Author Topic: Google facing multiple lawsuits  (Read 49398 times)

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Offline ironbite

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #150 on: October 13, 2017, 01:09:27 pm »
OH Queen....you layth the best Smackdowns.

Offline Askold

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #151 on: October 13, 2017, 05:25:34 pm »
See, the thing is that when someone actually knows the stuff they can lay a smackdown like that on random amateurs who just google stuff that looks like it might support their stance.
No matter what happens, no matter what my last words may end up being, I want everyone to claim that they were:
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Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #152 on: October 13, 2017, 10:55:07 pm »
I don't know much about Zoe, other than that she apparently made an overrated game, but the same goes for her.
I am in awe of someone who chases drama on the internet as much as you seem to and you doesn't know the skinny about Gamergate.



This is my totally not skeptical face!

Lana is familiar with cultural Marxism (historically known as "cultural Bolshevism" or "cultural Judaism"), SJWs, space spaces, power + prejudice, James Damore, the Alt-right, and "alleged sexism," but unfamiliar with GamerGate. Bull-to-the-shit.

It's not that I don't know, and more that I don't care.

What.

Okay, this little theory of yours... it holds absolutely no water. Damore was fired on August 7. The plaintiffs didn't file their suit against Google until over a month later. So unless time suddenly became non-linear and nobody told me, what you're suggesting is factually wrong. How hard is it to check a couple of dates?

Double post, your explanation is more spurious drivel that isn't convincing. It isn't uncommon in big suits to try to settle without filing. Very often, litigation begins with a demand letter saying "your client sucks ass, give my client money." The two sides talk, discuss the merits of the case and go back and forth. This can last several months as counsel attempts to settle prior to filing the case. Alternatively, it isn't uncommon to wait as late as you can before filing, only filing a few days before the statute of limitations. Again, in either hypo, Google would know of the threat of litigation when Damore wrote his sexist tirade; in fact, I first learned of the suit the day I learned of Damore's memo, on a drive home while listening to NPR.

Also, my employment law is rusty, but I believe the plaintiffs must first file a claim with the EEOC 150 or so days before a private attorney may prosecute the claim. Ergo, Google knew this suit was coming.

You looked for the first argument to make yourself look right without giving a solitary shit of its veracity. This is why I insult you, because I do not see enough good-faith on your end to actually warrant the investment of my time. Cheerio.

You're accusing me of a lack of good faith? That's the pot calling the kettle black. Break any more promises lately?
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #153 on: October 14, 2017, 03:18:01 pm »
....what in the fuck is that supposed to be?

Ironbite-you did nothing to refute...anything.

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #154 on: October 15, 2017, 08:17:39 am »
Um, so far we've coveredt court cases, Gamergate, ANTIFA and Damore's conspiracy theory about a looming leftist cult of politically correct doom, or as Queen has elucidated us Cultural Marxism Judaism in a ruthless capitalist corporation together with his not-science explanation of why ladies don't make good engineers because of science, bro.

Which is all wizard fun Lana but so far you haven't answered the one poster with topical knowledge, Murdin.

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Askold already pointed out how the article resorts to lowbrow nitpicking to make its lame points. That's certainly true, but it won't be the focus of my criticism. There's worse, so much worse than that to be found in this Gish gallop, and this time our buddy will NOT be able to hide behind weak as shit reservations such as "there are a few things I'd have liked for it to cover in more depth, but overall, I think I agree with it". I wasn't lying when I said it was a very interesting read. There's a lot to learn here about the so-called "rationalist" mindset, and how it can become so utterly detached from the scientific enterprise.

And what better way to introduce this assassination of science, than with this audacious dismissal of the idea that correlations made by people the author agree with do not imply causation?

Quote
This is a case of what Garett Jones calls the Everest regression. He says that controlling for height, the atmospheric pressure there is not low. Or as I say, controlling for latitude, the Sahara desert has good weather.

The error here is that HDI and gender equality are substantially linked. Controlling for HDI or GDP is like controlling for gender equality. As a general case, all good things are correlated: technology, moral progress, GDP, country IQ, industrialisation tend to be coupled. We don’t need power to explain those differences.

