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US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9469

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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.

In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!

NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious.
Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
mozoku
Profile Joined September 2012
United States708 Posts
December 08 2017 20:31 GMT
#189361
On December 09 2017 05:21 zlefin wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:15 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:03 KwarK wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:01 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:34 IgnE wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:26 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, the expression a few bad apples means that the whole barrel is spoiled. It doesn't mean "the problem is isolated, we can remove the bad apples and salvage the rest", it means "throw the barrel of apples overboard".


its in any case a surprising conclusion from a statistics expert, trained to tease systematic trends out of large datasets. "it's basically a rounding error (lets not compare it to other countries' rounding errors)"

if i saw this tape and the victim was a family member or close friend of mine i would want blood in return

Eh, I don't see any mistakes in what I said.

"Americans" can't really push for change when there's no centralized organisation that dictates police policy. If you live in NYC and this is a big issue for you, you can't do much to stop it from happening in Arizona. Consequently, the ability of the public to effect change here is limited. Hence why I emphasized that there are thousands of independently operated police departments. In places where this is ostensibly a recurring problem (e.g. Chicago), there are mostly already reform attempts in place.

I didn't ignore that the US seems to have higher police shooting fatality rates compared to other countries--hence why I pointed out what seems to me to be the most likely potential country-level culprit (gun policy).

My other implicit point was that at least 500-1000 people a year die from pretty much anything you can think of in a population of ~350M. At least in terms of number of lives saved, it's hard for me to conclude that this is the area where we can most move the needle. On the other hand, the public perception (and this political pressure/outrage) is going to be dramatically biased upwards relative to other issues because of the media attention and emotional power associated with the issue.

500-1000 people a year don't die from Islamic terrorist attacks in the US and yet that seems to be an issue.

This ignores the fact that, if you ignore the growth of Islamic terrorist groups, you increase your exposure of tail risks such as 9/11 (worse). There's also a deterrent aspect that needs to be considered.

Even given those factors though, I do honestly question sometimes whether the War on Terror can be justify its cost. My hunch is that terrorism's media exposure and emotional impacts may actually result in overreactions to terror, but I'm not knowledgeable enough (and the data likely doesn't exist) to estimate that with any certainty.

there's more than enough data to establish with complete certainty that the war on terror does not justify its cost. (at least that's true for several very reasonable ways of looking at the data using reasonable assumptions, and for other ways it still strongly trends toward not bein worthwhile)

I'm pretty skeptical here because the tail risks are essentially impossible to estimate with data. If NK sold a nuclear ICBM to ISIS and it hit Manhattan, the cost of the War on Terror is certainly justified.

When you start getting into estimating highly improbable and unprecedented stuff with unfathomable costs, "statistics" is more akin to guesswork than anything else.

You could maybe make the conclusion you're trying to make by playing with assumptions, but you certainly won't be doing it with data.
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
December 08 2017 20:34 GMT
#189362
Working for Amazon’s main office might be fine. From all reports working at their warehouses is like working in some 1920s hellscape, but you get lunch breaks.

These companies are just as garbage as every other company. The only thing that is different is everyone thinks they are Willy Wonka’s candy factory, so they are sort of insulated from bad PR about work environments.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
IyMoon
Profile Joined April 2016
United States1249 Posts
December 08 2017 20:35 GMT
#189363
On December 09 2017 05:34 Plansix wrote:
Working for Amazon’s main office might be fine. From all reports working at their warehouses is like working in some 1920s hellscape, but you get lunch breaks.

These companies are just as garbage as every other company. The only thing that is different is everyone thinks they are Willy Wonka’s candy factory, so they are sort of insulated from bad PR about work environments.


you have NO idea how great startups can be to work for if you get one that does not work you to death. I have had friends who get massages at work once a week. Beer fridge, work from home, wear shorts to the office (Which is just weird if you ask me) Dinner provided if you have to work pass your normal hours.

