6 ms·

Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it.

36 points by Concours 16y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
I remember the first time I worked out that life's not fair. There's no over-arching justice to ensure that just because someone beats be at one thing they won't beat me at another. Nature as a whole has no sense of fair play. The best you can do is get on with life. Having said that, if you treat people well you often find that their sense of fair play gives you a safety net. But always remember: "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something." — William Goldman (The Princess Bride) ADDED IN EDIT: I've just been checking - although the line is in the film, it's not in the book.
- gaius 16y ago
  "Fair" is "if you don't work you don't eat" but that isn't what people actually want...
  - thalur 16y ago
    Is that "fair"?, or is that what those who worked all their lives want everyone to believe in order to justify themselves having worked all their lives? Just a thought, not an opinion.
    - sp332 16y ago
      I don't think that makes sense. Maybe "If you don't work you get to eat anyway" is what those who sat on their fat asses all day want everyone to believe to justify sitting on their asses all day.
      - redorb 16y ago
        I know many skiny lazy people; We can debate without slandering... I think "Working your whole life" and "not working and taking it easy your whole life" are both choices with consequences.. not choices necessarily between right and wrong in the big picture. Perhaps right and wrong in your head but not universally.
  - cema 16y ago
    Fair is more complicated. Mercy is part of fair. And, of course, treating our young and old in a different way than healthy adults is fair.
    - gaius 16y ago
      Mercy is an exemption from fair. Sometimes mercy is right, true. But as often, mercy to one is "unfair" to another.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    So it is fair if some people are born as slaves and some as masters? Or how is your statement to be interpreted? It could mean that somebody earning fuck you money is not fair, because then that person would not have to work to eat anymore.
    - gaius 16y ago
      Not sure how you extrapolated that! But it is true that if the average person does not create more wealth than they consume, your society is eating its seed corn. Why shouldn't there be a requirement that everyone pulls their weight? The modern-day leftie has forgotten that Marx also said from each according to his ability.
- Alex3917 16y ago
  Fair is an agreement between two people who like each other. Of course life isn't fair, but it's not unfair either. The function just won't evaluate with life as an argument.
- Zolt 16y ago
  Giraffe Rider, I have always said “life is not fair” but recently have come to believe and accept it. A 36 year old friend was an innocent victim of an automobile accident seven weeks ago. He is still unable to communicate and move. A respectable individual with a wife and three young girls. Another "young" (42) neighbor of mine, father with three kids. Cancer came back of out remission and a recent bone marrow transplant failed. >The best you can do is get on with life. Agreed. Part of being born is dying. We need to accept our fate, make the best of it and move on. I now have a much deeper appreciation of my good health (and most of my family members around me). I don’t take it for granted any more.
- klenwell 16y ago
  I've always found consolation in a line from one of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales: "Injustice has parcelled out the world, nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow."
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
lionhearted 16y ago
> I think history shows Americans want fundamental fairness for all who are just like them. For everyone else: if life is not fair, that's tough. If anyone is bored and wants some insight onto the results of political shifts, make a list of your estimates of the most powerful countries in the world in 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2000. Note the positions of European countries on the list, particularly Great Britain, who I'd rate at #1 in 1700, #1 in 1800, #1 in 1900, and in 2000 ... somewhere between #5 and #10? This trend is both fascinating and seems to be accelerating.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
gaius 16y ago
The past three years have seen the economies in both countries contract violently because of shenanigans by financial speculators hiding behind the legitimacy of our banking institutions Typical BBC revisionism - you would think that the deficit didn't exist prior to 2008. A deficit created by people who believed "fair" meant "some people work and the rest live off them".
- varjag 16y ago
  Or, the deficit created by people who believed financial instruments of service economy is a better route ahead than genuinely productive society.
  - gaius 16y ago
    What are you talking about? The structural deficit in its present form existed prior to 2008, therefore anyone who says it was caused by the bank bailout is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. What was the deficit in 1997?
    - varjag 16y ago
      Reliance on the finance sector existed before 2008, how that contradicts what I say?
      - gaius 16y ago
        Oh I see, you are asserting that services aren't "real" economic activity. That's not actually true. It is true that the financial services sector accounts for a higher proportion of our economy than it does in other EU countries (still less than 10%). But it's also true that it is far more diverse than just subprime mortgages, and also true that most of its revenues are earned overseas.
        varjag 16y ago
        Sorry for not being clear enough. No, services are indeed an economic activity. Just that I don't see service reliant economies as sustainable in the long term. They are all in debt, and always were working into debt, unlike traditional industrial societies, which have better track record. And along those lines, it is unfair to complain about high degree of welfare dependency: not everyone can work in the City, and there's only so much pipework to be fixed for plumbers.
known 16y ago
America has better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility
- forinti 16y ago