Okay, let's follow his reasoning through. After controlling for height, the atmospheric pressure at the summit of the Everest is normal. This is obviously because altitude is the only factor (it actually isn't but w/e) that affects pressure at this position on the surface of Earth ; there's no need for an alternate explanation. Therefore, if after controlling for HDI the gender differences are normal for any set of gender-equality factors, it means... OH SH-

This would also be a questionable cause fallacy, of course. The entire point of Dr. Sadedin was to give an alternative interpretation of the same results (high HDI causes men to act more stereotypically masculine) that makes at least as much sense as the one this study was clearly designed around (gender equality causes people to act more stereotypically gendered), just to show that you can't easily conclude any causation from a mess of correlations that are also correlated with each other. The same mess of correlation that the blog's author actually mention while completely ignoring its actual implications. Science is fucking hard, guys.

The concept behind the "Everest regression" itself is a massive fallacy. Its implication that controlling for known external factors is fallacious is... beyond insane. You can't even argue that it denounces somehow "abusive" or "illegitimate" forms of control, either, because its textbook case IS logically sound and scientifically meaningful. We can evaluate the correlation between pressure and height (and maybe also temperature...) from other measurements. If the pressure at Mt Everest is NOT normal controlling for height, then there has to be an additional factor to explain this discrepancy.

Jones is an associate professor in economics at the Koch-funded George Mason University. From what I can guess, he invented his fallacy in order to defend IQ as some essential measurement of man, against trained psychologists who mostly see it as a tool which nicely correlates with many factors of social success. I'll let you make your own opinion of the man, his works, and whether his layman's stances on natural sciences are worth your consideration. Besides Googling his name, his Twitter is a good source of information ; Here's a reblog demonstrating his vision on what makes good science.

Incidentally, cursory knowledge of world geography would tell you the Sahara's weather is, in fact, particularly inhospitable even when accounting for latitude. Unless you define "good weather" as "sunny", in which case the Sahara has excellent weather regardless of latitude.

Quote
The paper says that initially, mental rotation differences were moderaly large, d=.59, for men primed male and women rimed female. (p=0.01).  For men and women both primed male, the effect was d=0.01. But what is the p-value or that? Well, p=0.94. Yes, 19 times larger than the standard 0.05 cutoff commonly accepted for statistical significance. For the whole set they report statistical significant results, but no effect size. We can also study statistical significance in the extreme case: female primed men and male primed women. If we plug in their data in a Welch’s t-test calculator, we get a p-value of 0.61. Again, not statistically significant.

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Like David Silverman in his interview by Bill O'Reilly, I... genuinely can't explain what I have in front of me. This is faux-scientific fetishism of the dumbest fucking kind, the end result of years of smug rationalist cargo cult enabled by the likes of Scott Alexander. That man's understanding of p-values is apparently limited to "low good, high bad".

The difference in test results between men and women both primed male is tiny. This results in a very high p-value. A valid interpretation of this p-value is that this kind of result would be very likely to be found if there was no difference between the two studied groups with regard to the studied characteristic. Or, to use a handy "Everest regression": when controlling for male priming, there's no observed difference in tests results between men and women. This tends to corroborate Dr. Sadedin's hypothesis that gender priming, not biological sex, is to blame for the widely measured disparity between men and women on spatial reasoning skills.

Meanwhile, I'm calculating a p-value around 0.014 for women primed female vs women primed male. I can't get the exact value without the group sizes, but my other calculations fit quite well with the blog author's numbers. In any case, that's actually quite significant. Obviously, this is also good for Dr. Sadedin's claim that gendered priming has an influence on test results.

I'm aware this study cannot be the be-all end-all on the subject. In fact, I'm almost certain more data will come out or already exist, that directly contradicts these results. It doesn't matter. Even if the scores behind this study were found to be completely forged, it does not excuse or justify the blog author's hatchet job in any way whatsoever.

Quote
There is a significant overlap, yes. But if we look at the tails, as I’ve been stressing over and over, one can still see massive differences.

