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Comment by ubernostrum | Hacker News Reader

If you're curious, consider doing research on the subject rather than asking people to re-litigate the whole thing from first principles every time the topic comes up. It gets exhausting because most people operate from a position of "a belief that there is no significant bias/significant effect from bias is the correct default assumption unless/until someone demonstrates otherwise through overwhelming evidence". And each individual person expects the whole thing to be proven for them from scratch each time.

Instead you could do some research on your own and find the information that's out there.

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My intention with this question was to probe if there was anyone that has experience within this field that might have any milestone studies/papers on hand, or something that they can cite from memory. The reason for this is that when you venture into a new field of study it usually takes time sorting out the wheat from the chaff. Now off course I can do the research on my own, it was simply a question I asked to save time.

To assume that I have some sort of hidden agenda behind this question is rather paranoid from my perspective (and came as a surprise), as you didn't know anything about my intentions.

The post asked for sources. Presumably to facilitate research. The post did not ask anyone to relitigate anything.

The thing is, at this point saying that there's discrimination and systemic bias should be about as controversial as saying that the earth orbits the sun. It's not something that should be responded to with a demand for sources, and the fact that it always is, and always devolves into people trying to shift the argument to whether there's even a problem at all (regardless of any one individual's reason for starting such a conversation, that's where the conversation inevitably ends up), is just ludicrous.

People who are unaware of the existence of the problem can use a search engine and read up on it.

This is a very presumptive attitude to take which is not going to convince people on the fence on this topic who don't already agree with you.

I suggest that if you want to change minds and improve the status quo, you should engage these people who you find tiresome anyway. Not to persuade them, but the third-parties who will read the discussion and could be persuaded. Or, if that's too much work, simply don't engage, if only so you don't sabotage someone else's effort to persuade.

Read this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14712546

I did. I don't think it's constructive to tell people to google it in that case either.

OK.

I can tell you right now, though, the people who will keep demanding sources and want to re-litigate even the existence of discrimination/bias, in every single thread which mentions the topic, will not be convinced by providing them walls of links and sources. They've already made up their minds, and the only thing they'd do in response is exactly what I said: nitpicks and non sequiturs and "well, I don't find that convincing..." and so what's the point? If someone is genuinely and truly unaware, they can use Google. If someone just wants to try to discredit a basic established fact about the world, it's not my job to coddle them or make them feel good about it or "engage" with them or make them feel that they were properly listened to and had their concerns addressed, any more than it would be my job to do that for someone who denies evolution.

Right, it's not your job to do anything. It is perfectly valid for you to feel frustrated in exactly that way.

All I am saying, is that their are third parties who you are not interacting with, who could be persuadeable, who will read that frustration and are going to find it alienating rather than persuasive, and therefore you end up creating more people in the world who think there is no real problem.

It may be more constructive to simply disengage if you feel that exasperated by it. Both for persuading other people and for your own sanity. That's all I am saying.

Instead of complaining you could have just posted a link?

Imagine that you live in a world where there is a large, extremely loud (larger and louder than the actual world) population of young-Earth creationists.

Now, imagine that every time you say something which even tangentially mentions evolution -- let alone something where the main topic is evolution -- some of those people immediately pop up with "got sources for that?" / "gonna need a source on that" / "citation needed for that claim" / etc.

And imagine that for a while you did go to the trouble of linking up primers on the topic, but every time you did that, they just responded with non sequiturs and attempts to nitpick little details of the primers and parlay that into discrediting the entire idea of evolution.

Now, imagine you've been living in that world, every day, for years. You might well finally decide "you know what, it's not my job to pause every single time I post a comment online and have to re-prove the theory of evolution to anyone and everyone who demands it; evolution is a basic fact we shouldn't have to debate at this point, and people who genuinely want an intro to it for some reason can find one on their own".

Now, imagine that if you do make that decision, you'll be branded an asshole for "complaining" instead of just posting a link. You'll be told that these folks are "just asking for sources". Or any of a large number of other explanations which don't jive with what you see day in and day out, but if you try to explain that you'll be told you're projecting, or making it up, or arguing with a strawman, and this is a sign that you are not trustworthy (which in turn just reflects back on the theory of evolution -- after all, if this is the kind of person who stands up as its representative...).

Imagine all of that, but change the topic from the theory of evolution... to the topic of this thread. And imagine how tired everyone is of the "got a source for that?" brigade. Regardless of whether the person asking has the noblest purest intentions in the history of noble purity, we're talking about basic stuff about the society we live in and the industry we work in, and if someone is genuinely unaware of it and genuinely curious, they can use Google on their own.

Oh my God, another pointless rant.

I don't need to imagine, I do live in such a world, and here's what I do:

I either don't bother commenting on the first place, or I keep some links handy so that if someone genuinely asks I have something ready to share.

Surely passing a simple link is easier than what you're doing.

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