  But the article states at the bottom that "the USA fairs very poorly when compared to European countries". And the Guardian showed the USA does worse than most OECD economies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst...
  - gyardley 16y ago
    Isn't it interesting that 'worse' and 'very poorly' imply a negative value judgement? We seem to (well, at least I seem to) instinctively dislike the child of privilege, but at the same time I'm very interested in passing on whatever success I manage to have in life to my descendants, and systems and societies that make it more difficult for me to do so strike me as completely unfair. There's a bit of a contradiction here.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      Indeed, I've become a hypocrite myself - I used to abhor private education when I was younger (although I didn't actually have any contact with anyone who had been privately educated when I was at school). Now that I can afford it and the benefits are obvious I send my son to private school where you do get an "unfair" advantage.
    - adin 16y ago
      I personally draw the line where ones success becomes dependent on the misfortune of others. From that viewpoint I don't really know of any systems or societies that does this, except maybe estate/inheritance taxes.
Tichy 16y ago
I think it is just wrong to assume that social security exists because people are so good in their hearts and like being taken advantage of. Probably many (the majority) thinks so, but in reality, it is simply a form of insurance. Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street. That is a purely selfish reason - I think solid political systems should be based on selfishness.
- dan00 16y ago
  "I think solid political systems should be based on selfishness." This can't work, because there's no end in selfishness. If you're more selfish than others, than you will have an advantage, as long the others are a bit less selfish. At the end selfishness harms itself.
  - Tichy 16y ago
    If you are too selfish, society will cast you out. So it is selfish to not be too selfish. I don't mean everybody should be as selfish as possible, just that society should be a net win. Granted, it is more difficult than it sounds.
- rick888 16y ago
  " Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street." More social programs just create a lower class that has a lifetime dependence on the government for money. It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate. Detroit is a good example of this. There were more social programs and money pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate is #2 in the US.
  - adin 16y ago
    It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate. [...] There were more social programs and money pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate is #2 in the US. This should be pretty obvious to most HN readers, but I'm reminding people anyway. "Correlation does not imply causation".
  - Tichy 16y ago
splat 16y ago
Also related: Experimental Economist Bart Wilson on the Meaning of "Fair" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFpB7z5y3Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFpB7z5y3Y
- gyardley 16y ago
  Fascinating - the researcher in the video mentioned that 'fair' is an English-language concept without a precise one-to-one translation in other languages. Briefly messing about with Google Translate seems to bear this out - for many of the other languages I checked, Google suggested one word meaning 'just' and another meaning 'equitable'.
  - cema 16y ago
    Deep down these are philosophical concepts, so it should not be surprising that different natural languages developed words with slightly different shades of meaning. Language may be misleading too. For example, I think that the fair in "fair game" is different from the fair as in "fair society".
rdtsc 16y ago
Life is not fair objectively but there is the belief that it _ought_ to be fair. That makes a big difference. It is part of the common sense protocol of interacting with people. _Most_ people will assume that life ought to be fair, they also assume that others assume the same thing. This belief in fairness can be exploited by sociopaths and those who end up in power. Of course, one can argue they ended up in a position of power because they exploited others' "fairness" expectation. This probably has implications for how crime and punishment is treated by different cultures. The strong belief in a universal justice often gets used by the penal system to punish criminals in proportion to how much "retribution" the victim (or their family) demands. This is usually veiled in a some kind of a "the victim's family needs closure" type argument. At the same time, I think, this revenge based justice is a result (and a perversion) of a universal religious justice that many members of the society have (had?). The idea that life is fair even beyond life, and afterlife is a place where retribution and rewards are dealt with. It is interesting how for such a Christian nation, America has such a harsh penal system -- one would expect all those Christians to just let the criminals be punished in the afterlife. EDIT: some syntax errors, clarity
- valkyrja 16y ago
  It is interesting how for such a Christian nation, America has such a harsh penal system -- one would expect all those Christians to just let the criminals be punished in the afterlife. It's not really that surprising. If I'm not wrong, the range of offenses in America included "sins" like idolatry, blasphemy and witchcraft. Society reflects on what gets a man into prison. Religious judgment has had something to say and it's not always "turn the other cheek" Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh penal system is naive at its best.
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    I guess the point is that it indirectly reflects the hypocrisy and highlights the lack of faith in the religious beliefs for those who profess them. In other words, the extreme expected outcome would be to either forgive, or to not forgive and let afterlife take care of delivering the just reward or punshment. Neither one of those choices should result in severe punishment for criminals just for the sake of revenge. > Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh penal system is naive at its best. I do not actually believe that. I was arguing more as a logic exercize, to highlight the inherent inconsistency and hypocricy in how the judicial and legal system is setup vis-a-vis the prevalent religious beliefs in this country.

