4 ms·

In discussions on reddit yesterday some people suggested this was merely a bad translation of ‘child rearing age’. If so, the bottom end (youngest) of 18 seems

In discussions on reddit yesterday some people suggested this was merely a bad translation of ‘child rearing age’. If so, the bottom end (youngest) of 18 seems to make sense and is a lot less dystopian than it might otherwise read.

cazum 8y ago
The list only includes single, widowed or divorced women, so in that regard the list has been created from a bit more filtering than just age. EDIT: to your point however, being married would not preclude a woman from being "breed ready" as we understand the phrase. So clearly there is some missing context needed to really understand what that column represents.
dymk 8y ago
The government tracking when a woman is able to bear a child isn’t made less creepy at all by slightly changing the translated name.
- mc32 8y ago
  They’re not sure who owns the database.
- rscho 8y ago
  Yes it is. Do you think the US doesn't maintain similar statistics based on age? The data including more fertility indices, such as health issues or similar would be another story.
  - dymk 8y ago
    Oh great let’s see your actual proof, thank you.
    - wgerard 8y ago
      Here you go: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_cspan_childbearing_slides.pdf https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_... Took 5 seconds to find on google. Unless you're going to move the goalposts.
      - dymk 8y ago
        How about you just post proof of your claims instead of throwing out “just google it!”, so the discussion isn’t lowered even further from when HN used to expect citations? Also aggregate statistics aren’t the same as this database. What the CN government is doing is far creepier. Individual personal entries.
        wgerard 8y ago
        > What the CN government is doing is far creepier. Individual personal entries. Yes, thankfully there are no systems in place for the US government to verify/track someone's age (and thus infer their ability to bear children).
        diminoten 8y ago
        No, because that allows for an asymmetrical attack on a conversation, where a person can demand evidence, despite there being readily accessible information at the demander's fingertips, forcing the other person in the conversation to spend much more time than the time it took to request the information. You're asking someone else to do your legwork, and it's a form of trolling. Prove you care about this topic to the person you're talking to by doing some cursory research.
        natalyarostova 8y ago
        The census maintains a micro level data-base, which you need clearance to use or do research on, but is used to inform government policy. Source: I was tangentially involved in a research project once where we wanted, but weren't granted, access to this data.
        dang 8y ago
        Please don't cross into incivility on Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - uberman 8y ago
      Other than the census, tax returns, birth certificates, drivers licences? Or are you looking for ways the governments in the U.S. are specifically using this data such as : https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/special-reports/population-brief-may-2015/total-population-and-women-of-childbearing-age-2005-2025/ https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/special-reports/populati... or https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_cspan_childbearing_slides.pdf https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_...
    - rscho 8y ago
      Uh... Ok, and how do you think countries and the WHO are able to provide data on population structure such as age pyramids, exactly? This is just the non-anonymized version of the same thing. Never attribute to misdimeanor what can be attributed to negligence or stupidity in the first place.
      - atoav 8y ago
        Isn’t the entire idea of a data breach, that the data you are breaching is something you have been trusted with? If you e.g anonymously poll the sexual orientation of your population and condense it to down numbers, it is something completely different than having a list with who is gay. The first gives you insight in the structure of your population and the second allows everybody to target individuals, based on something a poll found. The Dutch listed religion in their public register (see Hollerith system) before the second world war. Guess who thankfully used that list later? The realization what data like that allows a fascist dictatorship to do is the main reason why the Germans up to this day are extremely sceptical about any state collected data and have one of the harshest data protection laws in the world. Equating anonymous statistics with a list of individuals is wrong. And statistics that allow you to identify individuals are unethical and potentially dangerous.
        rscho 8y ago
        Did I say anything that your answer provides a counterpoint to? No.
    - tastyfreeze 8y ago
      Did you even try to look yourself? Women of childbearing age is a subset of the population tracked by the US Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p20-575.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio... https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=childbearing&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_charset_=UTF-8 https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=childbearing&pa...
  - WillPostForFood 8y ago
    Keeping statistics on something and keeping an actual list of names isn't the same. E.g., I have statistics on credit card purchases in the US, versus I have a list of every purchase rsch made with their credit card.
- avar 8y ago
  The time of women's puberty and menopause is a key health metric for a given population. If it's moving up or down something's likely to be very wrong (e.g. exposure to pollution, hormones in the food/water supply). It would be negligent not to track it for health reasons. There seems to have been something shady going on here. I won't comment on that, but the government tracking this isn't per-se strange or unwarranted.
- CPLX 8y ago
  Of course it is. Governments collect vast databases of statistics about all manner of attributes of their population as a matter of course. They even keep track of things like which sexually transmitted diseases people have, and how much money they earned.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  I'd bet dollars to donuts that insurance companies in the U.S. are tracking similar data.
- golem14 8y ago
  Depends, no? If the translation is "women between 18 and 40", it's harder to be upset about it, because US census data clearly has similar information.
mikeash 8y ago
This is a great example of how different translation styles can convey completely different meanings. We should keep in mind not to trust the connotations of any translated phrase. Heck, we can barely trust the overt meaning.
class4behavior 8y ago
Not the users but the Guardian article the thread was linked to. In the comments on Reddit you constantly watch the few who read the article collect karma for explaining the very same points to those who didn't. Besides, in the US the census collects the same kind of data, it just probably hasn't used with an agenda. Among EU members, on the other hand, data protection laws often disallow the collection of such information.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
lookACamel 8y ago
I saw a different explanation which is that it's a bad translation of "has had children".
- glasslion 8y ago
  could be. that's my first guess.
duxup 8y ago
Beyond that we often track / talk about people who are in their "prime working years". That doesn't mean the government is planning to round them up and put them to work.

