4 ms·

Lots of problems in society that are hard to fix. But there's nowhere else in society where our solution to a problem is to subject people who had nothing to do

by rayiner 3mo ago

Lots of problems in society that are hard to fix. But there's nowhere else in society where our solution to a problem is to subject people who had nothing to do with the problem to unfair treatment. "Two wrongs don't make a right" is a good general principle.

dahart 3mo ago
If only it were actually that simple and fixed with platitudes. Culture and belief is passed on from generation to generation, otherwise we wouldn’t have had the persistent problem in the first place. How do we fix a problem that we already have historical evidence that when left alone doesn’t go away on its own, that people who weren’t the original cause of the problem still, in fact, perpetuated it? How can we know people have nothing to do with the problem today, given that there are still discrepancies in outcome? I’m not defending Affirmative Action, the question at hand is what’s the alternative proposal?
- rayiner 3mo ago
  It's not a "platitude" it's an aphorism. It reflects the principle--already ancient to Plato 2,400 years ago--that we don't solve injustice by shifting that injustice onto innocent third parties. If you can prove wrongdoing by specific people then you can punish it. But if you define treating someone differently based on skin color as a moral crime—which I think is necessary for a multi-ethnic society to function—then you can’t use differential treatment to reengineer outcomes. Apart from enforcing neutral principles, the other solution is individualism. We need to stop reinforcing the salience of race and racial communities and treat people as individuals.
  - dahart 3mo ago
    It feels like a platitudinal aphorism to me, it’s trite and cliche and overused and was delivered as if it’s insightful in hopes of ending the debate. Google appears to agree vigorously that “two wrongs don’t make a right” is a platitude. One problem with that platitude is that there are plenty of ways that two negative things can balance each other out or become positive in some way. Aren’t you making deep cultural presumptions and imposing your own opinions? Affirmative action is controversial, and it’s had unintended consequences when used, but what’s the rationale for claiming it’s a “wrong” or “injustice”? Not everyone believes that. You’re also deliberately ignoring the point that there might be no such thing as innocent third parties, but only people who aren’t aware they’re part of the problem, even if it’s subtle and unintended. History already tried the Laissez Faire approach, and it didn’t work. Chips fell in a bad place. This isn’t about proving wrongdoing or punishment, it’s about acknowledgement of a problem, and reflection and self-improvement as a group.
    - rayiner 3mo ago
      An aphorism is an expression of a general principle. This one seems cliched because it reflects a principle deeply ingrained in our society. We reject “an eye for an eye” and instead say “two wrongs don’t make a right.” We have since Plato’s day. You don’t disregard core principles merely because a particular social problem is difficult to solve. Affirmative action is wrong because we have defined treating an individual differently based on their race as a moral wrong. The act is wrong, regardless of your motivations. It’s like how stealing is wrong even if you’re doing it because someone else stole from you first. I’m not ignoring your point that third parties may not be innocent. I said above that if you can prove wrongdoing by specific individuals, you can punish them. > acknowledgement of a problem, and reflection and self-improvement as a group There are no “groups,” just individuals who must be treated according to their individual merits, without regard to their group membership. That was the whole principle of the civil rights era.
      - dahart 3mo ago
        > we have defined treating an individual differently based on their race as a moral wrong. The act is wrong, regardless of your motivations No, I don’t think so, You’re conflating racism with discrimination. We humans discriminate positively and negatively all the time. People discriminate based on race and gender and age for the purposes of picking a life mate or sexual partner, and society has exactly zero problem with that. Discriminating based on race is absolutely not a morally wrong act regardless of motivations. Intent matters, and the situation matters. This talking point about all discrimination being wrong is fairly popular, and there are a lot of people who can’t see the difference between positive discrimination and negative discrimination. This is one reason I think affirmative action should end; it’s too subtle of a distinction and we were too successful at planting the idea that discrimination is bad. You’re also conflating law with mores in your example. There are cases where stealing something is moral, regardless of whether it’s legal. There are also cases where stealing something is legal too, for example you can legally take back something stolen from you if you do it non-violently. > There are no “groups” I was referring to humanity, to all of us.
    - alistairSH 3mo ago
- JuniperMesos 3mo ago
  The alternative proposal is not treating racial discrepancies in outcome as a problem to be solved.
  - dahart 3mo ago
    Okay, that’s true, it’s one of the available choices. That’s a rather extreme position to take, given the history of slavery, racism, and sexism in the U.S. We know for a fact that outcome discrepancies were caused by racism before 1965. The discrepancies have been on the decline since then. So, when exactly, did equal opportunity start? We didn’t have it in 1966 yet, despite the law. Did we have it in 1980? Outcomes have closed since then, so no, obviously not. When, then? What reason is there to believe outcomes discrepancies aren’t a problem, given that society generally believes they are?
