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When I have this conversation with myself, here's what I come up with: Shouldn't we be allowed to everything into account when determining credit worthiness? E

When I have this conversation with myself, here's what I come up with: Shouldn't we be allowed to everything into account when determining credit worthiness? Even if it's socially uncomfortable? We get locally more accurate pricing / risk assessment that way, but we also create feedback loops that we as a society have decided we want to not contribute to. The cost for this is the pricing inaccuracy which we collectively eat. So, I don't think you're wrong, but maybe consider if what we're socializing the cost of is worth the price?

slg 6y ago
That is a good summary. An analogy I might add that could further clarify things would be preexisting condition protections for health insurance. Preventing insurance companies from turning down people who they know will require expensive medical care is going to lead to worse pricing for the rest of us. However much of society has decided that is a cost worth enduring in the name of fairness.
- WanderPanda 6y ago
  Problem with this is, this cuts open the feedback loop of being responsible for ones own health. Credit assignment problem all the way
  - NeuNeurosis 6y ago
    Are you American? Because high cost of health insurance does not deter risky behaviors towards health or a glaring lack of responsibility.
- kortilla 6y ago
  Health insurance is weird because it’s become the way you pay for something expected. In every other insurance you will absolutely get denied or charged a huge sum if you’re knowingly going to be a loss. It’s like applying for home fire insurance and saying you burned down your previous 3 homes and will likely burn down this one.
thegrimmest 6y ago
Well, I personally haven't consented to socializing the cost of anything. I'm not sure what the ethical grounds are for imposing this on me, and in so doing dilluting available accuracy of data about people. These feedback loops you're referring to, what order are you proposing for your chicken and your egg? What's causing what in your view?
- Crye 6y ago
  You are consenting by participating in that society.
- WanderPanda 6y ago
  It's called tyranny of the majority and happens in countries with a weak constitution.
- throwaway189262 6y ago
  > Well, I personally haven't consented to socializing the cost of anything. This is a strange take. If you had to "consent" to laws there would be utter chaos. The places where you can pick and choose which laws apply to you have no real laws. And all of those places are dangerous and destitute. That's why laws are decided by the majority, there will always be dissenters for every law out there. Some harmless, but others that want to pillage, burn things down, and worse. There will always be laws that you don't like, unless there's no laws at all.
  - thegrimmest 6y ago
    Here we arrive at the concept of negative and positive rights. You don't have to consent to be subject to laws that bar you from interfering with others. You should have to consent before being forced to provide others with goods and services on the benefit of your labour.
    - throwaway189262 6y ago
      This still doesn't make any sense. Every single government service provided services to people besides you. You're essentially saying there should be no government. The government plows the streets. Provides police and fire service. Makes sure street lights and sidewalks exist. Handles deeds for property. Handles court cases. If you had to "consent" to all these services providing benefits to other people the entire government would cease to exist. "I have to consent to anything that doesn't directly benefit me" means a ton of things aren't even going to exist when you actually need them.
dTal 6y ago
I think the key is "feedback loops". We're not failing to price in inherent differences, out of some moral ideal - we're trying to fix a larger inefficiency, which is that some groups of people are unable to reach their full potential. It's not a cost - it's an investment. It's regulation to fix a negative externality. [digression into risky territory, here be dragons] ...at least, that's the idea if you believe that racial differences are 100% socially constructed. It gets super tricky if it turns out there is an inherent component, which is why the very idea is such a taboo. It wouldn't be especially shocking, from a scientific standpoint, if it turned out that different "races" tended to have subtly different inherent personality traits that might be of interest to creditors or insurers. But it would cause major headaches, if you want to convince people to break those feedback loops! Even if the inherent differences are only a seed, and the feedback loops account for most of the differences in outcome, you have a massive "political" problem on your hands.
- WanderPanda 6y ago
  Doesn't need to be inherent to "races". Why wouldn't culture / way of living be the elephant in the room?
  - chii 6y ago
    well, you could change your culture/way of living. But you can't change your race. If it turned out that race is indeed a component, with proven confidence and evidence, that indicates financial stability or security, then being the wrong race will cause problems for you. But then on the flip side, if you look at say, athletic selection for a sport like basketball or athletics, you'd find that race is inherently a criteria, because certain races seems to have an inherent advantage (or more correctly, certain races seems to have a _disadvantage). But nobody ever says anything in those cases.
    - spijdar 6y ago
      > if you look at say, athletic selection for a sport like basketball or athletics, you'd find that race is inherently a criteria, because certain races seems to have an inherent advantage (or more correctly, certain races seems to have a _disadvantage). But nobody ever says anything in those cases. I think a charitable explanation for why this is, is sports is pretty much always a voluntary activity, so it's natural to not get as worked up over either implicitly or explicitly favoring a race, compared to, say, doing the same thing in employment or scoring someone's credit, which will almost certainly impact everyone in society involuntarily.
zajio1am 6y ago
> So, I don't think you're wrong, but maybe consider if what we're socializing the cost of is worth the price? But you do not socialize the cost, you just move it on someone else. For example, we have two people A, B, with risk-assessing algorithm risk1 gives risk1(A) = 3.3, risk1(B) = 2.9. Risk limit for creditors is 3, so person A would not get credit. But risk1() uses same forbidden information, so we use instead less informed risk2() that got risk2(A) = 2.9, while risk2(B) = 3.1, so now person A would get credit, but person B would not.

slg 6y ago

That is a good summary. An analogy I might add that could further clarify things would be preexisting condition protections for health insurance. Preventing insurance companies from turning down people who they know will require expensive medical care is going to lead to worse pricing for the rest of us. However much of society has decided that is a cost worth enduring in the name of fairness.

