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And that is why it will fail. Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyo

And that is why it will fail. Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. Sadly governments and politicians are too corrupt to implement real fairness and have decided instead for the populist way out while keeping their insane advantage intact.

Fargren 6y ago
Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten times the initial amount of money). I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble about what the definition of bare minimum, but to me it should include housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair, as people who don't have access to those don't have the minimum to compete with those who do. We can't have an equal playing field. But we can perhaps make the bare minimum livable. [1]This is almost impossible, as opposed to entirely impossible
- gremlinsinc 6y ago
  I can't see our modern society lasting without this. Not much longer. Not after covid, and whatever 2020's throw at us, and global warming. Food riots, and real civil discord are only months away, if not weeks.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    That's alarmist and unfounded. The economy has recovered heartily, in general civil discord has gone away in most areas, and grocery stores aren't running out of food or going insane with prices - I'm still sipping fancy kombucha at the same rate I paid a year ago. More people are concerned about whether their uber eats driver is going to show up on time than food riots at the moment. I don't see that changing in the immediate future.
  - esrauch 6y ago
    It seems like plausible fears could be raised for food riots in our lifetimes, but not really in weeks. There's not even widespread shortages and depression era soup kitchen lines today, and those would surely preceed food riots.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor? They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but fundamentally, what does it matter? > housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair I agree in the general but I suspect we disagree quite differently on the details. We do provide housing for the poor, and short term homelessness outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose their home back into another house. We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues. You can walk into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment. Does this mean our society is without fault? Of course not - we've shown repeatedly that we're terrible at finding real solutions for the persistently homeless (and no, shoving them into homes doesn't actually fix their problems as much as it fixes the stats), and healthcare is at best described as "horrifically abberant". And we should fix those things. But that some Hollywood starlett is flying around in a gulfstream has nothing to do with those fundamental problems - it is not a lack of resources but a lack of willingness and deep understanding of the problem space. It's easy to blame the wealthy, it's much harder to solve the actual problem set.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    > We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas Can you actually do anything with just an associate's? In my experience, most places that require college degrees require a minimum of a bachelor's.
    - vorpalhex 6y ago
      My local community college offers some bachelor degrees, and an associates degree can be a meaningful life change even if it's just a move to a management position.
  - biomodel 6y ago
    And this is why UBI was supported by right leaning economists like Milton Friedman. If we believe that people in wealthy societies should have a minimal standard of living including basic food, housing and health care then we can provide it through the market in the form of a basic income It will avoid the perverse incentives that lead people to get costly health care in the ER (which is then covered by other patients) instead of having health insurance and receiving preventative care It can prevent people from avoiding getting a higher income lest they start earning too much to qualify for the social programs they depend on No UBI won't fix all problems - but it may very well pay for itself through better externalities
- wutwutwutwut 6y ago
  Why do you prefer a definition that is achievable? What you describe is of course good, but maybe we could just call that a welfare society or some other words. Giving people the bare minimum won't automatically make their lives fair.
- baconandeggs 6y ago
  > Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. You are redefining fair to mean equal. I don't want equal at the expense of fair. Inheritance is a made up rule, and as such can be unmade without having to change the definition of fairness. But second, age is thing, older people tend to have accumulated more wealth than younger people, even without inheritance. Younger people tend to be fitter and more attractive and Hollywood knows it. An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans. And that is why I say fairness is the most important, the rules have to be the same for everyone because that is the part that is up to us.
  - akuchling 6y ago
    "the rules have to be the same for everyone" "The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." --Anatole France (I always meant to get a more precise source for this quote.)
  - danans 6y ago
    > I don't want equal at the expense of fair. > An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans. Extreme economic inequality drives unfairness by tipping the scales towards the very wealthy. Nobody is suggesting that we somehow enforce biological equality, whether between individuals of the same age, or among individuals of very different ages. To suggest so is a strawman intended to distract from the real problem of growing economic inequality. Also, you don't need to abolish inheritance to increase fairness, but in the context of growing inequality, you must limit the extent to which it drives unfairness by phasing it out as wealth grows exponentially.
  - Fargren 6y ago
    I'll restate what I said: In a game of Monopoly, someone who starts with more money is not playing under the same rules. A game of Monopoly where one player starts with more money is not a fair game, even thought we all move 6 spaces forward when we roll a six. The same thing is true in life. Perhaps I can put it another way: the existing laws are not the only rules that govern our laws. We all live under the same laws, but we don't all live under the same rules. For some people, it's a rule that if they quit their job they will quickly be homeless. For other people (whose only merit is to be born in the right place), there is not such rule. This is not fair. My definition of fair is not perfect, but it looks to resolve the most egregious cases of unfairness I can think of.
