Some parts of machine learning are incredibly esoteric and hard to
grasp, surprising even seasoned computer science pros; other parts of it
are just the same problems that programmers have contended with since
the earliest days of computation. The problem Amazon had with its
machine-learning-based system for screening job applicants was the
latter.
Amazon understood that it had a discriminatory hiring process: the
unconscious biases of its technical leads resulted in the company
passing on qualified woman applicants. This isn’t just unfair, it’s also
a major business risk, because qualified developers are the most scarce element of modern businesses.
So they trained a machine-learning system to evaluate incoming resumes,
hoping it would overcome the biases of the existing hiring system.
Of course, they trained it with the resumes of Amazon’s existing stable
of successful job applicants – that is, the predominantly male
workforce that had been hired under the discriminatory system they hoped
to correct.
The computer science aphorism to explain this is “garbage in, garbage
out,” or GIGO. It is pretty self-explanatory, but just in case, GIGO is
the phenomenon in which bad data put through a good system produces bad
conclusions.
Amazon built the system in 2014 and scrapped it in 2017, after
concluding that it was unsalvagable – sources told Reuters that it
rejected applicants from all-woman colleges, and downranked resume’s
that included the word “women’s” as in “women’s chess club captain.”
Amazon says it never relied on the system.
There is a “machine learning is hard” angle to this: while the flawed
outcomes from the flawed training data was totally predictable, the
system’s self-generated discriminatory criteria were surprising and
unpredictable. No one told it to downrank resumes containing “women’s”
– it arrived at that conclusion on its own, by noticing that this was a
word that rarely appeared on the resumes of previous Amazon hires.
Honestly if you’re female and you’re called for jury duty and during the elimination process you’re asked if you’ve ever had any adverse experience with a man (harrassment or rape or any other male violence) just fuckin lie and say no. Then vote that fucker guilty
Women survivors are barred from serving on a jury but rapists are not even questioned. There can be no doubt that this is a major reason rapists walk free. Men have never played fair. It is time for women to start beating them at their own game. Our lives depend on it.
As someone who wants to be a prosecutor one day… I agree.
OK NO. NO NO NO NO NO. I am a defense attorney. I am a woman. I am also a sexual assault survivor. THAT BEING SAID I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS POST ALL WEEK AND IT’S SOOOOO FUCKING WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS.
It’s wrong not for any bullshit rape apologist shit, btw, it’s wrong BECAUSE THIS SHIT WILL LITERALLY FUCK YOU OVER AND FUCK OVER ANY RAPE VICTIMS TOO. Here’s why:
(bear in mind this advice is gonna be MD specific since that’s where I practice)
1) FIRST THINGS FIRST. Don’t fucking lie. Don’t you dare fucking lie when you’re being questioned at jury duty. Why? OK well first: you’re swearing to tell the truth under penalty of perjury. What that means is yes, you will face criminal charges. Criminal charges which, btw, will keep you off of any juries in the future.
Here’s the thing, people (the law enforcement authorities and the defense counsel) WILL be able to find this out especially if you have ever filed a formal police report and/or spoken publicly about it. Yes, even on facebook. This ALSO means that if the fact that you lied about this is found out mid-trial it’s grounds for a mistrial with prejudice, if not a straight dismissal. Which means that hey, look, EVERYTHING HAS TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS TIME WITH NEW JURORS.
2) The second thing is this: in many states, you don’t just get dismissed after answering affirmatively. The voir dire process in MD works like this:
A) prosecutors and the defense come up with a list of questions to ask potential jurors. These are typically a combination of blanket questions you would ask at any trial (ex: have you ever been convicted of a crime in this jurisdiction) and specific questions tailored to the hearing in particular (like the question above). Both attorneys get the chance to view each other’s questions and object to any particular questions that the other team may have.
B) So we’re at jury selection. Both attorneys argue preliminary whether or not questions get to be asked or not, submit the questions to the judge, and decide how to do the striking. (all at once submitted on paper, or alternating).
B1) “striking” means asking to get rid of a juror. A strike can be peremptory, i.e., you can strike for whatever reason you want and don’t have to justify it, automatically. Or you can have a strike FOR CAUSE. There are a limit to how many peremptory strikes/challenges you can have, depending on the jurisdiction, and the type of crime. And you may or may not have to justify those strikes and turn them into “for cause.”
B2) generally if, during a question, a juror answers in the affirmative, the judge will ask you to go up to the bench to privately discuss it with the judge, and both attorneys. In this case they will ask if you or somebody you know was a victim. They will also ask if the incident occurred in the same jurisdiction and possibly involved the same arresting officers. They will THEN ask you if you feel so strongly that it will affect your ability to be IMPARTIAL–that is, will you still be able to only consider the facts presented to you in the court, and be able to judge something as proven beyond a reasonable doubt or not, or will you be biased?