Tech is fucking awesome to work in
Something witty
Nyxisto
Profile Joined August 2010
Germany6287 Posts
December 08 2017 20:39 GMT
#189364
you always work yourself to death and often the pay is bad outside of the silicon vallley bubble. Startups are completely oversold. I don't know any adult person who enjoys working in shorts in a loud open office for hours to no end sitting in one of these sandbag things that break your back

The tech sector is awesome but not this fratboy like environment that startups try to pitch
Nevuk
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States16280 Posts
December 08 2017 20:39 GMT
#189365
Goddamn



More shameful mistakes.
zlefin
Profile Blog Joined October 2012
United States7689 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-08 20:42:26
December 08 2017 20:39 GMT
#189366
On December 09 2017 05:31 mozoku wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:21 zlefin wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:15 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:03 KwarK wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:01 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:34 IgnE wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:26 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, the expression a few bad apples means that the whole barrel is spoiled. It doesn't mean "the problem is isolated, we can remove the bad apples and salvage the rest", it means "throw the barrel of apples overboard".


its in any case a surprising conclusion from a statistics expert, trained to tease systematic trends out of large datasets. "it's basically a rounding error (lets not compare it to other countries' rounding errors)"

if i saw this tape and the victim was a family member or close friend of mine i would want blood in return

Eh, I don't see any mistakes in what I said.

"Americans" can't really push for change when there's no centralized organisation that dictates police policy. If you live in NYC and this is a big issue for you, you can't do much to stop it from happening in Arizona. Consequently, the ability of the public to effect change here is limited. Hence why I emphasized that there are thousands of independently operated police departments. In places where this is ostensibly a recurring problem (e.g. Chicago), there are mostly already reform attempts in place.

I didn't ignore that the US seems to have higher police shooting fatality rates compared to other countries--hence why I pointed out what seems to me to be the most likely potential country-level culprit (gun policy).

My other implicit point was that at least 500-1000 people a year die from pretty much anything you can think of in a population of ~350M. At least in terms of number of lives saved, it's hard for me to conclude that this is the area where we can most move the needle. On the other hand, the public perception (and this political pressure/outrage) is going to be dramatically biased upwards relative to other issues because of the media attention and emotional power associated with the issue.

500-1000 people a year don't die from Islamic terrorist attacks in the US and yet that seems to be an issue.

This ignores the fact that, if you ignore the growth of Islamic terrorist groups, you increase your exposure of tail risks such as 9/11 (worse). There's also a deterrent aspect that needs to be considered.

Even given those factors though, I do honestly question sometimes whether the War on Terror can be justify its cost. My hunch is that terrorism's media exposure and emotional impacts may actually result in overreactions to terror, but I'm not knowledgeable enough (and the data likely doesn't exist) to estimate that with any certainty.

there's more than enough data to establish with complete certainty that the war on terror does not justify its cost. (at least that's true for several very reasonable ways of looking at the data using reasonable assumptions, and for other ways it still strongly trends toward not bein worthwhile)

I'm pretty skeptical here because the tail risks are essentially impossible to estimate with data. If NK sold a nuclear ICBM to ISIS and it hit Manhattan, the cost of the War on Terror is certainly justified.

When you start getting into estimating highly improbable and unprecedented stuff with unfathomable costs, "statistics" is more akin to guesswork than anything else.

You could maybe make the conclusion you're trying to make by playing with assumptions, but you certainly won't be doing it with data.

nothing can be estimated perfectly, that doesn't mean it can't be estimated pretty well.
also, that first paragraph is a garbage argument, and as a statistician you should know it; it's about expected value, not about the outcome that happens to occur.
just because unknown unknowns exist doesn't mean we can't come up with some fairly decent numbers.
and we most certainly can make it with data, it seems more like you're just being resistant to it because you don't like the conclusion that it was an obvious and avoidable mistake from an actuarial perspective. you're not always that reluctant to make conclusions about things.
Great read: http://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/ great book on democracy: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10671.html zlefin is grumpier due to long term illness. Ignoring some users.
mozoku
Profile Joined September 2012
United States708 Posts
December 08 2017 20:45 GMT
#189367
On December 09 2017 05:34 Plansix wrote:
These companies are just as garbage as every other company. The only thing that is different is everyone thinks they are Willy Wonka’s candy factory, so they are sort of insulated from bad PR about work environments.

