
How to Fight Unconscious Bias and Become a Better Ally - englishm
https://spin.atomicobject.com/2015/06/08/unconscious-bias-software/
======
thanatropism
This characteristically mixes two different political projects that have
varying levels of support in the more general community:

One is __bias __: take, for example, the archetypal example of orchestra
musicians sampling their work behind a curtain so directors can be less unfair
when hiring: gender distributions have indeed significantly shifted, because
we 've removed gender out of view for a critical moment. This, of course,
doesn't work if said director is a raging misogynist who will scream "no! no
women!" when the curtain reveals the looks of whom he had approved.

The other is __underrepresentation __. This takes as a given that {women,
racial minorities, the mentally ill...} should be represented in important
positions in rough proportion to their general share of the population. Now,
there are reasons to support this in some cases: preventing that injustices
from one generation pass on to the next, for example, or ensuring that the
unique contribution that epileptic cyclops can give to the world of cinema.
But:

\-- __not everyone that 's in opposition to bias is also in opposition to
underrepresentation per se __. It 's just dishonest to mix the two;
particularly in tech circles that have had a long, there's-one-right-answer
culture that might not be perceived as benefiting from increased diversity at
all. There's also the wider issue of whether diversity should be means to an
end or an end unto itself.

(I mean, these are positions that exist. What bothers me is the Trojan horse
mechanics at play; it predisposes me against one side when I really haven't
thought enough about the subject to have a proper opinion.)

~~~
ska
It's a good idea to clearly articulate the two situations and how they
interact, but it isn't like you can decouple them in practice so some mixing
is natural.

~~~
thanatropism
Well, not in the stuff of policy, but yes in its feedback rules.

There's (1) symptom/diagnosis distinction (sure, treating the disease
eventually cures the symptoms, but we're evaluating it against associated
causality and prognosis concepts) and (2) a matter of ethical structure (i.e.
deontology vs. consequentialism).

#1 is why they should be separated in theoretical terms. #2 is why they're
distinct political programs.

------
dominotw
Age bias is so obvious that its actually celebrated. Look at this example from
Jetbrains Jobs page
[https://www.jetbrains.com/company/jobs/](https://www.jetbrains.com/company/jobs/)

    
    
      We offer:
       Fascinating work in a friendly, young team

~~~
Bostonian
Fluid intelligence peaks by the early 20s and then declines with age, so "age
bias" is rational. When the law mandates non-economic behavior, some people
will ignore the law.

~~~
MattGrommes
Even if that's true (citation needed), "fluid intelligence" isn't the end-all
of important intelligence at work. You need people who aren't distracted by
the newest shiny reinvention of some old thing. You need mastery, which can
only be gained by time in the trenches.

~~~
Bostonian
From the Wikipedia, which has references:

'Fluid intelligence, like reaction time, typically peaks in young adulthood
and then steadily declines. This decline may be related to local atrophy of
the brain in the right cerebellum. Other researchers have suggested that a
lack of practice, along with age-related changes in the brain may contribute
to the decline.'

------
yummyfajitas
The article is confusing a _prior_ with a _bias_. They aren't the same thing.
A prior is a belief you hold before any evidence is present. A bias is a
failure to properly update your beliefs after obtaining evidence.

Believing a woman at a tech conference is a recruiter (before interacting with
her) is merely a prior. In my experience it's also a reasonably accurate one.
If one were to fail to change that opinion after a woman claims she is a
developer, that would be a bias.

~~~
bjt
If we were only concerned with making accurate predictions, then all of that
would be fine.

But the point of the article is less about the accuracy of our predictions,
and more about the effects that our priors may have on others.

If a female technologist attends a tech conference and gets asked 100 times
"are you in HR?", it's very likely that she'll feel unwelcome and discouraged.
And her reaction to the questions will have absolutely nothing to do with
whether the people doing the asking had a "prior" or a "bias".

Creating a welcoming atmosphere for women in technology means that you avoid
asking that question _despite_ the fact that the prior may be accurate.

~~~
yummyfajitas
If that's what the article is arguing, it should just say so. I.e., it should
say "you should make bad decisions, hold incorrect beliefs, and waste time
talking to recruiters in order to make female developers happier".

I'm not arguing with the actual message, I'm merely calling for accurate
language.

------
grovulent
So - does anyone have a good understanding of the quality science behind those
implicit association tests?

To be honest - I tend to take any psychology results with a grain of salt...
given the crisis of replicability that it is currently facing.

