Tom, could you please share how you've worked on your emotional wholeness? This is an issue I recognize in myself, but do not know how to begin to heal.
Facebook has this exactly this tool, aka Conversion / Brand Lift [1]. It's a real experimentation system, not a "simulated" one like Google's Ghost Ad.
Yep. Lift tests are solid gold. A lot of people pan FB ads but the reality is they can be very incremental.
The flip side is that not every campaign, targeting strategy or ad will be incremental. You have to test and retest your way to it. A blanket assumption won’t work.
Can you talk about how to infer causality without running an experiment? From your description, "real-time processing + auto ML + algorithm" still sounds very much observational to me.
I'm asking not as knock against your service, but genuine curiosity about how you manage to solve this incredibly hard problem.
EDIT: From your white paper, it looks like you're running a regression that controls for a bunch of confounders. You also interact the treatment variable with those confounders to get the heterogeneous treatment effect.
My concern with that is that we're not controlling for unobservable confounders, which make causal inference so difficult. If we assume that controlling for observable confounders is enough (we shouldn't!), then correlation and causation are the same.
Yep, you're correct that we're using observational studies via a regression to remove confounders and estimate treatment effects. Our confounders are synthetically generated based on the observable variables - we can only make projections of course on digital signals our customers send us (we only use first party data). We are working to incorporate actual experiment data into the algorithm over time as well, to get even closer to the true causal treatment effect.
There's one argument with hitting the kids that I don't know to argue with. It goes like this.
There are things in life with consequences that are dire yet can only be felt in the long run (e.g. a smart kid can coast with bad work ethics until college / grad school / start up). As a parent, you can explain these consequences, and the kid may intellectually agree, but can not fully internalize.
Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. It's simply the equivalent to celebrating milestones in a long project, translating long-term benefits into short-term ones that can be easily felt. Why is the former vilified, while the later touted as good practice?
> Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt.
That's a good argument for consequence-based discipline in general, but it doesn't make any case for striking children instead of imposing more effective consequences.
I've made two and three year olds stand with their noses in the corner, taken four year olds' favorite blankets, made six and seven year olds write essays and copy selected sections of books, and made nine year olds rewrite homework and clean public areas in penance for their childish mistakes. There are any number of ways to bring long term consequences to bear in the short term; I haven't yet felt the need to strike these kids to accomplish the behavioral change I wish to enact.
I also won't hesitate to yell and demonstrate anger if it's appropriate to the situation. I call it "silverback parenting".
We are primates, and have evolved over millions of years to signal dissatisfaction vocally and respect social order even from a young age. When I do it, I'm just acting, but the kids don't know that. Watch cartoons for kids and look how exaggerated the characters' emotions are; kid's often miss nuance, but they're well versed in recognizing and responding to basic emotions.
Spanking is just plain uncreative. We have so many options as parents I just can't conceptualize any situation where spanking was the best option. And I say this having been raised myself in a spanking household.
Those are some brilliant examples of disciplining :)
But... what do you do if they simply don't want to sit in the corner or rewrite homework?
Where I live physical disciplining is forbidden by law, so I assume parents have to be quite adept at psychological manipulation. In the end the parent is bigger and theoretically smarter. I assume they can pick an uncooperative child up and deposit them in their room for some very boring time alone without toys, to reconsider what they did?
My impression is that if a parent didn't do their job to instill respect and trust in their kids in ages 1-4, it might be very hard for them later. The child could simply be an ass and refuse anything, including the punishment.
And you do it again and again and again and again as many times as necessary until the child gets the message.
Two classic ways to fail at parenting are not setting boundaries and/or setting boundaries and not enforcing them.
Some people smack because they're lazy and uncreative. It's fast and effective because it gets the desired result for the parent. But that's not without significant unwanted consequences for the child. There is zero need to smack unless it's something extreme like immediate physical danger is present and you just need to get their attention. Even then they respond pretty well to the right voice signals.
Watch enough episodes of super nanny and it will sink in. She uses the same damn technique every. single. time. It's just consistently enforcing the boundaries. Sometimes for hours at a time if need be. This usually is on required for a few days and things change.