The defilement of science is less eye-gouging than in the two previous exhibits, but there's a lot of different wrongs in this single point.
  • The linked article was written by an economist. Incidentally, the same economist with no background in natural sciences that pulled the Everest regression out of his ass.
  • It is, in fact, a libertarian political tract poorly disguised as a scientific study. Which is admittedly par for the course for an economist.
  • The blog author was trying to address the differences in software engineering skill between men and women. The relevant part of the article is about IQ instead.
  • Said part is based on a survey from Scotland, made in... 1932. That's right, 85 year old data from a fairly small and culturally homogeneous population.
  • On 11 year old kids.
  • The "massive differences" touted by the blog author... simply aren't that massive. Even at the very tail end of the chart, we have 277 boys for 203 girls, which is a bit over four boys for every three girls.
  • Inflated claims and abusive use of IQ as a measure for skill notwithstanding, this number does not even come close to explaining the truly massive gender disparities in software engineering.
From a more personal perspective, as a software engineer myself, I'm highly skeptical of the underlying claim that doing my job competently actually requires such extraordinary mental prowess.

As for the rest of the article past this point... it becomes pretty boring, to be quite honest. The author keeps talking past Dr. Sadedin's points, often rephrasing what she just said in a marginally more favorable way and then calling it a win. For a while, he just quotes relevant studies from actual scientists, wisely abstaining himself from adding his own commentary or conclusions. Then both the original response and the blog post drift into politics and I can finally be excused for not giving a shit. There isn't much to say about the author's self-congratulating conclusion, either.


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Obviously not a direct question this time, buddy, but... why do you hate science so much? Why do you keep using it as a blunt weapon against your rhetorical opponents, without showing any respect to its most fundamental principles? Why do you spew self-righteous bullshit like "I guess science is sexist now" or "rather than approaching this ideologically, let's look at it scientifically", only to effectively disown it by including such enormities in your narrative?

I mean... is it really worth it? What are you even trying to achieve here, and I actually do mean, here? You've already claimed Religion and Philosophy, Politics and Government, Society and History, was that not enough for you? Did you really have to bring your usual drivel to Science&Tech, incidentally the only place where I would give a fuck about it in in the first place, and then gloat openly over Queen taking the bait? And then take a blatant bait yourself, deliberately or not? Did you think you were the only one "clever" enough for that kind of dirty trick, or did you just decide to go along with the ride?

Because, unless making people exhaust themselves was somehow actually part of your goal, I'm pretty sure you haven't achieved anything here.
A post you haven't actually answered except to compliment Murdin on his sciencyness.
And that "criticism" of my position? I'll admit that Murdin is actually using science, and Askold actually criticized the memo itself, but the others were ridiculous. Between Cloud trying to debunk an article by attacking its authors and the website that hosted it, Queen snarking about alleged sexism, and niam Godwinning all over the place, their "criticism" is hardly worth even acknowledging. What I want is a scientific discussion. If I wanted to discuss politics, I'd have put this on the political board.

Weird you expressing your distaste in debating politics when you haven't actually debated someone with an expert opinion about the science in this thread-though you've seemed perfectly comfortable debating about ANTIFA and Zoe Quinn, looks to me like you ducked the scientist and moved back to safer territory.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2017, 08:19:12 am by Tolpuddle Martyr »

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #155 on: October 15, 2017, 06:12:33 pm »
....what in the fuck is that supposed to be?

Ironbite-you did nothing to refute...anything.

Refute what? Her character assassination?

I'll admit that there are gaps in my knowledge regarding legal matters, and if Queen had just corrected me, I wouldn't have been upset. But she decided she'd make things personal. And that's the last thing you want to do in an argument with me. I have a long memory and can be a vindictive bitch. Not a good combination.

See, when Her Majesty accused me of bad faith, I can't help but suspect she's projecting. Earlier this year, she sent me a PM promising to stop accusing me of being a ban-dodger if I answered her question:

Yo, straight up. Just tell me and it stays between us. I don't bring it up again. Are you Ultimate Paragon?

And as a footnote, I am many things: a dirty tranny, a miscreant, a heretic... But, I am not a liar. If you say yes I don't tell peeps, and any accusation of paragon-ness is done. If you say no, I may not trust you, but it stays between us. I just believe that you are ultimate paragon, and the third incarnation of Dynamic dragon, and I just want to know what your up to; what is your endgame?

