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Since you seem to be attempting to discuss things honestly, I'll give you my reply. Answer 1: The document doesn't provide the number you claim it does, or if

Since you seem to be attempting to discuss things honestly, I'll give you my reply. Answer 1: The document doesn't provide the number you claim it does, or if it does I still can't find it. Further, that number wouldn't substantively change my point and I'm pretty sure you know this. Answer 2: Mainly because we all know a major chunk of the actual debate is about black people, and I don't see a reason to obscure what we are really discussing. But I freely acknowledge that you can get a similar gap between whites and Asians, particularly around FICO=500. I'm very deliberately trying NOT to obscure the real issue, namely that you can't have both fairness and accuracy. You can't even have multiple kinds of fairness - pick one and you lose another. Unfortunately that's just how the math comes out. Also, I do believe that in the contemporary US Asian people are directly discriminated against more than anyone else. They are also the highest performing on a variety of common metrics (academics, income, financial responsibility) and this is primarily due to difficult to change traits (some combination of culture and biology). Just mentioning it explicitly if you thought I was trying to obscure this point.

tptacek 10y ago
It's not my contention that the 600 number would substantively change your point. It's my contention that you went through extra effort to find a data point that put black people in a worse light. I was curious why you would have spent the effort to do that. Meanwhile, you were ostensibly making a level-headed argument about how there may be tradeoffs between discrimination and fairness; that to entirely eliminate discrimination we mathematically might be required to force some (say) ethnicities subsidize others. You could have made that point in any number of ways without using the words "deadbeat blacks" --- as I pointed out, the same point was available to you in a comparison between whites and Asians. As you can see from the thread, the objection wasn't to the underlying point you were trying to make, but to the way you chose to make it. Simply put: a reasonable reader could come to the conclusion that you were not only trying to make a point about a tension between non-discrimination and fairness/accuracy, but also trying to use that argument as a device to smuggle in an ethnic slur. I don't think you're a racist, by the way. I think something else is going on with you. Maybe I'm wrong. But as you are to statistics, I am to the oeuvre of 'yummyfajitas comments on Hacker News: they are an area of my expertise.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  My contention is that you are confusing yourself, and they don't really provide P(default|black, 620) and P(default|white,620) in the paper. The only number I could find is P(default|620)=82% which is not enough for my calculation. I choose not to couch my facts in language meant to obscure the point, or avoid choosing factually correct examples that again hide the unpleasant bits of reality. We won't figure out the right way to deal with reality if we pretend the ugly bits aren't really there. I don't think you're a racist, by the way. I think something else is going on with you. It's very simple. On values I'm mainly an old school left wing individualist - I view ethnicity as holding no moral weight and groups as having no inherent rights that they don't inherit from their individual members. Unfortunately, on racial issues, the white supremacists seem to be factually correct (mostly). The current left wing approach to this is to shame and ostracize anyone who dares to point out the emperor has no clothes. I originally interpreted your comments to be an attempt in that direction. Meanwhile, UKIP/scary Hungarians/etc are pointing out the lies and people are following them. I.e. I favor intellectualism and analytical philosophy over dogma and (secularized) religion.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Well, I guess I was wrong.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Now back to the regularly scheduled program of demonization, highbrow dismissal and flagging disagreement. I hope the old tptacek who discussed ideas comes back some day. I miss him.
      - naturenurture 10y ago
        Perhaps HN isn't the best place to persistently litigate the validity, merits and implications of The Bell Curve, which is the direction that many of your arguments (this thread among them) seem to take. Of course, The Bell Curve, and the arguments contained within are a best assumption as to what "on racial issues, the white supremacists seem to be factually correct (mostly)" is referring to. Also, you tend to fall back on claiming to be a harbinger of unadulterated knowledge ("I choose not to couch my facts in language meant to obscure the point") while ignoring the implicit (or explicit, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170988 ) invective contained in your language. I see no loss of descriptive accuracy w.r.t. the article between "deadbeat blacks" and "African-American defaulters", yet using the latter avoids the minefield of historical connotations that the former has.

tptacek 10y ago

It's not my contention that the 600 number would substantively change your point. It's my contention that you went through extra effort to find a data point that put black people in a worse light. I was curious why you would have spent the effort to do that. Meanwhile, you were ostensibly making a level-headed argument about how there may be tradeoffs between discrimination and fairness; that to entirely eliminate discrimination we mathematically might be required to force some (say) ethnicities subsidize others. You could have made that point in any number of ways without using the words "deadbeat blacks" --- as I pointed out, the same point was available to you in a comparison between whites and Asians. As you can see from the thread, the objection wasn't to the underlying point you were trying to make, but to the way you chose to make it. Simply put: a reasonable reader could come to the conclusion that you were not only trying to make a point about a tension between non-discrimination and fairness/accuracy, but also trying to use that argument as a device to smuggle in an ethnic slur. I don't think you're a racist, by the way. I think something else is going on with you. Maybe I'm wrong. But as you are to statistics, I am to the oeuvre of 'yummyfajitas comments on Hacker News: they are an area of my expertise.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
My contention is that you are confusing yourself, and they don't really provide P(default|black, 620) and P(default|white,620) in the paper. The only number I could find is P(default|620)=82% which is not enough for my calculation. I choose not to couch my facts in language meant to obscure the point, or avoid choosing factually correct examples that again hide the unpleasant bits of reality. We won't figure out the right way to deal with reality if we pretend the ugly bits aren't really there. I don't think you're a racist, by the way. I think something else is going on with you. It's very simple. On values I'm mainly an old school left wing individualist - I view ethnicity as holding no moral weight and groups as having no inherent rights that they don't inherit from their individual members. Unfortunately, on racial issues, the white supremacists seem to be factually correct (mostly). The current left wing approach to this is to shame and ostracize anyone who dares to point out the emperor has no clothes. I originally interpreted your comments to be an attempt in that direction. Meanwhile, UKIP/scary Hungarians/etc are pointing out the lies and people are following them. I.e. I favor intellectualism and analytical philosophy over dogma and (secularized) religion.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Well, I guess I was wrong.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Now back to the regularly scheduled program of demonization, highbrow dismissal and flagging disagreement. I hope the old tptacek who discussed ideas comes back some day. I miss him.
    - naturenurture 10y ago
      Perhaps HN isn't the best place to persistently litigate the validity, merits and implications of The Bell Curve, which is the direction that many of your arguments (this thread among them) seem to take. Of course, The Bell Curve, and the arguments contained within are a best assumption as to what "on racial issues, the white supremacists seem to be factually correct (mostly)" is referring to. Also, you tend to fall back on claiming to be a harbinger of unadulterated knowledge ("I choose not to couch my facts in language meant to obscure the point") while ignoring the implicit (or explicit, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170988 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170988 ) invective contained in your language. I see no loss of descriptive accuracy w.r.t. the article between "deadbeat blacks" and "African-American defaulters", yet using the latter avoids the minefield of historical connotations that the former has.