In the context of SBF, i really don't care. Like Rand, I see SBF as someone working backwards to justify their views, not with any real coherent philosophy or idea, and approaching it as if they...
In the context of SBF, i really don't care. Like Rand, I see SBF as someone working backwards to justify their views, not with any real coherent philosophy or idea, and approaching it as if they had one, but it was wrong, is already starting off with a false premise.
As for the rest, I believe the quote is "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics". As a species we LOVE to quantify things. From spreadsheets of numbers down to harry potter houses, we seem to gravitate towards solving for X and shoving things into Y.
In a business or government setting it can be an insanely powerful tool to get the results you want, but like many of these complex/successful tools, its copied without thought or understanding. Does agile development work somewhere? Sure. Does it work everywhere? Hell no, especially when so many companies just copy it, without understanding what its doing, and then say "but we don't like this part" and change things.
With that said, I see these "philosophies" as an extension of just overgeneralizing the power of quantification. "My action is moral because it had a 3.8% chance of increasing net good", as if they somehow had all the variables accounted for. It's no surprise to me that the people who often espouse this kind of thought are the ones who are usually somewhat successful, but often overestimate their skill and underestimate they could be wrong. They aren't the type to look at a number and say "ok, what could be missing" because the idea they're missing something has obviously already been accounted for and handled.
Really it's an arrogant way to approach problems, and the over reliance/need to quantify things strikes me as an almost game theory issue (even if you know the stats are bullshit, will the people you're beholden to believe you? Probably not, so now you put out bullshit stats to fight it, or get replaced with someone who will, and so on).
I guess i broadly agree with the article in that sense, but I think it comes down more to personalities rather than actual philosophies. Much like people saying there would be no issues if there were no religions, I think that's misunderstanding the cause and effect. There are religions for a lot of reasons, and they tend to have ugly sides because people have ugly sides and it's effective at appealing to them. If it wasn't those, it'd be something else.
The principle, defining remark of all data engineering and science. Yet so painfully misunderstood by organisations and individuals alike. No matter how many times you tell someone, "If you keep...
GIGO. Garbage in, garbage out.
The principle, defining remark of all data engineering and science. Yet so painfully misunderstood by organisations and individuals alike.
No matter how many times you tell someone, "If you keep half arsing this, the results won't be good!" they don't listen.
No matter how often you tell scientists to calm down with their model as there are too many tertiary variables with lower DQ scores? They don't listen.
"especially when so many companies just copy it, without understanding what its doing, and then say "but we don't like this part" and change things." Are you simultaneously complaining that agiles...
"especially when so many companies just copy it, without understanding what its doing, and then say "but we don't like this part" and change things."
Are you simultaneously complaining that agiles not a one size fits all thing, and also that everyone has to do it exactly the same to get results?
I've feel like I've had "proper agile" explained to me by 100 head up their own ass engineers over the years and never had it described the same way twice.
I'm saying that people don't understand the tools they're using. Agile is just an example that's common because it's something "easy" to copy, but not understand why it was working in the original...
I'm saying that people don't understand the tools they're using. Agile is just an example that's common because it's something "easy" to copy, but not understand why it was working in the original environment. It might not fit your environment, and even if it does, the copying company will often make arbitrary changes because they don't like some section of it, without understanding that it was key to the methods success.
So both are true. There probably are some companies that have successfully copied and adapted something to fit their needs, but more often than not it sure seems like "X is doing Y, so we need to do Y. What do you mean Y says we're supposed to respect your deadlines? No don't do that"
This reminds me of physics labs in high school. Do the lab, do a shit load of analysis....have no idea what the lab was for beyond a vague "wave-particle duality" concept (or what have you, even...
This reminds me of physics labs in high school. Do the lab, do a shit load of analysis....have no idea what the lab was for beyond a vague "wave-particle duality" concept (or what have you, even "simple" acceleration labs got weird).
From my admittedly failing memory, I remember understanding theory, then having to do a vaguely adjacent lab that made sense from a theory perspective...but then all the math was just math. You had variables, and equations, and you could solve things and get the "correct" answer....but you rarely understood how the math related back to the lab theory, and the lab theory back to the chapter topic. I think part of the problem was rushing through labs midway through a topic to somehow cement the topic theory in the students' minds, but it was too soon before the topic theory was fully understood, so the lab wasn't as clear and useful as it should have been.
