I follow all the YouTube channels, but I’m not on Twitter, so I sometimes miss – or am late with – vids which appear there first or only. But sometimes someone elsewhere calls my attention to them. Like this one from the Lincoln Project – another one aimed at Trump* himself mainly, but this time also hoping to reach a few who are close enough to sanity to know when they are not seeing it.
Meidas Touch – Mitch, you’ll like this one – it features Dr. Bandy Lee
RVAT – Remember this is aimed at a group which still believes in the underlying premise – which we now know is less than 100% accurate. Still, there is some truth remaining in it, and Joe is just the guy with the empathy to find it.
VoteVets – Vets are trying to take advantage of the fact that support for Trump* in the military is bleeding out, for good reason, and I hope they succeed wildly.
It looks like there are four videos today, but actually there are only three – read on to see why.
This is a clip from a film I have been thinking about lately. Apparently I’m not alone. Jill Wine-Banks drew attention to the tweet (you may remember her from Watergate if you’re old enough.
That clip is pretty good, and easy to share. The full film is called “Don’t Be a Sucker,” and I did find the complete version. It’s about 18 minutes, and I do realize not everyone has 18 minutes to spare. But, IMO, it’s worth it.
Meidas Touch has a Republicans-who-are-voting-for-Biden ad, but it has high production values, and, white serious, avooids being too grim. (Pat, will you identify with the “Texas mom?”)
This is one of the ads by the Lincoln Project which are aimed directly at Wittle Donnie’s self esteem. In particular, there’s a double entendre which is very smirkworthy – don’t blink. But if you do blink, there’s plenty more shade.
Here are five videos posted between yesterday and today which are worth looking at IMO – enjoy.
Don Winslow – Hey, it’s worth trying
Really American – “Put Dictator Trump on TV in Florida” – an “in his own words” mashup ad
Two from the Lincoln Project – “Doc” Doc Rivers, and some blunt truth.
“School” and the dangers of letting kids go to it – let alone making them go to it.
Beau is actually much farther to the left than any of us, but he has a strategy of playing on his appearance and speaking modestly, leading up to his conclusions, to avoid alienating inawakened people, many of whom are his neighbors or just like his neighbors. No one here could make that work, and he certainly isn’t reaching everyone, but he has enough former and current Trump supporters following him and not trolling that it’s not toally without merit. It’s also why I’ve so often said when I’ve posted one of his, “Hear him out.” Unfortunately no CC on this. It’s regarding his appointment of Dr. Atlas.
I came across this commercial for a drug whose time is now. Even if it is not for you, I’m sure you know people – possibly even family members, who absolutely could benefit from it. You will thank me for sharing this commercial message:
Transcript:
Are you bored and disinterested in things that used to seem important like the President using his levers of power to ensure reelection? Ask your doctor about Notnormalzol®. Notnormalzol® is a prescription strength slap to the face that will leave you renewed and reminded that crimes are illegal. Notnormalzol® has also been found effective against thinking that treason is no biggie, also known as Bill Barr syndrome. Here’s how it works: Notnormalzol® contains fast acting Slapicin®, which penetrates the outrage fatigue cortex to stimulate your dormant whatthehellabellum. Side effects of Notnormalzol® may include bruising and not shutting up about the Postmaster General saying he’s optimizing the Postal Service. (“Is that what stealing mailboxes and stacking them like cordwood means? HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK i AM?!! What’s happened to my country!! I can’t take this any more!! [slap] Ow.”) Ask your doctor if Notnormalzol® is right for you. And ask him who he voted for. Warning: Notnormalzol® should always be taken with alcohol.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
There are many aspects of life that one doesn’t find out about until one is, for want of a better word, exposed to them If this is true of life in general, how mush more is it true of a pandemic. Lona sent me a link to an article on the use of solitary confinement in ICE immigration detention centers, thinking the Furies might be interested. And they are. I see three issues here – first, prisons in general – the prison systems, the state of prison facilities, the conditions for those who work in prisons as well as those who are living there, for whatever reason, for whatever length of time. Second is the whole issue of solitary confinement within prisons, how it affects those who are kept in it, and especially for long periods of time, what it is like to be in it as opposed to outside of it but still in the prison – all of that. Third is the pandemic itself. Prisons, be they correctional or immigration prisons, are charged with the duty of keeping their inmates safe, including from the coronavirus. They do not always succeed in that duty (As we know from other horror stories, some don’t try very hard.)
The article begins with a story from Carlos Hernandez Corbacho. Mr. Hernandez Corbacho, and his wife Maydel Curbelo Perez, fled Cuba on account of the attention they were receiving from police on account of their open and vocal criticism of government. They came to the US by a route including Nicaragua and moving up through Central America to Nogales, Mexico, which borders Arizona. They presented themselves to CBP for political asylum, a perfectly legal thing for them to do. This happened about last November, after a roughly five-month journey. Curbelo Perez won asylum in March. then came CoViD, and Hernandez Corbacho’s court dates kept getting postponed. He won asylum August 19, but not until having been stranded in ICE detention for about five months.
