Upon reflecting on the discussions we had this week, I’ve learned a little about parts of the world whose voices are rarely heard. Most of the social justice issues such as human trafficking, forced prostitutions, violence against women, and socioeconomic inequality are devastating developing countries whose voices we rarely hear compared to other powerful nations. As someone who came to SUA because of its mission to foster global citizens, learning about such issues is just the beginning of becoming a global citizen.

As mentioned in Half The Sky, one of the most important part of being a global citizen is going to developing countries and actually talking and helping people facing those issues. Studying abroad in Spain, Japan, or other developed countries isn’t going to help us with understanding the reality of how over half of the world’s populations are living in. I hope there would be more opportunities for SUA students to be able to see the stories like those in Half The Sky for themselves and be knowledgeable enough to take actions and give supports as global citizens.

The term ‘education gap’ or ‘achievement gap’ refers to the disparity in academic performance between students, taking into account the social economic level of the student’s family, race, background, and location of schools. Many researches have shown the correlation between students achievement gap and to race, income level, and family background. These gaps are also noticeable as a high school student. My high school was not poor, but it wasn’t rich either. Thinking back, I noticed that the smartest students from my class were all from high income families. The students that got low grades or often skip classes were from poorer neighborhoods, close to where I used to lived. It was also noticeable that the richer students had their own cars, participated in after school activities, and often led school events. Another group of students were the ones that rode bus to school, and some didn’t participate in school activities because of part time work.

I think these gaps are created by economic inequality. Rather that comparing blacks and whites and pointing towards racial inequality, the problem is that those issues such as racial inequality takes the form of economic inequality. To tackle the issue of achievement gap among students, poorer communities needs economic support to lessen the burdens of the families and help parents to focus more on their child’s education. The U.S. is also infamous for spending a tremendous amount of money on the military while spending adequate amount of money on education. The nation as a whole needs more support for education from the government.

In the reading Banker To The Poor : Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty by Yunus, Grameen sets their interest rates at 20% per year. In my vague understanding of banks and economics, such high interest rates makes loans more expansive, therefore fewer people can borrow the money. I think that also encourages the people that do borrow to save up. Rising rates tends to point to strengthening economy, but I am not sure how this will effect the situation in the poor villages mentioned in the book. With such a high interest rates, the bank may be able to continue supporting the poor people and since 98% of loans are repaid, I guess it is working. I’m sure as the bank grows larger, it could afford to lower the rates.

Financial opportunities like this can help poor communities to grow and lessen the burden of poverty. These opportunities helps them to take chances such as starting a business or pursing educations and those are necessary in fighting poverty. It is about empowering poor communities to break out of poverty.

In parts of the world, many people are suffering because of fixed mindsets. In the book, Half The Sky, the women are socially unprivileged and are treated as objects to be used. In parts of the world, such mindsets are built into their culture. To empower women and to educate people, local leaders like Mukhtar are one of the best way to fight against such sexist and misogynistic mindset. As mentioned in the book, countries that are more conservative are likely to have unequal gender rights. Not just in the culture, but also in the misogynistic laws such as allowing the men to marry the girls they raped without any punishment. There is no easy way to fight against what a culture believe, but it is absolutely necessary to provide education, empowerment, and opportunities to slowly change people’s mindsets.

I believe education provides us with the power to be open minded and to be able to act. With the stories of these women, we can learn about the situations outside of our daily lives and it allows for opportunities to spread awareness and to help. One of the easiest way to support is to donate to organizations that help women in parts of the world that is needed. I think the LC fair would be a good opportunity to let other Soka students know of this issue.

There are estimated 20-40 million people in slavery today. That is an extremely large portion of the world’s population- and those people are enslaved in the 21st century! Today, it is not about literally owning a person- although it still happens- but more about taking advantage of the lesser and controlling their lives. How come 40 million people be in slavery and the problem be not in the news constantly? Forced labor, child labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, and even forced marriage are all forms of modern slavery. People needs to know about these 40 million people. In this day and age, media is a powerful tool that can raise awareness of this issue. Anyone that has access to the internet has the ability to help these people. Either by sharing this issue, or by donating to organizations that aims to end slavery. Such issue like this is worth raising awareness by social media models, like how Facebook would prioritize certain topic to influence users.

A large portion of the modern slavery is made up of forced prostitutions. These women are forced to live such lives because of exploitation, having no choices economically, having little to no educations, and some are born into such lives. The question of whether if making voluntary prostitutions legal would help fight forced prostitutions came up. If it is legal, there would likely be regulations, such as enforcing protective sex, safer brothel, and those who doesn’t want to doesn’t have to. However, over half of voluntary prostitutes reported of being abused or attacked by customers. If prostitution is illegal, there’s a greater chance of underground brothels, thus leading to forced prostitutions. It is a very difficult issue to tackle. Before making it legal, I think the economy has to be thriving. There has to be many opportunities for women in other fields so that they wouldn’t have the pressure to sell their body. In such case, I think there is more benefits in legalized voluntary prostitutions than making it illegal.

