Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Disproving Discrimination

Huge chunks of modern feminism and black-victimology are premised on claims of things that women/blacks say they experience, but which have never been subject to proof or disproof so far. These claims are then used to justify victim status and even to invent an oppressor to maintain group unity. As I've been pointing out, however, recent events have been exposing the lie behind these claims.

For example, notice how the introduction of bodycams for cops wiped the claims of epidemics of police violence. Not only has there been precious little evidence of police misconduct shown by these cameras, they have by and large exonerated the officers when claims of abuse were made. Indeed, in several high profile instances, civil rights leaders and activists were caught fabricating claims of police misconduct... false claims that would have been accepted as true in the past.

Similarly, the #metoo movement has exposed the claim that harassment and sexual assault are widespread to be untrue. Indeed, despite millions of women being encouraged to identify every complaint they could find, only a handful of men have been found guilty of much (none in court), a number of women have been exposed as lying about their claims, and many of the complaints that were made proved to be little more than "I didn't like him." The end result is that a movement which threatened initially to prove the feminist claim that America is a rape culture imploded in a big old ball of nothing but a handful of guys.

Well, now we have something even more powerful that is wiping out cherished liberal sacred cows: Uber.

Uber collects an insane amount of data and is sharing it with the public for analysis. This has resulted in economists actually getting to study the real effect of elasticity and the value of peak pricing. It is showing traffic patterns. Even more interestingly, two recent studies of the data have said the following:
1. Women make about 7% less than men driving for Uber (except in Houston). Feminists would claim this is the so-called "wage gap" in action, which they claim is evidence of discrimination against women. Only, Uber collects more data than just the amount paid. They also collect data on choices made. What they found was that men drive faster, resulting in them being able to take on more fares in the same amount of time. Men also are more willing to pick people up in dangerous neighborhoods and from bars, where premium prices goes into effect. Women are more likely to restrict their driving to Sundays and safer neighborhoods. These differences account for the entire 7%. In other words, it is the choices men and women make in how they do their jobs which results in the wage difference, not some nebulous discrimination. Wanna bet the entire "wage gap" is the same thing?

2. It is taken as gospel in the black community that blacks can't get picked up by taxis, especially black males. This is such a common belief that it makes it into comedy routines and even films like The Wiz. There have even been studies that purport to show that blacks are twice as likely to be ignored by taxis as whites. Well, an examination of Uber and Lyft's data found that blacks faced essentially no difference in wait times for rides. The difference was about 30 seconds. Yet another sacred cow gets gored.
At this rate, it seems that our increasingly data-oriented and camera oriented society is going to wipe out the legs of victimology.

Thoughts?

23 comments:

AndrewPrice said...

As an aside, the Kennedy retirement is HUGE. What's more, I think Trump will get one more even if he doesn't win a second term -- Ruth Ginsberg.

Either way though, this prevents what had looked increasingly likely -- a huge leftist shift on the court. If Hillary had won, the court would look like the liberal courts of the 1960s and would stay that way for decades.

LL said...

I think that the safe money is on Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) because he wants the job and the Senate is more likely to give him a lighter ride into SCOTUS.

Anthony said...

A) Most of the times people are complaining about the behavior of cops, they are lying, but not always. Quite reasonably, when its 'cop says, accused says' most people (including jurors) are going to believe the cop, and even if the face of evidence of misconduct, jurors tend to give cops a pass.

Two recent cases worthy of note are a cop being fired after dashcam footage showed him promising his daughter's boyfriend he was going to lock him up for no reason.

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/police-officer-fired-after-pulling-over-detaining-daughter-and-boyfriend/ar-AAz2uUI

Another interesting case is the one everyone is talking about where a cop shot a fleeing shooting suspect in the back in Pittsburg.

The now dead man was a gangbanger who was riding in a car that had just been involved in a drive by shooting, so I am (to put it diplomatically) undisturbed by his loss, but the cop did violate procedure by shooting a guy despite not seeing a gun (though guns were there under the seat and he suspected their presence). While the cop has been charged with homicide my bet is he walks.

http://wypr.org/post/east-pittsburgh-police-officer-charged-homicide-shooting-antwon-rose

Generally speaking while juries remain very forgiving of police in the modern era police departments themselves are vigilante.

B) People lie about sex so one always has to look at the evidence. Very few convictions but lots of people getting fired. I don't think the US is a rape culture across the board but there do seem to be a lot of cases of powerful guys grabbing pussy.

