by tines | 2025-10-23 14:57:36+00:00
> 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.