Scientists discover evidence that popularly discriminated against really does have all the claimed negative traits. The evidence is so convincing that everyone who hears it instantly agrees this is the case.
If you want to picture a group, I suggest the discovery that Less Wrong readers are evil megalomaniacs who want to turn you into paperclips.
How, if at all, does this affect your ideas of equality? Is it now okay to discriminate against them? Treat them differently legally? Not invite them to dinner?
I’ve heard Peter Singer says useful and interesting things about this, but it hasn’t yet reached the top of my bookqueue.
I’m puzzled that you describe this as a hypothetical.
For example, the culture I live in is pretty confident that five-year-olds are so much less capable than adults of acting in their own best interests that the expected value to the five-year-olds of having their adult guardians make important decisions on their behalf (and impose those decisions against their will) is extremely positive.
Consequently we are willing to justify subjecting five-year-olds to profound inequalities.
This affects my ideas of equality quite a bit, and always has. It is indeed OK to discriminate “against” them, and to treat them differently legally, and to not invite them to dinner, and always has been.
How, if at all, does this affect your ideas of equality? Is it now okay to discriminate against them? Treat them differently legally? Not invite them to dinner?
We are actually as a society ok with discriminating against the vast majority of possible social groups. If this was not the case life as we know it would simply become impossible because we would have to treat everyone equally. That would be a completely crazy civilization to live in. Especially if it considered the personal to be political.
You couldn’t like Alice because she is smart, since that would be cognitivist. You couldn’t hang out with Alice because she has a positive outlook on life, because that would discriminate against the mentally ill (those who are currently experiencing depression for starters). You couldn’t invite Alice out for lunch because you think she’s cute, because that would be lookist. ect. ect.
Without the ability to discriminate between the people who have traits we find desirable or useful and those we don’t, without a bad conscience, most people would be pretty miserable and perpetually repressed. Indeed considering humans are social creatures I’d say the repression and psychological damage would dwarf anything ever caused by even the most puritanical sexual norms.
See faul_sname’s comment below; “discrimination” should really be tabooed with “prejudice based on weak prior evidence without any personal contact” in this discussion.
“Discrimination” usually just means “applying statistical knowledge about the group to individuals in the group” and is a no-no in our society. If you examine it too closely, it stops making sense, but it is useful in a society where the “statistical knowledge” is easily faked or misinterpreted.
If you examine it too closely, it stops making sense, but it is useful in a society where the “statistical knowledge” is easily faked or misinterpreted.
The problem is that one of the only ways to prove someone is indeed using statistical knowledge, on the handful of cases that we have forbidden it, is to analyse their patterns of behaviour, basically look at the recorded statistics of their interactions. Both the records and the results of such an analysis which can be easily faked and misinterpreted.
Which means that if the forbidden statistical knowledge is indeed useful and reliable enough to be economical to use it, and someone else is very very serious about preventing it from being used, the knowledge will both be employed in a clandestine way and most of the economic gains from it will be eaten up by the cost of avoiding detection. This leads to a net loss of wealth.
Say a for-profit company that spends 90% of the gains from forbidden knowledge on avoidance of detection, the governments spends half or a third of that amount to monitor the company. The company would be indirectly paying for government monitoring regardless if it used the knowledge or not. It is therefore irrational for the company to not use the particular forbidden set statistical knowledge in such a situation.
BTW To get the full suckiness hidden in the bland phrase “net loss of wealth” most people need some aid to fix their intuitions. Converting “wealth” to happy productive years or dead child currency sometimes works.
(nods) That certain simplifies the task of comparing it to the loss of happy productive years and/or the increase in dead children that sometimes follows from the bland phrase “using forbidden statistical knowledge.”
Once we convert everything to Expected Number of Happy Productive Years (for example), it’s easier to ask whether we’d prefer system A, in which Sum(ENoHPY) = N1 and Standard Deviation(ENoHPY) = N2, or system B where Sum(ENoHPY) = (N1 - X) and Standard Deviation(ENoHPY) = N2- Y.
(nods) That certain simplifies the task of comparing it to the loss of happy productive years and/or the increase in dead children that sometimes follows from the bland phrase “using forbidden statistical knowledge.”
That is kind of the point of being a utilitarian. And remembering to consider opportunity cost let alone estimate it often is the hard part when it comes to policy.
There are two problems: statistical knowledge being easily faked or misinterpreted and life being a multiple-repetition game.
It is hard to apply the knowledge of “many X are Y and it is bad” when X is easier to check than Y in such a way as to not diminish the return on investment of X who work hard to not be Y. The same with the positive case: if you think that MBA programs teach something useful and think “many MBAs have learnt the useful things from MBA program” then getting into the program and not learning starts making sense. And we have that effect!
Yes. For instance, the proportion of black Americans who use illegal drugs is well below the proportion of white Americans who do; however, black Americans are heavily overrepresented in illegal drugs arrests, convictions, and prison sentences. The arrest rates indicate that the law-enforcement system “believes” that black Americans use illegal drugs more — a statistical trend which isn’t there.