This is retardedly ignorant. The decision-making logic of all large corporations may be terribly similar, but Google, Facebook, etc. are competing over a relatively small talent pool with a bazillion other corporations. It has to provide something better, on average, to win that competition.
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United States13779 Posts
December 08 2017 20:50 GMT
#189368
On December 09 2017 05:22 CorsairHero wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:07 LegalLord wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:58 buhhy wrote:
On December 09 2017 03:41 LegalLord wrote:
On December 09 2017 03:34 Sermokala wrote:
And yet facebook is often rated as one of the best places to work at.

These days the qualifications for that tend to include:
1. Be a tech company.


It's not hard to do when most other companies straight up suck at providing a good workplace.

Sounds like a wonderful reductionist explanation for the fact that it really seldom takes more than being a tech company, and often writing your own reviews and generally bullshitting about how much you’re changing the world, to have tech blogs and “business news” rave about how good a company it is.

I’ve worked in plenty of companies where all the reviews said “omg amazing place to work” that were utter shit, and vice versa. The former generally, though not necessarily always, are mostly shitty places with a cult mentality that makes people believe it’s great.

high salaries are nice to have
so is working from home when needed with flexible hours

not many industries provide that combination

Tends to be a “one or the other” in software as well. In practice working from home frequently is a career damaging move. Nor is that dynamic anywhere near isolated to just your FB/Google/Apple etc.; most big companies these days offer those.

On December 09 2017 05:25 mozoku wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:07 LegalLord wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:58 buhhy wrote:
On December 09 2017 03:41 LegalLord wrote:
On December 09 2017 03:34 Sermokala wrote:
And yet facebook is often rated as one of the best places to work at.

These days the qualifications for that tend to include:
1. Be a tech company.


It's not hard to do when most other companies straight up suck at providing a good workplace.

Sounds like a wonderful reductionist explanation for the fact that it really seldom takes more than being a tech company, and often writing your own reviews and generally bullshitting about how much you’re changing the world, to have tech blogs and “business news” rave about how good a company it is.

I’ve worked in plenty of companies where all the reviews said “omg amazing place to work” that were utter shit, and vice versa. The former generally, though not necessarily always, are mostly shitty places with a cult mentality that makes people believe it’s great.

Eh, it probably has to do with the fact that places with comparable pay and work-life balance are much smaller and less well-known. And that it's an average of many different people.

Not at all. Those environments are really quite standard corporate fare. Which isn’t a bad thing at all; corporate work environments are pleasant enough. The edge tends to come from developing a sort of cult-like obsession with the idea that X company is futuristic whereas all Y, Z, and S companies ain’t moving with the times. Plus having HR write their own online reviews, which generally are cited by “best place to work” reports.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
December 08 2017 20:50 GMT
#189369
Having worked for banks and tech companies providing legal support, I see little difference between them and any other industry. They make good decisions within their school of expertise, but fail stunningly when they leave it. Both tech and banking industries ask the same stupid questions and have the same unreasonable expectations. The blind worship of the false meritocracy is something the tech industry has been pushing for a long time.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
Grumbels
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Netherlands7031 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-08 20:57:42
December 08 2017 20:53 GMT
#189370
On December 09 2017 02:50 Plansix wrote:
The main is face down trying to crawl to the cop. Unless he is secretly John Wick, that cop is going to be fine. The standard can’t be “well if he had a gun, there was an tiny chance he could have gotten a shot off and killed me, so I’m justified in gunning him down.”

It is getting to the point where if a cop pulls a gun on you, they just get to decide if you live or die. There is no right way to respond. Don’t move, get shot. Move, Get shot. Talk back, get shot. Run, get shot. Hands up, get shot.

Not only is there no right way to respond, but if you actually correctly perceive the cop as a threat to your life then any form of successful self-defence will have you arrested and thrown in jail. The best advice I can give to people is to grovel and comply and completely debase yourself, because you are at the mercy of a man with a weapon who can get away with murder. The problem with this advice is that apparently many police officers are completely hysterical and will shout and scream at you to the point of confusion, or simply escalate the situation themselves.