As far as GIGO, I thoroughly blame the US MBA system. I'd day at least 80% of the values and relationships used to analyze case studies are entirely made up. Stuff like green fielding a new coffee chain in India. You Google India's population, then you Google coffee shops, then you just kinda....divide the population by number of coffee shops and use that as one of your bs inputs to estimate potential customers per day for your new coffee shop chain. Obviously the assumptions are awful, but that kind of shit tier math with a bit of MBA style obfuscation is totally acceptable as part of a submitted case study assignment.
Honestly you could remove the "social" from that sentence. Those in the "hard" sciences also often suffer from this mindset -- it's just far less likely to negatively affect their work itself, due...
This kind of "I can do the equations but don't get why" rote non-thinking is RIFE in social sciences.
Honestly you could remove the "social" from that sentence. Those in the "hard" sciences also often suffer from this mindset -- it's just far less likely to negatively affect their work itself, due to the domain. When those with this mindset try to apply this "quantify everything" attitude outside their domain, such as when they opine about sociological issues, it becomes a lot more obvious that they aren't much better at looking at the whole picture when quantification isn't the most suitable perspective.
I used to be quite irritated that my field (linguistics) was categorized with the humanities rather than the social sciences, but as I've gotten older I think I've come to appreciate the "foot in both worlds" nature of the field a lot more. Focusing on semantics, which has historically had the opposite problem of "armchair linguists" doing theoretical work without experimental validation (something my prof emphasized as not being sufficient anymore), I think I ended up developing a much more balanced view of quantitative vs qualitative work than I may have otherwise.
I think a lot of this is exacerbated by the whole publish-or-perish nature of academia too. It doesn't incentivize taking the time to truly consider what is the best approach when that might...
I think a lot of this is exacerbated by the whole publish-or-perish nature of academia too. It doesn't incentivize taking the time to truly consider what is the best approach when that might result in slower work and thus fewer published papers.
Same here re: pursuing academia. When I started my master's I planned on pursuing it as a career, now I'm working in tech and couldn't bear going back. I still love the theoretical linguistics...
Same here re: pursuing academia. When I started my master's I planned on pursuing it as a career, now I'm working in tech and couldn't bear going back. I still love the theoretical linguistics stuff I studied and it hurts not to be able to dedicate my career to it... but I just can't see a route to actually being happy and having good work-life balance even in the best case scenario there.
.05, the magic number. Never mind that .05 is a laughably wide interval in fields like high-energy physics. If it's under .05, it's self-evidently real. More than that, it's a lack of interest in...
.05, the magic number.
Never mind that .05 is a laughably wide interval in fields like high-energy physics. If it's under .05, it's self-evidently real.
death of humanities
More than that, it's a lack of interest in the history & philosophy of science. Studying literature in the English department isn't going to make the students any better at understanding the reason behind the stats. The history of science often gets taught from an ethical angle instead of an epistemological or ontological angle.
They were so focused on getting the math/calculation work down that they never bothered to learn how to think.
They took Feynman's instruction to "shut up and calculate" literally instead of realizing it as a reminder not to get stuck thinking deeply about quantum woo-woo.
archive link I would love to know what you think about this. For context I really dislike the columnist (he's super snobby and is singular in feigned lack of self-awareness) – he's sort of the...
For context I really dislike the columnist (he's super snobby and is singular in feigned lack of self-awareness) – he's sort of the FT's version of a troll and I think they keep him there because he's useful clickbait. Ironic, because I've fallen for it in this case.
It is an interesting theme though – both around using maths to make decisions but also how policy makers justify their decisions by dressing them up in mathematical language.
Only looked at the archive link, because boy do the comments seem like it's bait. And it is. No thanks, not giving them the click. Perhaps it's because I'm a believer in the ideas presented (i.e.,...
Only looked at the archive link, because boy do the comments seem like it's bait.
And it is. No thanks, not giving them the click. Perhaps it's because I'm a believer in the ideas presented (i.e., making the world as number-crunchable as possible, then crunching the number, and accepting that as your best guess of the best option available.), but if the world gets any more complex than simple, feelings are insufficient and numbers are your friend. What SBF did wrong is not the way he reasoned.
I mean, the author goes into this a little, but if I discount the parts of the article that the author himself discounts I'm not really left with a cohesive thesis except "haha, funny bank kid who dressed like a kid and tried to math the world failed at mathing the world."