36 points by Concours 16y ago

I remember the first time I worked out that life's not fair. There's no over-arching justice to ensure that just because someone beats be at one thing they won't beat me at another. Nature as a whole has no sense of fair play. The best you can do is get on with life. Having said that, if you treat people well you often find that their sense of fair play gives you a safety net. But always remember: "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something." — William Goldman (The Princess Bride) ADDED IN EDIT: I've just been checking - although the line is in the film, it's not in the book.

gaius 16y ago
"Fair" is "if you don't work you don't eat" but that isn't what people actually want...
- thalur 16y ago
  Is that "fair"?, or is that what those who worked all their lives want everyone to believe in order to justify themselves having worked all their lives? Just a thought, not an opinion.
  - sp332 16y ago
    I don't think that makes sense. Maybe "If you don't work you get to eat anyway" is what those who sat on their fat asses all day want everyone to believe to justify sitting on their asses all day.
    - redorb 16y ago
      I know many skiny lazy people; We can debate without slandering... I think "Working your whole life" and "not working and taking it easy your whole life" are both choices with consequences.. not choices necessarily between right and wrong in the big picture. Perhaps right and wrong in your head but not universally.
- cema 16y ago
  Fair is more complicated. Mercy is part of fair. And, of course, treating our young and old in a different way than healthy adults is fair.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Mercy is an exemption from fair. Sometimes mercy is right, true. But as often, mercy to one is "unfair" to another.
- Tichy 16y ago
  So it is fair if some people are born as slaves and some as masters? Or how is your statement to be interpreted? It could mean that somebody earning fuck you money is not fair, because then that person would not have to work to eat anymore.
  - gaius 16y ago
    Not sure how you extrapolated that! But it is true that if the average person does not create more wealth than they consume, your society is eating its seed corn. Why shouldn't there be a requirement that everyone pulls their weight? The modern-day leftie has forgotten that Marx also said from each according to his ability.
Alex3917 16y ago
Fair is an agreement between two people who like each other. Of course life isn't fair, but it's not unfair either. The function just won't evaluate with life as an argument.
Zolt 16y ago
Giraffe Rider, I have always said “life is not fair” but recently have come to believe and accept it. A 36 year old friend was an innocent victim of an automobile accident seven weeks ago. He is still unable to communicate and move. A respectable individual with a wife and three young girls. Another "young" (42) neighbor of mine, father with three kids. Cancer came back of out remission and a recent bone marrow transplant failed. >The best you can do is get on with life. Agreed. Part of being born is dying. We need to accept our fate, make the best of it and move on. I now have a much deeper appreciation of my good health (and most of my family members around me). I don’t take it for granted any more.
klenwell 16y ago
I've always found consolation in a line from one of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales: "Injustice has parcelled out the world, nor is there equal division of aught save of sorrow."

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

lionhearted 16y ago

> I think history shows Americans want fundamental fairness for all who are just like them. For everyone else: if life is not fair, that's tough. If anyone is bored and wants some insight onto the results of political shifts, make a list of your estimates of the most powerful countries in the world in 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2000. Note the positions of European countries on the list, particularly Great Britain, who I'd rate at #1 in 1700, #1 in 1800, #1 in 1900, and in 2000 ... somewhere between #5 and #10? This trend is both fascinating and seems to be accelerating.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

gaius 16y ago

The past three years have seen the economies in both countries contract violently because of shenanigans by financial speculators hiding behind the legitimacy of our banking institutions Typical BBC revisionism - you would think that the deficit didn't exist prior to 2008. A deficit created by people who believed "fair" meant "some people work and the rest live off them".

varjag 16y ago
Or, the deficit created by people who believed financial instruments of service economy is a better route ahead than genuinely productive society.
- gaius 16y ago
  What are you talking about? The structural deficit in its present form existed prior to 2008, therefore anyone who says it was caused by the bank bailout is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. What was the deficit in 1997?
  - varjag 16y ago
    Reliance on the finance sector existed before 2008, how that contradicts what I say?
    - gaius 16y ago
      Oh I see, you are asserting that services aren't "real" economic activity. That's not actually true. It is true that the financial services sector accounts for a higher proportion of our economy than it does in other EU countries (still less than 10%). But it's also true that it is far more diverse than just subprime mortgages, and also true that most of its revenues are earned overseas.
      - varjag 16y ago
        Sorry for not being clear enough. No, services are indeed an economic activity. Just that I don't see service reliant economies as sustainable in the long term. They are all in debt, and always were working into debt, unlike traditional industrial societies, which have better track record. And along those lines, it is unfair to complain about high degree of welfare dependency: not everyone can work in the City, and there's only so much pipework to be fixed for plumbers.

