Personal – Page 18 – Walking Contradiction

Out of the Closet

From the time he was an adolescent, Johnny was always aware that he was somehow different than others. His parents, teachers, ministers, and neighbors all told him things that he didn’t feel were correct. He had thoughts and feelings that were clearly considered evil by the society around him, but try as he might, those feelings never went away. So in public he pretended to be the way they expected him to be. He got pretty good at pretending; so good that no one had a clue as to his true nature. He dreamt of a day when he could stop pretending, and be who he really was.

At first he thought he must be the only one who had to keep such a secret. Sure, there were a few people like him who were open about who they were, but they were reviled among his family and friends, and he sure didn’t want to become an outcast. So he kept pretending.

A few years later things slowly started to improve for Johnny. Many people in the media, and even some popular politicians, began to talk about these things. Not openly, of course – that would never have worked. But they clearly hinted at it, using code words and loose word associations that were understood by their listeners, but which could always be publicly denied as having any subtext. He began to notice that others were responding to these signals. Lots of other people. He began to understand that he was far from being alone.

He also started to think that if people like him were to unite and work together, they could change the underlying culture of society. So he started meeting with other like-minded people. He began to become politically active, and supported those candidates who were clearly sympathetic to his view of the world. As more and more of these candidates for change were elected, he began to feel more confident that things were finally changing!

And now, after years of supporting candidates who spoke about these matters by using carefully-chosen code words, a new, fresh candidate has emerged who spoke openly about the things he always believed! Donald Trump didn’t bother with the polite code words; he said what he felt, and this was exactly what Johnny had been waiting for: someone who represented what those feelings.

For Johnny is a racist. He never liked blacks or Jews, and always thought gays were perverts and should be locked away. He wanted to send all the Mexicans back, and keep Muslims in their countries, where we could bomb the shit out of them. He doesn’t see anything wrong about the Confederate flag, except that people are being too “politically correct” about it. Oh, and the misogyny! He had always felt that only men should be leaders, since women were inferior. He wished that someday women just shut up about equality, and go back to their “traditional” roles of cooking, cleaning, and raising babies, while always submitting to his sexual desires.

Johnny still can’t say those things out loud in public, because he knows that he would be ostracized socially, and would probably lose his job if his boss knew. So he still pretends, but come November, he will ecstatically cast his vote for Trump. And despite polls showing that Trump has nearly no chance of winning, Trump will end up getting millions of votes from people like Johnny who are skilled at acting one way in public, but who secretly long for the days of segregation and male dominance.

Don’t kid yourselves into thinking that people like Johnny are rare. All you have to do is spend any time on the internet and they will use that anonymity to reveal themselves. They are much more common than you think, and if you get complacent reading polls that show Trump as wildly unpopular, you will be in for a shock when he continues to beat the pollsters. Because polls rely on people saying what they honestly think, and these racists may be ignorant, but they aren’t dumb. They will happily report to be shocked by what Trump says when asked publicly, while inwardly smiling and thinking “ah, one of us!”. Don’t fall into that trap. Treat him, and those who support him in the shadows, as the serious threat that they are.

The Second Century

No, I’m not talking about history – this is about my cycling ride on Saturday. I participated in the 2016 Tour de Cure San Antonio, and completed the 103-mile course. I’ve only ridden a century (a 100-mile ride) once before, and my attempts at doing another were thwarted twice: once, a year later, when the entire ride was washed out by heavy thunderstorms, and then again at last year’s Tour de Cure, when they closed the century course early due to thunderstorms.

Start of ride — Lining up for the start of the ride (at 7am)!

Well, this year’s ride had its share of thunderstorms, too, but fortunately they were at the end. The day started off overcast and threatening-looking, but nothing came of all those clouds. About 30 miles into the ride the sun burst through, and I was hoping that it would stick around for a while. However, we only got to enjoy the sunshine for an hour or so until the clouds returned. It kept looking darker and darker as the ride progressed, and then at the rest stop at mile 80 there were event officials warning that a little ways up the road it was already raining heavily. They had vehicles that would shuttle you and your bike to the finish line if you didn’t want to ride through the storm, but that wasn’t what I had set out to do. What’s a little water, anyway?

