3 ms·

> Banks lend out money based on it. Courts make judgement based on it. Government gives out social support based on it. Insurance rates and medical care is all

> Banks lend out money based on it. Courts make judgement based on it. Government gives out social support based on it. Insurance rates and medical care is all about individual assessment. ... these are all examples of places where bias is rampant. Banks, courts, government assistance, insurance premiums, and even medical care are not delivered to all individuals equally. Not at all. Not remotely. Through activism and lawsuits that these areas have made strides towards fairness... but you seem to be holding them up as an example of treating people as individuals “done right” or “done successfully”. To briefly take these one by one: > Banks lend out money based on it. - banks had to be forced to do this. > Courts make judgement based on it. - this is laughable. The legal system in the US punishes African Americans more strongly that Caucasians for the same crimes. > Government gives out social support based on it. - maybe? > Insurance rates and medical care is all about individual assesment - doctors provide more medication for pain at the same level to white patients vs black patients. Proxies for race are all over insurance. Women had to pay more for healthcare until very recent. Without active efforts that were made over many years to tip the scales and correct these bad outcomes, all of this would be much much worse. > History does not dictate the future and it doesn't create any benefits and drawbacks unless we treat people based on category and class rather then individuals. I respectfully suggest that the above statement is completely incoherent with reality, and represents weird wishful thinking.

belorn 8y ago
So you want to return to the old ways where banks look at gender, race and economic class? Where courts make predefined judgment and don't even bother to giver a person their day in court? Where government make one size fit all decision based on gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation? Where insurance companies refuse insurance based on race? Where doctors use force sterilization, or outright refuse service based on race or economical class? Where kids of low economical class is not allowed to go to school. > Through activism and lawsuits that these areas have made strides towards fairness... but you seem to be holding them up as an example of treating people as individuals “done right” or “done successfully”. Through equal respectfully suggestion, the above statement is completely incoherent with reality of today, and represents weird negative thinking. The improvement on those area are real, and suggesting that the old ways are better is sad. > I respectfully suggest ... If you are trying to insult someone don't bother to wrap it up like that. If you want a thread full of insults then just insult, and if you do not want that then rethink what you wrote and why you wrote it.
- themarkn 8y ago
  You are right - I should have written more carefully. I strongly disagree with the statement, but you are still a person and the fact that we don't currently agree on this doesn't mean I should insult you. It was bad writing. I did mean to target the statement, not the person. However your questions in this reply, and the idea that I think the "old ways" are better ... I mean that's not in my argument. That's creating a false binary and trying to contort my statements into something that you can readily dismiss. You are insisting that somehow continuing to improve things means returning to the old ways. It also seems to be a common tactic used by people with power to justify the status quo. I'm ok with dropping it here since we're apparently talking right past each other.
  - belorn 8y ago
    We are talking past each other, but with the correct tone maybe we could find if and what we disagree on. Lets apply a quota system to those system above that today operate on individual assessment, using current imbalance that statistical evidence can detect. Banks have data on who defaults on loans based on any number of conceivable categories, and likely incorporate some of that during an assessment. A quota system where they would grant or deny loans based on a single identity would not only be less fair because individuals can be part of multiple groups, but it would also institutionalize discrimination based on historical data. For the benefit of society it would be better if the system was more blind and relied less on the fact that people from low economic class defaults more on their loan that those from the higher economic classes. Insurance companies is in the same boat. Having people of different categories pay higher rates make sense from a historical perspective, but it make for a worse society when women automatically pay higher medical insurance and men pay higher car insurance. Quotas where people are sorted into specific rates create a worse society. Thankfully for both banking and insurance, individual assessment is more economical from a corporate perspective. A strict quota system which simply represented a single category of assumed risk is less effective at predicting a individual person. Individual employees of companies might still use discriminative quotas as shortcuts, but thankfully in most places that is illegal under anti-discrimination laws. There is no quota on how many African Americans can get a loan regardless of the rate of defaulting that that group historically has. Some people have jested and suggested to have quotas in the legal system to correct existing bias. They say: Simply put more white people (and women) in jail! Obviously a quota system here would be terrible and the issue of racism and sexism in the legal system should be fixed through better individual assessments rather than quotas. Race and gender blindness would be a major improvement, while quotas would make society a much darker place. See the theme here where blindness is the general cure to the ailment of bias and where quotas based on historical data would be terrible? Let see some examples where quotas are used. There is an infamous school "lottery" in some places where kids from rich families have multiple choices (since they can sigh up to any number of good schools and move to places where they "win"), while kids from low economical class do not have that option and simply has to hope that they get one of the token slots from the good schools that their class get a quota from. Quotas has made matters worse, as been argued by teacher, parents and politicians alike. You don't fix the problem of good and bad schools through quotas, but rather by fixing the schools. The school should be blind to how much money a child parents has and simply provide the teaching that each individual child need. Which lead us to the last area, medicine. Here quotas is currently used as a cost saving mechanism, where instead of individual assessment you have screenings and vaccines based on race, gender and age. It is a definitively worse system but since individual assessments are costly and doctors are limited in numbers it is still being used. The idea to give people medical care without medical assessment is at odds with modern practice of not doing harm, and the optimal solution is always to do individual assessments based on personal needs. Quotas is used as a last ditch effort when the benefits clearly outweighs the cost through careful and very conservative considerations. Quotas are dangerous and medical history is full of the harm they have done. This is why I brought those examples. Each of them operate today on treating people as individuals and while neither system is perfect, adding quotas to them makes things worse rather then better. At best it can be used as a last ditch effort, but only if all other methods have been explored and one recognize the massive potential for harm that it introduce. I understand why it quotas feel attractive but to claim that it is impossible to treat people as individuals is practically giving up on the foundation of modern society.

