Do Most Of Us Hold An“Unconscious Bias” On Racism And Other Matters Such As Misogyny.

[anotheoldgit]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2019/07/30/prince-harry-warns-dangers-unconscious-racism-candid-interview/

I added Misogyny because on a radio phone-in, a woman said "that if there was a male and a female assistant in a book shop, a male customer was more likely to approach the male assistant for certain advice, thinking that the male assistant would be more knowledgeable".

I ask you????????? I gamble that a female customer would approach the female assistant for advice, it's got nothing to do with discrimination against the other sex.

[vetuste_ennemi]

In the same way as you know that Mohammeds have a greater propensity to rape eleven year old girls than Jims do.

[tonyav]

[tonyav]

Oops sorry about that, wrong thread.

[Mamyalynne]

A welcome and possibly prophetic error Tony.

[vetuste_ennemi]

A correct or incorrect conclusion based on the data?

Misrepresenting the correct observation that more Mohammeds than Jims are rapists as the proposition that all Mohammeds are rapists is a deliberate distortion.

[naomi24]

Quite right Jim. I would prefer to hire men before young women. As for you disputing good business practice, how many businesses have you run?

[vetuste_ennemi]

(Nothing wrong with a bit of totty, Tony, even if it's on the wrong thread, but who are the Velvelettes? Never heard of them, tho' you know from the hairdos that they're sixties and coeval the better known Detroit groups at the time.)

[vetuste_ennemi]

//As for you disputing good business practice, how many businesses have you run?//

Jim co-wrote with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez the ground-breaking "After Fossil Fuels - The Explosion of Wealth". It's the greatest work on economics since Das Kapital.

[vetuste_ennemi]

And we know its contribution to human happiness and prosperity, don't we?

[jim360]

Even if you accept the proposition that proportionally more of Group A** might be expected to commit crimes than group B, there are at least three instant flaws I can think of: firstly, the statistics are dubious in and of themselves -- let's face it, even if you assume the best of intentions, most people only *think* the know the data about this sort of thing, and their judgements tend to be wildly wrong, or at least poorly-researched. Generally, people's knowledge of and ability to interpret statistics is not exactly world-class (if you think about it this has to be true by definition).

Secondly, even you can establish a correlation between Group A and some undesirable trait, then it's unlikely to be a causal link if the characteristic of Group A is defined so vaguely. A name isn't enough to determine someone's character, nor is a photo, nor is the first few seconds we tend to take to form our first opinions of someone we hadn't previously met. So it's still an unjustifiable bias even if the correlation exists.

Thirdly, Even if you can set aside the idea that the statistic is only imagined, or show that it's a semi-justifiable claim given enough people, most companies wouldn't hire enough people to justify such sweeping biases -- so given two identical CVs the idea that one should be dismissed while the other accepted merely on the basis of the name atop is a clear example of poor judgement that has no grounding in logic.

Fourthly, we're really talking about conscious biases at the moment. Presumably the scenario that Naomi and v-e are envisaging is that an employer is fully aware of what they're doing -- and perhaps that's even true more often than I'd care to admit -- but, in the example of CVs, the employer will have seen the identical CVs under different names but genuinely and honestly reached the conclusion that the CV with the "white" name is a higher quality than the other one, without ever giving thought to all this argument about whether the statistics would or would not justify his decision for sound social or economic reasons.

Oh, and thinking about it, what's this nonsense about Jims being almost certainly upstanding citizens that merit no such judgements? I'm flattered, of course, but it's still based on what exactly? It's the textbook definition of white male privilege to even make the suggestion.

I want to move away from the specific topic of whether bias against Muslims can be justified. It can't, but even if it can there's a far wider issue here.

[vetuste_ennemi]

The correlation between a specific class of sexual violence (described somewjhat euphemistically a "local" grooming) and Muslims is a matter of record.

[jim360]

I haven't run any businesses at all, but I don't see how that undermines the claim I'm making. I could, for example, quote Bill Gates, who is presumably quite successful as business owners go:

"If you're not fully utilizing half the talent in the country, you're not going to get too close to the top 10."

He was speaking to a Saudi audience, where there is of course a far greater problem, but the point stands. I don't need to run a business to recognise bad business practices, or to recognise discrimination. It's blatant sexism to prefer employing men to young women based solely on their sex.

[jim360]

As far as AOC is concerned, I know that ve loves to pretend otherwise but I don't even follow what she says, much, let alone work with her. Most of the time I only find out the latest thing she's said or done when you tell me that I helped her with it, ve :)

[vetuste_ennemi]

I'm quite sure all of us (here, like) agree with Mr Gates. Sadly none in his Saudi audience would have.

Good news though, Jim. When fossil fuels are redundant the Arabs can revert to being Arabs.

[vetuste_ennemi]

Hey, Jim: just teasing, mate.

OK, not always.

[Zak51arc]

I’ve never known so much rubbish.
As far as Prince Harry is concerned I think it’s awful calling him a halfwit. Yes, the Royals live a charmed life and are a huge cost to the public purse. Just think though, it would be more costly having a president and it would be catastrophic for this country if we had a president like they have in the USA. Now there’s a halfwit if ever there was one.

[naomi24]

Jim, Statistics beyond the hoi polloi’s comprehension (who’d a thunk?), discrimination... blah blah blah. The usual hot air. When you decide to set up In business you can employ them all. You won’t mind paying wages to people for the time they spend praying - not to mention the inconvenience and difficulty that might cause in getting the job done - and you won’t mind paying someone else to do jobs those people won’t do. Or having to pay someone to fill in - and possibly fund their training too - whilst you're obliged to keep a job open for someone on maternity leave. It’s all so simple Jim - to those who don’t have the foggiest idea about the realities of business.

[Khandro]

jim;//If I remember correctly, you'd also prefer to hire men over women on good business practice reasons, // (though not addressed to me)

Women make lousy politicians, I'm not sure why that is, but you only have to look at the messes in Europe to see a demonstration of that, but within the other professions I would always employ a woman before a man. I'm very biased towards the two women dentists who have just done some fantastic bridge-work in my mouth.

[jim360]

It shouldn't be a bone of contention that something most people tend not to learn about is also something most people don't understand as well as they would if they had learned about it. Statistics, in this case, which is only briefly touched on -- if at all -- in High School Mathematics. But in this case I was referring to a phenomenon that shows up loads of times, which is that people's perceptions of some given figure, and the actual value, tend to be very different.

As an aside, since discrimination of the type that Naomi is talking about, ie deliberately preferring men over women more or less every time there's a choice, is in fact illegal, I'd have called it a bad business practice on that alone. Ditto discrimination against Muslims, etc etc. "Good practice" can hardly mean breaking the law, or certainly flirting with illegality and risking prosecution. But it remains objectively wrong. You don't need to have run your own business to see that.

[naomi24]

Jim, we know it’s illegal which is why I said yesterday that employers CANT give truthful reasons for rejecting certain CVs. A sad indictment on society when the law obliges people to lie.