    - JuniperMesos 3mo ago
      > Okay, that’s true, it’s one of the available choices. That’s a rather extreme position to take, given the history of slavery, racism, and sexism in the U.S. Slavery, racism, and sexism have happened in every single human society that has ever existed in some form or another, the US isn't special here. Discrepancies in average outcomes between different ethnic groups as measured by the statistical tools of industrialized states are at least as old as industrialization, and have relatively little correlation with whether a particular ethnic group was acting racistly towards another one in any given time and place. > We know for a fact that outcome discrepancies were caused by racism before 1965. No we don't. > What reason is there to believe outcomes discrepancies aren’t a problem, given that society generally believes they are? Societies generally believe all kinds of contradictory and mutually-inconsistent things, because a society is comprised of the aggregate of a large number of individual people who all have different understandings of the world, self-interests, group loyalties, etc. I don't assume that if society generally believes something, this is an unchanging fact about society, or that the thing is in fact correct, or that I should agree myself.
      - graemep 3mo ago
BrenBarn 3mo ago
It depends how you conceptualize fairness. If you believe that some people have a pre-existing unfair bias in their favor, then applying a countermeasure is indeed fair.
- rayiner 3mo ago
  No, because two wrongs don’t make a right. Where else in our society do we justify imposing a moral wrong on a specific individual on the premise that moral wrongs may have been committed against other individuals?
  - dahart 3mo ago
    The death penalty is an example of two wrongs making a right in the minds of many people. It’s also at the same time an example of two wrongs not making a right. Imprisoning people is wrong, unless the government does it? All so-called lawful punishments of individuals are a form of hope that two wrongs do make a right. Whether affirmative action is a wrong is your presumption, and it’s hotly contested, absolutely not universally agreed upon, which makes your use of ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ a straw man. There are plenty of things wrong with preferential affirmative action, but I reject the framing that it’s evil, this is essentially an ad hominem attempting to quash any debate of the actual relative merits or the outcomes. I feel like we can’t make forward progress if you refuse to acknowledge the reasons that history has happened the way it did. See Chesterton’s Fence.
    - rayiner 3mo ago
      > Imprisoning people is wrong, unless the government does it? All so-called lawful punishments of individuals are a form of hope that two wrongs do make a right. In that case, the punishment is not a “wrong” because the person being punished has moral culpability due to their bad act. That’s different from imposing a punishment on someone because of someone else’s bad act. That’s a principle that some societies hold that ours does not. In clan based societies, a wrong committed by one member of clan A to a member of clan B can justify retaliation against a different member of clan A.
UncleMeat 3mo ago
Hm. How does this vibe with your blanket judgement about Bangladeshis?
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- rayiner 3mo ago
  You shouldn’t make “blanket judgments” that apply to every individual Bangladeshi. In a context where you’re evaluating individuals, you should do so without regard to their ethnicity or nationality. In the context where you’re talking about masses, then it’s permissible to draw inferences about aggregate characteristics. Simple example: at the doctor’s office, I want them to measure my height, without regard to the fact that I’m Bangladeshi. But that doesn’t mean that medical journals must blind themselves to the fact that a group of 10,000 Bangladeshis is going to have a much lower average height than a group of 10,000 Germans.
  - UncleMeat 3mo ago
    It is very clear that you are not talking about height. You are also different policy treatment of these groups.
    - rayiner 3mo ago
      > It is very clear that you are not talking about height. It doesn't matter whether it's height or anything else. The point is that there's a fundamental difference between contexts in which you're evaluating an individual, and contexts in which you're evaluating groups in the aggregate. > You are also different policy treatment of these groups. I do not support any policy that would treat a specific individual differently because they're Bangladeshi.
webnrrd2k 3mo ago
Re: two wrongs/people who had nothing to do with the problem Obvious counter examples: plenty of people have been drafted and died in wars they did not cause or start. Also, people pay taxes to educate others, which (hopefully) fixes a problem they didn't cause or start. The list just goes on and on. In fact, I think it's a fair argument to say that modern society is fundamentally based on the opposite your claim, that people who had nothing to do with all sorts of problems willing submit to unfair treatment because they believe that they,or people they care about, will be better of in the long run for having done the right thing, even if it's difficult and somewhat unfair. In general it's called being an adult. Yeah, sometimed it sucks, sometimes it's unfair, but generally it's better for everyone in the long run.

by rayiner 3mo ago

dahart 3mo ago

If only it were actually that simple and fixed with platitudes. Culture and belief is passed on from generation to generation, otherwise we wouldn’t have had the persistent problem in the first place. How do we fix a problem that we already have historical evidence that when left alone doesn’t go away on its own, that people who weren’t the original cause of the problem still, in fact, perpetuated it? How can we know people have nothing to do with the problem today, given that there are still discrepancies in outcome? I’m not defending Affirmative Action, the question at hand is what’s the alternative proposal?

rayiner 3mo ago
It's not a "platitude" it's an aphorism. It reflects the principle--already ancient to Plato 2,400 years ago--that we don't solve injustice by shifting that injustice onto innocent third parties. If you can prove wrongdoing by specific people then you can punish it. But if you define treating someone differently based on skin color as a moral crime—which I think is necessary for a multi-ethnic society to function—then you can’t use differential treatment to reengineer outcomes. Apart from enforcing neutral principles, the other solution is individualism. We need to stop reinforcing the salience of race and racial communities and treat people as individuals.
- dahart 3mo ago
  It feels like a platitudinal aphorism to me, it’s trite and cliche and overused and was delivered as if it’s insightful in hopes of ending the debate. Google appears to agree vigorously that “two wrongs don’t make a right” is a platitude. One problem with that platitude is that there are plenty of ways that two negative things can balance each other out or become positive in some way. Aren’t you making deep cultural presumptions and imposing your own opinions? Affirmative action is controversial, and it’s had unintended consequences when used, but what’s the rationale for claiming it’s a “wrong” or “injustice”? Not everyone believes that. You’re also deliberately ignoring the point that there might be no such thing as innocent third parties, but only people who aren’t aware they’re part of the problem, even if it’s subtle and unintended. History already tried the Laissez Faire approach, and it didn’t work. Chips fell in a bad place. This isn’t about proving wrongdoing or punishment, it’s about acknowledgement of a problem, and reflection and self-improvement as a group.
  - rayiner 3mo ago
    An aphorism is an expression of a general principle. This one seems cliched because it reflects a principle deeply ingrained in our society. We reject “an eye for an eye” and instead say “two wrongs don’t make a right.” We have since Plato’s day. You don’t disregard core principles merely because a particular social problem is difficult to solve. Affirmative action is wrong because we have defined treating an individual differently based on their race as a moral wrong. The act is wrong, regardless of your motivations. It’s like how stealing is wrong even if you’re doing it because someone else stole from you first. I’m not ignoring your point that third parties may not be innocent. I said above that if you can prove wrongdoing by specific individuals, you can punish them. > acknowledgement of a problem, and reflection and self-improvement as a group There are no “groups,” just individuals who must be treated according to their individual merits, without regard to their group membership. That was the whole principle of the civil rights era.
    - dahart 3mo ago
      > we have defined treating an individual differently based on their race as a moral wrong. The act is wrong, regardless of your motivations No, I don’t think so, You’re conflating racism with discrimination. We humans discriminate positively and negatively all the time. People discriminate based on race and gender and age for the purposes of picking a life mate or sexual partner, and society has exactly zero problem with that. Discriminating based on race is absolutely not a morally wrong act regardless of motivations. Intent matters, and the situation matters. This talking point about all discrimination being wrong is fairly popular, and there are a lot of people who can’t see the difference between positive discrimination and negative discrimination. This is one reason I think affirmative action should end; it’s too subtle of a distinction and we were too successful at planting the idea that discrimination is bad. You’re also conflating law with mores in your example. There are cases where stealing something is moral, regardless of whether it’s legal. There are also cases where stealing something is legal too, for example you can legally take back something stolen from you if you do it non-violently. > There are no “groups” I was referring to humanity, to all of us.
  - alistairSH 3mo ago
JuniperMesos 3mo ago
The alternative proposal is not treating racial discrepancies in outcome as a problem to be solved.
- dahart 3mo ago
  Okay, that’s true, it’s one of the available choices. That’s a rather extreme position to take, given the history of slavery, racism, and sexism in the U.S. We know for a fact that outcome discrepancies were caused by racism before 1965. The discrepancies have been on the decline since then. So, when exactly, did equal opportunity start? We didn’t have it in 1966 yet, despite the law. Did we have it in 1980? Outcomes have closed since then, so no, obviously not. When, then? What reason is there to believe outcomes discrepancies aren’t a problem, given that society generally believes they are?
  - JuniperMesos 3mo ago
    > Okay, that’s true, it’s one of the available choices. That’s a rather extreme position to take, given the history of slavery, racism, and sexism in the U.S. Slavery, racism, and sexism have happened in every single human society that has ever existed in some form or another, the US isn't special here. Discrepancies in average outcomes between different ethnic groups as measured by the statistical tools of industrialized states are at least as old as industrialization, and have relatively little correlation with whether a particular ethnic group was acting racistly towards another one in any given time and place. > We know for a fact that outcome discrepancies were caused by racism before 1965. No we don't. > What reason is there to believe outcomes discrepancies aren’t a problem, given that society generally believes they are? Societies generally believe all kinds of contradictory and mutually-inconsistent things, because a society is comprised of the aggregate of a large number of individual people who all have different understandings of the world, self-interests, group loyalties, etc. I don't assume that if society generally believes something, this is an unchanging fact about society, or that the thing is in fact correct, or that I should agree myself.
    - graemep 3mo ago

