The Illicit Implicit

To celebrate getting off Twitter yesterday, I posted this link to post.news and Substack .

The Article

Came across this nice article on the problems with “Implicit Bias training”. Lesson and take-away: if you want a better workplace, do not do IBT, it is a waste of time. Instead try being actually empathetic yourself, it rubs off, and remove workplace barriers to minorities and people with disabilities or neurodivergences.

Sadly, I found particularly odious the Upwork example cited in the Aeon article. I’d try to write about the point being made without mentioning Upwork, it is an insidious uberized slave labour company.

A Warning — Do NOT Legislate Morality

Legislating and enforcing by diktat DEI policy can be destructive too, in subtler ways than the perverse or non-existent effects of implicit bias training. So a lot of care is needed in policy.

Some behavioural economics nudges are important, when the default one must opt-out from is not taking away people’s moral choice.

Behavioural economists like Samuel Bowles and psychologists like Daniel Kahneman, and many others, are showing that it is harmful to remove the freedom of people to make a moral decision. It has perverse anti-ethical effects.

So when there is an option, give people the chance to choose the moral option, or not.

Does this mean sometimes making the moral option a default is bad?

Not really. The idea is to make it easy, but not too easy. People need to know they are taking the moral option — when the morality is clear-cut and uncontroversial (a cultural universal).

For example, by all means have a default option “checked” in some sense (forms, surveys, workplace votes, et cetera) but make it “grey” so that to make it bold the person has to actually click on it, and do not let the form get submitted if any option is still in grey.

By “the form get submitted” should of course be completely generalized, it should not mean only implementing this sort of active default in online forms, but should be in consultation among people too. The grave role of a committee convenor or chair is thus held to a higher standard, it is not a placeholder or puppet role.

In line with W. Edwards Deming’s work on workplace management, the managers need to earn their place, and take full responsibility for workplace mismanagement. Too many managers in our times are in bullsh$\ast$ job positions.