- econcon 6y ago
  Some people are also more attractive and they are able to capitalize on it easily, they are treated better etc.. You are just targeting one thing it's called inheritance, what about other things like "social network and connections which are passed to the new heirs in the family", beauty/atheletic abilities and other talent?
skybrian 6y ago
People talk about it a lot but I don’t think there is any agreement on what fairness is. Note that having a leader at all means someone has more power, and that’s inherently unequal, but most people think the benefits are worth it.
- baconandeggs 6y ago
  The law should be the leader. Sadly we have forgotten that.
  - chordalkeyboard 6y ago
    then the people who write the laws become the leaders, except with a layer of obfuscation. how do we make laws that treat everyone equally?
    - ghostwriter 6y ago
      > how do we make laws that treat everyone equally? by stopping enacting laws that are oriented towards the abstract "society as a whole" and "benefits to the society as a whole", and by beginning treating an individual as the smallest minority in the world whose unalienable rights require protection from the crowd.
mrow84 6y ago
> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Can you explain why? And if your answer amounts to "because people provide different amounts of [effort|value] to society" how would you reply to "so what?".
- unfortun8 6y ago
  “1 in 7 billion uses luxury of online anonymity to play at being a nihilist. Forgets real world self and political power is limited to whatever the masses enable. Would rather ostricize self politically than speak up.”
  - mrow84 6y ago
    I presume you are aiming this at me, and if so it doesn't apply - I was simply asking for a rationale for the original claim that "Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair." I would suggest that your retort, presuming that is what it is, is mere posturing; either you have a substantive answer to the question or not - so far you have not provided one.
    - unfortun8 6y ago
      I would suggest you disabuse yourself of the notion such an answer is owed. Someone putting time into a response you’ll accept is a privilege you earn, not an obligation you demand. If your take is “so what”, fine stay home. You become politically irrelevant. “So what” that you even exist and to your political positions then. Our biology doesn’t allow for altruism. John Stuart Mill already covered this; the government should strive to be blind to bias in its institutions, but there’s no stopping a community from literally ejecting the dead weight. Don’t get involved in political conversation that doesn’t draw you in. Whatever. Nobody has to take your indifference to any topic as anything more than the emotional fart of a nobody who is indifferent to supporting people that to them end up being total nobodies. Exist in your circularness of nobody caring. It’s easier when nobody matters.
    - 6y ago
searchableguy 6y ago
Fairness is leveling the playground. It's not equality. By birth, you are unequal. Would you say we should have the same measures for people with physical disabilities from birth and healthy athletes? No. That's why we have separate categories or measures. That is fair. And that is not treating everyone equally.
- baconandeggs 6y ago
  As sad as it is, I say we have to accept reality, and that means that a person with disabilities will not be able to do certain things, which does not mean he/she has nothing to do. Maybe he won't be an athlete but he can of course be a novelist. But we first have to accept the real world and get off this childish notion we are all born equal because as you pointed out, we sadly are not.
  - grafporno 6y ago
    I take it you consider yourself born on the right side of "not equal", more specifically the "better" side?
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      See also the "original position" thought experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
  - searchableguy 6y ago
    I think you missed my point. We evaluate people differently on their backgrounds already. A 10 year old will be judged and rewarded in a favorable way compared to a 30 year old programmer. My example was to highlight the bias that people already acknowledge as fair. Poverty is a handicap in similar fashion. When we acknowledge the former in age should be judged more leniently and with grater praise, we refer to the statistical odds of a 10 year old being as good as a 30 year old and other 10 year olds. That's the reality. You are refusing to accept it by removing the background of people in your hypothetical world. Fairness is not based on outcome. Someone who never had access to computers, internet, mentors, etc would be judged differently compared to someone who always did. At least I would.
unfortun8 6y ago
What’s truly unfortunate is how the people who can create such a cogent argument about the problems continue to enable them by bloviating at their screens on forums that don’t carry political weight, and avoid activities in general that do carry political weight. Understand the politicians that most contribute to creating the problems are happy to absorb impotent rhetoric all day long. Exceptional and gritty Americans will Grubhub, and social media, and otherwise luxuriate the country off a cliff rather than collectively get behind fairness in a real way.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Just in case someone later asks and you're in doubt: this is where the thread derailed into that most tired exchange of entirely predictable arguments first seen immediately after the publication of Atlas Shrugged, and handed down from one mediocre 16 year-old to the next generation in surprisingly faithful reproduction ever since.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
acituan 6y ago
> Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. That is symmetry, not fairness. By your definition someone born with a disability should not be accommodated (because everyone has to be treated the same by your notion) and possibly left to suffer? Or is it fair that you are enjoying products made in countries by workers that never had have the same rules and treatment you had? What did you deserve to get that, other than sheer luck of being born in the current circumstances? Doesn't familial conditions differ so hugely that no one is really playing against the same rules and treated the same in the formative years of their lives, effects of which amplify for the rest of their lives? No one gets to define "real fairness" without expanding what their normativity is about. And your notion is about symmetry for a subsection of civil life, not about the complexity and entirety of real human lives. I guarantee you if you were born into different circumstances you would have a very different sense of what is fair.

