zachwooddoughty

Of course all models are biased, but we can try to build models that minimize the types of bias we care most about.

I think the so-called panic comes from the fact that more complicated algorithms are difficult for an untrained person to understand. For example, it's also illegal to discriminate housing/lending based on race, but if I hide that discrimination inside of a sufficiently-complicated ML model, I may be able to get away with it.

I think the argument is that if people tend to "just be rude" to women more often than to men, then that is evidence of sexism. Even if there isn't a conscious reason for the rudeness.

There clearly isn't any easy way to measure "aggregate rudeness" to be able to prove that women receive a higher quantity of "just being rude", but that doesn't necessarily mean it isn't there.

While I empathize, anonymity makes moderation very hard. Most people I've talked to prefer the tradeoff of reduced anonymity for improved moderation. If you email me at [email protected] I can set you up with a pre-verified account that you can use anonymously.

Quality is hard. I don't think there's any silver bullet, but you can check out the community guidelines at discoverboard.com/about which hope to curtail the thoughtlessness you're talking about.

You'll have to verify your phone number to sign up, which will make moderation more effective (hard to make an additional account after getting kicked out).

If it grows and that isn't enough to keep it respectful, I will add a $1-2 signup fee for new users.

I'm also going to be spending most of my time recruiting quality people to join the discussions.

Plug: I'm launching Discoverboard.com for this in a couple weeks

Hi Sam -- do you think YC has a role or responsibility in addressing social issues in the bay area or the US?

From the article:

>The offenses that landed them in solitary? Most often, it was evidence that they were "affiliated" with a prison gang, whether or not they had broken any rules.

Solitary isn't being used as a last resort for people who have killed previous cellmates -- it's being used for all sorts of things.

I think solitary makes sense for people who are already unable to coexist with other inmates, but that doesn't seem to be the main use at the moment.

Short-term efficacy is not zero efficacy. If the fish works to alleviate anemia for three months, it seems worthwhile to continue distributing the fish and to rally support for further research.

Sure, this fish is probably getting too much hype for how effective it is, but isn't it better than nothing?

>Some people are in power, they are white

This is the root of racial inequality in our justice system. No one is claiming that all white people are evil supervillians. But many white people don't comprehend the harsher reality people of color face when being arrested.

The comment "I love when white people are shocked" is a reference to the fact that "some people are in power, they are white". If the people in power are shocked by what it's like to be arrested, perhaps it will spark positive change in the system.