s hard to see the humans having a chance.

Addictiveness. By now it’s sort of a cliche to hear a technologist speak thoughtfully about how they won’t let their children near smartphones or Instagram until they’re in high school, or to read articles about internet use sprinkled with multiple mentions of dopamine. Won’t this all seem quaint in a few years, when internet porn gives way to (personalized!) VR sex, and your social network can deliver a full VR simulation of your crush’s reaction to the cute photo you just posted, not just a stylized thumbs-up or heart. Um, yeah, VR is going to make the virtual world way more addictive. “Why go into the outside world at all, it’s such a fright,” as Black Flag sang, to their televisions, and that was at least two whole generations of technology ago!

Marketing. I was born in the Soviet Union, which had no ads, and it always felt strange to me that our entire media landscape (or, today, our entire information landscape) was driven by companies inserting little messages meant to sell you things. For one thing, I was always a bit skeptical that advertising was actually worth it. Well, with VR, there’ll be no question, because we’ll be able to track the outcomes of ads so precisely: eyeballs widen, heart rate rises just a bit, electrical activity heightens in the buying center of the brain (which by this time we will have effectively mapped, using — what else — VR technology). Advertisers will know exactly which ads worked (so the economy will make sense!), and, with predictive analytics and the heavy volumes of data attached to VR, they’ll also know which ads will work, for any given person. And lots of them will, because VR’s ability to virtually sample any product you might imagine might make it the most effective advertising medium ever. If today we think about ads as delivering eyeballs and clicks, in the age of VR, they might be delivering (virtual) wallets directly.

Will users object? One more thing we’ve learned in the internet age is that people don’t seem to mind being targeted with ads across their entire virtual experience. Ad-based media still dominate, while raising revenues via direct subscription works for a few niche publications at best. The internet is funded by advertising. Why wouldn’t VR be?

Though VR seems expensive today — the domain of rich NFL teams needing to train quarterbacks to have split second reactions to thousands of different stimuli, as Cathy writes in her book review — from another point of view, it might actually be quite cheap. In the non-virtual world, you have to be rich to sit in the front row at midfield at the Super Bowl, or swim with tortoises in the Galapagos Islands, or climb Mount Everest. But, mass adoption of VR could be a great leveler in a way, making virtual versions of all of these accessible to the masses. Being marketed to may seem like a small price to pay to have these experiences, especially if the income gap between rich and poor grows as technology makes more and more segments of the economy winner-take-all. Sure, VR might enable advertisers to fully exploit you economically, to optimize and control all of your purchasing power — but so what, we haven’t been troubled yet whenever our technology asks us to give up control to gain comfort.

The scariest thing about VR might be that it could be more of the same, but on steroids. If we’ve shown no societal ability so far to confront technology addiction, data collection and surveillance, or media manipulation, what happens when VR technology renders all of these ten times more powerful? Be afraid, be very afraid.

I just wrote my first book review for the New York Times. I reviewed two books about Virtual Reality, one by Jeremy Bailensen and the other by Jaron Lanier:

Enter the Holodeck

My newest Bloomberg View column just came out:

No, I Don’t Want to Insure My Pizza

Insurance can be useful, but too many schemes are distorting the concept.

For older Bloomberg View columns, please go here.

My newest Bloomberg View article just came out:

Personality Tests Are Failing American Workers

All too often, they filter people out for the wrong reasons.

Read all of my Bloomberg View pieces here.

Since my last update I’ve been diagnosed with Graves’ Disease. You can look this up on Wikipedia, but the short version is it makes my thyroid hyperactive, which in turn makes me anxious and hyperactive, which in turn makes me exercise a lot, which in turn makes me very boring.

It’s an autoimmune disease, and it’s treatable, so please don’t worry. Also, it probably has nothing to do with my recent bariatric surgery. In fact before my bariatric sleeve surgery, I was diagnosed with another autoimmune disorder, which is even less worrisome, called autoimmune gastritis. That basically means my stomach slowly produces less stomach acids. It’s good for acid reflux, since there’s nothing to reflux, but it’s bad for absorbing iron and B12. Luckily after gastric surgeries they’re constantly checking your vitamin and mineral levels so no need to worry. But long story short, once you’ve gotten one autoimmune disease you’re more likely to get another. They cluster. So chances are I would’ve gotten Graves’ Disease even if I hadn’t gotten the sleeve surgery.

I’m on a medication called Methimazole to calm down my thyroid, and I’m due for a blood test tomorrow to see how well it’s working. I can’t really tell if it’s working but that’s not a real surprise because I couldn’t really tell I had a problem in the first place. Also, if we can’t adjust the Methimazole levels to make it work, then the standard approach is to burn out my thyroid with radioactive iodine – which sounds worse than it is – and take supplementary medication to replace what my thyroid should have been doing in the first place.