WanderPanda 6y ago
Problem with this is, this cuts open the feedback loop of being responsible for ones own health. Credit assignment problem all the way
- NeuNeurosis 6y ago
  Are you American? Because high cost of health insurance does not deter risky behaviors towards health or a glaring lack of responsibility.
kortilla 6y ago
Health insurance is weird because it’s become the way you pay for something expected. In every other insurance you will absolutely get denied or charged a huge sum if you’re knowingly going to be a loss. It’s like applying for home fire insurance and saying you burned down your previous 3 homes and will likely burn down this one.

thegrimmest 6y ago

Well, I personally haven't consented to socializing the cost of anything. I'm not sure what the ethical grounds are for imposing this on me, and in so doing dilluting available accuracy of data about people. These feedback loops you're referring to, what order are you proposing for your chicken and your egg? What's causing what in your view?

Crye 6y ago
You are consenting by participating in that society.
WanderPanda 6y ago
It's called tyranny of the majority and happens in countries with a weak constitution.
throwaway189262 6y ago
> Well, I personally haven't consented to socializing the cost of anything. This is a strange take. If you had to "consent" to laws there would be utter chaos. The places where you can pick and choose which laws apply to you have no real laws. And all of those places are dangerous and destitute. That's why laws are decided by the majority, there will always be dissenters for every law out there. Some harmless, but others that want to pillage, burn things down, and worse. There will always be laws that you don't like, unless there's no laws at all.
- thegrimmest 6y ago
  Here we arrive at the concept of negative and positive rights. You don't have to consent to be subject to laws that bar you from interfering with others. You should have to consent before being forced to provide others with goods and services on the benefit of your labour.
  - throwaway189262 6y ago
    This still doesn't make any sense. Every single government service provided services to people besides you. You're essentially saying there should be no government. The government plows the streets. Provides police and fire service. Makes sure street lights and sidewalks exist. Handles deeds for property. Handles court cases. If you had to "consent" to all these services providing benefits to other people the entire government would cease to exist. "I have to consent to anything that doesn't directly benefit me" means a ton of things aren't even going to exist when you actually need them.

dTal 6y ago

I think the key is "feedback loops". We're not failing to price in inherent differences, out of some moral ideal - we're trying to fix a larger inefficiency, which is that some groups of people are unable to reach their full potential. It's not a cost - it's an investment. It's regulation to fix a negative externality. [digression into risky territory, here be dragons] ...at least, that's the idea if you believe that racial differences are 100% socially constructed. It gets super tricky if it turns out there is an inherent component, which is why the very idea is such a taboo. It wouldn't be especially shocking, from a scientific standpoint, if it turned out that different "races" tended to have subtly different inherent personality traits that might be of interest to creditors or insurers. But it would cause major headaches, if you want to convince people to break those feedback loops! Even if the inherent differences are only a seed, and the feedback loops account for most of the differences in outcome, you have a massive "political" problem on your hands.

WanderPanda 6y ago
Doesn't need to be inherent to "races". Why wouldn't culture / way of living be the elephant in the room?
- chii 6y ago
  well, you could change your culture/way of living. But you can't change your race. If it turned out that race is indeed a component, with proven confidence and evidence, that indicates financial stability or security, then being the wrong race will cause problems for you. But then on the flip side, if you look at say, athletic selection for a sport like basketball or athletics, you'd find that race is inherently a criteria, because certain races seems to have an inherent advantage (or more correctly, certain races seems to have a _disadvantage). But nobody ever says anything in those cases.
  - spijdar 6y ago
    > if you look at say, athletic selection for a sport like basketball or athletics, you'd find that race is inherently a criteria, because certain races seems to have an inherent advantage (or more correctly, certain races seems to have a _disadvantage). But nobody ever says anything in those cases. I think a charitable explanation for why this is, is sports is pretty much always a voluntary activity, so it's natural to not get as worked up over either implicitly or explicitly favoring a race, compared to, say, doing the same thing in employment or scoring someone's credit, which will almost certainly impact everyone in society involuntarily.

zajio1am 6y ago

> So, I don't think you're wrong, but maybe consider if what we're socializing the cost of is worth the price? But you do not socialize the cost, you just move it on someone else. For example, we have two people A, B, with risk-assessing algorithm risk1 gives risk1(A) = 3.3, risk1(B) = 2.9. Risk limit for creditors is 3, so person A would not get credit. But risk1() uses same forbidden information, so we use instead less informed risk2() that got risk2(A) = 2.9, while risk2(B) = 3.1, so now person A would get credit, but person B would not.