This sort of situation is why cops should not have guns. Society being safer when the police get to randomly carry and use lethal weapons is idiotic. If some scenario is dangerous then just don’t engage. If someone runs from the police then just let them. People can not hide from the police for long anyway, I very much doubt such a change in policy would meaningfully change the ability of the police to arrest people.
Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views--amen, so be it.
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United States13779 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-08 21:08:18
December 08 2017 20:54 GMT
#189371
On December 09 2017 05:35 IyMoon wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:34 Plansix wrote:
Working for Amazon’s main office might be fine. From all reports working at their warehouses is like working in some 1920s hellscape, but you get lunch breaks.

These companies are just as garbage as every other company. The only thing that is different is everyone thinks they are Willy Wonka’s candy factory, so they are sort of insulated from bad PR about work environments.


you have NO idea how great startups can be to work for if you get one that does not work you to death. I have had friends who get massages at work once a week. Beer fridge, work from home, wear shorts to the office (Which is just weird if you ask me) Dinner provided if you have to work pass your normal hours.

Tech is fucking awesome to work in

No, an environment that idolizes immaturity and is a fratboy party is not “fucking awesome,” it’s just a place where it’s acceptable not to grow up.

I prefer not having idiots drinking beer where I’m working (alcohol and work don’t mix), thank you very much. Be immature on your own time, if the long hours that environment comes with allows you to have any of your own time.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
Grumbels
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
Netherlands7031 Posts
December 08 2017 20:56 GMT
#189372
On December 09 2017 05:35 IyMoon wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:34 Plansix wrote:
Working for Amazon’s main office might be fine. From all reports working at their warehouses is like working in some 1920s hellscape, but you get lunch breaks.

These companies are just as garbage as every other company. The only thing that is different is everyone thinks they are Willy Wonka’s candy factory, so they are sort of insulated from bad PR about work environments.


you have NO idea how great startups can be to work for if you get one that does not work you to death. I have had friends who get massages at work once a week. Beer fridge, work from home, wear shorts to the office (Which is just weird if you ask me) Dinner provided if you have to work pass your normal hours.

Tech is fucking awesome to work in

Wow, this sounds awful to work in.
Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views--amen, so be it.
Danglars
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States12133 Posts
December 08 2017 21:00 GMT
#189373
On December 09 2017 05:39 Nevuk wrote:
Goddamn

https://twitter.com/sarahcwestwood/status/939195519188000768

More shameful mistakes.

I'm with everybody that there might be something underneath it all. I want investigations to expose or clear people of wrongdoing.

What media outlets have been doing is provide fodder for a #FakeNews narrative by shoddy confirmation and rush-to-press bias. More careful attention to detail is clearly warranted, particularly when it rests on who knew what when. Suspicious timing is going to be viewed with far less credibility from here on out.
Great armies come from happy zealots, and happy zealots come from California!
TL+ Member
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
December 08 2017 21:00 GMT
#189374
Some of that stuff sounds fine. But most of it sounds like them making up for you working way to many hours on salary. All I care about is vacation time, sick days, health insurance and how good the firm is about reimbursement. I’m a grown up, I can pack my own lunch.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
LegalLord
Profile Blog Joined April 2013
United States13779 Posts
December 08 2017 21:04 GMT
#189375
On December 09 2017 06:00 Plansix wrote:
Some of that stuff sounds fine. But most of it sounds like them making up for you working way to many hours on salary. All I care about is vacation time, sick days, health insurance and how good the firm is about reimbursement. I’m a grown up, I can pack my own lunch.

That’s basically it. Healthcare, flexibility, vacation, 401k, those are real benefits. Catered lunches, wearing shorts, and free ice cream? Meh. I can dress like a regular person without issue and I can find something to eat just fine.
History will sooner or later sweep the European Union away without mercy.
Plansix
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States60190 Posts
December 08 2017 21:18 GMT
#189376
On December 09 2017 06:00 Danglars wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:39 Nevuk wrote:
Goddamn

https://twitter.com/sarahcwestwood/status/939195519188000768

More shameful mistakes.

I'm with everybody that there might be something underneath it all. I want investigations to expose or clear people of wrongdoing.

