'Mind the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, articulated by the Italian software developer Alberto Brandolini in 2013: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Or, as Jonathan Swift put it in 1710, “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.”'
It summarizes my workplace experiences (yeah, confirmation bias). I've called bullshit on engineers a few times, but managers seem not to care. I gave up doing it, and instead whenever a engineer makes bullshit claims about a particular process/software/language I ask him "can you show us a working example?" Give them enough rope...
Great article! But when I saw the New Yorker Url my first reation was - let's see how they are going to make this into something negative about Trump this time. They still live up to my expectations.
It was one joke said in passing. And it was directly relevant to the content of the sentence it was in.
I don't think your implied critique holds much water here. This isn't an academic paper anyway... it's an expository article written in the amusing/playful tone for which the publication is known.
Not sure if this was intended as a joke, or another one of those pedantic remarks. If they are serious about that argument they should start telling their advertisers not the total number of Unique Visitors, but the Unique Visitors in relation to the total number of Internet Users. I'd love to see how successful they became over the last 10 years...
It's not silly because the number changes over time. It could make the difference between an upward trend and a downward trend. (Whether that difference matters is up to you, but it is a difference.)
But everybody faces the same trend in 'total worldwide internet users.' So if an advertiser has its choice of platforms to advertise on, it can compare the same metric, regardless of whether or not you do the division.
Did you really think it was great? The subject matter is critically important, but the article sadly lacking in substance. These are three of the bullet points, "Recognize that bullshitters are different from liars," "Watch out for unfair comparisons," "Remember that correlation doesn’t imply causation" - ok, so are they now passing off middle school science as college learning? This doesn't add much ammo to fight misuse of big data.
Well Google Flu Trends was debunked in the article. I guess they are just reiterating and updating some well-loved heuristics to also include some contemporary techniques / fallacies.
My guess is a special case of my guess about VCs and X for any new technology or
tech buzz word X, that is, just
substitute "big data" for X.
The guess is a special case of
the difference between the
sizzle and the steak. Or,
remember, sell the sizzle, not
the steak.
Well, VCs have Web sites
and there commonly
emphasize the X, the sizzle,
they are interested in.
In fact, for a VC, X or sizzle with a dime
won't cover even a 10 cent
cup of coffee. And a VC
won't invest even 10 cents
in X or sizzle.
So, why do VCs emphasize their
interest in X they don't care about?
Well, VCs want deal flow, that
is, entrepreneurs presenting their
projects so claim they are interested
in current sizzle X. Then entrepreneurs with a project in
subject X will eagerly contact
the VC.
Now what? Sure, the VC ignores
the X, the sizzle, and looks for
some steak, usually traction
significant and growing rapidly,
better still, revenue significant
and growing rapidly. They also
look at the founders, etc.
The one thing they do NOT look
at, understand, respect, evaluate,
or care about is X or the sizzle.
None of this effort means anything
for a VC unless they can
see enough steak to
start negotiations with the
entrepreneurs. Now we
see why the VCs said they
were interested in X:
During the negotiations,
they will pretend to
evaluate the business based
on X, not on the steak.
Then the VCs will denigrate, diss,
minimize, insult, run down,
criticize
X as of not very solid business
value and lower their
evaluation (pre-money)
of the business. And THAT'S
where the VCs get
their payoff for their
claims of interest in X.
So, selling/buying the sizzle
instead of the steak
hides the real value, the
steak, and the VCs want to do that.
There must be some explanation
for the very common practice
of VCs saying they are interested
in X. IMHO, no way are the VCs
interested in X, big data, AI,
ML, etc. -- those topics are just
sizzle to hide their interest
in what they regard as steak.
If can, then check out my
guess: Say, get a VC to
explain any of the value
of big data, AI, or ML
in a reasonably solid and
well informed way!
Uh, "X is eating the world"
is NOT good enough!
There must be an explanation,
and my best guess is above!
'Mind the Bullshit Asymmetry Principle, articulated by the Italian software developer Alberto Brandolini in 2013: the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Or, as Jonathan Swift put it in 1710, “Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.”'
It summarizes my workplace experiences (yeah, confirmation bias). I've called bullshit on engineers a few times, but managers seem not to care. I gave up doing it, and instead whenever a engineer makes bullshit claims about a particular process/software/language I ask him "can you show us a working example?" Give them enough rope...