Ah yes, as opposed to the obviously superior magical thinking. Reductionism is certainly bad, but this is even worse. The whole article seems insufferably written. No thanks.
childlike craving for certainties, or at least probabilities
Ah yes, as opposed to the obviously superior magical thinking.
Reductionism is certainly bad, but this is even worse. The whole article seems insufferably written. No thanks.
I agree with what you're saying but with regards to SBF at least, I don't think his issue was a flawed model of reality or an over-reliance on one. In my opinion he was just all too happy to ditch...
Like I said in my mainline comment, the problem I have isn't with modeling per se, but with how divorced from other modes of thought it all has become. Models are all false. It's our ability to understand the system in question that makes them useful. Most of these so-called quants don't understand humanities and society and therefore draw up atrocious models.
I agree with what you're saying but with regards to SBF at least, I don't think his issue was a flawed model of reality or an over-reliance on one. In my opinion he was just all too happy to ditch morality or law to chase "+EV". In one interview, the interviewer gave him a simple hypothetical of a a 51% weighted coin to either create an additional alternate reality of the earth (essentially doubling utility) or a 49% chance of wiping out the existence of our reality. His response was that he would flip the coin infinite times. That's not a poor statistical model getting in the way of reality, that's just straight up bad ethics.
In the context of SBF, i really don't care. Like Rand, I see SBF as someone working backwards to justify their views, not with any real coherent philosophy or idea, and approaching it as if they had one, but it was wrong, is already starting off with a false premise.
As for the rest, I believe the quote is "there's lies, damn lies, and statistics". As a species we LOVE to quantify things. From spreadsheets of numbers down to harry potter houses, we seem to gravitate towards solving for X and shoving things into Y.
In a business or government setting it can be an insanely powerful tool to get the results you want, but like many of these complex/successful tools, its copied without thought or understanding. Does agile development work somewhere? Sure. Does it work everywhere? Hell no, especially when so many companies just copy it, without understanding what its doing, and then say "but we don't like this part" and change things.
With that said, I see these "philosophies" as an extension of just overgeneralizing the power of quantification. "My action is moral because it had a 3.8% chance of increasing net good", as if they somehow had all the variables accounted for. It's no surprise to me that the people who often espouse this kind of thought are the ones who are usually somewhat successful, but often overestimate their skill and underestimate they could be wrong. They aren't the type to look at a number and say "ok, what could be missing" because the idea they're missing something has obviously already been accounted for and handled.
Really it's an arrogant way to approach problems, and the over reliance/need to quantify things strikes me as an almost game theory issue (even if you know the stats are bullshit, will the people you're beholden to believe you? Probably not, so now you put out bullshit stats to fight it, or get replaced with someone who will, and so on).
I guess i broadly agree with the article in that sense, but I think it comes down more to personalities rather than actual philosophies. Much like people saying there would be no issues if there were no religions, I think that's misunderstanding the cause and effect. There are religions for a lot of reasons, and they tend to have ugly sides because people have ugly sides and it's effective at appealing to them. If it wasn't those, it'd be something else.
The principle, defining remark of all data engineering and science. Yet so painfully misunderstood by organisations and individuals alike.
No matter how many times you tell someone, "If you keep half arsing this, the results won't be good!" they don't listen.
No matter how often you tell scientists to calm down with their model as there are too many tertiary variables with lower DQ scores? They don't listen.
Endless infuriating.
More the professional one.
I use it regularly at work, but that'd because I'm as professional as a hammer through a windscreen.
"especially when so many companies just copy it, without understanding what its doing, and then say "but we don't like this part" and change things."
Are you simultaneously complaining that agiles not a one size fits all thing, and also that everyone has to do it exactly the same to get results?
I've feel like I've had "proper agile" explained to me by 100 head up their own ass engineers over the years and never had it described the same way twice.
I'm saying that people don't understand the tools they're using. Agile is just an example that's common because it's something "easy" to copy, but not understand why it was working in the original environment. It might not fit your environment, and even if it does, the copying company will often make arbitrary changes because they don't like some section of it, without understanding that it was key to the methods success.
So both are true. There probably are some companies that have successfully copied and adapted something to fit their needs, but more often than not it sure seems like "X is doing Y, so we need to do Y. What do you mean Y says we're supposed to respect your deadlines? No don't do that"
This reminds me of physics labs in high school. Do the lab, do a shit load of analysis....have no idea what the lab was for beyond a vague "wave-particle duality" concept (or what have you, even "simple" acceleration labs got weird).