belorn 8y ago

So you want to return to the old ways where banks look at gender, race and economic class? Where courts make predefined judgment and don't even bother to giver a person their day in court? Where government make one size fit all decision based on gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation? Where insurance companies refuse insurance based on race? Where doctors use force sterilization, or outright refuse service based on race or economical class? Where kids of low economical class is not allowed to go to school. > Through activism and lawsuits that these areas have made strides towards fairness... but you seem to be holding them up as an example of treating people as individuals “done right” or “done successfully”. Through equal respectfully suggestion, the above statement is completely incoherent with reality of today, and represents weird negative thinking. The improvement on those area are real, and suggesting that the old ways are better is sad. > I respectfully suggest ... If you are trying to insult someone don't bother to wrap it up like that. If you want a thread full of insults then just insult, and if you do not want that then rethink what you wrote and why you wrote it.

themarkn 8y ago
You are right - I should have written more carefully. I strongly disagree with the statement, but you are still a person and the fact that we don't currently agree on this doesn't mean I should insult you. It was bad writing. I did mean to target the statement, not the person. However your questions in this reply, and the idea that I think the "old ways" are better ... I mean that's not in my argument. That's creating a false binary and trying to contort my statements into something that you can readily dismiss. You are insisting that somehow continuing to improve things means returning to the old ways. It also seems to be a common tactic used by people with power to justify the status quo. I'm ok with dropping it here since we're apparently talking right past each other.
- belorn 8y ago
  We are talking past each other, but with the correct tone maybe we could find if and what we disagree on. Lets apply a quota system to those system above that today operate on individual assessment, using current imbalance that statistical evidence can detect. Banks have data on who defaults on loans based on any number of conceivable categories, and likely incorporate some of that during an assessment. A quota system where they would grant or deny loans based on a single identity would not only be less fair because individuals can be part of multiple groups, but it would also institutionalize discrimination based on historical data. For the benefit of society it would be better if the system was more blind and relied less on the fact that people from low economic class defaults more on their loan that those from the higher economic classes. Insurance companies is in the same boat. Having people of different categories pay higher rates make sense from a historical perspective, but it make for a worse society when women automatically pay higher medical insurance and men pay higher car insurance. Quotas where people are sorted into specific rates create a worse society. Thankfully for both banking and insurance, individual assessment is more economical from a corporate perspective. A strict quota system which simply represented a single category of assumed risk is less effective at predicting a individual person. Individual employees of companies might still use discriminative quotas as shortcuts, but thankfully in most places that is illegal under anti-discrimination laws. There is no quota on how many African Americans can get a loan regardless of the rate of defaulting that that group historically has. Some people have jested and suggested to have quotas in the legal system to correct existing bias. They say: Simply put more white people (and women) in jail! Obviously a quota system here would be terrible and the issue of racism and sexism in the legal system should be fixed through better individual assessments rather than quotas. Race and gender blindness would be a major improvement, while quotas would make society a much darker place. See the theme here where blindness is the general cure to the ailment of bias and where quotas based on historical data would be terrible? Let see some examples where quotas are used. There is an infamous school "lottery" in some places where kids from rich families have multiple choices (since they can sigh up to any number of good schools and move to places where they "win"), while kids from low economical class do not have that option and simply has to hope that they get one of the token slots from the good schools that their class get a quota from. Quotas has made matters worse, as been argued by teacher, parents and politicians alike. You don't fix the problem of good and bad schools through quotas, but rather by fixing the schools. The school should be blind to how much money a child parents has and simply provide the teaching that each individual child need. Which lead us to the last area, medicine. Here quotas is currently used as a cost saving mechanism, where instead of individual assessment you have screenings and vaccines based on race, gender and age. It is a definitively worse system but since individual assessments are costly and doctors are limited in numbers it is still being used. The idea to give people medical care without medical assessment is at odds with modern practice of not doing harm, and the optimal solution is always to do individual assessments based on personal needs. Quotas is used as a last ditch effort when the benefits clearly outweighs the cost through careful and very conservative considerations. Quotas are dangerous and medical history is full of the harm they have done. This is why I brought those examples. Each of them operate today on treating people as individuals and while neither system is perfect, adding quotas to them makes things worse rather then better. At best it can be used as a last ditch effort, but only if all other methods have been explored and one recognize the massive potential for harm that it introduce. I understand why it quotas feel attractive but to claim that it is impossible to treat people as individuals is practically giving up on the foundation of modern society.