He felt his first symptom in June. “But he said he was afraid to say anything. He’d heard rumors of officials locking detainees with COVID-19 symptoms in solitary, and wanted to put it off as long as possible.” One can hardly blame him. And that’s part of the problem. “Placing COVID-19 patients in solitary confinement, experts say, is inhumane and jeopardizes the overall population by deterring detainees from reporting symptoms. (emphasis mine)“
Solitary confinement was never intended to be used for quarantine. However, I don’t know what other facilities an ICE detention center might have or have access to. At any rate, that’s what was used, and the experience was terrible.
“In an emailed statement, ICE said that its quarantine practices are not a punitive measure and are conducted in accordance with the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control guidelines.”Well, that can be true, and still have absolutely nothing to do with what it feels like to an asylum seeker – or anyone else in that position. Even if not filthy, as it sadly often is, it can be very hard on people. One thing which does not occur to people who have never been near such a thing, and trying to imagine it, is that it is generally incredibly noisy. That alone can feel like being beaten. Mr. Hernandez Corbacho alludes to this. So did Colorado’s head correctional officer, who voluntarily spent 24 hours in solitary confinement soon after he took the position, in order to have the experience. I’m an introvert, but the noise level and quality they describe would drive me up a wall very fast.
And yet, dear Furies, I am going to give the low level employees, aorking in these conditions, many of them just trying to do a job they see as necessary while at the same time doing their best to support their family – I am going to give them a pass. They are not what is wrong. What is wrong is our as a society massive failure to address any of these massive ills – prison, ICE, and CoViD – until they all hit at the same time.
Instead, I am going to ask your help at this point to get guilty and incompetent Republicans out of government and replace them with innocent and competent Democrats, and THEN we can tackle all of these problems. Perhaps Alecto would like to take prisons, Megaera would consider auditing ICE, and Tisiphone would tackle the pandemic,along with our preparedness – or the lack of it – for another one or more.
Before I sign off, I would like to give one example of credit where credit is due. This article looks at numerous prisons in numerous places, and in the process they spoke with CoreCivic.
CoreCivic — which contracts with ICE to run La Palma and a number of other detention centers — denies that their facilities use solitary confinement.
“The claim that solitary confinement is used in our facilities is patently false,” CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin said. “Like most public and private secure facilities during this pandemic, we use separate housing units within our facilities to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 when someone is confirmed positive for the virus.”
As a corporation I would not trust CoreCivic as far as I could throw one of their facilities, barbed wire and all. However, as the spouse of an inmate in a CoreCivic facility, who regularly speaks with him on the phone, I can testify almost first hand that “separate housing units within our facilities” is exactly what they are using there, and that it has kept and is keeping him virus free. (The inmates do have masks and are encouraged to use them and to practice social distance also, within the housing units.) I probably should add this is not the only CoreCivic facility he has been in, and that this one is run in a way noticeably superior to the other. So this may in fact the only one of their facilities which is keeping that promise – but at least this one is. He would not be any safer if he were at home, and in fact he would almost certainly be less safe here.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Like TC, and others, this time of action for racial justice is not my first rodeo. And I know, because I remember, that we made mistakes last time around. Most, maybe all, under the umbrella that we assumed that winning was winning (at least we “wypipo” assumed that. I don’t think black or brown people were ever really fooled.)
Now is a time when we are seeing a light at the end of a tunnel (and we hope it won’t be a train). We won’t know for a while what kind of light it is, but in the hope that it will be the blessed light of day, I welcome advice on how to avoid previous mistakes (which are still being made, actually) and find ways to truly advance. ================================================================
Diversity pledges alone won’t change corporate workplaces – here’s what will
While commendable, to me it feels a bit like deja vu. Back in 2014, a host of tech companies made similar commitments to diversify their ranks. Their latest reports – which they release annually – show they’ve made little progress.
Why have their efforts largely failed? Were they just empty promises?
As a gender diversity scholar, I explored these questions in my recent paper published in the Stanford Technology Law Review. The problem is not a lack of commitment but what social scientists call “unconscious bias.”
Big tech, little progress
Today’s efforts to promote diversity are certainly more specific than the tech industry’s vague promises in 2014.
In 2020, sports apparel maker Adidas pledged to fill at least 30% of all open positions with Black or Latino candidates. Cosmetics company Estée Lauder promised to make sure the share of Black people it employs mirrors their percentage of the U.S. population within five years. And Facebook vowed to double its number of Black and Latino employees within three years.
Companies have also committed at least US$1 billion in money and resources to fight the broader societal scourge of racism and support Black Americans and people of color more broadly.
Unfortunately, if past experience is any indication, good intentions and public pledges will not be enough to tackle the problem of the underrepresentation of women and people of color in most companies.