I'd say that so far has mapped pretty well to raising my toddler. It's not always easy but we do what we have to.
I haven't run into that level of rebellion from any of my four kids, at least not yet. I don't expect I will for some time, if ever, but what do I know about raising kids older than 9? Not much!
I agree with you, based in part on how I've seen some of my friends parenting their own substantially less compliant children, that the stereotype of a recalcitrant child not submitting to discipline has more to do with parental consistency and resolve than being endemic to child-rearing. One thing my kids have internalized from an early age is that no amount of bickering or disobedience will ever result in less discipline being applied; discipline and punishment only ever ramp up, never down. I also tend toward more severe punishments than many parents, which--at least in theory--sidesteps the risk of the kids developing a "tolerance" to some forms of discipline.
When it comes down to it, deprivation of activities is effective at length with all children. Children are born hedonists, and want to engage in pleasant and pleasurable activities. If I have a particular proactive disciplinary measure to apply (e.g., writing out chosen, relevant passages from Marcus Aurelius' "Meditiations"), it's almost always imposed as a substitute for some pleasant activity ("You'll do this during your normal screen time until you're done") and thus can continue in perpetuity should the kid choose to be recalcitrant. And since I'm typically there with the kid while they're doing the punishment (they're going to have questions about words, meanings, which passage is next, etc.) I can easily enforce the sequestration just by sitting by the door of the study :) There are definitely non-physical ways of punishing children that they simply can't "opt out" of.
As another example, one evening came home to learn from our kids' nanny that my two oldest boys were rude to their mother that morning. My wife had had a hard day at work as well, and getting home before her, I planned a quick trip to grab her a six pack of her favorite beer and order pizza from her favorite place. My boys, apart from having to write letters of apology to their mother, also didn't get to eat pizza. They had peanut butter sandwiches and water while we ate pizza. They wrote their apologies during their normal screen time and lost screen time privileges for a week, if I remember correctly. There's really nothing they could have done to choose "not to submit" to these punishments: if they tried to take pizza, I'd snatch it away, if they tried to use an electronic device, I lock it out of their reach. Disobedience wasn't really an option for them.
I find that the most effective punishments include a severe up-front penalty and a less severe but lingering over-time penalty. The severe frontloaded penalty makes it very clear how egregious the misbehavior was; the lower severity lingering penalty provides the opportunity over time to reinforce and reiterate how to behave better in the future.
One thing that spanking does not require while the types of consequences you talk about do is parents' time and engagement.
Proper discipline takes time! I did not realize how much of my time and effort it will take to put in place proper punishments.
It's easy to yell at or hit a kid. It takes no time at all. I don't know how effective it is.
I want my kids to understand why they are getting a punishment, and have the punishment be constructive in some way, even if it is standing in a corner and thinking about what you did, or sitting in the "time out" chair and letting their emotions cool down a bit. Afterwards, we always talk about why they got punished, what they did wrong, and how they can avoid it in the future.
Yelling is interesting. I find that emotional reactive yelling is not good. Tempered and controlled yelling like the parent poster describes is much better. Getting the tone right to the situation takes practice.
Yeah, there's a distinct difference between my yelling and my wife's yelling. Mine is calculated; hers is more emotionally responsive. That's one reason I escalate to yelling more quickly: because I want to be doing it as a rational response to a need for discipline, as opposed to an emotional response when I just can't take it anymore.
I've come up with a few catch phrases that have served me well. I'm personally somewhat noise sensitive and honestly don't like the cacophony that comes with children much. But the reality is that there's nothing wrong with kids making noise: they're just being kids. My dad's catch phrase was "children are to be seen and not heard" but I don't think that's really ideal for teaching kids to be reasonably expressive, so I've leaned on "That's enough." There's no moral judgment implied, but I've reached the end of my tolerance for that particular noise, and the kid(s) needs to stop doing it.