Finding out I have Graves’ Disease is actually kind of good. It explains the deep anxiety I was feeling and the trouble I was having sleeping. And I know there are plenty of reasons to feel anxiety but it was getting slightly out of hand, and now it seems a bit better but again I’m not sure if that’s because the meds are working or because I’m just acclimating to Trump. Or it might just be because I quit Twitter, which was bringing me down consistently. Having no social media habits is good for anxiety problems!

Also my eyesight was changing rapidly, which is a common symptom of Graves’ Disease (although my eyes never bugged out as far as I could tell). That seems to be calming down a bit as well, but again I might just have acclimated. Right now contact lenses work much better than glasses.

So, you remember last update when I mentioned that I started exercising a lot? Well that’s still true. In fact at this point I’ve signed myself up for a 5K race in Riverside Park on February 3rd (which involved free hot cocoa at the end of the race so please join me) as well as a Sprint Triathlon at Lake Welch in Harriman State Park on May 20th (no free hot cocoa but please join me there and I’ll buy you cocoa).

I’ve always said that people who get really into exercise are the most boring people in the world because all they ever want to talk about is exercise. So excuse me for being incredibly boring from now on, or until my thyroid gets under control. It really is a wonderful escape and I admit I’m indulging. For example, in preparation I ran 5K on Saturday morning and I haven’t stopped gloating about it. I’ve really become insufferable. Please tell me to shut up when you next hear me drone on.

Also, and I promise this *isn’t* boring, my band, the TomTown Ramblers, is playing this weekend downtown! Details are below.

Date: Saturday, January 20th.
Time: Our music starts promptly at 9pm.
Place: Caffe Vivaldi, located at 32 Jones Street, between Bleecker and West 4th.

No cover charge! Cash Bar! See you there!

I will not repeat what the president said yesterday about Haiti, because it is too mean spirited to perpetuate. I will say that in my travels in Haiti I met people wealthier in spirit than our poor president.

Photograph by Becky Jaffe

I’ve got a new Bloomberg View piece, which I think any fans of Aunt Pythia will enjoy:

Maybe Sex Robots Will Make Men, Not Women, Obsolete

They might at least create some healthy competition.

For other columns, go here.

I wrote a new Bloomberg View piece about data analysis around sexual harassment and assault:

What We Don’t Know About Sexual Harassment

We lack the data needed to know how prevalent it is.

My other Bloomberg View columns are here.

Also, I quit Twitter, at least for now. It just kept bringing me down.

I’ll be giving a talk at Tufts on Thursday. Here’s the poster, please join me:

Also I’ll be in D.C. on Friday morning to talk data science education with mucky-mucks. That will be livestreamed, or you can join in person as well. Here’s the poster:

I found out there’s going to be another Women’s March by – you guessed it – going to a yarn store and finding there’d been a run on pink yarn. Even better, there are going to be a ton of Women’s Marches in a ton of cities.

Get knitting, folks! And mark your calendars for Saturday, January 20, 2018.

There’s never been a better time for this, I’m sorry to say. And if you don’t know what I mean, listen to this Takeaway episode on John Hockenberry’s systematic sexual harassment and abuse of his female colleagues of color, who he systematically pushed out of senior positions on the show:

#MeToo Hits Home: John Hockenberry Accused of Harassment, Bullying

Bloomberg View

My newest Bloomberg piece is out, in which I consider the problem of false negatives in the context of love and war:

False Negatives Can Be a Matter of Life and Death

Algorithms will repeat our mistakes unless we know what we’re missing.

You can see all of my Bloomberg View pieces here.

Book Club!

I also wanted to announce that my Occupy group Alt Banking is starting a book club. We’re meeting this Sunday from 2-3pm at Columbia (room 409 of the International Affairs Building at Amsterdam and 118th), and we’re discussing the introductions and first chapters of the two following books:

1. Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman, available for free online
2. Capitalism and Slavery by Eric Williams, which also seems to be available online.

Please join us, we welcome everyone and anyone!

My newest Bloomberg View piece just came out this morning:

Ray Dalio Has an Unbelievable Algorithm

Does it merely reinforce its maker’s biases?

Looking back I just realized that I never posted last week’s Bloomberg View column:

Maybe Facebook Is Broken:

How can you stop people from sharing biased and misleading stuff?

For a complete list of my Bloomberg View articles, go here.

I got my first op-ed in the NY Times today:

The Ivory Tower Can’t Keep Ignoring Tech

Well it’s been a bit more than 3 months since my gastric sleeve surgery and I wanted to give an update.

Clothes

I finished cleaning out my closet yesterday. All my old clothes are gone. I’m ashamed of just how many clothes I had to get rid of. I’ve gone from a size 24 to a size 18, and as I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve decided to go goth.

That means my closet has basically only black clothes in it now. I made a handful of exceptions for stuff I didn’t throw out that was way too small for me 3 months ago, knitted things, and some workout clothes that are not black.

