Introducing Structural Zero
A monthly newsletter exploring how math and science help us understand the world.
Hi, I’m Patrick Ball. I’m a statistician, which is a type of scientist that uses mathematical analysis to try to figure out what we do and don’t know about data sets. I’m also a human rights advocate; I work with groups all over the world to help survivors in post-conflict countries understand what really happened and bring justice and accountability. It’s incredible work, and I feel grateful to do it.
I want to invite you to check out a new newsletter, Structural Zero. It’s written by me and my colleagues Megan Price, Bailey Passmore, Tarak Shah, and Maria Gargiulo. We'll be posting our first edition within the next few weeks.
Each month, one of us will write about a mathematical or scientific concept we use in our work and how it can be applied to understanding the world. We’ll offer some of the real world examples we've come across, including the times when we or our partners worked to collect and process data in very dangerous situations. We’ll talk about some of the key insights we've uncovered through our work, and the cultural context for understanding what those insights mean.
You don’t have to be a statistician to get a lot out of our newsletter. We hope to make the newsletter particularly helpful for people who don't have a background in math or statistics but are curious about how data shapes what we know about the world. (Though if you happen to be a data scientist, I think you’ll also delight in this newsletter.)
The goal of the newsletter isn't just to teach you about statistical concepts, but to explore some of the deeper issues we grapple with in our work, like:
How do any of us really know anything about what happened in the past?
How can we act as responsible stewards for collective memory?
What does it mean to offer uncertainty in a world that loves to speak in absolutes?
How can machine learning offer insights that weren't possible before, and where might it enhance bias instead of uncovering truth?
We’ll also talk specifically about the vital lessons learned from people who lived in countries where democracies failed and authoritarianism took root. While we hope none of our readers will ever need these lessons, we know we are living in tumultuous times. Things can change quickly and it’s good to be prepared.
None of our content on Substack will ever be kept behind a paywall. Megan, Bailey, Tarak, Maria and I all work for a small nonprofit based in California called the Human Rights Data Analysis Group, which we shorten to HRDAG (pronounced “H.R. Dag”). If you like what we do, please help us by subscribing and suggesting Structural Zero to your own readers. If you’d like to support HRDAG financially, we are a nonprofit and you can donate by visiting hrdag.org/donate.
Thank you for welcoming us to Substack, and I hope you like Structural Zero,
PB.
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Excited about this!