Kids are really quite dumb. They just don't know much about the world. They don't intuitively understand why certain rules exist, and that's ok, because they're young and don't have decades of life experience to lean on. When I ask them to do something, or ask them to stop doing something, their first response is frequently "Why?" I've been there too, kid. My parents would respond "Because I said so!" which I never really understood as a kid. As an adult I realize it's because they were trying to teach me a measure of respect for and obedience to authority, and I as an adult I also realize how important it is for kids to understand that, but I think we can do better. So my response is "Does it matter?" "Clean your room." "Why?" "Does it matter?" The kid is forced to admit that "why" doesn't really matter: they've been told to do something and they must do it. Once they admit that, I happily explain to them the reasoning behind the request. I'm simultaneously teaching them intuition about the rule and that authority matters. Best of both worlds.
I had to have a recent conversation with my 9yo boy about his response to me yelling. He gets really frazzled and basically crumbles if I yell too much or too loudly or too pointedly about something. Obviously as a parent I don't like this, in much the same way that my parents would say "This hurts me more than it hurts you" when they'd spank me. (I still don't believe them, btw, but I understand where they were coming from.) So I had to explain to him that there exist people in this world who will try to use their emotions to control him. They'll use their anger to make him do things he doesn't want to do, or make him stop doing things he ought to do. He needs to be able to respond appropriately and rationally in those situations. He needs to recognize their emotions for what they are, understand the underlying reasons for those emotions, and decide what to do in response. He needs to grow into a person who doesn't let other people's emotions decide his behavior. Yelling can signal disatisfaction, but it can also provide an opportunity for kids to learn how to deal with others' emotions effectively.
> Hitting the kid is simply a way to translate these long-term consequences into short-term ones that can be more easily felt. It's simply the equivalent to celebrating milestones in a long project, translating long-term benefits into short-term ones that can be easily felt. Why is the former vilified, while the later touted as good practice?
Cause kids ain't that dumb and fully know it is you and not the abstract consequences hitting them. It is you and with goal of not being hit, faking signature works equally good or better. Same with milestone celebration, but people on project like free food and fun, so they will not complain and toute it as good practice. Milestone celebration makes people feel good in short term and does not matter in long term.
More importantly, spanking does not solve whatever reason for whatever caused that bad work ethics. It may be inability to control impulse, it may be an expression of anger, it may be bad organizational skill, short attention span, million other reasons and spanking does not address any of them. It does not address issue and does not make the kid to build good habits and routines, it makes them feel pain if they dont figure it out by themselves. And many kids don't figure it out by themselves.
I've seen an argument tangential to this advanced as an explanation for why spanking is more accepted in some minority groups: the consequences of not eradicating certain bad behaviours early (disrespecting authority, not following instructions, not working hard) can be particularly dire for certain demographic groups (e.g. black men, immigrants trying to gain a foothold) and parents need to use every tool in their arsenal to mold their child's adult impulses. Relying on time-outs or conditioning children to expect to be allowed to argue with authority is seen as the privilege of those who can be expected to be given the benefit of the doubt later.
I'm not convinced of the efficacy of spanking for this purpose, but I can understand the impulse described here (though I doubt that this impulse motivates most spankings, which seem to be carried out in anger).
In that case, it might be smart for US parents to periodically stop their kids' toy car, search it for sweets and lunch money and confiscate them. This will create the appropriate expectations for their interactions with law enforcement.
Also to stop them when going from their room to the living room and subject them to an interrogation. If they don't pass, they get sent back. This would prepare them for international travel.
I sure as hell had 'random bedroom sweeps' as a kid, and it just made me better at hiding contraband, and heightened my attraction to it, whatever it may be.
I don’t think the turning long-term consequences into short-term ones is what’s vilified about spanking. There are other ways of doing this that don’t resort to violence.
Are there studies to show that spanking is effective in that goal? If there is not convincing evidence that spanked children do better in school, then anything can be equally ineffective.
E.g. your question assumes that spanking is effective in making the kid well organized and well focused, but what if that simply does not happen?
I’m not a parent so I don’t think I have a super great understanding of which punishments are most effective, but ones I can think of:
- Taking away something that they like
- scolding them
- giving them a time-out
I’m not sure if they are as effective as spanking or not, but they can all be ways of turning long-term consequences into short-term ones, and I don’t think they are vilified the same way as spanking.
