4 ms·

> exactly how unbiased is it when every person I interviewed with was exactly my demographic? (White, female, American/western European) Please could someone e

> exactly how unbiased is it when every person I interviewed with was exactly my demographic? (White, female, American/western European) Please could someone explain how is this, claiming that someone's race and ethnicity defines their bias, not in itself racist?

Tade0 3y ago
I have a follow-up question: what kind of race is "western European"? Is skin tone not enough? I don't have a gene test on hand to confirm, but I'm pretty sure my heritage is all over the place.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  She said demographics -- the person who you are responding to said 'race'.
  - unpopular42 3y ago
    You don't know that. "White" can mean either, but it didn't matter because both interpretations are equally bad. See for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people Replace race with skin color in the GP comment, the point still stands
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      You are bringing up race specifically and you are making the value judgements and then attributing it to the author. Everything you have been doing has been to prove a (bad) point in bad faith in order to fuel some culture war issue.
      - unpopular42 3y ago
        Now you are just lying and calling names. I'll try one more time before I give up. The original author wrote the word "white", not me. There are many ways to segment a population - that's demographics. Having "white" as the segmentation criteria and claiming that it affects whether the demographic is biased for an interview sounds very racist to me. Your opinion that this argument is in bad faith or in order to fuel something is not supported by any facts and is therefore irrelevant.
        dang 3y ago
        You broke the site guidelines in several places in this thread, but here you crossed the line very badly. We ban accounts that attack others like this, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - dang 3y ago
        Please don't perpetuate flamewars on HN or use the site for ideological battle. We've had to ask you this before. Also, please don't break the site guidelines regardless of what another commenter has been doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
MockObject 3y ago
A generation has been successfully raised to believe that we are our most superficial traits, that we live as stereotypes and view the world that way.
justinclift 3y ago
Yeah. I was going to make the same point. It seems like this person has some kind of issue with peoples skin colour or something. Hmmm, thinking back over it maybe she's internalised the US diversity thing and is judging everything through that lens?
Eisenstein 3y ago
A bias just means looking at things in a skewed way because of experience or mental conditioning. The fact is that demographics have a lot to do with bias because people from the same demographics have similar life experiences. Having someone else with a different set of experiences can help to mitigate bias by giving their perspective in the group. It is a simplistic way to determine 'tendency towards bias' by focusing on demographics, but it is also a pretty good indicator that when you are in a group of all the same demographic then there is going to be some bias that will go unnoticed. To answer your question -- the race part is incidental. A 30 year old college educated white male from an urban/suburban US upbringing is more than just 'white'. This is why it is not racist -- because race is one aspect of a demographic. Hope this helps.
- unpopular42 3y ago
  She didn't complain about the panel members being exclusively educated people (which does affect how you think). But she did complain that they are all white (which doesn't). So yeah, go ahead, dig in.
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    She mentioned demographics and one aspect of that was skin color. You are the one focused on race.
    - unpopular42 3y ago
      Please explain how skin color is relevant in the interview context and why it was specifically mentioned in the original post. Please explain how skin color is different from race for the purpose of this discussion.
      - Eisenstein 3y ago
        The specific term was 'demographic', your quote did not include the word race. EDIT: Upon re-reading... are you really asking me to explain why skin color is part of a demographic? I guess I glossed over that because it doesn't make sense unless youwant to imply that mentioning 'white' in the context of other demographic variables like age and location is racist...in which case, census forms are racist.
yuumei 3y ago
That irked me too. Expecting the company to not be roughly 82% white British.. in the UK. Pretty racist
dang 3y ago
Can you please not take HN threads on generic tangents or into flamewar? The site guidelines contain several rules designed to prevent this kind of thing - for example: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." You started a flamewar with here and perpetuated it downthread. We're trying to avoid these things on HN as they are tedious, repetitive, and predictably turn nasty. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
vlz 3y ago
You are correct if you read this as a claim about the people ("the people must be biased because they all have ethnicity x"). But it was probably meant as a claim about biased institutions/processes („processes/institutions which put only people in important positions which are all alike must be biased“) I think the the claim is not that ethnicity defined the bias but that some bias must be present to produce the homogeneity.

