Inequality as poison
Imagine then that the state takes on this responsibility. Everyone from a young age is taught how to overcome conscious bias, hence eradicating it. We still have not accounted for unconscious bias. The evidence of unconscious bias is less obvious, but it does exist in statistics: that the boards of most companies are comprised mostly of men, that women are paid less, that non-whites live in smaller houses and send their children to schools with lower Ofsted ratings. It is unlikely shareholders vote a male CEO in because he is a man, but, if given the option between him and a woman, subconscious bias may lead them to find him more trustworthy because he is a man, or more reliable because they know more other male CEOs than female ones. We are stuck with a self-fulfilling bias cycle where we appeal to history for evidence when making choices, and a history influenced by conscious racism is not reliable. It is easier to concede that discrimination and conscious biases can be eradicated than it is unconscious biases (such as affinity bias, attribution bias, beauty bias, conformity and confirmation bias, gender bias etc.). Af terall isn’t our draw to beauty entrenched in our very DNA? A lesser known fact of evolution is kin selection: our siblings, relatives and children share our DNA. So, just as we want our DNA to replicate, we want our siblings’ similar genes to replicate as well; so we are inclined to protect and look after them. The way we tell if someone shares our DNA (and, therefore, if we should have a preference for them) is by looks. Hence our appeal to nepotism and cronyism for those who look like us is built into DN A’s evolved nature to desire its own reproduction. It appears strong, then, that, if unconscious bias is impossible to destroy, inequality will stem from there. However, the solution is to painfully and meticulously remove all opportunities for biases to be used. Simple steps such as removing names, sex, and personal details from job application forms, for example. Many such steps are starting to be used, but people are still apprehensive to take things to their necessary extreme. Interviews should be conducted through an opaque screen and voice synthesis should distort applicants' voices so the interviewer cannot make any determinations about a person beyond what they say. If the cost of equality is getting rid of classical interviews, then as much as people will claim interviews are necessary, I think losing them is a price worth paying. Another example is juries who to avoid bias should not be able to see the defendant and again hear their case through a voice distorting machine. There will need to be other sacrifices like this, but it is still possible to eventually remove all opportunities to employ such biases, most of which manifest when making a selection between people, as when choosing a team or judging people in court. Take a different type of bias: imagine you are an interviewer at an IT company, and there are several applicants for a jobworking for you. One candidatewent to the same IT university as you and thismakes you subconsciously inclined to favour them. While this is certainly a type of bias, it does not lead to inequality as long as anyone regardless of birth and looks could have gone to that IT university. Hence, I believe that it is not impossible to eradicate ‘poisonous’ inequality because education can overcome conscious bias es and we can remove opportunities for unconscious bias to be used. I’mgoing to interpret the word ‘never’ from the posited claim as meaning ‘never in all the future of humanity’ . By appealing to the distant future, I can make the case that eventually people will become homogenized and if we are all blended to have the same mixed skin colour this removes the opportunity for at least racial bias. To claim ‘never’ implies there will not be a single time when we will have the correct mechanism in place to tackle biases; eventually, I believe, there has to be some time in the future when we will.
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