Open Thread and Link Farm, Lost Tricycle Edition

  1. McConnell Calls for Repeal of Obamacare After Republican Defections – The Atlantic
    “Repeal and Replace” has failed; McConnell and Trump are now both advocating for “Repeal Now, Replace Later.”
  2. Related: Repealing Obamacare without replacing it would be a disaster – The Washington Post
    Alternate link.
  3. Détour — A film by Michel Gondry – YouTube
    This ten-minute film, about a tricycle trying to find its way back to its owner, is pretty awesome. And it was shot on an IPhone. (Gondry is probably most famous in the US for co-writing “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”)
  4. What you should know about that really nasty anti-trans bill in Congress.
    I don’t think this bill could get through the Senate – it can’t be passed through reconciliation, as Charles pointed out to me, so it would need Democratic support to pass.
  5. A basic income really could end poverty forever – Vox
    Note the word left out of the headline – “universal.” Good article, though.
  6. Spectacular Online Responses to 13th Doctor Jodie Whittaker | The Mary Sue
    About time! But good for them. Now let’s see a non-white Doctor next.
  7. What’s the point of an anti-immigrant left? – Vox
  8. The gap between black and white infant mortality is creeping up again, leaving researchers puzzled
  9. California decided it was tired of women bleeding to death in childbirth – Vox
    “The maternal mortality rate in the state is a third of the American average. Here’s why.” Good long-form article. The US’s high maternal mortality rates could be reversed nationwide; if it doesn’t happen, the reason will be political, not medical. As Grace says, “The US doesn’t value women, as demonstrated by our maternal mortality rates.” (Thanks for the link, Grace!)
  10. Fresh trans myths of 2017: “rapid onset gender dysphoria” | Gender Analysis
  11. Easter Islanders Didn’t Cause Ecological Disaster on Their Island, New Research Finds | Archaeology, Paleoanthropology | Sci-News.com
  12. Black Girls Are Viewed as Less Innocent and More Adultlike Than White Girls: Study
    Thanks, Grace!
  13. Origami Squid and Octopus Sculptures That Pop Up When Dropped and an Origami Wolf That Pulls Its Mask Off
  14. Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world | World news | The Guardian
  15. Transgender People and “Biological Sex” Myths – Julia Serano – Medium
  16. The law expects civilians to remain calm even when police don’t | Charlotte Observer
    Police are provided with de-escalation training, but some civilian need to de-escalate cops to survive.
  17. How bosses are (literally) like dictators – Vox
  18. Pocahontas Was a Mistake, and Here’s Why! – YouTube
    This half-hour video essay, looking at how Disney’s approach changed between “Pocahontas” and “Moana,” is really excellent.
  19. Medicaid Worsens Your Health? That’s a Classic Misinterpretation of Research – The New York Times
  20. Medicaid is good for children and makes them better adults | The Incidental Economist
    Because Medicaid was originally implemented years apart in different states, there are interesting comparisons that can be made across states. (Hat-tip to Grace.)
  21. The Selfie Monkey Goes to the Ninth Circuit – Motherboard
    PETA, acting (they say) on behalf of the monkey, is suing the human photographer.
  22. Excommunicate Me from the Church of Social Justice | Autostraddle
  23. St. Louis minimum wage will drop from $10 to $7.70 | Local News | stlamerican.com
  24. And on the other side of the spectrum: Seattle City Council Passes High-Earner Income Tax – Slog – The Stranger
    Might not be legal, though – it’s going to take a lawsuit to find out.
  25. 4chan trolls want to ‘quell’ anti-Trump dissent by shutting down DIY venues and art spaces – The Verge
  26. What European Political Philosophy Has to Say Today (with tweets) · kpanyc · StorifyLengthy Twitter storm by a NYU history professor, arguing that it’s impossible to understand today’s politics (or the 20th century, really) without looking at the role of nationalism, and also that the Republican party cannot be said to be “conservative.”
  27. Japanese-American in Boston: Kimono Wednesdays protest postmortem.
    This very long (3 parts!) 2015 post, by a Japanese-American blogger who followed the Kimono protests closely and is very critical of the protestors, is well-written and had information I hadn’t read before.
  28. Steve Trevor, Joss Whedon, and the men getting in the way of Wonder Woman · For Our Consideration · The A.V. Club
  29. The most alarming Trump administration attack on voting rights might come from the Department of Justice, not from Kobach’s commission. | HuffPost
  30. And a longer-form article going deeper into the voter purge issue: These Three Lawyers Are Quietly Purging Voter Rolls Across the Country – Mother Jones
  31. Medicaid Beneficiaries Are Happy With Care : Shots – Health News : NPR
  32. Why does Trump’s voting commission want data it shouldn’t have? | TheHill
  33. One Person, One Vote: Estimating the Prevalence of Double Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections
    “We find their proposed purging strategy would eliminate about 200 registrations used to cast legitimate votes for every one registration used to cast a double vote.”
  34. Trump’s Trolls Are Waging War on America’s Civil Servants | Foreign Policy
  35. The World Doesn’t Mooch Off U.S. Health-Care Research – Bloomberg
  36. Unions’ Effect on Productivity – ProfessorBainbridge.com
    Storing this here in part because it’s relevant to an upcoming political cartoon.
  37. A Good Cartoon — mlk and civil rights protests in cartoons: then, as now
  38. Yasmine Weiss’s Strange, Intimate Portraits | Hi-Fructose Magazine
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102 Responses to Open Thread and Link Farm, Lost Tricycle Edition

  1. 101
    Harlequin says:

    RonF @98:

    And did Damore actually argue that “biologically unsuited women are somehow brought in by overzealous diversity programs.”?

    From Damore’s document:

    We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this).

    Edit: By the way, I find this paragraph really interesting. The point of pair coding isn’t to be more social–it’s that it’s one of the best ways to improve your skills.

  2. 102
    desipis says:

    “But let’s also not claim it supports the sexism theory, unless you think people in computer science became more sexist between 1980 and today for some reason.” I mean…points to startup culture I was talking about the genius bias

    I think there’s two points here that can help explain the gender transition.

    The first it that the industry become much more competitive over this time. In the 80’s I’d estimate most of the compute science jobs would have been in government, large corporation or research that could afford to spend the money on the slow and expensive systems of the day. This resulting in most of the jobs to be fairly stable.Through the 90’s the was a lot of money to be made by those with the right skills as computers became common place in businesses, leading computer skills providing a fairly glamorised role. However, into the 00’s computer science and IT graduates flooded the market leading to computers becoming a very commoditised thing. The people involved went from digital wizards to digital factory floor workers. In this environment one needs to be far more aggressive and self-promoting in order to be noticed and have a successful career. If women are uncomfortable behaving this way (whether for cultural or biological reasons), then they will be underrepresented (particularly at technologically leading organisations).

    The second point is the genius bias issue. As computers have become more complex over the past couple of decades, it has become a field where degree of skill and competence has orders of magnitude impact on outcomes. This is why Google are so picky about who they hire, as they understand that its far more important to get the right person than it is to simply get more people. If women avoid such an industry (whether for cultural or biological reasons), then they will be underrepresented (particularly at technologically leading organisations).