betascience
1yr ago
You got a few answers and they are all on point. It’s very broad and under defined and can mean anything from building dashboards to building data pipelines to building ML models to just being an analyst.
The standard definition is that data scientists combine math/statistics, programming, and knowledge of a business domain to use data for solving business problems. One of the key pieces of the tool kit are machine learning models which are at their heart statistical tools.
betascience
1yr ago
What are you trying to get into? Data Science in general is very gatekept by formal education and you'll be competing with PhDs for most positions. It doesn't help that the job title is seen as very hot so any opening gets flooded by resumes. That said, it's not very entry level friendly and if you know a particular domain really well and are good at design and communication you can get a leg up that way. Also stats nerds are really bad at programming, so you will likely have an advantage there.
betascience
1yr ago
Traditionally class is about wealth and not having to work. By European standards that programmer is quite correct. In Europe class is about wealth and status where the status comes from not needing to do labor. In the US we are far more concerned with income and having a high status profession where the status comes from the work's social importance or implied intellectual capability. So the two systems don't neatly map onto each other.
betascience
1yr ago
I’m not seeing the “verb” version as a verb. Use it in a sentence.
betascience
1yr ago
How so? I’d really like to understand the logic of this position.
betascience
1yr ago
Calling a series of factual statements a “gish gallop” is basically telling on yourself. There’s no argument here, but you’re admitting the conclusion you would draw is uncomfortable ergo assuming bad intentions.
betascience
1yr ago
I don't think one has to think car-centric sprawl is the peak of human existence to think it's a pleasant way to live that many people enjoy. People vote with their feet and their wallets and the outlying, sprawlier communities with more square feet and bigger lots do very well and if that means a half hour commute instead of biking 5 minutes to work, young families seem fine with that. I love my little suburb. I have generally everything I need within a 10 minute drive. I have a cute house in a quiet cul-de-sac that backs up to a wooded area. I have just down the street access to 20 mile trail along a beautiful stream. I have just down another street access to 10 acre dog park.
I can perfectly well understand that people can value different things and for some people access to walkable downtown neighborhoods with night life may be appealing. I'll take the weekly trip to the grocery store, the station wagon with heated seats, and the view of the woods from my back porch.
betascience
1yr ago
I can completely understand the distaste with which the forgiveness is seen by many people, and I'm not certain that it is ideal. However, the fact that we allow young people to take on debt that is not dischargeable by bankruptcy is unconscionable to me. This is abhorrent, and essentially every religion forbids it.
And this is the true crux of the issue. The entire problem of the student loan program is built on the twin perverse incentives of the loans being non-dischargeable and guaranteed by the government. This has allowed state schools to balloon beyond their original missions and expand into administrative behemoths. It's created an industry of for-profit universities whose customers pay nothing out of pocket but are burdened with non-dischargeable debt in the hopes of improving their lot in life. It's put a millstone around the necks of young people and become one more thing people need to do before having children -- finish college, get a job, pay off loans, buy a house. I also believe it has been the essential driver of wokeism. It's been used to create and fund environments where ideas are sheltered from contact with reality and need to produce no cash value beyond seeming like a good place for students to cash their government checks. It simply cannot continue like this.
betascience
1yr ago
You've hit the nail on the head. The perverse incentives comes from the combination of the loan not being dischargeable by bankruptcy and the government guaranteeing it. Without those, lenders would have be diligent about to whom they loaned and how much. It wouldn't matter if the university wants to do away with the SAT or ACT because the lender would require it. How we would move to a system like this is nearly unimaginable to me at this point with all of the vested interests feeding off of the tit of the student loan program, but I feel we're at an inflection point where something must be done.
betascience
1yr ago
There’s far less legal ground for this than there is for student loan forgiveness. At least with regards to loan forgiveness you have the executive of the actual agency that holds the debt taking tan action that is by definition legal (if the courts say so).
The universities more or less deliver what they promise. They’re accredited to the standards of the various regional accrediting boards, and if a person attends they will receive education at that low standard.
