I have posted about survivorship bias and how it affects your career choices: how a Hollywood actor giving the classic “follow your dreams and never give up” line is bad advice and is pure survivorship bias at work.
When I read up on the wikipedia page, I encountered an interesting story:
During WWII the US Air Force wanted to minimize bomber losses to enemy fire. The Center for Naval Analyses ran a research on where bombers tend to get hit with the explicit aim of enforcing the parts of the airframe that is most likely to receive incoming fire. This is what they came up with:
So, they said: the red dots are where bombers are most likely to be hit, so put some more armor on those parts to make the bombers more resilient. That looked like a logical conclusion, until Abraham Wald – a mathematician – started asking questions:
– how did you obtain that data? – well, we looked at every bomber returning from a raid, marked the damages on the airframe on a sheet and collected the sheets from all allied air bases over months. What you see is the result of hundreds of those sheets. – and your conclusion? – well, the red dots are where the bombers were hit. So let’s enforce those parts because they are most exposed to enemy fire. – no. the red dots are where a bomber can take a hitand return. The bombers that took a hit to the ailerons, the engines or the cockpit never made it home. That’s why they are absent in your data. The blank spots are exactly where you have to enforce the airframe, so those bombers can return.
This is survivorship bias. You only see a subset of the outcomes. The ones that made it far enough to be visible. Look out for absence of data. Sometimes they tell a story of their own.
BTW: You can see the result of this research today. This is the exact reason the A-10 has the pilot sitting in a titanium armor bathtub and has it’s engines placed high and shielded.
If you want to think scientifically, ALWAYS ask what data was included in a conclusion. And ALWAYS ask what data was EXCLUDED when making a conclusion.
If they have excluded information because “it doesn’t exist” or “it was too hard to get” or “it was good data but was provided by people we don’t like”, then that is a BIG RED FLAG that the analysis was flawed.
Another example of this is originally doctor’s thought smoking protected people from developing dementia until someone pointed out it was because smokers didn’t usually live long enough to get the most common forms.
The wage gap between men and women has been long-standing – with women
on average making 74 cents for every dollar of annual salary made by
men, according to the most recent Statistics Canada data – but research
from by PayPal Canada and consulting firm Barraza and Associates
suggests that this dynamic also applies to those who own small-and-
medium sized businesses as well.
Businesses owned by women generate an average of $68,000 less revenue
than men who run similar businesses, representing a gap of 58 per cent,
according to the online survey of 1,000 Canadian small and medium-sized
businesses between Jan. 26 and Feb. 28.
One barrier to growth for women-owned businesses is access to capital,
the survey suggested. Roughly 53 per cent of women-owned businesses with
an e-commerce component said it was “easy” for their company to get
business credit to grow their business, falling short of the 67 per cent
of men who reported getting loans with ease, the survey found.
The Liberal government has prioritized gender equality and increased
participation in the workforce. Among the many initiatives aimed at this
goal as part of its latest budget, Ottawa has allocated $1.4 billion
over three years from the Business Development Bank in new financing for
female entrepreneurs and $105 million over five years to help the
regional development agencies support women-led businesses.
If you speak in an angry way about what has happened to our people and what is happening to our people, what does he call it? Emotionalism. Pick up on that. Here the man has got a rope around his neck and because he screams, you know, the cracker that’s putting the rope around his neck accuses him of being emotional. You’re supposed to have the rope around your neck and holler politely, you know. You’re supposed to watch your diction, not shout and wake other people up— this is how you’re supposed to holler. You’re supposed to be respectable and responsible when you holler against what they’re doing to you. And you’ve got a lot of Afro-Americans who fall for that. They say, “No, you can’t do it like that, you’ve got to be responsible, you’ve got to be respectable.” And you’ll always be a slave as long as you’re trying to be responsible and respectable in the eyesight of your master; you’ll remain a slave. When you’re in the eyesight of your master, you’ve got to let him know you’re irresponsible and you’ll blow his irresponsible head off.
