| HN Mirror

The problem with unconscious bias is that it's unobservable by definition: it might be there, it might not be there and if it's there it might be imperceptible or very strong; you don't know because it's unconscious. It might even be not existing, and the gaps in hiring explained by the fact that minorities have less access to higher education for economic reasons. Yet the response to this is always conscious.

I think people can have unconscious bias.

But in hiring, I think it's mostly conscious. What I mean is that I think people will see a long Indian name they can't pronounce and skip that resume or put it off until later. That's conscious. They'll see someone who looks like themselves and feel more comfortable talking to them. That's conscious. Etc.

If it was so simple, we wouldn't need equality of outcome. We would just need to tell people to pay more attention. The whole point of dei is that, since bias is unconscious and impossible to eliminate, we should err on the other side.

It might not be simple. It could be very hard, very expensive. Is it worth doing? Does it have value?

Would it be so bad if most of the CEOs are white men? All the execs are white men?

But I don't want to pick on white men. Let's say would it be so bad to let the incumbents call the shots. Let the incumbents hire only who they want to hire.

> Should businesses have the freedom to exclude if it's unconscious?

Business should have the freedom to not hire for any reason. They shouldn't be forced to enter a business relationship they're not fully convinced of.

Should business have freedoms that are good for business but bad for society?

Isn't the whole reason for businesses in the first place is that they improve society? They are an efficient way to allocate resources for the good of everyone involved. It runs by rules that we set. And we tweak those rules. And it seems DEI may be one of those rules that aren't good and we can change it.

But the end goal shouldn't be defined as anything that is good for business is good for society.

Introducing unfair bias to contrast perceived bias that might or not might be there and might have or not have the provided explanation is not good for society, no.

What if we don't assume any bias and just look at outcome?

We stipulate that bias should play no part in decision making. Only the outcome should matter. If the outcome doesn't match racial balance of the society we make it so.

> What if we don't assume any bias and just look at outcome?

That's a great way to distribute work ignoring differences in scholarization. Normally ends up in a lot of resentment.