Boz Handy Bosma, Ph.D.

@bbbozzz.bsky.social

1432

Posts

Twitter escapee and tech leader posting about systemic racism, systemic sexism, and intersectional -isms in relation to AI, technology, and policy. Opinions my own. Please follow / amplify. #EndSystemicRacism #EndSystemicSexism

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Reply to

Will Stancil

In four of the last five presidential elections, there has been a serious effort among some Democrats to undo the will of the voters and replace the winner if the primaries. The attempt to subvert the election culminating in January 6 was BAD. So is this.

Reply to

KC McGinnis

The analogy seems off. With images, the details are obviously wrong. With writing, many think they can tell, but is there evidence of that? How accurately? The cost of false positives is very high and poorly to be disparate in both rates and impact. The ethics if this needs much more discussion.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

Yep. I was shocked going to primary sources and seeing how they were reinterpreted and IMO whitewashed. Not a shot on you ... The prominent theme of early eugenics built on social darwinism to advocate for the elimination of Black people and race mixing and the perfection of "superior" races.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

I dunno. If you look at projects Grant did, they were explicitly about separating out races and detecting the supposed dysgenic aspects of race mixing in earlier generations, for example in Jamaica.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

I think the term "eugenics" is a bit overloaded, as people think of it in terms of topics like sterilization or perfection of genetic inheritance (for the "superior" races) and not the eliminationism of earlier periods which was explicitly anti-Black and opposed to race mixing.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

I'm saying the anti-Black racial eugenics wasn't originally about sterilization. It was about elimination and opposition to race mixing, both domestically and internationally in terms of colonialism. I think that's straightforwardly in the rhetoric of eugenicists much earlier than the 50s.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

I'd cite Lewis Terman as a potential counter-example. If you'd like to talk on the phone sometime for a few minutes, I'd welcome it. The story feels highly relevant to where we are going today in elite tech circles that think of their own positions as "fair."

Reply to

Branden McEuen

I’m not sure many realize how much of the default programmatic model for automated decisions in AI echoes, reproduces, and applies the manner of thinking about fairness of people like Jensen and Murray. So IMO re-connecting to the racist origins of modern computing is pretty important.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

And I’m not referring to your writing particularly … going to primary sources, rhetoric about race struggle and elimination seems common to both SD and anti-Black eugenics. As a techie, I’m interested in this since many of the ideas and methods from scientific racism still play out in AI and tech.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

And argue that eliminationist race struggle ideology was predominant and far more common place than the revisionist notions of what eugenics is about, typically describes. I’m not suggesting your discounting; it does sometimes read that way though.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

I think there’s a distinction between early anti-Black social darwinism and racial eugenics, both of which were about the total elimination of Black people in the United States or the world, and what people think of racial eugenics as perfection of white or “higher” races later.

Reply to

Branden McEuen

I don’t think that narrative accounts for Social Darwinism and scientific racism from the late 1880s on. The invention of modern computing on the form of electro mechanical cross tabulation was about proving that race mixing was dysgenic. Yes, they also saw some whites as inferior.

Plenty of people like Frederick L. Hoffman to point to from the 1890s and earlier periods. Race Traits and Temdencies of the American Negro was 1896. The main distinction between social darwinsim and eugenics was the proposed mechanism of extinction of “inferior” races.

Reply to

Bill H

Christian nationalism seems like a plausible explanation for why she said she’s a devout Republican. Christian nationalism is now mainstream. Many a republicans buy its main ideas even when they say they aren’t Christian nationalists.

Reply to

John Pfaff

I’d suggest accounting for the full context of the quotation before claiming that it is misstated. It’s about how only light and love can drive out darkness and hate. I admire many of your contributions, but I’m not sure if this rewrite is the best way to approach this topic. Respectfully.

Ironically the spirit of the original quotation lines up nicely with the points you are making. As someone who interned with Coretta Scott King in high school and college and spent a good deal of time with many who worked with him, I just think we need to exercise care in quotations. All the best.

Reply to

Kevin Elliott

Same kinds of marches happened in Austin with somewhat similar vibes. These people are really scary. It’s especially odd to see a couple people from one’s own neighborhood there.

Reply to

Brendel

Actually there are a significant number of politically motivated shootings that get at most very transitory attention.

Reply to

Cindy Lou Whomst🇺🇦

I can’t use the same language you do, but I can’t disagree. So much of what he writes is just such a gross abuse of scholarship. This is just another example.

Reply to

Kevin Elliott

Seems we are alsk finding out the Magna Carta is far too radical and leftist for this court.

Reply to

Dr Abeba Birhane

Defining AGI such that some tier of worker; e.g. bottom quintile, median such that people can be laid off. It’s not actually rigorous, but it leads to an operational definition that is empirical empirical in the sense that many have long dreamed of doing that without a social safety net in place.

I’m not endorsing that definition at all; I am noting that some pretty prominent people hold that as their operational definition. If I understand their argument, somehow this is supposed to lead to an age of abundance.

With fear for our democracy, I am canceling my subscriptions.

Yep. Or, as @volts.wtf puts it:

Reply to

Bill Corbett

Memorizing relevant sentences would probably do the trick.

Reply to

Dr Abeba Birhane

So it has ever been, The same scams predate the notion of IQ. They go back to the roots of modern computing in anti-Black and anti-race-mixing social darwinism and racial eugenics. These ideas motivated the invention of cross-tabulation. The continuity is striking.

Reply to

Aaron Rupar

Also, the people claiming it’s more centrists and not leftists count about as well as in 2016 when Bernie lost by 3 million votes and so many insisted he got more votes. Innumeracy is a big reason we are here.

Reply to

Aaron Rupar

The fact they so many tried to skip past without even a moment’s discussion is a pretty big tell. It’s not just criticizing Biden; it’s dissing Black candidates, Black voters, and their allies in every presidential election.

Reply to

Alex Blechman

Wait, if he’s a royalist, shouldn’t your dog be celebrating since the intent of the Founders to have a king more powerful than the British has been restored?? One not “above the law” but by divine right “the law???” Don’t tell me your dog believes the radical leftist Magna Carta???

Reply to

Greg Pak

This is completely in line with the Times’ current campaign to annul the results of the primary elections.

Reply to

Dave Nolan

In large sample, some predictions will be uncannily accurate. See you in five days. Just kidding this is impressive and they do great work.