What media outlets have been doing is provide fodder for a #FakeNews narrative by shoddy confirmation and rush-to-press bias. More careful attention to detail is clearly warranted, particularly when it rests on who knew what when. Suspicious timing is going to be viewed with far less credibility from here on out.

We need to stop using “the media” and really focus on specific broadcaster and publications. This is CNN doing shoddy work and the Post correcting it. The discussion about news and reporting isn’t going to improve if it’s of collective guild.
I have the Honor to be your Obedient Servant, P.6
TL+ Member
mozoku
Profile Joined September 2012
United States708 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-08 21:33:26
December 08 2017 21:20 GMT
#189377
On December 09 2017 05:39 zlefin wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:31 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:21 zlefin wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:15 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:03 KwarK wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:01 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:34 IgnE wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:26 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, the expression a few bad apples means that the whole barrel is spoiled. It doesn't mean "the problem is isolated, we can remove the bad apples and salvage the rest", it means "throw the barrel of apples overboard".


its in any case a surprising conclusion from a statistics expert, trained to tease systematic trends out of large datasets. "it's basically a rounding error (lets not compare it to other countries' rounding errors)"

if i saw this tape and the victim was a family member or close friend of mine i would want blood in return

Eh, I don't see any mistakes in what I said.

"Americans" can't really push for change when there's no centralized organisation that dictates police policy. If you live in NYC and this is a big issue for you, you can't do much to stop it from happening in Arizona. Consequently, the ability of the public to effect change here is limited. Hence why I emphasized that there are thousands of independently operated police departments. In places where this is ostensibly a recurring problem (e.g. Chicago), there are mostly already reform attempts in place.

I didn't ignore that the US seems to have higher police shooting fatality rates compared to other countries--hence why I pointed out what seems to me to be the most likely potential country-level culprit (gun policy).

My other implicit point was that at least 500-1000 people a year die from pretty much anything you can think of in a population of ~350M. At least in terms of number of lives saved, it's hard for me to conclude that this is the area where we can most move the needle. On the other hand, the public perception (and this political pressure/outrage) is going to be dramatically biased upwards relative to other issues because of the media attention and emotional power associated with the issue.

500-1000 people a year don't die from Islamic terrorist attacks in the US and yet that seems to be an issue.

This ignores the fact that, if you ignore the growth of Islamic terrorist groups, you increase your exposure of tail risks such as 9/11 (worse). There's also a deterrent aspect that needs to be considered.

Even given those factors though, I do honestly question sometimes whether the War on Terror can be justify its cost. My hunch is that terrorism's media exposure and emotional impacts may actually result in overreactions to terror, but I'm not knowledgeable enough (and the data likely doesn't exist) to estimate that with any certainty.

there's more than enough data to establish with complete certainty that the war on terror does not justify its cost. (at least that's true for several very reasonable ways of looking at the data using reasonable assumptions, and for other ways it still strongly trends toward not bein worthwhile)

I'm pretty skeptical here because the tail risks are essentially impossible to estimate with data. If NK sold a nuclear ICBM to ISIS and it hit Manhattan, the cost of the War on Terror is certainly justified.

When you start getting into estimating highly improbable and unprecedented stuff with unfathomable costs, "statistics" is more akin to guesswork than anything else.

You could maybe make the conclusion you're trying to make by playing with assumptions, but you certainly won't be doing it with data.

nothing can be estimated perfectly, that doesn't mean it can't be estimated pretty well.
also, that first paragraph is a garbage argument, and as a statistician you should know it; it's about expected value, not about the outcome that happens to occur.
just because unknown unknowns exist doesn't mean we can't come up with some fairly decent numbers.
and we most certainly can make it with data, it seems more like you're just being resistant to it because you don't like the conclusion that it was an obvious and avoidable mistake from an actuarial perspective. you're not always that reluctant to make conclusions about things.

Great, since that's such a trivial problem to you then please explain to me how you're going to calculate the average of a distribution without knowing what that distribution is. You're literally being bananas here dude, and are clearly totally ignorant about the challenges of estimating tail risk. Even a cursory Google search to Wikipedia would have told you how challenging it is estimate tail risk. And you're telling me what can do it in a time series context in a region of the space that is totally unexplored (e.g. the potential sale of a nuclear ICBM by a rogue state to terrorist group that's hypothetically been left alone for a decade and a half).