My point being that the violent part of spanking is what is frowned upon, not the making-consequences-immediate part.
Isn't a flat tax rate already "proportionate to size and income"? What's the justification for higher tax rate for the rich? I agree that their wealth depends on public infrastructure, but I'm not sure that their level of dependence is higher than us.
(I'm asking as a proponent of progressive tax rate, just not for this reason. So I'd like to clarify)
I may not have expressed my position clearly. Because most costs of living are fixed and not proportionate to income, taking 20% of the income of a poor person will have a disproportionate affect on them, as opposed to someone with a very high income for whom the difference will only marginally affect their standard of living. Take 30% of someone's $20,000 income and you will deeply compromise their ability to exist comfortably in society. Taking 30% of someone's $5,000,000 income will have no effect on their ability to cover their needs and live comfortably.
A flat tax, then, is actually quite regressive, rather than neutral.
Speaking in terms of companies, though, there is also a question of proportion vis a vis size—bigger companies and their employees tend to cost taxpayers quite a bit more than small businesses. There are no giant Twitter-like subsidies for five-man firms, for example. Larger firms are much more likely to make use of legal infrastructure, to need regulation, and to have the power to seek accommodation by the government for infrastructure needed for their given business.
As a young professional who's realized the importance of maintaining a network, I'd love to learn how you stay in touch with your former co-workers.
Do you reach out for weekend lunch dates just to chat? Are people open to that (given work, hobbies, kids, etc.)? I'm having a hard time coming with "excuses" and serendipity to stay in touch with people I'm no longer working with.
> Do you reach out for weekend lunch dates just to chat?
This is not necessarily about ex-coworkers.
In general, weekend time is more guarded and precious so try to meet for a coffee/drink after work. Or you can both go to an event that is related to mutual interest (tech is possible but would not recommend it). Trying to meet more than one person at the same time also leads to scheduling difficulties.
If you want to meet up with more than one person, consider hosting a Tuesday night dinner party. Nothing fancy, do take out if you can't cook that well. Tuesday night is usually an "off" night for most people.
Ideally, you meet with people you would like to stay in touch about every 3 months. A person is not really in your direct network unless they know who you are and can recognize you in person and know what you are currently working on and have seen you in about the last 3 months. But here's the catch, you don't necessarily have to be directly in contact with everyone. A simple "How is Jane doing? Have you heard from her" can keep you updated enough.
There are some people from work that you might think you'll remain friends with after leaving with whom you do not meetup with again. That is ok. People drift off. Maybe it was just the recurring coincidence of time, location, and possibly purpose (going to the office for years) that made you "friends".
Like the saying goes:
Friends for a lifetime
Friends for a reason
Friends for a season.
The most naturally extroverted individuals that I know have many social circles. One friend I know always buys two tickets to a performance and never lets the other person pay for it.
Finally true friends whom are hard to find are those who you can open up and be vulnerable with.
Facebook has bastardized the term friend. Not everyone is going to be your friend, as it requires reciprocity and shared caring.
"Hey! wassap, how's life?? Want to go grab lunch next week?" I never schedule anything during the weekend, only during the week. And I don't mind travelling out to see
Literally, that's what I will send to one of my ex-coworkers, or vice versa. It's not anything more than that. Either through gChat or Facebook Messenger, I don't find it that hard, and I don't feel like I need excuses.
I recently went to a going-away/layoff party for one of the first engineers I worked under in Silicon Valley, 20+ years ago. I hadn't personally talked to him in 10+ years, but he was delighted to see me. We shared war stories about our old company, dot com bust, etc. It was great, and doesn't have to be anything more than that.
I have a personal Slack instance of all the people I've worked with and/or managed--and have earned my trust--over the past 7-8 years. We're close-knit and look out for one another in the Chicago market. We've landed each other new gigs, swarmed to help when someone's in need, etc.
That and we're always bouncing news, advice, and helping one another in said Slack instance. Safety in numbers.