Fargren 6y ago

Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. People who are born in wealthier families are not playing under the same rules (just imagine if a person playing Monopoly started with ten times the initial amount of money). I prefer a definition of fairness that is actually achievable[1]: everyone has at least the bare minimum, regardless of fitness and deserving. You can quibble about what the definition of bare minimum, but to me it should include housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair, as people who don't have access to those don't have the minimum to compete with those who do. We can't have an equal playing field. But we can perhaps make the bare minimum livable. [1]This is almost impossible, as opposed to entirely impossible

gremlinsinc 6y ago
I can't see our modern society lasting without this. Not much longer. Not after covid, and whatever 2020's throw at us, and global warming. Food riots, and real civil discord are only months away, if not weeks.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  That's alarmist and unfounded. The economy has recovered heartily, in general civil discord has gone away in most areas, and grocery stores aren't running out of food or going insane with prices - I'm still sipping fancy kombucha at the same rate I paid a year ago. More people are concerned about whether their uber eats driver is going to show up on time than food riots at the moment. I don't see that changing in the immediate future.
- esrauch 6y ago
  It seems like plausible fears could be raised for food riots in our lifetimes, but not really in weeks. There's not even widespread shortages and depression era soup kitchen lines today, and those would surely preceed food riots.
vorpalhex 6y ago
What's the difference between your local grocery store clerk, and a Hollywood actor? They both likely have cars, homes and an iphone. Sure, your Hollywood actor is probably driving an exotic sports car and their iphone is diamond studded, but fundamentally, what does it matter? > housing, food, education and health. Any society where anyone can't get those things by asking for them is not fair I agree in the general but I suspect we disagree quite differently on the details. We do provide housing for the poor, and short term homelessness outcomes are actually generally positive - we tend to get people who lose their home back into another house. We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas is exceedingly affordable with massive scholarship opportunities available for ivy leagues. You can walk into any hospital and it's illegal for them to refuse you treatment. Does this mean our society is without fault? Of course not - we've shown repeatedly that we're terrible at finding real solutions for the persistently homeless (and no, shoving them into homes doesn't actually fix their problems as much as it fixes the stats), and healthcare is at best described as "horrifically abberant". And we should fix those things. But that some Hollywood starlett is flying around in a gulfstream has nothing to do with those fundamental problems - it is not a lack of resources but a lack of willingness and deep understanding of the problem space. It's easy to blame the wealthy, it's much harder to solve the actual problem set.
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  > We provide free education through a high school diploma and community college in most areas Can you actually do anything with just an associate's? In my experience, most places that require college degrees require a minimum of a bachelor's.
  - vorpalhex 6y ago
    My local community college offers some bachelor degrees, and an associates degree can be a meaningful life change even if it's just a move to a management position.
- biomodel 6y ago
  And this is why UBI was supported by right leaning economists like Milton Friedman. If we believe that people in wealthy societies should have a minimal standard of living including basic food, housing and health care then we can provide it through the market in the form of a basic income It will avoid the perverse incentives that lead people to get costly health care in the ER (which is then covered by other patients) instead of having health insurance and receiving preventative care It can prevent people from avoiding getting a higher income lest they start earning too much to qualify for the social programs they depend on No UBI won't fix all problems - but it may very well pay for itself through better externalities
