2 ms·

Literally no one is treating race as if it was about "melanin content of [one's] skin", so that's a strawman if I ever saw one. It's a very visible trait, stro

• cycrutchfield 7y ago
  Well, police don’t perform actions based on the identity of your parents or grandparents. Skin color is evidently a pretty important feature in terms of determining the actions that police may take. But, let’s follow your logic for a second. It seems you are suggesting that it is acceptable for insurance companies to ask you for the identity of your parents or grandparents to decide what rates to charge you. Does that sound like an outcome that you think would be acceptable?
  • pnako 7y ago
    Not necessarily (I haven't thought about the issue too much). My point is more that, if insurance companies discriminate using any non-genetic, non-biological criterion, the outcome would still not be a distribution strictly representative of the population. Because people's choices are influenced by their background. For example, it's quite probable that the distribution of brand and type of car is not uniform across racial lines (or between men and women). Would you consider the outcome resulting from this to be biased? In fact I'm pretty sure it's how European insurance companies still manage to charge more for men, despite being forbidden to explicitly ask that information. That information still affects the pricing model through things like occupation, etc.