To be honest, I was feeling pretty drained after 80 miles. When you sweat while cycling, the breeze against you dries it quickly, so after a few hours it feels like a salty crust. My leg muscles also felt like they had begun to run out of energy. But I set out to continue the ride anyway, and sure enough, about a mile later the skies opened up. Within minutes I was soaked from my helmet to my shoes. Oddly enough, though, it was actually re-invigorating! And once you’re wet, more rain isn’t getting you any wetter, so I rode on. The loud cracks of thunder sounded great, like music for a film I was starring in. Yeah, it felt pretty dramatic!

So I made it to the finish. The first time I did a century I was struggling – hard. I wasn’t even running on fumes then; hell, I would have loved to have had some fumes at that point. I had to stop several times in that last 30 mile loop to regain enough strength to keep going. So completing that ride was a matter of sheer will power. This year it was different: sure, I was tired during the ride, and a bit stiff afterwards, but when I got within a few miles of the finish, I found another gear and sprinted my way in.

Crossing the finish line after 103 miles!

I think that there were several differences this year. I had trained much better this time, so my legs were better able to keep going for the distance. It was also much cooler, with temperatures in the 70s (instead of around 90F). And the rain, while making some aspects uncomfortable, certainly helped to refresh me. Finally, the course this year didn’t have very many severe hills. It had lots of climb, but nothing compared to the earlier course, which featured several killer hills.

posing with medal — Posing with my medal after finishing the ride, soaking wet!

There are three sets of people I want to thank: first, the American Diabetes Association, for organizing this event and making it run so smoothly – you’re really doing great work! Second, to the members of the ProFox online community for generously donating to support me. Together we raised $500! And finally, of course, to my wonderful wife Linda, who encouraged me every step of the way, and even drove back home to get my water bottles that I had forgotten. Hey, it was 6 in the morning, and my brain hadn’t caffeinated enough yet!

Linda and Ed — Linda and I, just before the start of the ride

Bias is Bias, Inadvertant or Not

I recently read this tweet storm by Matt Joseph (@_mattjoseph) that made me think. Go ahead, read it first. Read all 30 of his tweets so that you understand his point.

Whether you like to admit it or not, bias is real, and the targets of negative bias end up having to work much, much harder to overcome that bias than those for whom the bias is positive. Want an example? In the classical music world, musicians would audition to fill openings in an orchestra. For such auditions the musical director and possibly one or two other senior musicians who would act as judges. They would listen to each candidate perform a piece of music so that their musical abilities could be rated, and the highest rated musicians would get the job. Pretty straightforward. Traditionally (that is, through 1970) women only made up 5% or so of most orchestras. Now it can be assumed that a musical director would want the best musicians in their orchestra, so they would not have a reason to select mostly men if women played as well. So it was commonly assumed that playing music was both artistic and athletic, and that this athletic component that gave men the edge.

However, starting in the 1970s, auditions were switched to be done blindly: the musicians performed behind a screen, and the judges only had a number to refer to them.

blind_audition Credit: old.post-gazette.com

It should not shock you that with this change, the percentage of women in orchestras began climbing, reaching 20% by the 1990s. Given the low turnover of orchestras, this is a huge difference! There are only 2 possible explanations for such a rapid, radical change. One is that women were suddenly getting better at playing music, though there is no evidence of any additional intense training programs for female musicians at that time.

So the second, and obvious, explanation is that prior to the blind auditions, the bias of the judges influenced what they heard, and as a result, women would be scored lower. Put another way, for a woman to make it into an orchestra, she had to be much more talented than a man in order to overcome that bias and get a similar score.

That, in essence, is the point Matt was making about the state of funding for tech companies: people of color, like him,

“…had to overcome things that others in the exact same position didn’t have to. That means with equal conditions, we’d be much further.”

The flip side to this is that, given two people of equal talent, you can expect that the person subjected to these kinds of negative biases will have less to show, in terms of any measures that may be used as “objective” criteria. This includes things like grades and SAT scores for kids applying to colleges. The attempt to correct for this bias is commonly referred to as “Affirmative Action”. If you recognize that bias exists, you understand why programs like this are important. Of course, it would be better to eliminate bias altogether, right? Yeah, and be sure to tell me when someone figures out how to do that. I don’t believe it’s possible, given the tribal nature in which humans evolved. This is why devices such as the blind audition are needed, and, if that’s not possible, applying a corrective factor to compensate.

