I don't see any ongoing segregation

Not backed by the gov't through the present day but, as you mentioned, since WW2 and certainly long after slavery ended.

But discrimination based on race is still very common. I cited the study showing resumes with black sounding names receive significantly fewer callbacks than resumes with white sounding names...

You've not mentioned this study in your replies—Is this sort of discrimination not consequential in your view?

IQ is really really important.

As a bit of a thought experiment, can you imagine a scenario in a society where a high IQ group of people was discriminated against to the extent where they couldn't overcome the discrimination, despite their advanced higher IQ?

How would the circumstances be different than what blacks have faced in the U.S.? How would they be similar?

It's not hard to find people whose ancestors 150 years ago were poor, uneducated, lacking skills and access to social networks... I think you're just describing an average peasant. And yet, there are different outcomes.

Ongoing segregation and discrimination against blacks in America since slavery doesn't seem to be making it into your math here. Why? It's significant and should be considered.

And it's not hard to imagine how "peasants" might do well when compared to former slaves...(1) being poor and being a slave are very different (2) It's much tougher to segregate and discriminate when everybody looks basically the same. It's easy when their skin color is different.

As I mentioned in my post upthread, I agree it's a factor. I just don't think it's the sole factor or even the most important factor.

Do tell: What is the most important factor? Why?

In 2016 the difference is slightly stronger than the difference between Whites and Black getting killed. It's a fact that easily knowable if you care to look for the numbers of police killings by race. Anybody who cares enough about the issue to know the fact should know it if the can read numbers in a straightforward way instead of just trying to validate their party line.

Do you have a preferred source?

In fairly confident that it's better than blaming people for having biases and hoping that they will change as a result.

Who's doing this?

If you think that the logical conclusion would be that Clinton was wrong when she claimed that everybody suffers from implicit bias.

We have implicit biases. Biases based on race are a pretty big deal in this country, historically. In my view, the level of bias in police shootings doesn't reach any reasonable threshold to be called anything like "racism" in many, many cases.

That's exactly why it's unproductive. You don't actually think in terms of "implicit racism" but simply use the new name to label concepts that you already knew beforehand.

Perhaps this is true for you. I often think about ways my view may be biased when relating to people. And then I act to better understand and, hopefully, neutralize the bias. My efforts are clumsy and likely often fail, because I'm not particularly intelligent or skilled at overcoming bias.

At any rate, the first step toward being productive in this regard is recognizing bias exists.

You don't see evidence of implicit bias in a case by case basis.

Sure you could. I'd agree the aggregate data would be (perhaps more) revealing, but the facts of a particular case (including the video) could also tell you something about what biases might exist and how they effected the event.

I'm tapping.

What are your political leanings? I'd like to better understand our interaction by knowing how you view yourself generally on the U.S. political spectrum. Thanks.

"More important" for what and "other factors" from which set?

In regard to social issues, such as the murder rate by race you cited earlier, I'm not compelled to believe blacks are genetically wired to behave poorly and kill more often. Rather, as I've said, I believe there has been an extreme set of circumstances in the U.S. that have led to lots of problems.

What do you think are transmission mechanisms which would show how having, say, great-great-grandparents who were slaves affects you now?

As I've said—and as you've said by saying culture can be persistent through generations—I am who I am, in part, because of who my parents and family are. Of course, genetically. But there is more than this. Partly because of material wealth, partly because of availability of education and the opportunity to learn marketable skills, partly because of access to social and professional networks—Simply, there was a deficit created by slavery that takes a while to even out. Slavery wasn't that long ago.

And again, even apart from slavery, there has been, and continues to be discrimination against African Americans in the U.S. Both legally through segregation and just plain old racism (implicit and explicit).

If we compare it to a 100 meter race, it's not as if this was just a simple 20 meter head start for whites because of slavery; it's also that hurdles have been placed every 10 meters in the African American lane through segregation and discrimination.

Do you think the somewhat worse conditions of the American blacks explain the gap in outcomes looking at the present day?

This is my view, yes. See above.

I cited this earlier.

Imagine something like this type of discrimination is happening at all sorts of levels in the U.S.—Blacks are just less likely to be successful in a professional capacity simply because they discriminated against because are black, and apart from any consideration of actual merit.

So, it takes 15 resumes (instead of 10) to get a callback. Then the black candidate is 33% less likely to score an actual interview from that callback. Then 33% less likely to get to the second interview; 33% less likely to get to the 3rd and final interview.

Then they're employed... How much less likely is it a black person receives a promotion? How much less do they make on average?

Edit: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems you discount the idea slavery, segregation and discrimination has had ill effects for African Americans in the U.S. up to the present day...Why is that?

Why aren't you seeking to explain why White's get more likely to be killed by police than Asian's? Why do you think it's a question that people like Clinton don't address?

She didn't address it because it wasn't relevant to the discussion at hand. Is the disparity between Whites and Asians killed by police significant? Is it an issue that is pressing in terms of it's current effect on the body politic?

Making winning decisions is about agency. Hillary Clinton could say that she wants that all police wear body camera's. If she can win a majority for that policy she can implement it.

On the other hand you can't pass a law that people shouldn't have implicit bias anymore. Speaking about it is useful if Hillary Clinton wants to engage in virtue signaling but not actually focus on getting policies changed.

If she wanted to do rational policy making she could say: "We should do controlled trials that try different policies in different area's to find out which policies actually help with changing the status quo."

You speak about this is a very definitive way, as if you know exactly what would work. I don't know what would work. It seems to me these are complex issues. I just noted it was good and, I think, useful to hear someone mention the everyone is subject to bias as opposed to the same old Red v. Blue talking points. I'd have praised anyone who said something similar, regardless of which team they played for.

In what kind of ontology do you believe if you think that a police shooting could be racist, even in principle? That there are some police shootings that are racists and other that aren't? If you want to use the word "racist" to be a property of events and not a property of people than it means something qualitatively different than what the term "implicit racism" is about.

This looks like your conceptualization of racism is the standard meaning of the word and has little to do with the academic term of "implicit racism".

My phrasing was poor.

I don't think race is a factor in every police shooting. Despite this, the left seems to try and make every single police shooting involving an African American into another example of blatant, explicit racism. I don't agree with this at all and I think it detracts from the effort to improve things. Every police shooting ought to be examined based on the objective facts.

The idea that an officer (or judge, or anyone) could have an implicit bias against a group of people, and that that bias is consequential, seem to me to be worth exploring.

They also don't ask the obvious questions such as whether the fact that more Whites get killed than Asians is also due to implicit bias. That a very straightforward question if you look at the data and want to use implicit bias as a cognitive tool for explaining the data of police killers.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Can you restate it?

Gender studies

You mentioned "gender studies" a couple times in a negative light—Why? It doesn't have anything to do with this discussion.

...

Generally, the idea that (a) we all have implicit biases based on how our brain works and our life experiences, (b) these biases may significantly obscure our map of the territory, and (c) in the special case of police—where men and women need to quickly make highly consequential decisions under extreme stress—this obscured map may lead to irrational, "non-winning", decisions seems uncontroversial. Certainly nothing you've said has rebutted it.

For the record, I don't think every police shooting is racist. Not even close. And I think the left goes way too far trying to spin this.

Whether a discussion is useful depends on the results of the discussion. There are a lot of true things you can say that don't advance a discussion into a direction that leads to a positive outcome.

People could discuss cognitive biases in a really stupid and irrational way that would make it unproductive? If that's what you mean, then, yeah. Of course.

It wasn't a discussion of how implicit bias works but an uncited assertion that it has effects in certain conditions.

Yeah? It wasn't really the format for a CFAR plug.

That might be true but it's not what the LW mission of rationality that's about systematic winning is about. I understand the mission to be about finding thinking strategies that lead to making winning decisions.

Right. Like approaching policy debates with a reduction in mind-killedness. Acknowledging implicit bias is a great step.

You can also look at the decision making literature and see what saying "everyone has biases" does to a person self awareness of their own biases. It generally does little.

It does more than not acknowledging people are biased—this was literally what Clinton's critics said in regard to her comment. They essentially denied that implicit bias exists.

You seem to making a black or white argument that Clinton's comment isn't useful because it's not that useful—it won't solve anything or make rationality win U.S. policy on this issue. I am not under the illusion her one sentence will un-mindkill U.S. politics. I'm merely contrasting the (a) acknowledgement of bias with (b) being apparently unaware that it exists.

A is better than B.

The fact that a claim is true doesn't automatically mean that it's useful to discuss it.

It doesn't? In what way would it not be useful?

I think it's extremely useful to discuss how the brain you are using to solve problems has flaws that may be inhibiting you from solving those problems, or even recognizing the problems accurately. (It's why I was on LW originally...)

(Maybe you're using "automatically" here as a qualifier to make your statement technically correct—Is that what you mean? Like, people could discuss cognitive biases in a really stupid and irrational way that would make it unproductive? If that's what you mean, then, yeah. Of course.)

No, it's not an admission of Clinton that her maps have errors.

It's not? I thought she said we all (i.e. humans) have implicit biases? Wouldn't that include Clinton?

Why do you think that [Clinton speaking of implicit bias seems to be a way to advance the discussion to something more rational]?

Because people have implicit cognitive biases. It's useful to discuss them.

Peoples' cognitive maps aren't the territory. And people aren't always conscious of the mistakes. Further, many people I've heard discuss politics in this election cycle seem unaware that there even could be errors in their map.

Instead of arguing over our competing maps, one good first step is to acknowledge our maps have errors, which is what I think Clinton's line about "implicit bias" did.

I should clarify. I accept genes are a big part of the picture. I'm more of a nature guy in the debate between nature and nurture.

In the specific case of African Americans' treatment in U.S. history and their current status, I'm not convinced genetics are more important than other factors. Because this specific case is more than just a simple nature vs. nurture issue—it is a very special case where an extreme deficit was created using slavery. And then segregation. And racism and discrimination all throughout up to the present day.

What evidence you cite above is compelling to you? What do you believed based on this evidence?