but surely people mean something when they say "unbiased", right? (I'll take a stab at it: something like "conveyed without the intention to deceive me, especially politically/financially/etc...")
I get your point, and it's an important one -- but ime conversations are a lot more productive when they're about the ideas, not the words. :)
> something like "conveyed without the intention to deceive me, especially politically/financially/etc...")
That isn't even close to the definition of "unbiased" that I use. To me, something is "unbiased" if it based on facts without being interpreted in accordance with some preexisting belief or worldview.
For what it's worth i agree with this. A realistic example of what i would describe as unbiased is, say, telemetry data from a radio telescope, or a neutral reading of a poem or story.
Tools are unbiased.
I think the real danger is actually in the notion that "bias" is something done to deceive, and I have encountered people who imply this quite a bit in real life
By way of example: I have a strong bias towards the nationalization of infrastructure. Many of my opinions and arguments are designed to support this end because, for reasons I would love to explain I believe it's the best course of action. I am, if anything, prone to never letting anyone leave my company without droning on and on about this! There is not deception involved. People certainly do hide their biases, or lie about things in order to support their arguments, but this is not something inevitable with bias.
Ultimately I think everyone needs to deal with the reality that we ALL have biases and we ALL inject them into our work. This is actually ok, because its part of how we work to build the world we want to live in.
> I think the real danger is actually in the notion that "bias" is something done to deceive, and I have encountered people who imply this quite a bit in real life
I agree entirely. Bias is typically not something that is intentionally done in an attempt to deceive. It comes naturally to people because they look at the world through the lens of their own experiences and beliefs.
Everybody has a bias. The trick is to understand what sort of bias people (including ourselves) have, so we can properly understand what they're saying.
I get your point, and it's an important one -- but ime conversations are a lot more productive when they're about the ideas, not the words. :)