BrenBarn 3mo ago

It depends how you conceptualize fairness. If you believe that some people have a pre-existing unfair bias in their favor, then applying a countermeasure is indeed fair.

rayiner 3mo ago
No, because two wrongs don’t make a right. Where else in our society do we justify imposing a moral wrong on a specific individual on the premise that moral wrongs may have been committed against other individuals?
- dahart 3mo ago
  The death penalty is an example of two wrongs making a right in the minds of many people. It’s also at the same time an example of two wrongs not making a right. Imprisoning people is wrong, unless the government does it? All so-called lawful punishments of individuals are a form of hope that two wrongs do make a right. Whether affirmative action is a wrong is your presumption, and it’s hotly contested, absolutely not universally agreed upon, which makes your use of ‘two wrongs don’t make a right’ a straw man. There are plenty of things wrong with preferential affirmative action, but I reject the framing that it’s evil, this is essentially an ad hominem attempting to quash any debate of the actual relative merits or the outcomes. I feel like we can’t make forward progress if you refuse to acknowledge the reasons that history has happened the way it did. See Chesterton’s Fence.
  - rayiner 3mo ago
    > Imprisoning people is wrong, unless the government does it? All so-called lawful punishments of individuals are a form of hope that two wrongs do make a right. In that case, the punishment is not a “wrong” because the person being punished has moral culpability due to their bad act. That’s different from imposing a punishment on someone because of someone else’s bad act. That’s a principle that some societies hold that ours does not. In clan based societies, a wrong committed by one member of clan A to a member of clan B can justify retaliation against a different member of clan A.

UncleMeat 3mo ago

Hm. How does this vibe with your blanket judgement about Bangladeshis?

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
rayiner 3mo ago
You shouldn’t make “blanket judgments” that apply to every individual Bangladeshi. In a context where you’re evaluating individuals, you should do so without regard to their ethnicity or nationality. In the context where you’re talking about masses, then it’s permissible to draw inferences about aggregate characteristics. Simple example: at the doctor’s office, I want them to measure my height, without regard to the fact that I’m Bangladeshi. But that doesn’t mean that medical journals must blind themselves to the fact that a group of 10,000 Bangladeshis is going to have a much lower average height than a group of 10,000 Germans.
- UncleMeat 3mo ago
  It is very clear that you are not talking about height. You are also different policy treatment of these groups.
  - rayiner 3mo ago
    > It is very clear that you are not talking about height. It doesn't matter whether it's height or anything else. The point is that there's a fundamental difference between contexts in which you're evaluating an individual, and contexts in which you're evaluating groups in the aggregate. > You are also different policy treatment of these groups. I do not support any policy that would treat a specific individual differently because they're Bangladeshi.

webnrrd2k 3mo ago

Re: two wrongs/people who had nothing to do with the problem Obvious counter examples: plenty of people have been drafted and died in wars they did not cause or start. Also, people pay taxes to educate others, which (hopefully) fixes a problem they didn't cause or start. The list just goes on and on. In fact, I think it's a fair argument to say that modern society is fundamentally based on the opposite your claim, that people who had nothing to do with all sorts of problems willing submit to unfair treatment because they believe that they,or people they care about, will be better of in the long run for having done the right thing, even if it's difficult and somewhat unfair. In general it's called being an adult. Yeah, sometimed it sucks, sometimes it's unfair, but generally it's better for everyone in the long run.