wutwutwutwut 6y ago
Why do you prefer a definition that is achievable? What you describe is of course good, but maybe we could just call that a welfare society or some other words. Giving people the bare minimum won't automatically make their lives fair.
baconandeggs 6y ago
> Real fairness under that definition can't exist as long as there are inheritances. You are redefining fair to mean equal. I don't want equal at the expense of fair. Inheritance is a made up rule, and as such can be unmade without having to change the definition of fairness. But second, age is thing, older people tend to have accumulated more wealth than younger people, even without inheritance. Younger people tend to be fitter and more attractive and Hollywood knows it. An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans. And that is why I say fairness is the most important, the rules have to be the same for everyone because that is the part that is up to us.
- akuchling 6y ago
  "the rules have to be the same for everyone" "The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." --Anatole France (I always meant to get a more precise source for this quote.)
- danans 6y ago
  > I don't want equal at the expense of fair. > An equal playing field in the way you describe it will never be achievable by humans. Extreme economic inequality drives unfairness by tipping the scales towards the very wealthy. Nobody is suggesting that we somehow enforce biological equality, whether between individuals of the same age, or among individuals of very different ages. To suggest so is a strawman intended to distract from the real problem of growing economic inequality. Also, you don't need to abolish inheritance to increase fairness, but in the context of growing inequality, you must limit the extent to which it drives unfairness by phasing it out as wealth grows exponentially.
- Fargren 6y ago
  I'll restate what I said: In a game of Monopoly, someone who starts with more money is not playing under the same rules. A game of Monopoly where one player starts with more money is not a fair game, even thought we all move 6 spaces forward when we roll a six. The same thing is true in life. Perhaps I can put it another way: the existing laws are not the only rules that govern our laws. We all live under the same laws, but we don't all live under the same rules. For some people, it's a rule that if they quit their job they will quickly be homeless. For other people (whose only merit is to be born in the right place), there is not such rule. This is not fair. My definition of fair is not perfect, but it looks to resolve the most egregious cases of unfairness I can think of.
econcon 6y ago
Some people are also more attractive and they are able to capitalize on it easily, they are treated better etc.. You are just targeting one thing it's called inheritance, what about other things like "social network and connections which are passed to the new heirs in the family", beauty/atheletic abilities and other talent?

skybrian 6y ago

People talk about it a lot but I don’t think there is any agreement on what fairness is. Note that having a leader at all means someone has more power, and that’s inherently unequal, but most people think the benefits are worth it.

baconandeggs 6y ago
The law should be the leader. Sadly we have forgotten that.
- chordalkeyboard 6y ago
  then the people who write the laws become the leaders, except with a layer of obfuscation. how do we make laws that treat everyone equally?
  - ghostwriter 6y ago
    > how do we make laws that treat everyone equally? by stopping enacting laws that are oriented towards the abstract "society as a whole" and "benefits to the society as a whole", and by beginning treating an individual as the smallest minority in the world whose unalienable rights require protection from the crowd.

mrow84 6y ago

> Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair. Can you explain why? And if your answer amounts to "because people provide different amounts of [effort|value] to society" how would you reply to "so what?".