Going goth has been lots of fun, and deciding in advance what to buy has been a time saver as well as efficient. Since everything is black, everything goes with everything else. And since I’m vaguely looking for a certain type of clothing in a specific color, it means I can narrow down my shopping goals quite quickly. I can’t imagine what it would be like to have no rules and start buying a new wardrobe.

The only downside is that it’s kind of boring. But I think that will change once we enter winter and I can wear colorful scarves and hats, that are guaranteed to go with my black outfits. Also, I’m not sure what black summer dresses will be like. I might need a different rule for summer things. Suggestions welcome.

Food

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have more or less changed my entire eating style since the surgery. I rarely eat meat, although I sometimes eat sashimi (especially salmon). I tend to avoid desserts because I don’t have a sweet tooth at all, and things that seemed bland to me before taste rich to me now, which means I don’t seek out buttery things anymore, since olive oil is already buttery to me.

I more or less live off of a quinoa recipe I learned about in college, which is spicy, savory, and somewhat cheesy:

1. saute one or two heads of garlic, one or two onions, a bell pepper, a few chopped potatoes, and some hot peppers in olive oil until soft
2. add 2.5 cups of quinoa and 5 cups of water, simmer for 25 minutes
3. put a bag of shredded cheese on top, stick in 325 degree oven for 12 minutes

I think the most important difference in my eating now versus before the surgery is how hunger works with me. I still get hungry, but it’s of a totally different nature than it used to be.

So before, if I got hungry, it was like a loud panic button in my brain had been set off. I had to eat, and I’d scavenge the fridge for something to turn off the noise. Nowadays, I realize I’m getting hungry, but it simply means that I have to start thinking about food pretty soon. I have time, for example, to cook quinoa as described above, even though it takes at least an hour.

One positive consequence: I have more time to think

One negative consequence: I can never, ever, ever overeat. I have never really tried to do this, and so I’ve never thrown up or anything, but trust me, I’ve gotten uncomfortable. It’s not something you want to do regularly. It makes you regret your choices.

Exercise

I’ve started running. For the first time in maybe 12 years, I’m regularly jogging. And when I say jogging, to be clear I’m incredibly slow and I don’t go far – it’s fair to say that speed walkers would easily overtake me – but it’s something I couldn’t have done 3 months ago so that’s cool.

But it’s also necessary. I have lots of anxiety, and I need to let out steam somehow. I’m trying my best to make that healthy rather than unhealthy.

Why am I so anxious? I don’t know. It’s hard being a parent to teenagers. It’s hard being a woman in this age of misogyny. It’s hard being a human in this age of political cruelty.

I don’t want to become an alcoholic. I’ve noticed that, since my operation, alcohol works really really well. It hits me hard, it makes me forget my problems, it takes me on a fast ride. It also ends soon and I don’t end up with a hangover. What’s not to love? Except I have plenty of reasons to know better.

Moreover, I have lost food as a source of comfort. To be honest, I don’t think I ever had a disordered way of eating (except for the doctor-approved diets I went on!) but I did know how to comfort myself with food. And before you blame my obesity on that, let me suggest that thin people comfort themselves with food all the time but aren’t accused of bad behavior.

That’s not to say I don’t love my quinoa – I do! – or that I don’t like running – I do! – but that it’s more like an outlet to deal with anxiety and grief than I’d like it to be.

Long story short, I’m doing great, and I feel healthy, and the world still is what it is.

I was on WBUR’s Open Source with Christopher Lydon – a show I regularly listened to when I lived in Somerville – last night discussing Max Tegmark’s new book, Life 3.0. Other guests were Erik Brynjolfsson and Yarden Katz. Here’s the episode:

Intelligence By Design

I’m very happy with an essay that just came out this morning with Boston Review, on futurism:

Know Thy Futurist

Also, my newest Bloomberg View column came out this morning, about how we’re having the wrong conversation about personal data:

The Equifax Hack Started the Wrong Conversation

For the rest of my Bloomberg View columns, go here.

My latest Bloomberg View article is out. I interviewed Michal Kosinski, gaydar algorithm author, about the ethical responsibilities of data scientists:

‘Gaydar’ Shows How Creepy Algorithms Can Get

Read my other Bloomberg View columns here.

The paperback edition of my book just came out last week, so I’ve been on a tear with interviews, and I’m also doing two public events in New York City in the next week. I wanted to tell you about it in case you have time to come!

1. I’ll be at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday morning, on a panel with Tim Wu entitled Big Data & You (free event)
2. I’ll be at an Authors @ Grand Central Tech event on Tuesday evening (this costs $20 but you get a copy of my paperback)
3. I was on the 99% Invisible podcast with Roman Mars! The episode is called the Age of the Algorithm.
4. I was on the Leonard Lopate Show for thirty whole minutes!
5. I was on the Tom Barnard Show in an episode with comedian Mitch Fatel.
6. I was on the Political Book Show podcast
7. I was on the EdSurge podcast
8. I was on the Future of Work podcast
9. I was on the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast