A story as a counter point: In my field of study there were several people with reputations for having had wacky ideas or following rabbit holes too far and publishing obtuse conclusions. When these people gave talks you could see most of the audience pre-judging their current presentation based on a filter put in place from previous or concurrent unpopular work.

What I always noticed was that my advisor, who is rather famous in our niche of science, never dismissed a person for their history or pet interpretations. He would listen to everyone equally and dismiss ideas or concepts as they were presented. Because of this he was able to glean amazing insight from people that were outright dismissed by almost everyone else in the field.

Everyone can be put in one conceptual box, but all of us also pour over into others. You are not so busy that you can't evaluate people based on their current and real merit, instead of racial profiling or dismissing people that made a mistake in the past.

tldr; your false filters are holding you back.

Academics have lots of 'ivory tower' opportunities. But how about an HR rep? A recruiter? Profiling can actually help those folks get their work done, clear their backlog, get them home to supper on time.

Most people don't meet so many people that they can't spare a few minutes politeness. Mostly prejudicial judgements are made out of laziness and incompetence, not because they are useful. Obviously I don't know your circumstances. I guess if you did meet a lot of people and were seeking certain types (e.g. direct sales looking for customers) it would make sense to improve your odds by profiling. However, even then, I can't see why you wouldn't want to be polite and tactful during actual interactions. Especially if you were about to make a snap judgement that the other person might find offensive.

Well said. I like to think I give folks a chance. My comment was exploring why profiling is so pervasive.

Because it works. People profiling can be wrong, but they're more likely to be right given the odds.

They'd much rather be wrong on one case and save a hole lot of time, than make sure they get all the cases and finally find nothing. They could find a gem, but what are the odds, it's a gem after all.