B3) If you say “I am so biased” then yeah, the judge will excuse you right away. But if you say “No I think I can do it. I can be impartial.” you’ll be asked to return to your seat.
C) The questions are now done. The attorneys then go through their strikes. Like I said, they have a limited number of the peremptory ones. And there are other limits too. You can’t strike jurors on the basis of a “protected class” (i.e.: race, gender, religion etc.) and anything that SHOWS that an attorney is doing so a can be objected to by the other attorney. There doesn’t have to be a “pattern” but that helps (i.e. striking three women in a row). Every time a juror gets called and somebody requests a strike, the other attorney can either object or not. So it’s up to each attorney to protect the jurors they want (and btw other than the questions, in MD, the info you get as an attorney is the juror’s name, age, job, and where they live, and their spouse’s job). If there’s a disagreement then the judge will hear arguments either way. If it’s a protected class argument, the attorney who has been striking has to come up with a different reason to justify and that’s got to be something UNRELATED to the protected class (ex: if you struck two Black guys in a row you can’t say “oh well I didn’t want THESE Black guys I wanted the other ones” because that’s still BASED ON RACE).
————
3) SO HERE’S WHY IT’S SO FUCKED UP TO EVEN SUGGEST THIS SHIT AS A WAY TO “SOLVE THE PROBLEM”
A) as I said above, you don’t want to fucking lie.
B) also BEING A CONVICTED FELON, BTW, AND OTHER TYPES OF CONVICTIONS, DISQUALIFIES YOU FROM BEING ON THE JURY. So…convicted rapists? yeah, they can’t actually serve. THIS IS LITERALLY A QUESTION ON THE JURY DUTY FORM AND IS A QUESTION ASKED AT EVERY STAGE OF SELECTION.
C) ALSO, in a couple of the posts I’ve seen they’ve mentioned this question was only asked for women. I’m not sure really if I, as an attorney, would have phrased a question in a gendered way like this SINCE IT’S BASICALLY BEGGING FOR A CHALLENGE AS A PROTECTED CLASS OBJECTION. So fine, if it’s asked gender neutral? That’s OK, but as I said, you won’t get dismissed instantaneously (at least not in MD) as it’s not one of those automatic questions the court asks (i.e.: are you a citizen etc.). And so (again, in Md, Idk about other states) If you say “yes I can be impartial” then fine. Sit your ass down and wait for an attorney to strike you.
D) so if you DO have an attorney striking you, I would ABSOLUTELY object to any attorney who systematically struck ALL THE WOMEN from a jury panel. Because fuck that that’s a protected class that fucking SO DEMONSTRATIVE of a violation of the law. IT’S GENDER BASED. Whoever the prosecutor was who allowed a defense attorney to get away with that shit just wasn’t doing their fucking job.
E) And in terms of this post? about nobody caring? Fuck that if I was a prosecutor I would absolutely ask if any person (”PERSON” DAMN IT NOT JUST MEN BECAUSE THE WIVES/SISTERS/MOTHERS etc. OF MEN WHO ARE ACCUSED OF RAPE ARE ALSO FUCKING BIASED) had ever been accused of rape or sexual assault or knew somebody who did etc. That’s just good lawyering. It’s sloppy not to do so.
F) And as a defense attorney, NGL, I would want to know the answer too, in order to make sure to challenge those strikes.
——-
I get it. I fucking get it. And some of these things will depend on how fucked up your judge is and how good the other side is. But this shit about “OH HEY JUST LIE” FUCK ME NO. DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS.
I’m so fucking furious that people are spreading this like it’s a good damn idea and something that will work. Honestly this is so fucking stupid and dangerous to me that I’m suspicious–is this for real? Or is this somebody trying to false information troll people?
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DO THIS. Answer your questions truthfully and let the lawyers do their damn job. Yes, it sucks, but at the end of the day, people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. And your job, as a juror, is to ASSESS ONLY THE FACTS AND ARGUMENTS PRESENTED TO YOU, AND TO SEE IF THE STATE WAS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THIS PARTICULAR SUSPECT DID IT. AND THEY DID IT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT.
THe fact is, not all rape cases go to trial. And the ones that do, DISPROPORTIONATELY charge men of color (in particular, Black and Latino men). You cannot believe in equality, fight against racism, protect the constitution AND ALSo try to do this shit. It’s fucked up and completely inconsistent and yet another way to fuck with the justice system. doing this will probably allow more alleged rapists to go free than it will allow for equality in jury selection.
TL;DR: this shit is really fucking bad advice and not the way to actually go about doing things. stop giving people legal advice IF YOU AREN’T A LAWYER. ESPECIALLY IF THAT LEGAL ADVICE that will actually put them in jail, people.
Okay, before you throw tomatoes at my blog (y’all know it’s all good), let me qualify a few things.