We live in a world where algorithms are increasingly affecting our lives. Whether we can get a job, where to go to school, or even if we can get health insurance- the decisions are no longer made by humans, but by mathematical models. In theory, this would eliminate bias and would be fair for everyone. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

WMDs are already a major part of many people’s lives, especially the minority and the poor. O’Neil stated that if left alone, all the different WMDs would feed off of each other and make society a whole lot worse. To prevent the takeover of WMDs, there would need to be strong regulations, limit what a model can do, and if necessary the elimination of a model. O’Neil proposes that state regulations would measure how the WMDs would impact society and how to control them. I think the government would need to intervene if WMDs are left alone. Putting regulations and limitations on WMDs would prevent the negative feedback loops to spread. In certain cases, the best thing to do is to just eliminate the WMDs. WMDs such as the crime model and the employment model can easily put minority and poor people in a loop of crime and poverty. In such case, giving up efficacy for proper human treatment is necessary.

As for social justice topics, I am interested in how society develop the views it has on immigrate, refugees, and people of other religion. How does models affect the way people see them? How does the information we are provided affect the way we see people outside of our country? Are WMDs able to control our beliefs?

Weapons of Math Destruction are mathematical models that influence many lives, such as the examples shown by O’Neil- college rankings, online advertising that leads people to take loans, use of algorithms to sentence criminals, use of crime predictor to allocate police faster, and use of algorithms and biased models for employments. These WMDs produce negatives feedback loops, such as an individual unable to find a job because the model decided that the individual’s credit score was too low, thus further putting that person into lower credit score because of unemployment.

WMDs works for efficiency while at the cost of fairness for the society. How can WMDs be less destructive and minimize negative feedback loops? O’Neil discusses the baseball model extensively. Baseball models are fair because they do not use proxies (inaccurate or predictions of a player skills) and instead records hard evidence (number of hits a player makes). Another lesson we can take from baseball is that the models can be adjusted based on the results. WMDs like the teacher assessment and the recidivism model does not learn from the teachers and the potential criminals after the models produce the results. They do not know how the results affects the teacher and thus the models continue to spit out results without adjusting or learning. WMDs are hard to prevent as they made by humans so the models can never be perfect. The best thing we can do is to study WMDs and try to make them less destructive and more beneficial for society.

From the stand point of social justice, a mathematical model or algorithm seeks to quantify traits or characteristics of individuals or groups to reinforce positive outcomes for society. For example, a simple model like interacting with my friends. Some friends likes jokes, some are more serious, and some are more relaxed, so when interacting with […]

What is a model? — David J’s LC Blog

From the stand point of social justice, a mathematical model or algorithm seeks to quantify traits or characteristics of individuals or groups to reinforce positive outcomes for society. For example, a simple model like interacting with my friends. Some friends likes jokes, some are more serious, and some are more relaxed, so when interacting with them, I have to use the informations I have about what they like and dislike, their needs, and their situations and many other factors taken into account to try to make the best possible interactions. A much larger models would be used in fields such as the national economy- gathering datas on the flow of the economy to best predict the most optimal path for the nation.

What is a WMD?

Weapons of math destruction, explained by O’Neil, are mathematical models or algorithms that seeks to classify traits such as the quality of teachers or trustworthiness of employees, but such models have destructive outcomes. They do not display transparency, fairness, and in large scale be destructive for society. WMDs are often made with a desired outcome in mind so when the model is built, it is full of bias and datas that does not always take into account other important factors. WMDs are an important part of society as they can scale into serious social justice issues.

Factors of Ranking

College ranking is one of the major factor in a student’s decision in choosing a certain college to attend. To make a liberal arts college ranking model, students graduation and retention rates, social mobility, faculty resources, financial resources, student performance, and reputations. The students graduation and retention rates of a liberal arts college should perhaps be the biggest factor in a ranking model. A degree completion is the biggest reason for colleges and that is way a high graduation and retention rate of students is extremely important. Social mobility refers to granting students the necessary aid and loans to attend and graduate without putting heavy financial burdens on students. Financial resources would be in the realm of scholarships and grants. These factors are also important in ranking colleges. Faculty resources and student performance would also weigh in on the ranking model. Another important factor would be the college’s reputation. For example, a college known for being innovative in its teaching would score high in this category. These factors are what I believe should be in the ranking model of liberal arts colleges.