Yet, half a decade later, their latest reports reveal, in embarrassing detail, how little things have changed, especially for underrepresented minorities. For example, at Apple, the share of women in tech jobs rose from 20% in 2014 to 23% in 2018, while the percentage of Black workers in those roles remained flat at 6%. Google managed to increase the share of women in such jobs to 24% in 2020 from 17% in 2014, yet only 2.4% of these tech roles are filled by Black workers, up from 1.5% in 2014. Even companies that have made more progress, such as Twitter, still have far to go to achieve meaningful representation.
I believe one of the reasons for the lack of progress is that two of their main methods, diversity training and mentoring, were flawed. Training can actually harm workplace relationships, while mentoring places the burden of changing the system on those disadvantaged by it and with the least influence over it.
More importantly, however, you can not solve the problem of diversity – no matter how much money you throw at it – without a thorough understanding of its source: faulty human decision-making.
A problem of bias
My research, which relies on the behavioral work of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, explains that because humans are unaware of their unconscious biases, most underestimate their impact on the decisions they make.
Male-dominated industries, such as tech, finance and engineering, tend to keep hiring the same types of employees and promoting the same types of workers due to their preference for applicants who match the stereotype of who belongs in these roles – a phenomenon known as representative bias. This perpetuates the status quo that keeps men in prime positions and prevents women and underrepresented minorities from gaining a foothold.
This problem is amplified by confirmation bias and the validity illusion, which lead us to be overconfident in our predictions and decisions – despite ample research demonstrating how poorly humans are at forecasting events.
By failing to make objective decisions in the hiring process, the system just repeats itself over and over.
How AI can overcome bias
Advances in artificial intelligence, however, offer a way to overcome these biases by making hiring decisions more objective and consistent.
One way is by anonymizing the interview process.
Studies have found that simply replacing female names with male names on resumes results in improving the odds of a woman being hired by 61%. AI could help ensure an applicant isn’t culled early in the vetting process due to gender or race in a number of ways. For example, code could be written that removes certain identifying features from resumes. Or a company could use neuroscience games – which help match candidate skills and cognitive traits to the needs of jobs – as an unbiased gatekeeper.
Another roadblock is job descriptions, which can be worded in a way that results in fewer applicants from diverse backgrounds. AI is able to identify and remove biased language before the ad is even posted.
Some companies have already made strides hiring women and underrepresented minorities this way. For example, Unilever has had fantastic success improving the diversity of its workforce by employing a number of AI technologies in the recruitment process, including using a chatbot to carry on automated “conversations” with applicants. Earlier this year, the maker of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Vaseline jelly said it achieved perfect parity between women and men in management positions, up from 38% a decade earlier.
Accenture, which ranked number one in 2019 among more than 7,000 companies around the world on an index of diversity and inclusion, utilizes AI in its online assessments of job applicants. Women now make up 38% of its U.S. workforce, up from 36% in 2015, while African Americans rose to 9.3% from 7.6%.
Garbage in, garbage out
Of course, AI is only as good as the data and design that go into it.
We know that biases can be introduced in the choices programmers make when creating an algorithm, how information is labeled and even in the very data sets that AI relies upon. A 2018 study found that a poorly designed facial recognition algorithm had an error rate as high as 34% for identifying darker-skinned women, compared with 1% for light-skinned men.
Fortunately, bias in AI can be mitigated – and remedied when problems are discovered – through its responsible use, which requires balanced and inclusive data sets, the ability to peer inside its “black box” and the recruitment of a diverse group of programmers to build these programs. Additionally, algorithmic outcomes can be monitored and audited for bias and accuracy.
================================================================ Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, “you can take the bias out of AI – but you can’t remove it from humans.” So true. Many of us are worried that technology – including but not limited to AI – will dehumanize us. But with creativity, and good will, there is no reason we can’t use it to make ourselves more human – in the good senses of compassionate and creative, not in the negative senses of flawed and unpredictable.
Gary Larson – whom you will remember as the creator of The Far Side – and who has been terribly missed since he retired – credits his return to active cartooning entirely to the discovery that drawing digitally is fun. So that cartooning for him is now fun again. I hope we can learn something from that as we pursue greater fairness and diversity as well.
Here are 5 clips which probably constitute the entire show.
Expect the Worst I and II –
No, it’s not the time to get complacent. For sure.
Racism. The Southern Strategy. It worked while it was a dog whistle. We’ll see how long it works when it is a demented scream. Longer than I would like it to, certainly.
Broken News –
A very easy way to seek out black journalism is to go over to Daily Kos, click on Groups, and find the group “Black Kos.” Another good source is the Atlanta Black Star. That’s far from a complete ist but it’s a start.
We Will Always Love You, Dolly Parton –
A lot of flak was aimed at her by someone who no longer has a job and is weeping like a snowflake. I’d tell you who, but he’s so insignificant I can’t recall his name.
Sylvan Esso –
I love it that Sam is supporting groups trying to get established.