cazum 8y ago

The list only includes single, widowed or divorced women, so in that regard the list has been created from a bit more filtering than just age. EDIT: to your point however, being married would not preclude a woman from being "breed ready" as we understand the phrase. So clearly there is some missing context needed to really understand what that column represents.

dymk 8y ago

The government tracking when a woman is able to bear a child isn’t made less creepy at all by slightly changing the translated name.

mc32 8y ago
They’re not sure who owns the database.
rscho 8y ago
Yes it is. Do you think the US doesn't maintain similar statistics based on age? The data including more fertility indices, such as health issues or similar would be another story.
- dymk 8y ago
  Oh great let’s see your actual proof, thank you.
  - wgerard 8y ago
    Here you go: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_cspan_childbearing_slides.pdf https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_... Took 5 seconds to find on google. Unless you're going to move the goalposts.
    - dymk 8y ago
      How about you just post proof of your claims instead of throwing out “just google it!”, so the discussion isn’t lowered even further from when HN used to expect citations? Also aggregate statistics aren’t the same as this database. What the CN government is doing is far creepier. Individual personal entries.
      - wgerard 8y ago
        > What the CN government is doing is far creepier. Individual personal entries. Yes, thankfully there are no systems in place for the US government to verify/track someone's age (and thus infer their ability to bear children).
      - diminoten 8y ago
        No, because that allows for an asymmetrical attack on a conversation, where a person can demand evidence, despite there being readily accessible information at the demander's fingertips, forcing the other person in the conversation to spend much more time than the time it took to request the information. You're asking someone else to do your legwork, and it's a form of trolling. Prove you care about this topic to the person you're talking to by doing some cursory research.
      - natalyarostova 8y ago
        The census maintains a micro level data-base, which you need clearance to use or do research on, but is used to inform government policy. Source: I was tangentially involved in a research project once where we wanted, but weren't granted, access to this data.
      - dang 8y ago
        Please don't cross into incivility on Hacker News. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - uberman 8y ago
    Other than the census, tax returns, birth certificates, drivers licences? Or are you looking for ways the governments in the U.S. are specifically using this data such as : https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/special-reports/population-brief-may-2015/total-population-and-women-of-childbearing-age-2005-2025/ https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/special-reports/populati... or https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_cspan_childbearing_slides.pdf https://www.census.gov/newsroom/cspan/childbearing/20120817_...
  - rscho 8y ago
    Uh... Ok, and how do you think countries and the WHO are able to provide data on population structure such as age pyramids, exactly? This is just the non-anonymized version of the same thing. Never attribute to misdimeanor what can be attributed to negligence or stupidity in the first place.
    - atoav 8y ago
      Isn’t the entire idea of a data breach, that the data you are breaching is something you have been trusted with? If you e.g anonymously poll the sexual orientation of your population and condense it to down numbers, it is something completely different than having a list with who is gay. The first gives you insight in the structure of your population and the second allows everybody to target individuals, based on something a poll found. The Dutch listed religion in their public register (see Hollerith system) before the second world war. Guess who thankfully used that list later? The realization what data like that allows a fascist dictatorship to do is the main reason why the Germans up to this day are extremely sceptical about any state collected data and have one of the harshest data protection laws in the world. Equating anonymous statistics with a list of individuals is wrong. And statistics that allow you to identify individuals are unethical and potentially dangerous.
      - rscho 8y ago
        Did I say anything that your answer provides a counterpoint to? No.
  - tastyfreeze 8y ago
    Did you even try to look yourself? Women of childbearing age is a subset of the population tracked by the US Census Bureau. https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2014/demo/p20-575.pdf https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publicatio... https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=childbearing&page=1&stateGeo=none&searchtype=web&cssp=SERP&_charset_=UTF-8 https://www.census.gov/search-results.html?q=childbearing&pa...
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  Keeping statistics on something and keeping an actual list of names isn't the same. E.g., I have statistics on credit card purchases in the US, versus I have a list of every purchase rsch made with their credit card.
avar 8y ago
The time of women's puberty and menopause is a key health metric for a given population. If it's moving up or down something's likely to be very wrong (e.g. exposure to pollution, hormones in the food/water supply). It would be negligent not to track it for health reasons. There seems to have been something shady going on here. I won't comment on that, but the government tracking this isn't per-se strange or unwarranted.
CPLX 8y ago
Of course it is. Governments collect vast databases of statistics about all manner of attributes of their population as a matter of course. They even keep track of things like which sexually transmitted diseases people have, and how much money they earned.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
I'd bet dollars to donuts that insurance companies in the U.S. are tracking similar data.
golem14 8y ago
Depends, no? If the translation is "women between 18 and 40", it's harder to be upset about it, because US census data clearly has similar information.

mikeash 8y ago

This is a great example of how different translation styles can convey completely different meanings. We should keep in mind not to trust the connotations of any translated phrase. Heck, we can barely trust the overt meaning.

class4behavior 8y ago

Not the users but the Guardian article the thread was linked to. In the comments on Reddit you constantly watch the few who read the article collect karma for explaining the very same points to those who didn't. Besides, in the US the census collects the same kind of data, it just probably hasn't used with an agenda. Among EU members, on the other hand, data protection laws often disallow the collection of such information.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

lookACamel 8y ago

I saw a different explanation which is that it's a bad translation of "has had children".

glasslion 8y ago
could be. that's my first guess.

duxup 8y ago

Beyond that we often track / talk about people who are in their "prime working years". That doesn't mean the government is planning to round them up and put them to work.