How do you even estimate the cost of such an attack? In economic terms, again, you have no data to estimate the impact of NYC being vaporized (I'm waiting for you to tell me you can compare it to Hiroshima lol). Even ignoring that, how much economic cost (in USD) do you put on each person killed in such an attack? How do you value an an American civilian's life vs a Middle East civilian's life? These are terribly subjective, opinions vary on them widely, and they're 100% necessary to make such an estimation. So even if "some guy" did an analysis, it would likely be totally useless conclusion to everyone but himself.

Like I said, you can make assumptions and try to guestimate how good they are but there's literally no data on a hypothetical situation like that. Let alone enough to estimate a long-run probability of it occurring. And that's one out of an infinite amount of potential unknown unknowns that could come up. You're terribly out of your depth here, and it's pretty obvious. The fact that a model can output a number doesn't that the number is at all useful.

Has it ever occurred to you that sometimes I (like everyone else) post more seriously and/or knowledgeably on a topic than others? If there was a reasonable certainty threshold require to post here, this thread wasn't exist. The nature of politics is that there isn't enough time in your life or even enough data to do a detailed analysis of every issue without huge uncertainty, but you still have to vote. Hence why a lot of it, even among intellectual circles, relies on intuition, heuristics, etc.
buhhy
Profile Joined October 2009
United States1113 Posts
December 08 2017 21:23 GMT
#189378
A bunch of things I like about my workplace (compared to 5 other tech places I have worked at & my friend's experiences at banks and hospitals):

- flexible hrs (I go in any time between 9:30-12:00 and leave between 5:30 and 8:30), no time cards
- work from home any time
- no dress code (I hated business casual)
- free lunch, free dinner, free snacks, coffee, etc
- good work-life balance, I work around 40-45 hrs per week
- can go anywhere during the day (I've disappeared for 3-4 hrs without notifying anyone)
- reimbursements for random things like sport classes, internet, phone plan, etc
- wood shop, metal shop, welding shop that I make extensive use of
- awesome teammates (many have kids, it's a pretty diverse mix)
- ski trips every year at Tahoe, we're going to Hawaii this year :D
- 50% 401k match
- high pay, raises, bonuses, etc

Downsides:
- shitty parking
- shitty traffic
- housing prices
- I only get 4 wks of vacation

AFAIK, Facebook is similar in terms of perks, but I don't like the culture as much. LinkedIn is pretty nice too; the food is amazing and they have unlimited PTO.
Doodsmack
Profile Blog Joined August 2010
United States7224 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-08 21:27:03
December 08 2017 21:26 GMT
#189379
The man Republicans affirmatively chose to be their guy:

KwarK
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States43805 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-12-08 21:35:28
December 08 2017 21:35 GMT
#189380
On December 09 2017 06:20 mozoku wrote:
Show nested quote +
On December 09 2017 05:39 zlefin wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:31 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:21 zlefin wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:15 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:03 KwarK wrote:
On December 09 2017 05:01 mozoku wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:34 IgnE wrote:
On December 09 2017 04:26 KwarK wrote:
mozuku, the expression a few bad apples means that the whole barrel is spoiled. It doesn't mean "the problem is isolated, we can remove the bad apples and salvage the rest", it means "throw the barrel of apples overboard".


its in any case a surprising conclusion from a statistics expert, trained to tease systematic trends out of large datasets. "it's basically a rounding error (lets not compare it to other countries' rounding errors)"

if i saw this tape and the victim was a family member or close friend of mine i would want blood in return

Eh, I don't see any mistakes in what I said.

"Americans" can't really push for change when there's no centralized organisation that dictates police policy. If you live in NYC and this is a big issue for you, you can't do much to stop it from happening in Arizona. Consequently, the ability of the public to effect change here is limited. Hence why I emphasized that there are thousands of independently operated police departments. In places where this is ostensibly a recurring problem (e.g. Chicago), there are mostly already reform attempts in place.

I didn't ignore that the US seems to have higher police shooting fatality rates compared to other countries--hence why I pointed out what seems to me to be the most likely potential country-level culprit (gun policy).

