[jkldotio]

My main objection to it is that this rebranding of statistics (and machine learning I suppose) obscures the deep political connection statistics has[1] and in so doing obscures the fact it's going to have major political ramifications across this century. Happy clappy summer of code donations from Google to EFF or the Sunlight Foundation are entirely not proportional to the extremely high level of abuse that could potentially stem from these technologies (see the use of IBM sorting machines in the Holocaust).

Technology at a basic level amplifies agency, certain techniques and their resultant technologies have benefited individuals and citizens more than State agencies and with others it's been the inverse. I think we are moving into an stage where there is potential for massive recentralisation of control in various domains.

But this is HN, not a political discussion forum, most of the 'frighteningly ambitious ideas' to grace these pages are to do with pushing out more ads or other such pablum. PG isn't a philanthropist and YC isn't a charitable foundation; HN is naturally aligned with those objectives.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_statistics#Etymolog...

[goldfeld]

Thanks for this. It's a humbling comment that puts reality into perspective: there are several ethical and moral challenges we coders are gonna be put through in this century, far, far removed from the Silicon Valley bubble and it's love of ads. And it's this love of ads (read, millions and billions of dollars) at the expense of enriching corporations and tearing down privacy that worries me a lot about our future, if it's going to depend on programmers' current moral standards--though really, it's all human nature, it's not like we're a different breed. But we definitely are more informed than the average citizen, and more of us should take responsibility for increasing freedom and basic human conditions, as opposed to selling social local deals.