Its incredible that Pixar's chief just went down for sexual misconduct. Disney is the biggest name in entertainment, Pixar is the force that revived Disney (remember the doldrums they were in in the 90's?) and Lasseter was the driving force behind Pixar.

https://variety.com/2018/film/news/john-lasseter-disney-exit-pete-docter-jennifer-lee-1202841999/

Three days later, in a classic Friday-afternoon news dump, Disney announced that Lasseter would be leaving the company at the end of the year. He had been exiled for months in the wake of complaints of sexual harassment, including claims of kissing female employees on the lips and drunkenly pursuing them at wrap parties.

1) Regarding female Uber drivers, I think I found the same data and I agree.

2) I don't know what study you are citing but the 2018 UCLA study I came across pretty much claimed the opposite because it makes a distinction between ridehailing services and taxis. It claims taxis discriminate but ridehailing services (like Uber and Lyft don't).

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4r22m57k#article_abstract

Finally, audit data reveal high levels of discrimination against black riders by taxi drivers. Black riders were 73 percent more likely than white riders to have a taxi trip cancelled and waited between six and 15 minutes longer than white riders, all else equal. By contrast, ridehail services nearly eliminate the racial-ethnic differences in service quality. Policy and platform-level strategies can erase the remaining mobility gap and ensure equitable access to ridehailing and future technology-enabled mobility services.


3) Regarding the Supreme Court Trump has made good judicial picks so I'm sure his nominee will be good. The Senate fight (which Republicans will almost surely win) will be interesting to watch. The resultant outrage and elation will probably drive midterm turnout a bit higher though I'm not sure who it will tilt things towards.

tryanmax said...

What the hell? I love the surveillance state now!

tryanmax said...

Everyone is fixated on Ginsberg, but I think Breyer will retire before she does. In fact, I don't think RBG will retire. She's only 85; I won't get really suspicious that she's an animatronic until Pence's 2nd term.

tryanmax said...

Andrew, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the point you were making about dash/body cams is that discrimination stories are tried, not in court, but in the court of public opinion to persuade policy-makers that "something must be done!" Same goes for the #metoo movement. For whatever reason, "something" has a regular tendancy to encroach on the Bill of Rights.

Also, I assume the connection you were trying to make between taxis vs. Uber/Lyft is that the groups and politicians who bemoan discrimination by taxis are the same who oppose allowing Uber/Lyft in their cities in favor of existing taxis.

AndrewPrice said...

LL, I'm not sure. I think this will be one of those where we just don't know until he finally gives the name.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, The left pushes the idea of a rape culture. That's the point. This disproved it. As for there being a lot of powerful guys doing this, that's not true either. You are looking at well less than 100 people ultimately accused, out of 170 million.

On taxis v. Uber, unless you believe that taxi cab drivers are racist but somehow Uber hired only non-racists, then it's pretty clear that something is wrong with the taxi cab studies, which tended to be based on students trying to hail cabs and reporting how long it took.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, As you know, I despise the surveillance state... but it does have its uses. Right now, it seems to be punching holes in liberal sacred cows.

You could be right about Breyer. There is talk about him retiring. That said, I think RBG is most likely to just suddenly die, and it could happen fairly soon.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, That's a good point too, that liberals are fighting hard to eliminate the system that eliminates discrimination in favor of the system that does. LOL!

But more to the point, I think this suggests that the studies on taxis were flawed. It could be that the students chosen caused bias for some other reason (e.g. dress, location), it could be sample size. Looking at the Stanford disclosure, it could be those studies were lies. Either way, Uber essentially disproves this unless we want to believe that Uber and Lyft somehow hired only non-racists whereas taxi companies hard large numbers of racists.

AndrewPrice said...

Sorry, I skipped the other part of your comment. Yes. Claims like police abuse are tried in the court of public opinion, not courts of law. For as long as I can remember, and certainly during the last decade, black race groups have been claiming that the cops are out there "hunting young black men."

The statistics have never borne this out, but with so many blacks screaming that it happened to them, it seemed to have been taken as a fact by a large portion of the public. The introduction of bodycams had the fascinating effect of producing a complete lack of evidence for this conspiracy theory. Yes, a couple cops have acted stupidly or even criminally, but there is zero evidence of anything widespread.