The big issue is the lending program itself which incentivized enrolling and matriculating as many students in possible for access to the money. The government created this by incentivizing it.
betascience
1yr ago
What is “sentient thought” in this case? Like… thinking the words out loud step by step? That’s useful and really powerful but smart people also have valuable flashes of insight where they skip from a to d bypassing b and c entirely.
Is someone faking their way through a last minute work meeting while they think about what they want to eat for dinner doing sentient thought? Someone daydreaming about the new girl at work while they drive on autopilot?
betascience
1yr ago
It doesn’t matter how the model works if you don’t know how consciousness works. You can get a pretty good gist of transformers and attention on youtube. But you can’t find anyone who can definitively tell you how consciousness works to ensure that this isn’t it or something very much like it.
betascience
1yr ago
Fair. Rocks being conscious or at least representing something that is was more or less a default for belief in many cultures across time. Ruling it out so casually is a result of a particular unique, historically rare socialization.
betascience
1yr ago
Well…. now you’re getting somewhere.
betascience
1yr ago
Presumably for the same reasons you don’t currently commit tax fraud.
betascience
1yr ago
Higher rates of underreporting of income is absolutely evidence of higher rates of intentional underreporting of income. It’s not proof, but it’s what you would expect to find in the case of intentional tax fraud.
betascience
1yr ago
Mental illness is caused by a “chemical imbalance” in the brain.
betascience
1yr ago
I’m just thinking it through out loud.
My family has a lot of mental illness of the OCD and bipolar type, and those family members insist this is a well understood science and then make claims that seem essentially religious. I’m feeling out the edges of where measurable physiological issue versus vague “chemical imbalance?” meet.
betascience
1yr ago
These are a blast. They just have a ton of fun discussing something they both clearly love. Good times.
betascience
1yr ago
To the question of an effective drug counting, I would say no. I’m more concerned that there is a physiological symptom from which the supposed mental condition is diagnosable.
I’m not sure that someone having a physiological withdrawal symptom from a substance to which they’re addicted would count either as someone who is not an addict will still experience those.
The sleep disorders seem a better candidate.
betascience
1yr ago
I think two cops peppers sprayed themselves inadvertently. The first during the initial stop. He and his partner then stay behind to treat his injury, probably saving both of their jobs and freedoms.
A second officer does this during the beating. This may actually be what led to the killing as that officer steps aside to regain his composure, then returns with his baton extended and yells “I’m gonna baton the fuck out of you.” Things proceed from there about as one would expect.
betascience
1yr ago
Slightly aside from this, is there even such a thing as a biologically defined mental illness? Is there a single mental illness that’s diagnosed with a blood test or some other empirical measurement that doesn’t involve a checklist of symptoms that the patient describes to the physician?
I’ve thought about this a bit and my initial response was probably like everyone else’s. These would be things like:
- Don’t you care about diversity? We’re robbing our students by not having diverse classes.
But that is the legal argument and most of them don’t actually realize that.
- Some appeal to affirmative action as a correction of prior injustice.
Sure, I think this is closer to what they actually believe, but it’s not knee jerk enough for internet hate. They would want to say something nastier.
So my guess that it’s probably something both stupid and nasty. I’ll go with “something racist about Asians.”
Huge whiff
Most of them are either Asians expressing the unfairness of the current system or people saying that race-based programs should be replaced with socio-economic based programs.
betascience
1yr ago
trying to force everyone into a vaccine was a huge risk management error. a reasonable approach would have been to try to guide the outcome towards 25% rate for each of the three approved vaccines and 25% unvaccinated rate (especially in low-risk populations). vaccinating children was pointless, all risk, no upside.
If your child was drafted to a war and came back with his genitals blown off and a condition requiring life long medical treatment that results in a drastically shortened lifespan it isn't fair to say he's dead, but he's certainly well on his way. Whatever life you shared before is over and new vista of terrifying possibilities has opened its stead.
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