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by AlecSchueler 309 days ago
I feel like it's more particular than 30 year old. Seems to be a white, straight male with an Anglo Saxon heritage living in England. A black lesbian living in Derry would have a vastly different experience despite being just as much "30 year old in the UK."

This isn't a criticism just an interesting case of unconscious bias at play and how we tend to universalise our experiences.
1 comments
_dain_ 309 days ago
>Seems to be a white, straight male with an Anglo Saxon heritage living in England.

This is in fact an extremely large, dare I say representative, demographic. Je suis Nicolas (30 ans) aussi. And his counterpart Nicola (30 ans) has similar problems herself.

>A black lesbian living in Derry would have a vastly different experience despite being just as much "30 year old in the UK."

By the 2021 census population pyramid, about 12,000 / 1.9M = 0.63% of the population are 30 year old women in Northern Ireland, and about 0.58% of the Northern Ireland population is black. Maybe 5% of women are lesbian? Derry's population is 85,000. So 85k * 0.63% * 0.58% * 5% = 0.15 of a person.

>This isn't a criticism

You are in fact criticising it by accusing the author of "unconscious bias" (and various -isms by insinuation).

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AlecSchueler 309 days ago
> This is in fact an extremely large, dare I say representative, demographic.

It might well be. I didn't suggest otherwise.

> You are in fact criticising it by accusing the author of "unconscious bias"

No, I'm not, that's why I took the time to explicitly say so. I made no "accusation," you've just taken it that way. We all have unconscious biases and we all act them out in various ways. I made absolutely no value judgement and I think I'm a healthy society we should be able to talk about these things without everything having to be taken as an accusation.

> population pyramid

I intentionally used an atypical demographic reality to demonstrate my point: that person is just as much "a 30 year old in the UK" as Nicolas. There are obviously many millions of other people who are not like Nicolas and it's reasonable that a conversation includes an eye to the diversity of experience around us for a host of different reasons.

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_dain_ 309 days ago
No, I don't buy this "I'm just making a neutral observation" schtick for one second. When people say "unconscious bias", they believe that the "bias" is harmful. If they didn't, why would it be so important to talk about? You are actually making a value judgement here, you just won't say so explicitly.

>I intentionally used an atypical demographic reality to demonstrate my point: that person is just as much "a 30 year old in the UK" as Nicolas. There are obviously many millions of other people who are not like Nicolas and it's reasonable that a conversation includes an eye to the diversity of experience around us for a host of different reasons.

The housing market in SE England sucks if you're young and work for a living; doesn't matter if gay or straight, man or woman, black or white. At any rate, I reject the notion that we can't talk about problems unless literally every last little niche demographic is affected. Not everything is about everyone. Someone must speak for Nick (30 ans).

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AlecSchueler 309 days ago
> No, I don't buy this "I'm just making a neutral observation" schtick

You're welcome believe what you like but I'm not sure why I should engage with you if you refuse to believe what I assert about my own position and if you insist on re-framing my words with an accusatory tone that wasn't there.

I believe unconscious biases can and do have harmful effects yes. But everyone has them and it's common to let them influence our work. There's no shame in it and I certainly didn't make any value judgement against the author of this piece.

> The housing market in SE England sucks if you're young and work for a living; doesn't matter if gay or straight, man or woman

Similarly, I haven't made any statement remotely to the contrary. This is a strawman.

> I reject the notion that we can't talk about problems unless literally every last little niche demographic is affected.

And once again: this is not a notion that could be reasonably construed from what I said above.

I hope you feel better after getting your emotions out but I would encourage you to re-read this thread tomorrow and ask yourself how much you were projecting and perceived qualm onto me.

I hope you have a good night in any case. Goodbye

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