> I think it's more like saying you can't truly be unbiased. Try as you might, it's arguably impossible to truly be unbiased when making decisions an interacting with people.
That's the point of blinding yourself to the people you interact with, isn't it? If you pick and choose who to do business with, I agree. If you have a website where people buy things that get mailed to them, there is no biased decision making.
> if highly trained journalists still have trouble with this, everyone else will as well
Not sure about this bit. Journalists today (at least for Europe) tend to be politically active first, journalists second. They view their role as educators of the masses, not information presenter, that is, to explain to their audience, why they should believe whatever the journalist believes, not provide facts to their audience and let them decide. I don't see a lot of evidence for individual journalists and even less so companies trying to be neutral.
I understand the argument to be more that, if you don't actively fighting for whatever you believe should be the way society operates, then you're implicitly actively fighting for whatever way it currently operates. I don't agree with that at all. It would include that a doctor who saves a person's life without checking whether they are for or against some issue would be considered putting their weight on one side of the issue. They're not, they are doing their job and saving a life.
> Not sure about this bit. Journalists today (at least for Europe) tend to be politically active first, journalists second.
Then that is pretty sad. But, not surprising, and it's often the same way across the pond. Take a look at the Journalism Code of Ethics [0] and see if your news sources abide by it. This is what I hold my reporters accountable to, as much as I can.
Needless to say, I disagree that what you describe should be considered OK and normal.
> It would include that a doctor who saves a person's life without checking whether they are for or against some issue would be considered putting their weight on one side of the issue. They're not, they are doing their job and saving a life.
Agreed. But, have you thought about why the Hippocratic Oath exists in the first place? The very point of it is to force doctors to consider all lives equal and, to the best of their ability, ignore their personal beliefs and do their job. It's literally trying to prevent people from following their base instincts. Very similar to the Journalism Ethics, in a way. That said, it's not perfect; there are many studies showing that, statistically, minorities have higher rates of mortality and other adverse effects in hospitals. That's not causation, but it does point to some potential troubling behaviors.
Anyway, I digress. Not all jobs are considered equal, which should be obvious. If you only want to save the lives of your favorite political party, you should really not become a doctor. Or you will hopefully be found and reported by other doctors / law enforcement and rightly put in prison. Programmers, for better or worse, do not have the same issues.
> Programmers, for better or worse, do not have the same issues.
I think they do, and we generally expect everyone to behave that way, but we're making it very explicit for doctors and lawyers and some other professions. Of course, it's not as immediate when you're dealing with programmers, but viewing the economy not as a total war with temporary alliances between buyers and sellers but as a way to get things done with the market place being the most efficient way to do so (which, I believe, is the more appropriate way, and it's also the way we look at it from the nation state perspective which will happily disable the market place in times of war or catastrophic events), discriminating with regards to politics when selling your services is throwing sand in the machine.
It's not outlawed for many professions (but usually is once you have a monopoly in some location), but it's neither wide-spread, nor encouraged or accepted, I believe.
That's the point of blinding yourself to the people you interact with, isn't it? If you pick and choose who to do business with, I agree. If you have a website where people buy things that get mailed to them, there is no biased decision making.
> if highly trained journalists still have trouble with this, everyone else will as well
Not sure about this bit. Journalists today (at least for Europe) tend to be politically active first, journalists second. They view their role as educators of the masses, not information presenter, that is, to explain to their audience, why they should believe whatever the journalist believes, not provide facts to their audience and let them decide. I don't see a lot of evidence for individual journalists and even less so companies trying to be neutral.
I understand the argument to be more that, if you don't actively fighting for whatever you believe should be the way society operates, then you're implicitly actively fighting for whatever way it currently operates. I don't agree with that at all. It would include that a doctor who saves a person's life without checking whether they are for or against some issue would be considered putting their weight on one side of the issue. They're not, they are doing their job and saving a life.