> I strongly agree with the author that "face-ism" is a highly overlooked issue that needs to be dealt with.
I don't disagree, but is this something we can deal with? It seems more biological and evolutionary than anything. We want to associate ourselves with people who appear happy and trust worthy, even for superficial reasons. It's quick (apparently effective) and it's in our best interest.
I'd love if someone could back me up on this because I have no evidence, but from what I've seen, society is becoming increasingly shallow. Men and women are held to such high standards of beauty, and I don't think this is merely the result of excellent marketing by fashion magazines and affluent lifestyles.
The images portrayed in pop-culture are a reflection of what we want to see - the free market has simply capitalized on it.
> I don't disagree, but is this something we can deal with?
It is unfair to those people that it affects negatively, which is a good enough reason to deal with it, even if people that are affected by it positively don't really mind.
Not to say the unfit are irrational, just that fitness tends to prefers fitness. Glasses signal poor vision and is generally seen as dorky or nerdy. We can expect people not to make fun of those wearing glasses, but we can't expect people to find glasses as appealing as not wearing glasses. And because of that, I think some level of subconscious bias will be applied to those we view as having less than fit attributes.
Hm. Glasses are a poor example (they are having a style-comeback right now) but I understand the point. Leg braces are not considered attractive.
How do we explain the impulse to protect and nurture the weak and vulnerable? Many people marry someone they see as needing them. This is a human impulse too.
There are two methods, an old one and a new one. The old one is to spend more time with fewer people. The new one is to know more about new people as soon as you meet them. This is one of the goals of projects like Google Glass.
Imagine talking to someone at a conference and seeing a summary of their expertise from StackOverflow, an estimate of their credit score or their peer reviews from GlassDoor or LinkedIn right next to their head.
Imagine talking to someone and using an app that assigns a probability the person is telling the truth based on language, tone, facial changes and reviews from other users of that app.
Those kinds of things are part of Google's ambition for glass. Even now, Google can tell you someone's name and where they're from, allowing you to catch basic lies you wouldn't normally notice.
Edit: Given the downvotes without explanation, I have to explain that I'm not a fan of Google glass - I'm just explaining that Google wants to instantly deliver information about people that currently is learned over time.
>Imagine talking to someone and using an app that assigns a probability the person is telling the truth based on language, tone, facial changes and reviews from other users of that app.
That would be no better than our current biological means of handling the problem though. They both rely on analyzing data from sources that may or may not be accurate and assigning probabilities. What happens to the person who is given a high probability of being a liar because we have biased data based on race, sex, gender etc?
The problem is indeed very complicated and I'm not convinced technology will do a better job at that. Tech doesn't know that this person who has a poor review on linkedIn or whatever was actually suffering through loss of a close friend, relationship issues, etc. which all affected his/her mood.
As much as I love offloading tasks to automated systems, I fear that we might go too far and offload some of the things that make up our core humanity too.
I agree with your overall opinion about humanity, and I am too familiar with credit reports to think they are perfect arbiters.
However, we have to ask what exactly we are wanting to trust when we meet people. Once we know what that is, then we can develop technology to receive the information earlier in the relationship. This already happens, just not in time to affect the first impression.
When we meet people, we don't know anything about them, so if we have the goal of removing bias from first encounters with people, we either have to train people assume nothing about them, which is foolish and probably impossible, or provide (hopefully unbiased) information that is valued more than what the person perceives to be the benefit of the bias.
I don't disagree, but is this something we can deal with? It seems more biological and evolutionary than anything. We want to associate ourselves with people who appear happy and trust worthy, even for superficial reasons. It's quick (apparently effective) and it's in our best interest.
I'd love if someone could back me up on this because I have no evidence, but from what I've seen, society is becoming increasingly shallow. Men and women are held to such high standards of beauty, and I don't think this is merely the result of excellent marketing by fashion magazines and affluent lifestyles.
The images portrayed in pop-culture are a reflection of what we want to see - the free market has simply capitalized on it.