unfortun8 6y ago
“1 in 7 billion uses luxury of online anonymity to play at being a nihilist. Forgets real world self and political power is limited to whatever the masses enable. Would rather ostricize self politically than speak up.”
- mrow84 6y ago
  I presume you are aiming this at me, and if so it doesn't apply - I was simply asking for a rationale for the original claim that "Fairness is not about everyone getting the same amount just for existing, for that in itself is not fair." I would suggest that your retort, presuming that is what it is, is mere posturing; either you have a substantive answer to the question or not - so far you have not provided one.
  - unfortun8 6y ago
    I would suggest you disabuse yourself of the notion such an answer is owed. Someone putting time into a response you’ll accept is a privilege you earn, not an obligation you demand. If your take is “so what”, fine stay home. You become politically irrelevant. “So what” that you even exist and to your political positions then. Our biology doesn’t allow for altruism. John Stuart Mill already covered this; the government should strive to be blind to bias in its institutions, but there’s no stopping a community from literally ejecting the dead weight. Don’t get involved in political conversation that doesn’t draw you in. Whatever. Nobody has to take your indifference to any topic as anything more than the emotional fart of a nobody who is indifferent to supporting people that to them end up being total nobodies. Exist in your circularness of nobody caring. It’s easier when nobody matters.
  - 6y ago

searchableguy 6y ago

Fairness is leveling the playground. It's not equality. By birth, you are unequal. Would you say we should have the same measures for people with physical disabilities from birth and healthy athletes? No. That's why we have separate categories or measures. That is fair. And that is not treating everyone equally.

baconandeggs 6y ago
As sad as it is, I say we have to accept reality, and that means that a person with disabilities will not be able to do certain things, which does not mean he/she has nothing to do. Maybe he won't be an athlete but he can of course be a novelist. But we first have to accept the real world and get off this childish notion we are all born equal because as you pointed out, we sadly are not.
- grafporno 6y ago
  I take it you consider yourself born on the right side of "not equal", more specifically the "better" side?
  - dane-pgp 6y ago
    See also the "original position" thought experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_position
- searchableguy 6y ago
  I think you missed my point. We evaluate people differently on their backgrounds already. A 10 year old will be judged and rewarded in a favorable way compared to a 30 year old programmer. My example was to highlight the bias that people already acknowledge as fair. Poverty is a handicap in similar fashion. When we acknowledge the former in age should be judged more leniently and with grater praise, we refer to the statistical odds of a 10 year old being as good as a 30 year old and other 10 year olds. That's the reality. You are refusing to accept it by removing the background of people in your hypothetical world. Fairness is not based on outcome. Someone who never had access to computers, internet, mentors, etc would be judged differently compared to someone who always did. At least I would.

unfortun8 6y ago

What’s truly unfortunate is how the people who can create such a cogent argument about the problems continue to enable them by bloviating at their screens on forums that don’t carry political weight, and avoid activities in general that do carry political weight. Understand the politicians that most contribute to creating the problems are happy to absorb impotent rhetoric all day long. Exceptional and gritty Americans will Grubhub, and social media, and otherwise luxuriate the country off a cliff rather than collectively get behind fairness in a real way.

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

Just in case someone later asks and you're in doubt: this is where the thread derailed into that most tired exchange of entirely predictable arguments first seen immediately after the publication of Atlas Shrugged, and handed down from one mediocre 16 year-old to the next generation in surprisingly faithful reproduction ever since.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

acituan 6y ago

> Real fairness is everyone playing against the same rules and being treated the same under the law. That is symmetry, not fairness. By your definition someone born with a disability should not be accommodated (because everyone has to be treated the same by your notion) and possibly left to suffer? Or is it fair that you are enjoying products made in countries by workers that never had have the same rules and treatment you had? What did you deserve to get that, other than sheer luck of being born in the current circumstances? Doesn't familial conditions differ so hugely that no one is really playing against the same rules and treated the same in the formative years of their lives, effects of which amplify for the rest of their lives? No one gets to define "real fairness" without expanding what their normativity is about. And your notion is about symmetry for a subsection of civil life, not about the complexity and entirety of real human lives. I guarantee you if you were born into different circumstances you would have a very different sense of what is fair.