Tade0 3y ago

I have a follow-up question: what kind of race is "western European"? Is skin tone not enough? I don't have a gene test on hand to confirm, but I'm pretty sure my heritage is all over the place.

Eisenstein 3y ago
She said demographics -- the person who you are responding to said 'race'.
- unpopular42 3y ago
  You don't know that. "White" can mean either, but it didn't matter because both interpretations are equally bad. See for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people Replace race with skin color in the GP comment, the point still stands
  - Eisenstein 3y ago
    You are bringing up race specifically and you are making the value judgements and then attributing it to the author. Everything you have been doing has been to prove a (bad) point in bad faith in order to fuel some culture war issue.
    - unpopular42 3y ago
      Now you are just lying and calling names. I'll try one more time before I give up. The original author wrote the word "white", not me. There are many ways to segment a population - that's demographics. Having "white" as the segmentation criteria and claiming that it affects whether the demographic is biased for an interview sounds very racist to me. Your opinion that this argument is in bad faith or in order to fuel something is not supported by any facts and is therefore irrelevant.
      - dang 3y ago
        You broke the site guidelines in several places in this thread, but here you crossed the line very badly. We ban accounts that attack others like this, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - dang 3y ago
      Please don't perpetuate flamewars on HN or use the site for ideological battle. We've had to ask you this before. Also, please don't break the site guidelines regardless of what another commenter has been doing. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

MockObject 3y ago

A generation has been successfully raised to believe that we are our most superficial traits, that we live as stereotypes and view the world that way.

justinclift 3y ago

Yeah. I was going to make the same point. It seems like this person has some kind of issue with peoples skin colour or something. Hmmm, thinking back over it maybe she's internalised the US diversity thing and is judging everything through that lens?

Eisenstein 3y ago

A bias just means looking at things in a skewed way because of experience or mental conditioning. The fact is that demographics have a lot to do with bias because people from the same demographics have similar life experiences. Having someone else with a different set of experiences can help to mitigate bias by giving their perspective in the group. It is a simplistic way to determine 'tendency towards bias' by focusing on demographics, but it is also a pretty good indicator that when you are in a group of all the same demographic then there is going to be some bias that will go unnoticed. To answer your question -- the race part is incidental. A 30 year old college educated white male from an urban/suburban US upbringing is more than just 'white'. This is why it is not racist -- because race is one aspect of a demographic. Hope this helps.

unpopular42 3y ago
She didn't complain about the panel members being exclusively educated people (which does affect how you think). But she did complain that they are all white (which doesn't). So yeah, go ahead, dig in.
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  She mentioned demographics and one aspect of that was skin color. You are the one focused on race.
  - unpopular42 3y ago
    Please explain how skin color is relevant in the interview context and why it was specifically mentioned in the original post. Please explain how skin color is different from race for the purpose of this discussion.
    - Eisenstein 3y ago
      The specific term was 'demographic', your quote did not include the word race. EDIT: Upon re-reading... are you really asking me to explain why skin color is part of a demographic? I guess I glossed over that because it doesn't make sense unless youwant to imply that mentioning 'white' in the context of other demographic variables like age and location is racist...in which case, census forms are racist.

yuumei 3y ago

That irked me too. Expecting the company to not be roughly 82% white British.. in the UK. Pretty racist

dang 3y ago

Can you please not take HN threads on generic tangents or into flamewar? The site guidelines contain several rules designed to prevent this kind of thing - for example: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." "Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead." You started a flamewar with here and perpetuated it downthread. We're trying to avoid these things on HN as they are tedious, repetitive, and predictably turn nasty. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

vlz 3y ago

You are correct if you read this as a claim about the people ("the people must be biased because they all have ethnicity x"). But it was probably meant as a claim about biased institutions/processes („processes/institutions which put only people in important positions which are all alike must be biased“) I think the the claim is not that ethnicity defined the bias but that some bias must be present to produce the homogeneity.