From my admittedly failing memory, I remember understanding theory, then having to do a vaguely adjacent lab that made sense from a theory perspective...but then all the math was just math. You had variables, and equations, and you could solve things and get the "correct" answer....but you rarely understood how the math related back to the lab theory, and the lab theory back to the chapter topic. I think part of the problem was rushing through labs midway through a topic to somehow cement the topic theory in the students' minds, but it was too soon before the topic theory was fully understood, so the lab wasn't as clear and useful as it should have been.
As far as GIGO, I thoroughly blame the US MBA system. I'd day at least 80% of the values and relationships used to analyze case studies are entirely made up. Stuff like green fielding a new coffee chain in India. You Google India's population, then you Google coffee shops, then you just kinda....divide the population by number of coffee shops and use that as one of your bs inputs to estimate potential customers per day for your new coffee shop chain. Obviously the assumptions are awful, but that kind of shit tier math with a bit of MBA style obfuscation is totally acceptable as part of a submitted case study assignment.
Honestly you could remove the "social" from that sentence. Those in the "hard" sciences also often suffer from this mindset -- it's just far less likely to negatively affect their work itself, due to the domain. When those with this mindset try to apply this "quantify everything" attitude outside their domain, such as when they opine about sociological issues, it becomes a lot more obvious that they aren't much better at looking at the whole picture when quantification isn't the most suitable perspective.
I used to be quite irritated that my field (linguistics) was categorized with the humanities rather than the social sciences, but as I've gotten older I think I've come to appreciate the "foot in both worlds" nature of the field a lot more. Focusing on semantics, which has historically had the opposite problem of "armchair linguists" doing theoretical work without experimental validation (something my prof emphasized as not being sufficient anymore), I think I ended up developing a much more balanced view of quantitative vs qualitative work than I may have otherwise.
I think a lot of this is exacerbated by the whole publish-or-perish nature of academia too. It doesn't incentivize taking the time to truly consider what is the best approach when that might result in slower work and thus fewer published papers.
Basically yeah what you said lol
Same here re: pursuing academia. When I started my master's I planned on pursuing it as a career, now I'm working in tech and couldn't bear going back. I still love the theoretical linguistics stuff I studied and it hurts not to be able to dedicate my career to it... but I just can't see a route to actually being happy and having good work-life balance even in the best case scenario there.
.05, the magic number.
Never mind that .05 is a laughably wide interval in fields like high-energy physics. If it's under .05, it's self-evidently real.
More than that, it's a lack of interest in the history & philosophy of science. Studying literature in the English department isn't going to make the students any better at understanding the reason behind the stats. The history of science often gets taught from an ethical angle instead of an epistemological or ontological angle.
They took Feynman's instruction to "shut up and calculate" literally instead of realizing it as a reminder not to get stuck thinking deeply about quantum woo-woo.
archive link
I would love to know what you think about this.
For context I really dislike the columnist (he's super snobby and is singular in feigned lack of self-awareness) – he's sort of the FT's version of a troll and I think they keep him there because he's useful clickbait. Ironic, because I've fallen for it in this case.
It is an interesting theme though – both around using maths to make decisions but also how policy makers justify their decisions by dressing them up in mathematical language.
Only looked at the archive link, because boy do the comments seem like it's bait.
And it is. No thanks, not giving them the click. Perhaps it's because I'm a believer in the ideas presented (i.e., making the world as number-crunchable as possible, then crunching the number, and accepting that as your best guess of the best option available.), but if the world gets any more complex than simple, feelings are insufficient and numbers are your friend. What SBF did wrong is not the way he reasoned.
I mean, the author goes into this a little, but if I discount the parts of the article that the author himself discounts I'm not really left with a cohesive thesis except "haha, funny bank kid who dressed like a kid and tried to math the world failed at mathing the world."
Ah yes, as opposed to the obviously superior magical thinking.
Reductionism is certainly bad, but this is even worse. The whole article seems insufferably written. No thanks.
I agree with what you're saying but with regards to SBF at least, I don't think his issue was a flawed model of reality or an over-reliance on one. In my opinion he was just all too happy to ditch morality or law to chase "+EV". In one interview, the interviewer gave him a simple hypothetical of a a 51% weighted coin to either create an additional alternate reality of the earth (essentially doubling utility) or a 49% chance of wiping out the existence of our reality. His response was that he would flip the coin infinite times. That's not a poor statistical model getting in the way of reality, that's just straight up bad ethics.