And again you’ve got another trap that he maneuvers you into. If you begin to talk about what he did to you, he’ll say that’s hate, you’re teaching hate. Pick up on that. He won’t say he didn’t do it, because he can’t. But he’ll accuse you of teaching hate just because you begin to spell out what he did to you. Which is an intellectual trap—because he knows we don’t want to be accused of hate.
And the average Black American who has been real brain-washed, he never wants to be accused of being emotional. Watch them, watch the real bourgeois Black Americans. He never wants to show any sign of emotion. He won’t even tap his feet. You can have some of that real soul music, and he’ll sit there, you know, like it doesn’t move him.
And then you go a step farther, they get you again on this violence. They have another trap wherein they make it look criminal if any of us, who has a rope around his neck or one is being put around his neck—if you do anything to stop the man from putting that rope around your neck, that’s violence. And again this bourgeois Negro, who’s trying to be polite and respectable and all, he never wants to be identified with violence. So he lets them do anything to him, and he sits there submitting to it nonviolently, just so he can keep his image of responsibility. He dies with a responsible image, he dies with a polite image, but he dies. The man who is irresponsible and impolite, he keeps his life. That responsible Negro, he’ll die every day, but if the irresponsible one dies he takes some of those with him who were trying to make him die.
This shit is real familiar, isn’t it? So for all the white people who wanna roll up on me and other folk who they have deemed “SJ bloggers” and try and attack out humanity like we have no clue what tactics they’re using…please realize this: Malcom X done seent yo ass before you were even born. And if you don’t think this is basic knowledge to us, think again.
I’ve said it before and I’ll always say it. IF YOU COME AT ME, I WILL TAKE YOU WITH ME. And this shit is so old your fucking grandma was being racist in the same way before your dumb cracker ass was born.
The USPS is the fastest, cheapest, and most accurate mail service on the planet last I heard, and is the biggest employer of veterans in the entire country.
On top of that, mail carriers: -have wages that top out at over $30 an hour (and their wages go up in predictable steps based on how long they’ve been with the USPS) -have excellent benefits, including a shit-ton of vacation time, plus a pension, and they can retire after thirty years
But they also have one of the oldest, biggest, strongest unions in the country. That must piss off Republicans so much.
Also, side note: they take zero taxpayer dollars. They’re entirely funded by postage.
(”But I heard they were doing terribly!” They’re not. Congress saddled them with pre-funding their retirement 75 years out to intentionally put them in the red and make them look bad. I’m not joking or exaggerating. There’s tons of info, but here’s the USPS’s own info: https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/financials/annual-reports/fy2010/ar2010_4_002.htm )
A woman who wants to divorce her husband of 40 years because she says their marriage is unhappy has lost her case in the supreme court.
Five justices upheld rulings by a family court and the court of appeal that Tini Owens must stay married to Hugh Owens.
Tini, who is in her late 60s, wants a divorce. She says her marriage to Hugh, who is in his 80s, is loveless and has broken down.
She says he has behaved unreasonably and that she should be allowed to end her marriage. Hugh, however, refuses to agree to a divorce and denies her allegations about his behaviour. He says that if their marriage has irretrievably broken down it is because she had an affair, or because she is “bored”.
so i know that tumblr is super focused on the usa and women’s rights over there, but this is really fucking important case in uk law
unlike the us, the uk doesn’t have no fault divorce. you have to have been married for at least one year before filing for divorce, and then you have to pick one of five grounds under which divorce is permitted
adultery – 14% of divorces, but only counts if you didn’t continue as a couple for six months afterwards, unless the affair is still ongoing or there’s more acts afterwards. fun fact, however – if you are in a civil partnership instead of a divorce, you can’t use this ground at all! really fucking shitty, am i right?
