Representativeness heuristic

Now I wanted to write something on "moral compass" or "dashed expectation" (the quotes are there for no particular reason), but decided on something "cognitive." I know its not a discovery, but I'm kind of saddened by the realisation that we are limited by our "perception" even though we are aware of such a limitation. I've been talking to M, A, P (not M's P, but my flatmate "P" whom I'll call "PA" from now on to avoid confusion) and found them disappointed with various people for the stuff in quotes in the first sentence, except for the last one. All of them agreed that it is something the last quoted word in the first sentence, but did not "seriously" consider that as a factor influencing anybody's first pair of words in quotes in the paragraph. "Representativeness heuristic is okay, but [insert the name you want] is wrong," is what they seemed to be saying, although nobody said as much.

Now "assuming commonality between objects of similar appearance" is the only way we can handle new objects/people/events along with some homework and an alert mind. But how alert can your mind be? Always? Never. I mean, come on, you cannot what is in quotes in the fourth sentence claim to understand this sentence at one go and we do not have even a total of 221 words till the end of this sentence. If 220 words with some quotes can be this much annoying/confusing/misleading, just think of all the things we have to deal with every day. Imagine how vulnerable we are to making biased judgements and what vitriol we may inadvertantly and deservingly provoke in people we wrong. There is some ingrained last quoted word in the first sentence bias in us, which we cannot do away with. I mean we can do away with ourselves but not with the bias. That's kinda Greek to know that we will all hurt people because there is something seriously wrong with human understanding. Inescapable moira! Unfortunately, the last sentence conjures up an image of K.C. Das, Bhim Nag and Nokur Chondro Nondi chasing me around College Square. Such is the power of perception and association!! I mean the association of dead confectioners. Sex, porn, more porn, deviant porn. That's my gratuitous reference to sex. I almost forgot. Whew! Such a tough task meeting your "expectations." Thank you.

And do not expect the last quoted word in this write up to mean anything special. As I said in the beginning, the quotes are there for the heck of it. Welcome!