Personally, I mostly text (or WhatsApp) and email with them. Sometimes if it's someone I've really lost touch with who seems to be doing interesting stuff now, I'll send them a LinkedIn message including my email address and tell them to hit me up. Sometimes I'll grab a coffee with them, but most of my favorite coworkers don't live in my town, so it's harder to meet in person. But I really think email is sufficient to keep in touch. I'll send links to stuff on GitHub or blogs that I think they would find interesting (or that I think they'd enjoy giving me a hard time for still being interested in). I also know people who set up Slack / Discord channels for keeping in touch. I don't do that, but I could see where it's nice.
Edit: the other thing I do is pass along interesting looking recruiting emails to people who I know are more on the market than I am. I figure they'll do the same for me next time I'm ready to move on.
Keep warm list of people on Skype/Hangouts/whatever IM. I have got multiple IM clients running just to keep contact with people I have previously worked with, even some whom I haven't seen live for over 10 years now. There is a lot of occasional exchange of creative ideas, interesting links or just silly "how is it going at...?" out of boredom.
Humanities knowledge is just a tool which may and may not be used for good. FAANG already hires tons of humanities and social science PhDs to understand user behaviors. Whether that's used for good or ill depends on what the corporations are incentivized to do, not on the number of humanities grads employed.
(I'm speaking as a social science PhD employed at FAANG.)
So the problem of the blindspots in STEM focused people and the fact that his leads them to just unthinkingly doing what they are told to do ... isn't a problem? Because it depends on what they are being told to do?
I don't buy that, more humanities knowledge distributed among everyone is clearly needed, because our system ensures that the people at the top are more likely to use that knowledge for ill and the lower ranks knowing what is going on can be a check on that.
Many of the people who go into STEM do so because they want to deal with the task put in front of them without it being complicated. They don't want to deal with a bunch of icky emotions, and they don't want to trip themselves up asking murky existential questions about why they're doing what they do. This is a condition of temperament, you can run them through a gristle mill of humanities classes, it doesn't mean they'll internalize it if it isn't what they're inclined towards. You can lead a horse to knowledge, but you can't make it think.
I think your characterization of people who go into STEM is detracting from what could be an otherwise compelling argument. There are stronger reasons why people choose STEM. I agree that adding a few ethics classes won't change ethical behavior outcomes for those who would have chosen STEM programs anyway.
I'm not as certain. I went into college full-on STEMLord type person. Humanities was useless, STEM was the only way forward, etc etc. Graduated much the opposite, wanting to see more people appreciate the Humanities and incorporate them into their work and such.
And it all happened because I took some interesting humanities courses, and had some fun teachers. My two philosophy ones -- a general introduction, then a Philosophy of Science course taught by a person who had actually gotten their undergraduate in biophysics -- really led to some interesting discussion, and got me reading deeper and more across the humanities. Now, that's most of my reading, it seems.
While it may be a problem that people „unthinkingly do what they are told to do“, I don‘t think requiring engineers to take an ethics class will fix that.
What it does is give people the tools to properly articulate thoughts they are already having. It won‘t make someone an activist who just doesn‘t care.
That isn't a STEM thing by any means. It is a societal and organizational thing. When their job and/or life depends on it most people do the same thing.
For readers who may encounter the Arrow's Impossibility Theorem for the first time, its conclusion is shockingly true but also doesn't prescribe doom. There are reasonable alternative voting systems that don't run into the same "Impossibility" problem https://ncase.me/ballot/
Sure, they don't run up against /Arrow's/ impossibility theorem, but Gibbard's 1978 theorem shows that "Any straightforward game form (deterministic or not) is a probability mixture of game forms each of which is either unilateral or duple."
Edit: though, if I had to recommend one, I'd probably either recommend "ranked pairs" or something exotic with a substantial deal of randomness.
Or, really, maybe I'd advocate that the primaries use ranked pairs, and that the general use FPTP (or something very similar) because it is easier to understand the mechanism, so easier for people to trust it / keep results seen as legitimate, and because parties narrow down the options to 2 for the most part anyway, and all the usual systems are the same once it gets down to two candidates (in random ballot voting, it is still different though)
