4 ms·

Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience based in Menlo Park to have a say in discourse that crosses so many boundaries?

Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience based in Menlo Park to have a say in discourse that crosses so many boundaries? What could possibly go wrong?

beatpanda 8y ago
This is exactly why Silicon Valley engineers, and engineers generally, need to stop being so dismissive of people with "useless" liberal arts educations, and instead bring in sociologists and anthropologists to think through these processes in a comprehensive way. I'm being downvoted into oblivion elsewhere on this site for suggesting this, but I feel like it's a very obvious move for tech companies that have this problem.
- jmspring 8y ago
  I have no problem with anthropologists and those in the liberal arts employed when there are skills they have that help a company. Bubble-1, many humanities students were hired around working with content. That wasn't a bad thing. As I said in another post, companies also actually used to hire people outside the tech bubble to deal with things like categorization of websites, etc. That went away once they could achieve a certain percentage with cheap labor.
  - sunsetMurk 8y ago
    ..and now with ML/etc.!
- nradov 8y ago
  Classical liberal arts educations are tremendously valuable in teaching people how to think critically. However when we're dealing with complex emergent systems no one is capable of reliably predicting problems regardless of how much education in sociology and anthropology they have. Active monitoring and fast responses are the only viable approach.
  - sunsetMurk 8y ago
    but what about seriously brainstorming some hypothetical scenarios as part of the process? For example, documenting some sort of 'ideal' or 'pro/con' type lists of potential fallout. When architecting a system.. or in design/feature proposals. Surely folks less in the weeds of technical requirements and actual implementation could help decide earlier on if something is 'good'.
    - nradov 8y ago
      Brainstorming hypothetical scenarios usually results in endless discussions about imaginary problems that never come to pass, and completely missing the real problems. This tends to happen regardless of who participates.
      - sunsetMurk 8y ago
        agreed. ...I guess why not have people who're better at it or who'd rather spend time on it, do it? Would probably miss most of the real problems, but could catch a few and help steer complex issues. I guess I'm thinking about it as applying the type of mission that OpenAI has[1] on a wider/smaller scale. 1- https://openai.com/about/#mission https://openai.com/about/#mission
        nradov 8y ago
        The OpenAI people mean well but their their concerns over safety seem a bit silly considering they haven't actually demonstrated any progress toward building a true AGI. At this stage it's the equivalent of worrying about the problems that would be caused by an alien invasion: an interesting intellectual exercise but useless in practical terms.
- username90 8y ago
  Governments are typically packed with liberal arts majors but that never stopped them from doing stupid shit.
- gaius 8y ago
  with "useless" liberal arts educations Ironically it’s these graduates with the strongest opinions on what people should and shouldn’t be allowed to say. It’s not mechanical engineering grads freaking out on Twitter over cultural appropriation, tone policing, etc. They are the last people you would want to entrust with this power.
- Joeboy 8y ago
  But the actual relationship between nerds and liberal arts people is more like https://www.xkcd.com/743/ https://www.xkcd.com/743/ . I can see how the argument you're making would play well in some communities, but HN is not the right audience.
mindslight 8y ago
Don't worry. I'm sure they're getting plenty of help from the State Department.
scarmig 8y ago
And the rules are executed by untrained, outsourced workers in developing countries who are paid piecemeal, allocated ~10s per item!
- jmspring 8y ago
  I suspect you are right. Your comment reminds me when Google and others were paying people to review sites on a contract basis for matching content to category. This was many moons ago before basically "mechanical turk" took off.
sayno3 8y ago
My knee-jerk reaction is write this off as ageism, but considering the social-movement trends of this demographic, it is probably a recipe for disaster. To give an example, at a meetup hosted by a large game corp, some college children presented a project aimed at logging the speaking time of business-meeting participants based on superficial details (primarily sex, race), with the goal of equalizing the amount of speaking time based on such. The fact that my objection to such will be perceived as sexism/racism is my other objection.
chrisseaton 8y ago
> Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience A millennial is going to be around 30. They're not children. In fact they likely have children of their own.
- jjtheblunt 8y ago
  Not there they don't.
- PavlovsCat 8y ago
  Life experience isn't just a result of accumulated years, as one dictionary summarizes it: "experience and knowledge gained through living". If it rains a lot, but I don't catch any of it, I still have no water, yet if it rains just a tiny bit, and I hold out a cup, I do have some water. Of course, if I hold out a cup and it doesn't rain, I have no water either. You have to live to be able to gather life experience, but just living isn't enough. The same goes for having children, they are a great opportunity for learning and reflection, but they don't necessarily cause it in all people in the same degree.
  - chrisseaton 8y ago
    I was replying to the idea that a millennial is a young person. They aren't. If you've got other comments about life experience direct them at the original commenter.
    - PavlovsCat 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials > demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years. It mentions various ranges, roughly 1980 at the earliest, 1996 at the latest. So a millenial according to that today would range from age 22 to age 38. That leaves us with "people under 40 with limited life experience". They probably meant young people, sure, but the sentence makes sense either way, since under 40 is still kinda young to formulate rules for how to moderate political discussions anywhere on the globe. A person would have to study and travel and learn a lot, just about that, to have anything valuable to say about it at age 30. If you spend that time working at Facebook instead, to speak of "limited life experience" in this context is very kind either way. The real kicker is that it's not even just about Facebook and their own limited life experiences though. From the article: > Then the company outsources much of the actual post-by-post moderation to companies that enlist largely unskilled workers, many hired out of call centers. The cool thing here is, since it's in the tree of their comment, the orginal commenter sees that, too.

Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience based in Menlo Park to have a say in discourse that crosses so many boundaries? What could possibly go wrong?

beatpanda 8y ago

This is exactly why Silicon Valley engineers, and engineers generally, need to stop being so dismissive of people with "useless" liberal arts educations, and instead bring in sociologists and anthropologists to think through these processes in a comprehensive way. I'm being downvoted into oblivion elsewhere on this site for suggesting this, but I feel like it's a very obvious move for tech companies that have this problem.

jmspring 8y ago
I have no problem with anthropologists and those in the liberal arts employed when there are skills they have that help a company. Bubble-1, many humanities students were hired around working with content. That wasn't a bad thing. As I said in another post, companies also actually used to hire people outside the tech bubble to deal with things like categorization of websites, etc. That went away once they could achieve a certain percentage with cheap labor.
- sunsetMurk 8y ago
  ..and now with ML/etc.!
nradov 8y ago
Classical liberal arts educations are tremendously valuable in teaching people how to think critically. However when we're dealing with complex emergent systems no one is capable of reliably predicting problems regardless of how much education in sociology and anthropology they have. Active monitoring and fast responses are the only viable approach.
- sunsetMurk 8y ago
  but what about seriously brainstorming some hypothetical scenarios as part of the process? For example, documenting some sort of 'ideal' or 'pro/con' type lists of potential fallout. When architecting a system.. or in design/feature proposals. Surely folks less in the weeds of technical requirements and actual implementation could help decide earlier on if something is 'good'.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Brainstorming hypothetical scenarios usually results in endless discussions about imaginary problems that never come to pass, and completely missing the real problems. This tends to happen regardless of who participates.
    - sunsetMurk 8y ago
      agreed. ...I guess why not have people who're better at it or who'd rather spend time on it, do it? Would probably miss most of the real problems, but could catch a few and help steer complex issues. I guess I'm thinking about it as applying the type of mission that OpenAI has[1] on a wider/smaller scale. 1- https://openai.com/about/#mission https://openai.com/about/#mission
      - nradov 8y ago
        The OpenAI people mean well but their their concerns over safety seem a bit silly considering they haven't actually demonstrated any progress toward building a true AGI. At this stage it's the equivalent of worrying about the problems that would be caused by an alien invasion: an interesting intellectual exercise but useless in practical terms.
username90 8y ago
Governments are typically packed with liberal arts majors but that never stopped them from doing stupid shit.
gaius 8y ago
with "useless" liberal arts educations Ironically it’s these graduates with the strongest opinions on what people should and shouldn’t be allowed to say. It’s not mechanical engineering grads freaking out on Twitter over cultural appropriation, tone policing, etc. They are the last people you would want to entrust with this power.
Joeboy 8y ago
But the actual relationship between nerds and liberal arts people is more like https://www.xkcd.com/743/ https://www.xkcd.com/743/ . I can see how the argument you're making would play well in some communities, but HN is not the right audience.

mindslight 8y ago

Don't worry. I'm sure they're getting plenty of help from the State Department.

scarmig 8y ago

And the rules are executed by untrained, outsourced workers in developing countries who are paid piecemeal, allocated ~10s per item!

jmspring 8y ago
I suspect you are right. Your comment reminds me when Google and others were paying people to review sites on a contract basis for matching content to category. This was many moons ago before basically "mechanical turk" took off.

sayno3 8y ago

My knee-jerk reaction is write this off as ageism, but considering the social-movement trends of this demographic, it is probably a recipe for disaster. To give an example, at a meetup hosted by a large game corp, some college children presented a project aimed at logging the speaking time of business-meeting participants based on superficial details (primarily sex, race), with the goal of equalizing the amount of speaking time based on such. The fact that my objection to such will be perceived as sexism/racism is my other objection.

chrisseaton 8y ago

> Having a bunch of likely millenial aged individuals with limited life experience A millennial is going to be around 30. They're not children. In fact they likely have children of their own.

jjtheblunt 8y ago
Not there they don't.
PavlovsCat 8y ago
Life experience isn't just a result of accumulated years, as one dictionary summarizes it: "experience and knowledge gained through living". If it rains a lot, but I don't catch any of it, I still have no water, yet if it rains just a tiny bit, and I hold out a cup, I do have some water. Of course, if I hold out a cup and it doesn't rain, I have no water either. You have to live to be able to gather life experience, but just living isn't enough. The same goes for having children, they are a great opportunity for learning and reflection, but they don't necessarily cause it in all people in the same degree.
- chrisseaton 8y ago
  I was replying to the idea that a millennial is a young person. They aren't. If you've got other comments about life experience direct them at the original commenter.
  - PavlovsCat 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials > demographers and researchers typically use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years. It mentions various ranges, roughly 1980 at the earliest, 1996 at the latest. So a millenial according to that today would range from age 22 to age 38. That leaves us with "people under 40 with limited life experience". They probably meant young people, sure, but the sentence makes sense either way, since under 40 is still kinda young to formulate rules for how to moderate political discussions anywhere on the globe. A person would have to study and travel and learn a lot, just about that, to have anything valuable to say about it at age 30. If you spend that time working at Facebook instead, to speak of "limited life experience" in this context is very kind either way. The real kicker is that it's not even just about Facebook and their own limited life experiences though. From the article: > Then the company outsources much of the actual post-by-post moderation to companies that enlist largely unskilled workers, many hired out of call centers. The cool thing here is, since it's in the tree of their comment, the orginal commenter sees that, too.