Biases And Blind Spots

On Avoiding Easy Mistakes

5 years ago, I couldn't have named who the manager of Manchester United was, or of the English National Team, or of basically any team in Europe. I was disdainful of the sport, and I probably only could have named five players in the whole sport. And, now, five years later, I'm addicted to the sport. Hell, last night I referred to United as "us" in casual conversation - I'm all in.

Talking to the same person this morning, the topic of budding Chelsea superstar Mason Mount came up, who despite the cardinal sin of being a Chelsea player, I can't help but love. Part of why I love Mount is obvious - he's just really, really good, and finding a rhythm for both Chelsea and England - and part of it is that he is just incredibly likeable, part of a generation of England players that even patriotic Scots can't hate. But more than his likeability or his talent, Mount is just one of my guys. 

It's hard to explain, but Mount just plays the game in a way that has come to excite me over the years of learning this game. Mount plays with a jittery, twitchy energy - he's never still, always trying to move and shift, even without the ball. He can bend defences with his first step, and his goals often tend to highlight-worthy levels because of it. Often watching Chelsea becomes not an exercise in watching the ball, but in watching Mount. My eyes linger on him, because watching him is in some ways more interesting - and, often, more insightful as to what will happen next. His playing style is what I want to watch - I don't enjoy long balls down the flank, but the more refined, precise, bouncy nature that Mount plays with. Unsurprisingly, now that Mount is a star, I'm finding myself a fan, and looking at his England jersey.

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Mount's one of my guys in soccer, but that's not the only sport where this works. Defensive wings with good-not-great shots are my weakness in basketball, and in individual sports I'm drawn to gamblers - Rachel Homan and Jordan Spieth as my favourite curler and golfer, respectively, is a volcano of chaotic energy that might lead to brilliance - or, utter failure. When it works, it really works, but I've seen the chaotic failures from both of them many times. For others, it's a problem, but for me, it's a feature. It's just who I am, a bias.

In sports, my biases are mostly inconsequential - it doesn't really matter who I like or why I like them, but I definitely do have a bias to certain things. What's clear, although never properly articulated, is that it's fair to say I have a similar kind of bias in terms of the politicians I like, or think will work. It's not a bias of ideology - I stan Bernie Sanders while also strongly defending Joe Manchin. I liked Max Rose as a candidate, but I'm not going to be out here saying that brand of moderation should be run in St Louis like in Staten. I'm too much of an electoral pragmatist to object to a candidate on the basis of their ideological positioning.

That said, there clearly are some things that I prefer out of candidates - namely, a straight talker who doesn't triangulate like his life will end if he gives a clear answer to a clear question. It's why I hated Jon Ossoff 1.0 in 2017, and why I loved his 2020 campaign - the former was a consultant driven disaster that should have ended careers in politics, it was that bad. The latter, by contrast, was a masterclass, and Ossoff being himself was endearing, real, and I think electorally helpful. Beto on a Zoom call this week said, "while we did not defeat Ted Cruz - and I apologize to everyone on this call for that, this fucker is the worst," and somehow I like Beto again? What the hell?

Just watching the clip, the Beto of that video was a Beto that I found lacking in 2018 - I thought Beto was trying too hard, fundamentally. It felt forced. Here, it was genuine, and I could tell. The Member of Parliament I used to work for in Canada was once reprimanded pretty substantially by the Liberal Party for stepping out of line and disagreeing with them, fairly strongly, on a suite of proposed tax changes for small businesses. It was after I worked for him, but the thing I said when friends would ask about it was that he was being punished for saying publicly what he thought privately - a trait most politicians don't possess. I'll ride and die for the guy forever for it.

The problem is, I'm sure there will be some straight talking Congressional candidates in the US in 2022, and I'll fall for them in the way I fell for Max Rose. I overvalued Rose's fit for the district because I appreciated Rose's willingness to speak his mind, and while I wasn't the only one to make the mistake, I pretty fundamentally didn't think Rose would lose. I was wrong, and even without the polling miss, I wasn't correct. It was my bias for candidates like him shining through.

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I'll never be able to stop having these sorts of biases - I'm only human, after all - but what matters is not being blind to it. I was blind to a lot of sources of bias in 2020, and that cost me badly. There are no stakes for the fact that I love watching bouncy attacking midfielders and have come to really value strong, holding, stable defensive midfielders from years of watching United struggle anytime we aren't playing Scott McTominay. There are stakes to being wildly, massively wrong about South Carolina and Texas, and the price for that failure is being paid by me every single time I tweet a take that people don't like. It's the price of doing business, and I get that - but it's clear that some of my problems last year were self inflicted. Better bias identification has to be part of ensuring it never happens again. This won't be the last piece I write on the topic, but it is clear that one source of bias in 2022 is going to be to candidates that speak my language. And, my biases can be strong - they've got me considering buying the jersey of Chelsea scum, so you know it's powerful.