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I sort of tackled the "what is race" question in another comment. [1] I kinda agree with you on culture is important, but I find that generalizations there fal
by mattmcknight 17y ago
I sort of tackled the "what is race" question in another comment. [1] I kinda agree with you on culture is important, but I find that generalizations there fall flat, as subcultures within a culture tend to contradict each other. In all cases, the fundamental fallacy of bias comes from using attributes associated with some group to make decisions about an individual, who may or may not share those attributes. Our brains attempt to create heuristics for us, we have to actively work to supplant them with logic.
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129487 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1129487
- CWuestefeld 17y agoI'll now proceed to go off on a tangent from something that's already just barely topical for HN... Our brains attempt to create heuristics for us, we have to actively work to supplant them with logic. I generally agree with this. The benefits of civilization make most of these heuristics unnecessary, and more of a liability. But I wish that people advocating this would see its application in further areas. In his The Fatal Conceit, Hayek talks about how our evolution within small tribes gave us the instinct to be compassionate with others, but that in today's wide world, that instinct just can't scale far enough. This is another area where we need to reject the emotional reactions that are pre-programmed into our brains, and think more rationally about whether what the little voice says really makes sense.