What's more, there have been several high profile cases of black activists screaming that it happened to them, only to have their claims proven to be entirely fabricated.

The end result is that I would say the majority of the public no longer believes there is anything widespread or systematic going on. You see this in how fast the whole issue has gone backburner and how narrow the media coverage now is -- sticking to individual incidents, rather than painting broad-brush pictures.

The #metoo stuff had the same effect. It began with the goal of creating a guilt upon accusation standard and wiping out millions of men in all sorts of industries. It ends with a handful of rapists being kicked out of liberal Hollywood or the liberal media, and the public having so much doubt for the #metoo claims that due process has been firmly restored (after DOJ tried to wipe it out under Obama) and even the worst offenders are being forgiven.

As a movement, it essentially moved the standard backward from their intent.

Rustbelt said...

"I think RBG is most likely to just suddenly die, and it could happen fairly soon."

Andrew, we've been saying that for the last 15+ years and it still hasn't happened. I don't know what unholy voodoo incantation or blasphemous phrase from the Necronomecan it is that keeps that old witch alive, but it seems to do its vile job quite well.

Long story short, I'll believe it when I see it.

AndrewPrice said...

Rustbelt, It's possible she's a vampire. Or maybe she already died and someone is using her body as a puppet.

tryanmax said...

Andrew, Rustbelt, no joke, I came across a tweet that said, “If Ruth Bader Ginsburg ever needs a liver or kidney, just slice me the f*** up.” and received hundreds of approving comments and tens-of-thousands of likes and retweets.

My response was this: “Ruth Bader Ginsburg does not desire your liver or your kidneys. Ruth Bader Ginsberg requires blood.”

Obviously, I’m joking. RBG's blood was replaced with white liquid latex years ago.

Anthony said...

Andrew,

Regarding Taxi drivers vs uber the difference comes from how they work.

Taxis drivers visually scan for potential fares and decide who they want to pick up. They are trying to maximize revenue but also minimize danger and skipping a specific person (especially on a busy night) has a low or no opportunity cost.

By way of contrast, Uber drivers get calls to pick up a specific person. Once the driver agrees to pick up the person (I think all they get is name and location, though name can tell you a lot) backing out requires cancellation and has a very high opportunity costs for the driver and the company (which might keep them from being a driver for long).

Taxis drivers are picking up completely random people no one knows and worry about getting mugged by the wrong fare, so they do what they can to minimize risk (a young black guy is statistically more likely to rob you than an elderly Chinese woman).

With Uber its much less of a concern because Uber knows who its passengers are ('Officer, this was their last fare'). The bigger worry for uber drivers seems to be abusive drunks rather than scheming criminals.

tryanmax said...

Anthony, if it is in fact the case that taxis are racist by virtue of the fact that they can be, then it further demands the question, why are officials in large, diverse cities fighting the adoption of Uber/Lyft in favor of a model that seems to fit the very definition of 'systemic racism'?

I'd suspect such questions could be comfortably answered.

Critch said...

Things may be getting out of hand in Iran for the ayatollahs...let's hope...if the military is concerned that this is the real thing, the big revolution, they will not back the regime...

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, That's an excellent point. But we see that all the time too, where liberals attack the things that would solve the problems they complain about.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, I haven't seen what you're talking about, but could you imagine Iran imploding under Trump's watch as well? That would be a nightmare for liberals.

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, I suspect the studies are more at fault, but leaving that aside, the issue then isn't one of racial bias, it's one of perceived danger. And since the Uber drivers (who also see the image of the person they are picking up and can choose to refuse blacks if they wish) don't discriminate, that suggests that it isn't race that creates the perception of danger for cabbies -- it must be other facts like dress, location and other actions.

Also, let's be clear that the stereotype that gets presented on this is taxis ignoring black men in suits who are being picked up from in front of financial buildings... not gangsters.

Anthony said...

Andrew,

Uber doesn't show drivers pictures of passengers. That being said I agree perceived danger is the likely problem.

https://www.uber.com/drive/resources/how-to-use-the-driver-app/

Critch said...

Here's a link to the Iranian situation...https://www.timesofisrael.com/several-reported-killed-as-iranian-forces-open-fire-on-protesters/

Anthony said...

Critch,

Interesting. It's wild that Iran's currency has lost half its value this year and it can't consistently generate clean water. Unemployment is crazy high but has always been so because Iran is so dependent on oil.

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