1. I hate love triangles. I read the Twilight novels, gagging the entire time because, dude, how is there even any competition? I’m gonna choose a warm, hairy, stinky dog man over a sparkling piece of vampiric rock any day of the week.
2. When I first saw the promotions for the movie, Catching Fire and saw how badly LG was playing up Gale and downplaying Everlark to create a triangle similar to Twilight’s, I was like, gag me now.
However, in the context of the novels (I’m not going into the movies because they are essentially another iteration of the same story and a somewhat incomplete one at best), I’m going to say that the supposed “love triangle” and the “choice” Katniss must make between Gale and Peeta is actually extremely important to the theme of the novel.
Not to repeat the plot, because we’ve been in this long enough to know the story backwards and forward, I just want to say that Collins sets up Gale and Peeta as two aspects of Katniss’ character, two sets of values that she contains within herself and, to the extent that she honors one side or the other will also determine the larger theme in the novel (nice that boys are used to drive a female protagonists character development and not the other way around for once).
Gale, as we know, comes to represent Katniss’ fire, the part of her that fuels her unbreakable will to survive. He is the anger at injustice, the yearning for vengeance and eventually, death. Initially, she sees Gale as an extension of everything that is home to her, that is integral to who she is as a person. Note the quote below:
“I have chosen Gale and the rebellion, and a future with Peeta is the Capitol’s design, not mine.” ― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
Even in Catching Fire, Katniss is still struggling with where to put Peeta in her mind but it is not in the same place as Gale. She still sees Peeta as someone imposed on her by the Capital, despite her feelings for him. Gale always represented the home camp, what she was supposed to want, the person who best understood her, whereas throughout the first novel and part of Catching Fire, Katniss still sees Peeta as “other” to her and works to figure out whether she can trust him or not. She describes Gale as follows:
Until one time, I open my eyes and find someone that I cannot block out looking down at me. Someone who will not plead, or explain or think he can alter my design with entreaties, because he alone really knows how I operate.” ― Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire
As the story develops, however, Katniss’s allegiance, loyalty and love for Peeta grows while her relationship with Gale begins to change. Gale becomes more and more polarized in favor of the rebellion while Katniss begins to have moral reservations for the lengths he is willing to go to see his beliefs and anger translated into actions. Here is where we see Peeta’s importance and the alternative he represents to Gale:
I wish Peeta was here— the old Peeta— because he would be able to articulate why it is so wrong to be exchanging fire when people, any people, are trying to claw their way out of the mountain.
― Suzanne Collins
, Mockingjay
The alternative that Peeta represents to Gale’s fire and willingness to go to any lengths to win the war for the Rebellion is humanity, mercy, compassion and justice free of ideology. Katniss invokes Peeta at that moment because she knows that he would argue against sealing the Nut and unnecessarily condemning soldiers to their death. It is not a coincidence that when the issue of The Nut comes up, the moral center of the novel, Peeta, is missing as it is often this type of morality that is notable absent when making decisions in war that involve winning by any means necessary.
The parallel between Katniss’ compassionate, nurturing side and Peeta’s is evident in Peeta holding the morphling in Catching Fire as she dies, which mirrors Katniss singing to Rue in The Hunger Games as she dies. Peeta represents the humane, good, generous, self-sacrificing side of Katniss’ personality, the one who looks at individual suffering and searches for a way to comfort in the midst of horrific circumstances, the one who takes the weak and offers the best protection they can offer.
Gale was everything familiar and known to Katniss. He shared in the particular injustices common to Seam folk which were more pronounced than those of the Merchant class and felt acutely the oppression of the Capitol, even witnessing the firebombing of District 12. Together they had managed to feed their families and represented sanity and survival for each other. However, when he had the opportunity to see his anger vindicated, he became the very destructive fire that Katniss learned would eventually destroy her.
On the other hand, Peeta is the baker, the expert in managing fire for the purposes of creating and sustaining. As many posts have pointed out, Peeta is simultaneously associated with hope, warmth, safety, steadiness and eventually, life and rebirth. He is the Merchant, the “other” and yet it is in him that Katniss finds life and healing after the destructive fires of the wars. He is hope and when hope is absent, death can only follow. Consider the parallel imagery at the beginning of the novel when Gale brings Katniss the arrow piercing a roll and the same Gale at the end of the novel bringing Katniss the last arrow of the war, the bread notably absent:
“I brought you this.” Gale holds up a sheath. When I take it, I notice it holds a single, ordinary arrow.
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
Soon after, with the same breadless arrow, Katniss assassinates Coin and, privy of all hope, attempts suicide. She is thwarted by Peeta himself, who will not let her die. Hope keeps her going even against the forces of death and destruction that would consume her.