My other implicit point was that at least 500-1000 people a year die from pretty much anything you can think of in a population of ~350M. At least in terms of number of lives saved, it's hard for me to conclude that this is the area where we can most move the needle. On the other hand, the public perception (and this political pressure/outrage) is going to be dramatically biased upwards relative to other issues because of the media attention and emotional power associated with the issue.

500-1000 people a year don't die from Islamic terrorist attacks in the US and yet that seems to be an issue.

This ignores the fact that, if you ignore the growth of Islamic terrorist groups, you increase your exposure of tail risks such as 9/11 (worse). There's also a deterrent aspect that needs to be considered.

Even given those factors though, I do honestly question sometimes whether the War on Terror can be justify its cost. My hunch is that terrorism's media exposure and emotional impacts may actually result in overreactions to terror, but I'm not knowledgeable enough (and the data likely doesn't exist) to estimate that with any certainty.

there's more than enough data to establish with complete certainty that the war on terror does not justify its cost. (at least that's true for several very reasonable ways of looking at the data using reasonable assumptions, and for other ways it still strongly trends toward not bein worthwhile)

I'm pretty skeptical here because the tail risks are essentially impossible to estimate with data. If NK sold a nuclear ICBM to ISIS and it hit Manhattan, the cost of the War on Terror is certainly justified.

When you start getting into estimating highly improbable and unprecedented stuff with unfathomable costs, "statistics" is more akin to guesswork than anything else.

You could maybe make the conclusion you're trying to make by playing with assumptions, but you certainly won't be doing it with data.

nothing can be estimated perfectly, that doesn't mean it can't be estimated pretty well.
also, that first paragraph is a garbage argument, and as a statistician you should know it; it's about expected value, not about the outcome that happens to occur.
just because unknown unknowns exist doesn't mean we can't come up with some fairly decent numbers.
and we most certainly can make it with data, it seems more like you're just being resistant to it because you don't like the conclusion that it was an obvious and avoidable mistake from an actuarial perspective. you're not always that reluctant to make conclusions about things.

Great, since that's such a trivial problem to you then please explain to me how you're going to calculate the average of a distribution without knowing what that distribution is. You're literally being bananas here dude, and are clearly totally ignorant about the challenges of estimating tail risk. Even a cursory Google search to Wikipedia would have told you how challenging it is estimate tail risk. And you're telling me what can do it in a time series context in a region of the space that is totally unexplored (e.g. the potential sale of a nuclear ICBM by a rogue state to terrorist group that's hypothetically been left alone for a decade and a half).

How do you even estimate the cost of such an attack? In economic terms, again, you have no data to estimate the impact of NYC being vaporized (I'm waiting for you to tell me you can compare it to Hiroshima lol). Even ignoring that, how much economic cost (in USD) do you put on each person killed in such an attack? How do you value an an American civilian's life vs a Middle East civilian's life? These are terribly subjective, opinions vary on them widely, and they're 100% necessary to make such an estimation. So even if "some guy" did an analysis, it would likely be totally useless conclusion to everyone but himself.

Like I said, you can make assumptions and try to guestimate how good they are but there's literally no data on a hypothetical situation like that. Let alone enough to estimate a long-run probability of it occurring. And that's one out of an infinite amount of potential unknown unknowns that could come up. You're terribly out of your depth here, and it's pretty obvious. The fact that a model can output a number doesn't that the number is at all useful.

Has it ever occurred to you that sometimes I (like everyone else) post more seriously and/or knowledgeably on a topic than others? If there was a reasonable certainty threshold require to post here, this thread wasn't exist. The nature of politics is that there isn't enough time in your life or even enough data to do a detailed analysis of every issue without huge uncertainty, but you still have to vote. Hence why a lot of it, even among intellectual circles, relies on intuition, heuristics, etc.

The risk of ISIS using a NK nuke to nuke NY is the same as the risk of NK nuking NY. Nobody thinks NK wouldn't get destroyed if they sold a nuke to ISIS. Hell, we destroyed Iraq and Saddam had nothing to do with Bin Laden.

You don't get any increased risk by adding ISIS into the equation.
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