4 ms·

Or maybe, according to the laws of statistics, maybe, just maybe, (let me add in another maybe here,) The dude just happened to like 5 books that HAPPENED to be

Or maybe, according to the laws of statistics, maybe, just maybe, (let me add in another maybe here,) The dude just happened to like 5 books that HAPPENED to be by white men? Possibly he most likely didn't even care who wrote them as quality knows not race, sex or orientation? I mean we should TOTALLY believe the dude trying to rid the third world of malaria is TOTALLY a racist, right? God, tumblr is leaking over into hacker news now.

sp332 12y ago
Sure it's possible. It's just not mathematically likely. Sexist, too, since there's only 1/2^5 = 3% chance that all 5 books would be written by men if the choice were made fairly.
- axlprose 12y ago
  you're forgetting to take into account the fact this is a list about his favourite books this year. Preferences, especially when talking about a 'top 5', are by definition highly selective, and not 'fair' according to any other measure besides how much the reader liked the book. This is also not about how many books were published this year (which may very well not be evenly distributed among the genders/races), it's about a subset of the books which Gates actually read this year, which may be an entirely different demographic of authors depending on his preferences. So you'd have to take into consideration the demographics of the authors for the particular sub-genres of books Gates likes to read as well. If you're going to use math to suggest something is discriminatory, you better do a thorough job of mathematically proving it correctly, because it is a large claim to make using only primitive estimations.
  - sp332 12y ago
    Only reading books written by men is not less sexist than reading both and only liking books written by men, so I'm not sure how that would help. If men are more likely to be published than women, that's an indication of a sexist industry (or sub-genre) and something that all readers should be actively working to compensate for.
    - axlprose 12y ago
      If the industry does publish mostly men, then reading books mostly by men in that genre is inevitable. And if that is true for the industry, it could just be that not enough female authors are actually looking to get published. I have experience actually working at a publisher for a particular STEM field, and can tell you that we didn't receive an equal demographic of pitches from authors looking to get published; in fact, we automatically gave any female authors even more of a chance to refine their ideas with us regardless of their original pitches. Males that made dubious pitches on the other hand were just canned outright. Yet the percentages of books published by females was still low, and there's not much that can be done about that from the publishing end if there simply aren't enough females interested in authoring for that genre. Additionally, there is no reason why liking books by male authors over female authors (or vice-versa) in certain genres should be sexist. There have been studies showing that consumers can relate better to characters and such that share their same gender/culture than those that don't. Similarly, there are studies that students learn better from teachers that also share their same gender/culture. It's hard to say what exactly causes this right now, but it's not a stretch to suggest that perhaps males will simply enjoy reading/relating with authors more if they share a similar perspective. Also, actively going out of your way to only read books by male authors in all genres is definitely a sign of some kind of sexism, and I have no idea why you're positioning it as something could even be remotely interpreted as 'less sexist' than merely liking books by authors that share a common ground with you. Selectively reading means judging books before you read them, not even giving them a chance based purely on some superficial trait (like an author of a different sex), while liking books could mean judging them on any number of nearly infinite dimensions. The two are nothing alike.
      - sp332 12y ago
        I said it's "not less sexist".
        axlprose 12y ago
        which gives the connotation that it could even remotely be interpreted to be less sexist, which should be completely false.
- strickjb9 12y ago
  You are poorly assuming that 50% of books are written by men.
- davidiach 12y ago
  Because all books are created equal.

sp332 12y ago

Sure it's possible. It's just not mathematically likely. Sexist, too, since there's only 1/2^5 = 3% chance that all 5 books would be written by men if the choice were made fairly.

axlprose 12y ago
you're forgetting to take into account the fact this is a list about his favourite books this year. Preferences, especially when talking about a 'top 5', are by definition highly selective, and not 'fair' according to any other measure besides how much the reader liked the book. This is also not about how many books were published this year (which may very well not be evenly distributed among the genders/races), it's about a subset of the books which Gates actually read this year, which may be an entirely different demographic of authors depending on his preferences. So you'd have to take into consideration the demographics of the authors for the particular sub-genres of books Gates likes to read as well. If you're going to use math to suggest something is discriminatory, you better do a thorough job of mathematically proving it correctly, because it is a large claim to make using only primitive estimations.
- sp332 12y ago
  Only reading books written by men is not less sexist than reading both and only liking books written by men, so I'm not sure how that would help. If men are more likely to be published than women, that's an indication of a sexist industry (or sub-genre) and something that all readers should be actively working to compensate for.
  - axlprose 12y ago
    If the industry does publish mostly men, then reading books mostly by men in that genre is inevitable. And if that is true for the industry, it could just be that not enough female authors are actually looking to get published. I have experience actually working at a publisher for a particular STEM field, and can tell you that we didn't receive an equal demographic of pitches from authors looking to get published; in fact, we automatically gave any female authors even more of a chance to refine their ideas with us regardless of their original pitches. Males that made dubious pitches on the other hand were just canned outright. Yet the percentages of books published by females was still low, and there's not much that can be done about that from the publishing end if there simply aren't enough females interested in authoring for that genre. Additionally, there is no reason why liking books by male authors over female authors (or vice-versa) in certain genres should be sexist. There have been studies showing that consumers can relate better to characters and such that share their same gender/culture than those that don't. Similarly, there are studies that students learn better from teachers that also share their same gender/culture. It's hard to say what exactly causes this right now, but it's not a stretch to suggest that perhaps males will simply enjoy reading/relating with authors more if they share a similar perspective. Also, actively going out of your way to only read books by male authors in all genres is definitely a sign of some kind of sexism, and I have no idea why you're positioning it as something could even be remotely interpreted as 'less sexist' than merely liking books by authors that share a common ground with you. Selectively reading means judging books before you read them, not even giving them a chance based purely on some superficial trait (like an author of a different sex), while liking books could mean judging them on any number of nearly infinite dimensions. The two are nothing alike.
    - sp332 12y ago
      I said it's "not less sexist".
      - axlprose 12y ago
        which gives the connotation that it could even remotely be interpreted to be less sexist, which should be completely false.
strickjb9 12y ago
You are poorly assuming that 50% of books are written by men.
davidiach 12y ago
Because all books are created equal.