Still not convinced that steps like Affirmative Action are correct? Then please explain why minorities such as blacks and Latinos score lower on average than whites. I see only two explanations: 1) they face many more hurdles in the education system, such as poorer facilities and support systems, that prevent them from progressing as strongly, or 2) they are inherently not as smart as whites. I’m sure that if you thought that option 2 is even possible, you wouldn’t be the type of person inclined to read this far. The proof is in the stats: if a group makes up N% of the population overall, but less than N% in some selected group, you’d better be able to identify an objective reason for this difference, or you’ve got to assume bias is influencing these numbers. And it isn’t something to be ashamed of or try to deny: we all have biases that we aren’t aware of, so it simply makes sense to admit that this is the case, and try to find a way to address it to make things level.

And don’t for a moment think that this is an altruistic, touchy-feely thing to help assuage white guilt. It means that talented people who were previously overlooked will now have a better chance of contributing, making things better for all. Why wouldn’t you want the best people working for you?

Behavior Modification

Over the weekend I saw a retweet from my friend Niki Acosta (@nikiacosta) which stated:

Destroy the idea that men should respect women because we are their daughters, mothers, and sisters. Reinforce the idea that men should respect women because we are people.

While I certainly agree with the latter notion, I don’t think that the former is very wise. We have a problem with men who treat women as nothing more than objects, and that translates into all kinds of hostile and dangerous behavior. First and foremost should be reducing the amount, and therefore the number of victims, of that behavior. So what is really needed is a way to modify their behavior; after that’s done we can think about enlightenment of their backwards minds, but until then, that’s a far-off luxury.

Men who exhibit these behaviors in general do not see women as people, so trying to appeal to them on this will have no effect. These men are brought up in environments where women are not seen as equal. Most come from the world of “traditional” marriage, where a woman was property to be exchanged among men in different families. They exist for men’s sexual pleasure, to bear offspring, and to do the “women’s work” of the home. In that world, women are servants. The notion that a woman is just as much a person as they are, and deserves equal respect, would seem ludicrous to them. But it is likely that they have developed some bonds with female members of their family, and so they can understand that if someone were to disrespect their mother, or their sister, they would feel that that action was wrong, and it’s possible that they might make the relatively small mental leap to seeing that the “objects” they want are indeed someone else’s mother or sister or daughter. It might cause them to think twice about acting on their thoughts.

As the saying goes, Perfect is the Enemy of the Good. It would be absolutely wonderful if we could raise the social awareness of everyone so that people treat each other well simply because of our respective personhoods, but if you strive for that, you’ll miss opportunities to make some incremental changes in the world. Let’s focus on improving the behavior of these problematic men before we worry about raising their level of consciousness.

Comments

There is an electric outlet on one of the walls of our house that is located abnormally high on the wall. Maybe the previous owners had a table or something, and placed the outlet at that height because it was more convenient. In any case, it wasn’t where we needed it, and it simply looked odd where it was. Since I am in the middle of fixing up this room, I decided to lower it to a height consistent with the other outlets in the house. That should be a simple enough task, as I’ve done similar things many times before. I started cutting away the drywall below the outlet at the desired height, and continued upward. The saw kept hitting a solid surface a little bit behind the drywall, so I gently continued up to the existing outlet, and then removed the piece of drywall.

What I found was completely unexpected: behind this sheet of drywall was what had previously been the exterior wall of the house! This room was a later addition, and instead of removing the old wall, they just nailed some drywall on top of it!

hidden old exterior wall. — Note the white shingles behind the drywall!

Now I understand why the outlet was at this peculiar height: the previous owners had opened up one row of shingles on the old wall, and simply placed the outlet there. Now, of course, moving it will require quite a bit more work.

This is a great example of where you should liberally comment your code: whenever you write a work-around, or something that would normally not be needed, in order to handle a particular odd situation. This way, when later on someone else owns the code and wants to “clean things up”, they’ll know ahead of time that there is a reason you wrote things in what seems to be a very odd way. This has two benefits: 1) they won’t look at your code and think that you were an idiot for doing that, and 2) they’ll be better able to estimate the time required to change it, since they’ll at least have a clue about the hidden shingles lurking behind the code.