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Should we charge more for disabled people? Does any additional cost to a company mean that it can treat its customers differently? We must have a society wher
by mjburgess 15y ago
Should we charge more for disabled people?
Does any additional cost to a company mean that it can treat its customers differently?
We must have a society where the equality of people is incontrovertible, and we make accommodations for the fact. That a thin small woman weighing 50Kg is worth the same as a muscular or fat person weighing 100kg.
To ask one to pay more for a service because of what they are is unequal treatment.
The people weighing less are charged more than they would be otherwise, so that everyone has the same price.
But their arbitrary birth characteristics that make them under the average weight should not entitle them to benefit in "proportion" nor equally should the characteristics of another cause them to be disadvantaged proportionally.
I would prefer a society where neither the state, nor private citizens, were able to reward birth-lottery success at the expense of birth-lottery failure.
And im not talking about genetics. Being muscular or fat, a result of a series of choices (no doubt), is still a result of birth lottery. So you had a single mum in a por community that fed you cheap fast food?
Do members disadvantaged communities (who are more overweight and unhealthy than the average) have their disadvantage compounded by being responsible for their parents and community?
- vacri 15y agoWell said. This is the real issue at hand here, a level beyond squabbling over simple freight charges.
- kristiandupont 15y agoThis is a good point, but surely you will agree that we can only discuss where to draw the line, not whether it should be drawn or not? As said in another post, life is not fair. If we take your point to the extreme, society should even out the disadvantages that come from having below-average intelligence.
- mjburgess 15y agoWell there are many competing princilpes, and the way we prioritize them will affect the kind of society we end up with. I believe in this instance, the benefits of equality outweight the costs. If we believe that a "free" market would distribute prices differently so that lighter people paid less and you believe the free market price is fair. Then some small ecnomic harm is occuring, to those who pay more. The social cost of rectifying this small harm however is, i think, considerable. It makes transportation harder for poorer people and perhaps those that need transport the most. And so on. In this case, i think the $500 extra /flight can be distributed across the couple hundred passengers without much to-do.
- kahawe 15y ago> life is not fair Then the line can very well remain drawn where it already is drawn: same price for everyone. Also, see top comment with an estimation how little price difference there would be between "petite" and "overweight". It would cost the airlines a lot more to implement this and then prices for everyone would be higher plus it will add a lot humiliation on top of the shenanigans the TSA is already putting you through. This whole idea is nothing but minutiae and micro-managing, being lost in details and on top of that very unrealistic when you think about implementing it. Also, I am surprised how quickly all human rights and rights of equal treatment suddenly seem to stop existing when it is about "fat people".