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It's not the role of the loan industry to make it easier for black people who appear to be a higher statistical risk to get loans. That's the purpose of governm
by jrmg 4y ago
It's not the role of the loan industry to make it easier for black people who appear to be a higher statistical risk to get loans. That's the purpose of government- to make it illegal to include genetic history in life insurance models- provided that society believes in that principle.
Another way to say that - one that appears less uncaring to readers - would be “yes, including birth month or race in insurance risk calculations would be unfair+, so it should not be done. If necessary, the government should step in to prevent this”.
+ you may squabble with the use of ‘unfair’ here - obviously it is not ‘unfair’ in the stastical sense, but that’s not what the word generally means in spoken English. ‘Inequitable’ would be better, but for some reason ‘equity’ seems to be evolving to mean ‘at all costs, produces equality of outcome’ and so is a victim to the same problem in the opposite direction. I chose the more common word.
[edit: I used insurance here, sorry - the same would apply to loans I think]
- jrmg 4y agoI’ve been thinking about this more, and it’s occurred to me that there is an underlying assumption in It’s not he purpose of the loan industry… that corporations are required to make decisions amorally - which is don’t think is or should be the case. That may be an underlying schism in our argument.
- dekhn 4y agoYou are correct. I expect that corporations understand they exist in a competitive environment and incorporating morality represents a real risk that your competitor will replace you, because morality is not profitable. I do agree that if you expect corporations to act morally, then it would be sensible for them to be more careful in understanding and correcting long-term social ills.