Katniss, in a moment of self-reflection sees the paths that are opened to her, represented by her two love interests:
That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
Unlike other love triangles, whose only purpose is to serve up dramatic tension and is the focus of resolution for a story or series, the supposed “love triangle” in the Hunger Games is actually the symbolic center of one of the major themes of the novel: – what path does a human being take when confronted with forces and tragedies that are greater than what they can handle? Specifically, what side of her character will Katniss obey? I call it a “supposed” love triangle because Collins leaves clues throughout the narrative about what Katniss will choose. She will choose the one she cannot survive without. And she has shown time and again that she cannot live without hope. And so she chooses Peeta.
Because in the end, it’s not fire that keeps us alive. There is only one thing that is stronger than fear. And Katniss chooses to honor that in building her life with Peeta. It is one of the messages Collins wants us to leave with and the love triangle is the vehicle she uses to deliver that message.
The second girl at least read the book to confirm that it was shit, she even had Capote on deck as backup. Chick 1 is just lazy
Nope. Girl 2 saw that Girl 1′s absolutely accurate analysis was being shut down just because it wasn’t stated in an intellectual way (in spite of its validity). So Girl 2 reinforced Girl 1′s opinions in solidarity and made sure that it was absolutely clear that Girl 1 was factually correct. WITHOUT taking credit for her observations (”kim is right” instead of “Actually, kim”)
Girls supporting Girls.
Girls not letting other girls be treated poorly.
If you read thirty pages of a book and hate it, that’s a good analysis. Girl 1 literally said, “It sucked for these reasons, and I only got through 30 pages.” She was absolutely paying attention and trying to get it. But if all you get is a headache, fuck that book.
Why is Poison Ivy always so hypersexualized she’s basically a magic farmer she should be wearing muddy boots and complaining about how corn subsidies are killing agriculture as well as flora biodiversity in the US
They want her to be a forest nymph instead of the stem field eco-terrorist feminist that she is
…I had to draw it.
It also fits because she’s a lesbian, and lesbians wear plaid jackets.
To be fair, the in-universe explanation is so she can attract rich men who devastate the environment to her so she can murder them.
…that would only work the first few times.
I think you’re underestimating the stupidity of horny men.
Coding is something most people with computers and internet access can learn at home for free. It’s not ridiculous to think any human could be skilled at all of these languages
^^^^ This.
Also she’s better than me because I wouldn’t have even said all that. I would’ve told them to all to shut the fuck up because I shouldn’t have to prove anything to stupid ass men.
Shout out to all my straight sisters I’m so sorry 😞
Jesus, leave his ass.
We learn fast to be very kind and attentive, tho.
My mom, who got her degree in Marriage and Family Counseling when she was 60, says studies show that women will sometimes sometimes leave a long term relationship to live on their own for a while before seeking a new relationship, but men will almost never leave a long term relationship without having a new relationship either in progress or just beginning. They don’t want to give up the caretaker they have without another one on deck or in the wings.
This is so sad
This isnt cute or quirky. This means hes a fucking hopeless user
Please date a man who actually acts like an adult.
Ok I lived with my ex for 2 years and he literally wouldn’t be able to get his own food if I wasn’t at home, I’d get home from work and he’d be angry at me for “making him starve”
My current partner has lived on his own for 8 years and the absolute most I have to help him with is maybe sending him $20 so he can make a bill payment on time
It made me realise for 2-4 years I wasn’t a girlfriend I was a fucking mother
Men who have been independent are capable of reverting if given the slightest excuse. When we married, my ex husband was 10 years older than me and had lived on his own for 8ish years. Yet (and I allowed this until I finally got fed up and took us to counseling) I did 80% of the cooking, because I was better at it. Same with the cleaning, shopping, social planning, etc.
After I left, in the first six months I got texts or calls asking me to please tell him:
The online banking password (dude, I left you, you should really change that)
Where I ordered his special-wecial organic underwear
Where the good cutting board was (my dad gave it to us at our wedding, genius, I took it with me along with the rest of the stuff from my family)
What brand butter we bought
What brand of local kielbasa we bought
Who his doctor was
What RMV office had the shortest lines
Where the old tax returns were (in the fucking box labeled tax returns)
The phone number for his best friend
I shit you not.
Then he had a heart attack (mild) and none of his family or friends were around to take him to the hospital. But instead of calling 911, he called me, who by then lived 45 minutes away. He lived 5 minutes from an EMS dispatch location. He called me, despite the fact that he didn’t believe me 8 months prior when I was feeling suicidal and I had to call a cab to go alone to check myself into the hospital for a 72-hour hold. I told him to call 911, hung up on him when he whined about “making a fuss”, called 911, called his siblings and then texted them “your brother is having a heart attack, I called 911 for him, come home,” and washed my hands of it.
Emotionally vacant men who won’t do household labor or emotional labor are not Nazis, but they aren’t good people, either, and you don’t have to put up with their shit.
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