desertion – if your spouse left you for more than 2 years in the last 2 and a half, then this ground is usable. only 1% of divorces are under this ground, however
2 years separation – 27% of divorces, as it requires mutual agreement between the couple
5 years separation – 13% of divorces, this is what the court has told ms owens she has to use, and she can only file under this ground in 2020. this is used in cases when your partner objects to the divorce, shittily enough
unreasonable behaviour – 45% of divorces, and this is what ms owens used when she filed. to quote the government’s page on divorce, your spouse must have “behaved in such a way that you cannot reasonably be expected to live with them”, with examples of abuse, violence, and drugs/alcoholism
(note – scotland has slightly different divorce law, as it changes the 2 years separation to 1, and the 5 years separation to 2. no much better, but a little)
and long story short… three different courts (the family court, the appeals court, and now the supreme court) have all declared the examples ms owens used to be insufficient
now, the president of the supreme court, lady hale, said she found this “very troubling”, and another judge said he was very reluctant to give this judgement, and my thoughts on that are….. eh
unlike the usa, judicial activism is generally a no-no, and so both the appeals court and the supreme court have said parliament would need to amend the 1973 matrimonal causes act, which laid out the grounds for modern divorces
which really needs to happen as the last time divorce law was updated was in 2004, when the government mandated that if a transgender person was to legally transition, they needed to divorce their partner before they were allowed to. which is its’ own entire bullshit, tbh, and has been repeatedly brought up as an example of how shitty the uk is wrt transgender rights
so yeah…. i’m pretty sure a campaign is going to start because of this case and the supreme court’s ruling, and i’d really appreciate it if non-uk people would raise awareness of this gigantic goddamn issue in our country
But they aren’t documented so they wouldn’t be pa…..nvm
This is a huge misconception for regular Americans. When the government uses the phrase “undocumented” they’re using it incorrectly because if they were truly undocumented then they would’ve be in system. However these immigrants are in the system and they pay taxes, file tax returns and get no benefits that citizens and legal residents get. They also get to see ICE showing up at their doors because the government has their addresses.
Fun fact. “Undocumented” workers pays $12 billion dollars every year in taxes.
“Undocumented” just means “without papers,” i.e. a social security card, valid visa, etc. They’re still on databases and whatnot, they just don’t have the documentation that allows them to reap the benefits.
so if it didn’t click- the government is aware of their presence and gladly taking their money under the table while simultaneously promoting the idea that undocumented people are a threat and encouraging hatred and distrust of them it’s super messed up, literally the scheme of an evil villain, and it’s really happening
🗣 undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles contribute more to the GDP than the state of Montana and like 5 other states
“On July 1st, far right group #LaMeute planned to hold their “largest and best rally ever” in #Montreal. #Anti-fascists outnumbered them, surrounded them, and prevented them from marching by keeping them confined to a single block.“
oppression isn’t generational and trying to frame politics as “the old people are wrong and the young people are right” erases the fact that there are old people who have been fighting the good fight for decades and the fact that there are young people who are literally nazis
“In the spring of 1940, when the Nazis overran France from the north, much of its Jewish population tried to escape the country towards the south. In order to cross the border, they needed visas to Spain and Portugal, and together with a flood of other refugees, tens of thousands of Jews besieged the Portuguese consulate in Bordeaux in a desperate attempt to get that life-saving piece of paper. The Portuguese government forbade its consuls in France to issue visas without prior approval from the Foreign Ministry, but the consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, decided to disregard the order, throwing to the wind a thirty-year diplomatic career. As Nazi tanks were closing in on Bordeaux, Sousa Mendes and his team worked around the clock for ten days and nights, barely stopping to sleep, just issuing visas and stamping pieces of paper. Sousa Mendes issued thousands of visas before collapsing from exhaustion.
The Portuguese government—which had little desire to accept any of these refugees—sent agents to escort the disobedient consul back home, and fired him from the foreign office. Yet officials who cared little for the plight of human beings nevertheless had a deep reverence for documents, and the visas Sousa Mendes issued against orders were respected by French, Spanish and Portuguese bureaucrats alike, spiriting up to 30,000 people out of the Nazi death trap. Sousa Mendes, armed with little more than a rubber stamp, was responsible for the largest rescue operation by a single individual during the Holocaust.”
—Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
i'll apple your turnover 