~~~
frandroid
The amount of testing behind association tests is pretty large, it's
uncontroversial at this point.

~~~
grovulent
I've been reading some overviews - I'm already disturbed.

The assumption is that the difference in response times between the
association of categories reveals preferences. And they tested by using groups
that were expected beforehand to have certain preferences (boys liking insects
more than flowers and vice versa for girls correlated with their reaction
times).

But when faced with circumstances where these reactions DON'T correlate with
self-reports, the conclusion is that the test reveals unconscious biases. If
they confirmed their hypothesis about reaction times with groups that
correlated - what entitles them to infer this further variable of unconscious
bias to defend their hypothesis where the correlation fails?

Uggh... I can see it's going to take an enormous amount of time to find in the
enormous literature a decent answer to this question. I can't be bothered.

------
thwest
There are some other things you can do that don't rely on your effort level to
police your own thoughts:

\- don't speak, let those you want to support speak instead

\- remove names from resumes on first few passes

------
relbys
Could this be something that is a bit of a mix of age/gender bias? I can't
help but think that someone 40+ years old would be more likely to speak those
kind of things.

For men of my age (my perspective/experiences), the examples look more like
this:

\- "That young person over there? Must be an intern or just came into the
field"

\- "Back in my day we did it with punch cards, boy"

\- "So easy even your grandparents could do it."

~~~
supercanuck
I'm young, 6'6 and work in IT. The two statements I hear the most are 1. Do
you play Basketball and 2. I remember when punchcards... blah blah blah...

------
sarciszewski
EDIT: Semantics follow. Also, trigger warning -- someone has an opinion on the
Internet. Since it isn't identical to yours, butthurt may ensue.

I don't want to be a _better ally_ , and it's condescending for anyone to
demand it.

Definition:

The enemy of your enemy is your ally. (Remix of "the enemy of your enemy is
your friend".)

If I and another person are fighting a common enemy, I don't suddenly earn the
privilege of telling them how to conduct themselves in their own affairs. Nor
does it similarly empower them to make demands of me.

We agree that the enemy we're fighting is a problem. That's all being an ally
means. It doesn't imply any sort of deeper relationship, just a common goal.

The concept of "a better ally" is not compatible here.

"Well, we're on the same side, but you're not good enough of an ally for my
standards."

~~~
nostrebored
First of all, who is demanding it? This article is telling people who do want
to help people who are underrepresented and face discrimination in technology
a way in which they can do better.

I, for one, like knowing how to do better. Even if I'm doing an adequate job,
I appreciate when my employees tell me that I could be more productive if I
changed how I worked. I enjoy acting on that change and becoming better, and
seeing how changing my actions makes things run more smoothly. This situation
is not very different.

I think the brunt of what you're saying comes down to saying 'I don't want to
be a better ally' \-- why not?

When you're working on a team or towards a shared agenda, you should try and
communicate and best understand how to interact with the people that you're
working with -- this is just basic teamwork... When you're a member of the
group that's part of the problem, you should probably grant more weight to
what the group that is suffering discrimination/bias is saying.

Let me decode what 'you're not a good enough ally for my standards' means --
it means you're still being a dick, and not listening to what people are
saying. It means you're still part of the problem. The things that were talked
about in this article are things that my fiancee faces in her job as an SDE at
Amazon with an unbelievable, near daily frequency, and it really irks me when
people decide to put their head in the sand about it.

~~~
sarciszewski
> I think the brunt of what you're saying comes down to saying 'I don't want
> to be a better ally' \-- why not?

No, I'm arguing against the use of the word "ally".

I'll do whatever I can to help people who are discriminated against, but as
soon as the measuring stick of "quality of alliance" comes out, I check right
the fuck out and hop on the express train to Nopesville. I refuse to have any
part in this stupid torture of the English language.

~~~
nostrebored
What would you prefer to call it? If you'd prefer to use feminism as an
abstraction you can break it down as follows:

Feminism is a women's movement for women by women. I am not a woman, so I
cannot be a feminist, but I can be a feminist ally.

The same thread of logic follows for the other movements.

As we're talking about the movement of feminism, the "quality of alliance" can
be clearly shown by the alignment of your attitudes with the movement's and
your support for women you see facing issues related to patriarchal
systems/biases. I fail to see how this is a torture of the English language.
The same is done with international politics -- clearly we have ways that
countries can be better allies to the U.S., if we're making the U.S. the
center of focus. Whether or not we should do that is a different discussion.

~~~
sarciszewski
> Feminism is a women's movement for women by women. I am not a woman, so I
> cannot be a feminist, but I can be a feminist ally.

> What would you prefer to call it?

I'd prefer the use of the compound noun "feminist ally" over the generic and
ambiguous noun "ally".

> I fail to see how this is a torture of the English language.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEQixrBKCc)

Slight exaggeration for the sake of humor.

~~~
nostrebored
That's a fair point. Ambiguous use of ally does presume a lot, and does make
things a bit more murky.