known 16y ago

America has better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

forinti 16y ago
But the article states at the bottom that "the USA fairs very poorly when compared to European countries". And the Guardian showed the USA does worse than most OECD economies: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-mobility http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst...
- gyardley 16y ago
  Isn't it interesting that 'worse' and 'very poorly' imply a negative value judgement? We seem to (well, at least I seem to) instinctively dislike the child of privilege, but at the same time I'm very interested in passing on whatever success I manage to have in life to my descendants, and systems and societies that make it more difficult for me to do so strike me as completely unfair. There's a bit of a contradiction here.
  - arethuza 16y ago
    Indeed, I've become a hypocrite myself - I used to abhor private education when I was younger (although I didn't actually have any contact with anyone who had been privately educated when I was at school). Now that I can afford it and the benefits are obvious I send my son to private school where you do get an "unfair" advantage.
  - adin 16y ago
    I personally draw the line where ones success becomes dependent on the misfortune of others. From that viewpoint I don't really know of any systems or societies that does this, except maybe estate/inheritance taxes.

Tichy 16y ago

I think it is just wrong to assume that social security exists because people are so good in their hearts and like being taken advantage of. Probably many (the majority) thinks so, but in reality, it is simply a form of insurance. Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street. That is a purely selfish reason - I think solid political systems should be based on selfishness.

dan00 16y ago
"I think solid political systems should be based on selfishness." This can't work, because there's no end in selfishness. If you're more selfish than others, than you will have an advantage, as long the others are a bit less selfish. At the end selfishness harms itself.
- Tichy 16y ago
  If you are too selfish, society will cast you out. So it is selfish to not be too selfish. I don't mean everybody should be as selfish as possible, just that society should be a net win. Granted, it is more difficult than it sounds.
rick888 16y ago
" Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street." More social programs just create a lower class that has a lifetime dependence on the government for money. It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate. Detroit is a good example of this. There were more social programs and money pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate is #2 in the US.
- adin 16y ago
  It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate. [...] There were more social programs and money pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate is #2 in the US. This should be pretty obvious to most HN readers, but I'm reminding people anyway. "Correlation does not imply causation".
- Tichy 16y ago

splat 16y ago

Also related: Experimental Economist Bart Wilson on the Meaning of "Fair" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFpB7z5y3Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFpB7z5y3Y

gyardley 16y ago
Fascinating - the researcher in the video mentioned that 'fair' is an English-language concept without a precise one-to-one translation in other languages. Briefly messing about with Google Translate seems to bear this out - for many of the other languages I checked, Google suggested one word meaning 'just' and another meaning 'equitable'.
- cema 16y ago
  Deep down these are philosophical concepts, so it should not be surprising that different natural languages developed words with slightly different shades of meaning. Language may be misleading too. For example, I think that the fair in "fair game" is different from the fair as in "fair society".

rdtsc 16y ago

Life is not fair objectively but there is the belief that it _ought_ to be fair. That makes a big difference. It is part of the common sense protocol of interacting with people. _Most_ people will assume that life ought to be fair, they also assume that others assume the same thing. This belief in fairness can be exploited by sociopaths and those who end up in power. Of course, one can argue they ended up in a position of power because they exploited others' "fairness" expectation. This probably has implications for how crime and punishment is treated by different cultures. The strong belief in a universal justice often gets used by the penal system to punish criminals in proportion to how much "retribution" the victim (or their family) demands. This is usually veiled in a some kind of a "the victim's family needs closure" type argument. At the same time, I think, this revenge based justice is a result (and a perversion) of a universal religious justice that many members of the society have (had?). The idea that life is fair even beyond life, and afterlife is a place where retribution and rewards are dealt with. It is interesting how for such a Christian nation, America has such a harsh penal system -- one would expect all those Christians to just let the criminals be punished in the afterlife. EDIT: some syntax errors, clarity

valkyrja 16y ago
It is interesting how for such a Christian nation, America has such a harsh penal system -- one would expect all those Christians to just let the criminals be punished in the afterlife. It's not really that surprising. If I'm not wrong, the range of offenses in America included "sins" like idolatry, blasphemy and witchcraft. Society reflects on what gets a man into prison. Religious judgment has had something to say and it's not always "turn the other cheek" Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh penal system is naive at its best.
- rdtsc 16y ago
  I guess the point is that it indirectly reflects the hypocrisy and highlights the lack of faith in the religious beliefs for those who profess them. In other words, the extreme expected outcome would be to either forgive, or to not forgive and let afterlife take care of delivering the just reward or punshment. Neither one of those choices should result in severe punishment for criminals just for the sake of revenge. > Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh penal system is naive at its best. I do not actually believe that. I was arguing more as a logic exercize, to highlight the inherent inconsistency and hypocricy in how the judicial and legal system is setup vis-a-vis the prevalent religious beliefs in this country.