[dvsfish]

I get the sentiment of what you're saying, but I don’t think that’s totally fair to the parent. Biases aren’t automatically "bad" or "failings". they’re akin to heuristics, and it’s practically impossible to eliminate them entirely. For example, we’re all here talking about how we should treat Wikipedia with skepticism. That's a sort of "neutral" bias that doesn't conjure a strong emotion, and is perhaps more acceptable for it, and probably leads to better informational hygiene overall.

In fact, the claim that “bias can be avoided and should be absolutely”, that is implicit in your resposne reflects a bias of its own: a bias toward moral or intellectual purity, as if the parent recognizing bias is equivalent to endorsing it. I get that this is a pedantic point to make but to come at the parent with such vigour for being realistic, again seems a bit unfair

[fc417fc802]

It depends on if you take the parent (err GGP) literally versus in context. My personal experience has been that people claiming that bias is unavoidable (alternatively that objectivity is impossible, or that everything is political, or ...) have usually been attempting to justify a reasoning process that supports a political or religious slant of one form or another.

A helpless "we couldn't possibly do anything about that issue" sort of mentality.

That said if we're talking literally then I fully agree with you that heuristics are a form of bias and can sometimes be a very good thing on a case by case basis.

[dvsfish]

Yep fair point. I was taking them literally, though I didn't necessarily feel the context meant their post was bad faith or concessional, just a simple truth. Your elaboration adds a fair bit to your argument though and I am pretty sure I agree for the most part.

[tines]

> In fact, the claim that “bias can be avoided and should be absolutely”, that is implicit in your resposne reflects a bias of its own: a bias toward moral or intellectual purity, as if the parent recognizing bias is equivalent to endorsing it.

Nonsense. Your definition of the word "bias" includes any assertion whatsoever. Bias is distortion from reality and truth. Saying that we can avoid distortion is not itself a distortion. I never claimed that all bias should be avoided, but the post I responded to said that bias can't be avoided.

Also,

> a bias toward moral or intellectual purity, as if the parent recognizing bias is equivalent to endorsing it.

There is no conceptual connection here between "purity" and the equivalence of recognizing bias with endorsing it, nor is saying "bias can be avoided" related to, or a kind of, "purity" in any useful sense. Stop using abstract words for effect and speak simply.

> I get that this is a pedantic point to make but to come at the parent with such vigour for being realistic, again seems a bit unfair

If the parent were being realistic, they'd say that we can't even recognize bias, which is actually more agreeable to me. But instead the parent admits that we can recognize bias. Since we've gotten that far, then I can say that failing to avoid it, when we should avoid it, is merely a lack of will and integrity rather than some inescapable fate.

[dvsfish]

The parent’s point was plainly that bias is unavoidable and making it overt is realistically all we can do. It’s a pragmatic take, albeit overly terse. They could have additionally included something like “and try to minimize its effects” sure, but that to me was implicit. I may be reading that fairly charitably, but perhaps that is just my own bias. I certainly have a bias to judge it more charitably than I do someone who leaps straight to moral outrage and judgement this early in the interaction.

In this case, I simply felt your judgment of the parent wasn’t fair, and showed a moral bias. Maybe they weren’t perfectly clear, and too absolute, but your response wasn’t proportionate either. It condemned more than it understood. I interpreted it as an epistemic observation and you interpreted it as an offense. The very fact that we came away with two completely different readings of the same short sentence rather proves the point.

Thank you for putting words in my mouth regarding my definition of the word bias, but lets use your own: "Bias is a distortion from reality and truth." If that is the case, we can never hope to avoid it, because we will never have perfect information. Using that definition, we are quite literally constantly in a state of bias. Your very own definition is far more broadly supportive of the notion that bias can't be avoided and consequently suggests bias is effectively ubiquitous. This to me is the primary point the parent was making.

I was perhaps too charitable, and you not enough. We are both biased, and going by the advice of the parent, I'm pointing it out. I don't think there is much more I can do.

[tines]

> They could have additionally included something like “and try to minimize its effects” sure, but that to me was implicit.

I'm not interested in talking about what could have been implied, only about what was stated. I'm arguing against an idea that was articulated, not the person who articulated it.

One of the problems of the current-day liberals, in my opinion, is that they make universal statements that they don't mean in order to sound punchy and snag a few morality points. "Believe all women," "men are trash," "defund the police," "all cops are bastards" are all things you'd hear from a person who doesn't actually mean or want any of these things, even though the root of each of those is just and good. The idea that "bias can't be eliminated, only made explicit" is another one of these. If we don't believe it, then let's not say it.

> I certainly have a bias to judge it more charitably than I do someone who leaps straight to moral outrage and judgement this early in the interaction.

I'm not sure where you're reading outrage moral or otherwise. Was it that I used the word "so" in "so harmful"? And where's your bias against someone who tells another person to go to Conservapedia if they think bias can and should be avoided?

> Maybe they weren’t perfectly clear, and too absolute, but your response wasn’t proportionate either. It condemned more than it understood.

I merely stated that the belief was untrue and harmful, I don't think that's disproportionate at all. I can only understand what is stated, and according to my understanding we ought to condemn it.

> Thank you for putting words in my mouth regarding my definition of the word bias, but lets use your own: "Bias is a distortion from reality and truth." If that is the case, we can never hope to avoid it, because we will never have perfect information. Using that definition, we are quite literally constantly in a state of bias. Your very own definition is far more broadly supportive of the notion that bias can't be avoided and consequently suggests bias is effectively ubiquitous.

This is shifting the goalposts. First, I never claimed we could know the complete truth; it was the original post who stated that we couldn't course-correct upon learning new truth ("bias can't be avoided"). And second, the context of the original statement is bias in reporting, not epistemological certainty. We're not talking about positions of atoms here. We don't need perfect information to stop being biased against women in the workplace or against black people or whatever the subject. Even as individuals.

> This to me is the primary point the parent was making.

If that is their point then they can say it.

> We are both biased, and going by the advice of the parent, I'm pointing it out. I don't think there is much more I can do.

I have to ask, if I can't avoid my bias and you can't avoid yours, then what's the point of pointing out bias at all? Is it for other people to avoid our bias? How can they do that? I guess we're trying to minimize its effects, like you said.

> I was perhaps too charitable, and you not enough.

If I lack charity, it's in response to the original uncharitableness of the person telling someone to go to Conservapedia. If he would have mercy, let him show mercy.

[dvsfish]

Honestly, I think we are arguing around each other. We simply read this notion totally differently. You're taking it to mean that "we can't correct bias" but the statement was "we can't avoid bias". It actually makes no comment on being able to correct it (within, or without ourselves). To me it read as "when interacting with the world, we can't avoid encountering bias". If this is how it is interpreted, it actually doesn't do anything to rule out the ability to account and correct for it.

I'm not saying there's a definitive interpretation with how terse it is, just that we aren't necessarily on the same page and attempts to come to any sort of agreement with each other might be a waste of time as we are practically talking about two different ideas. I take this response as pretty fair, and I think the point you're making is totally valid, I just think our respective ideas would never converge as we are talking about 2 distinct things. (Interesting how much conversation a lack of clarity can generate).