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Parable of the Polygons

Started by July 27, 2015 06:17 PM
12 comments, last by Thaumaturge 9 years, 1 month ago

only with understanding can we all walk as one.

And respect.

Unfortunately, the people in the Western culture love to use Freedom of Speech as a way to insult other groups that they don't share their views with.

My argument isn't that the "outside forces" that I suggested should be enough to overcome bias on their own, but rather that such forces might--albeit perhaps slowly--result in at least some degree of desegregation if all bias were removed.


In that case, you are agreeing with the Parable of the Polygons that the absence of bias is not sufficient to increase diversity. Whether those "other factors" are an explicit demand for diversity by members of the population or legislative requirements or quota systems—passing no judgments on the morality or efficacies of those approaches—they represent more than the absence of bias as a means of engendering diversity/fairness correctives, even in a world where bias is still routine.

(One thing does occur to me: In the context of this discussion, what do we consider to be a "bias"? My assumption is that we're talking about negative prejudice--racism, sexism, etc.--and not things like a preference for living near family, or a desire for work, or even things like a desire for desegregation.)


Bias is not inherent negative, it is merely a distinct preference for one outcome. We can consider some biases negative, such as being shape-ist in this example, or racist/ageist/colorist/sexist/etc in the real world. We can consider some biases permissible, as long as they are disclosed, such as my bias toward believing in systemic and structural defects in our society that lead to unequal outcomes.

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I don't get it ... does this somehow prove "shape-ism" ? Am I a "shape-ist"?

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Parable_Of_Polygon.jpg

You have to look at distribution per unit area. In this case, what percentage of shapes have more than 50% of their neighbors being the other shape. In the real world it's the high degree of ethnic concentration you see in some cities/neighborhoods, plus the low degree of interaction between adjacent ethnicities.

In any case, the essay/experiment establishes its own criteria for "diversity," and so the question is whether the above board fulfills it.


Bias is not inherent negative, it is merely a distinct preference for one outcome. We can consider some biases negative, such as being shape-ist in this example, or racist/ageist/colorist/sexist/etc in the real world. We can consider some biases permissible, as long as they are disclosed, such as my bias toward believing in systemic and structural defects in our society that lead to unequal outcomes.

Ah, I believe that I misunderstood the argument, then. In that case, surely "removal of biases" essentially removes a significant chunk of human motivations--essentially anything done with a goal or desire in mind. (Well, unless we're very strict about a bias favouring only one outcome.) Even the goal of the reduction of discrimination is arguably a bias, and is thus removed in the parable.

I may well be mistaken, but I think that I generally read arguments that advocate the removal of bias as a means of undoing discrimination or segregation as intending to argue for the removal of negative bias (however "negative" is defined in a given discussion). For example, in the case of women in the workplace, the argument might be that the removal of sexism is the solution. For myself, I'm inclined to want to be more active than that, but I'm also not convinced that the parable under discussion is a strong refutation of the claim.

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