Emphasis mine.

Then, two days later, she says this:

No you're just intentionally being dense to misinterpret what I am saying. I said, as a group. As in, as a group, white men skewed Trump, and if they did not skew for Trump to such a degree, he wouldn't be president. That is not to say all white men, because as I said, statistics (and the website I linked to used percentages instead of blanket statements). This is why we already know you're paragon.

Emphasis mine.

Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Um, so far we've coveredt court cases, Gamergate, ANTIFA and Damore's conspiracy theory about a looming leftist cult of politically correct doom, or as Queen has elucidated us Cultural Marxism Judaism in a ruthless capitalist corporation together with his not-science explanation of why ladies don't make good engineers because of science, bro.

Which is all wizard fun Lana but so far you haven't answered the one poster with topical knowledge, Murdin.

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Weird you expressing your distaste in debating politics when you haven't actually debated someone with an expert opinion about the science in this thread-though you've seemed perfectly comfortable debating about ANTIFA and Zoe Quinn, looks to me like you ducked the scientist and moved back to safer territory.


What the hell are you blaming me for? Most of the other participants - including you - are the ones obsessing over the political implications. It wasn't me who got the ball rolling.
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Offline davedan

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #156 on: October 15, 2017, 06:39:54 pm »
You didn't say whether you ever answered her question.

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #157 on: October 15, 2017, 09:28:28 pm »
You didn't say whether you ever answered her question.

Wait, did I?

*checks sent messages, sees nothing*

Huh. I could've sworn I did. My bad. Sorry, Queen.

And as for GamerGate, I completely fail to see why I should care. At least, any more than I do about, say, Beliebers being toxic.
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Offline davedan

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #158 on: October 15, 2017, 09:38:11 pm »
My point was you have raised these messages to say that the Queen broke a promise allegedly given.  You never said what your response was, which would indicate whether you had taken her up on her offer.

Doesn't seem to indicate that she did break any promise to you.

Offline Skybison

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #159 on: October 16, 2017, 03:00:01 am »
I have a long memory

You didn't say whether you ever answered her question.

Wait, did I?

*checks sent messages, sees nothing*

Huh. I could've sworn I did. My bad. Sorry, Queen.

Seems Legit.

But hey I'm sure you just got emotional when you typed that.

Offline Tolpuddle Martyr

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #160 on: October 16, 2017, 04:29:09 am »
Yes Lana, I did debate politics with you-a process that you find so tiresome, not to mention misplaced in the science and tech section of the board then along comes Murdin with who raises a bunch of scientific points disagreeing with you and you answer his criticism with a quick compliment that doesn't address the points Murdin raised.

So, don't debate politics and law with me. Debate science with Murdin. Answer Murdins points already.

Offline Lana Reverse

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #161 on: October 16, 2017, 05:09:43 pm »
I have a long memory

You didn't say whether you ever answered her question.

Wait, did I?

*checks sent messages, sees nothing*

Huh. I could've sworn I did. My bad. Sorry, Queen.

Seems Legit.

But hey I'm sure you just got emotional when you typed that.

I said "long", not "perfect".

Yes Lana, I did debate politics with you-a process that you find so tiresome, not to mention misplaced in the science and tech section of the board then along comes Murdin with who raises a bunch of scientific points disagreeing with you and you answer his criticism with a quick compliment that doesn't address the points Murdin raised.

So, don't debate politics and law with me. Debate science with Murdin. Answer Murdins points already.

Then take a break from building strawmen. Nobody's forcing you to do it.
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Offline ironbite

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #162 on: October 16, 2017, 05:36:17 pm »
Oh wow that's kinda rich coming from you.

Offline niam2023

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #163 on: October 16, 2017, 07:33:52 pm »
Lana, why don't you just accept that nobody here is liable to be "converted" to believing the google dudebro did nothing wrong.
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Offline Skybison

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Re: Google facing multiple lawsuits
« Reply #164 on: October 16, 2017, 07:56:01 pm »
I said "long", not "perfect".

It's a very convenient thing to be forgetting though.  Reminds me of another person who was here before who always made such mistakes.  Like when he made a "typo" that his brother was trans that he "forgot" to correct.  Gee what was his name again?