Another way of thinking about these issues, rather than talking about “discrimination against ”, is “privilege held by ”. This can describe the same thing but in terms which can cast a different (and sometimes useful) light on it.
For instance, one could say ” people are harassed by police when they hang out in public parks.” However, this could be taken as raising the question of what those people are doing in those parks to attract police attention — which would be privileging the hypothesis (no pun intended). Another way of describing the same situation, without privileging the hypothesis, is ” people get to hang out in public parks without the police taking interest.”
the proportion of black Americans who use illegal drugs is well below the proportion of white Americans who do; however, black Americans are heavily overrepresented in illegal drugs arrests, convictions, and prison sentences.
Where does the data about the actual proportion come from, since it can’t be the legal system’s data?
Having re-checked the above from, e.g. the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, done by the Department of Health & Human Services, I retract the claim that black Americans use drugs less than white Americans.
Rather, it appears to be the case that white Americans are well overrepresented in lifetime illegal drugs use, but black Americans are slightly overrepresented in current illegal drugs use; which is what would feed into arrests — after all, you don’t get arrested for snorting coke two decades ago. The white:black ratio in the population as a whole is 5.7, according to the Census. In lifetime illegal drugs use, 6.6; in last-month illegal drugs users, 5.1.
However, from the Census data on arrests, the white:black ratio in illegal drugs arrests is 1.9. Now, this doesn’t break down by severity of alleged offenses, e.g. possession vs. dealing; or quantities; or aggravating factors such as school zones.
Rather, it appears to be the case that white Americans are well overrepresented in lifetime illegal drugs use, but black Americans are slightly overrepresented in current illegal drugs use; which is what would feed into arrests — after all, you don’t get arrested for snorting coke two decades ago.
Sorry, I don’t understand that. Does it simply mean that white people in general as seen here used to do more drugs some years/decades ago, but now their proportion dropped below that of blacks?
Maybe but not necessarily. It would be consistent with, for instance, there being proportionally more white people who tried illegal drugs once and didn’t continue using.
The arrest rates indicate that the law-enforcement system “believes” that black Americans use illegal drugs more — a statistical trend which isn’t there.
In fact your interpretation is wrong. It is not “the law-enforcement system “believes”″ that blacks use more. It is that blacks are more often dealers, and it is easier to get a conviction or plea bargain as a user than as a dealer, since the latter requires intent as well as possession and will be fought harder because of higher penalties.
I suspect that blacks are not over-represented as drug dealers. Rather, blacks live in urban areas, which can be policed at lower cost than rural areas for population density reasons.
it is useful in a society where the “statistical knowledge” is easily faked or misinterpreted.
Hell, that seems to be an understatement to me. There’s a particular reason that racial discrimination is by far the most taboo and reviled form of it, beyond the memory of Nazism; real current political groups—that are very nasty—are always hoping for the chance to pounce on the issue once they’re allowed to get close to it.
The practice in the US of alerting people in the neighbourhood to the presence of convicted child molesters (or was it rapists? I don’t remember) seems to indicate that at least some people think that it’s a great idea. I think that as we get better at testing people for sociopathy we’re likely to move towards certain types of legal discrimination towards them too.
None of this affects my personal ideas of equality though. I would prefer not to be friends with an evil megalomaniac in the same way that I would prefer not to be friends with a drug addict, but if I met an interesting person and then discovered that they were an evil megalomaniacal drug addict I wouldn’t necessarily cut them out of my life, either.
As vague context, the whole area of equality and discrimination is something that nags me at me as not making enough sense. I hope with enough pondering to come up with a clear view on things, but it’s failing so far.
A current thought experiment I’m pondering:
Scientists discover evidence that popularly discriminated against really does have all the claimed negative traits. The evidence is so convincing that everyone who hears it instantly agrees this is the case.
If you want to picture a group, I suggest the discovery that Less Wrong readers are evil megalomaniacs who want to turn you into paperclips.
How, if at all, does this affect your ideas of equality? Is it now okay to discriminate against them? Treat them differently legally? Not invite them to dinner?
I’ve heard Peter Singer says useful and interesting things about this, but it hasn’t yet reached the top of my bookqueue.
I’m puzzled that you describe this as a hypothetical.
For example, the culture I live in is pretty confident that five-year-olds are so much less capable than adults of acting in their own best interests that the expected value to the five-year-olds of having their adult guardians make important decisions on their behalf (and impose those decisions against their will) is extremely positive.
Consequently we are willing to justify subjecting five-year-olds to profound inequalities.
This affects my ideas of equality quite a bit, and always has. It is indeed OK to discriminate “against” them, and to treat them differently legally, and to not invite them to dinner, and always has been.
We are actually as a society ok with discriminating against the vast majority of possible social groups. If this was not the case life as we know it would simply become impossible because we would have to treat everyone equally. That would be a completely crazy civilization to live in. Especially if it considered the personal to be political.
You couldn’t like Alice because she is smart, since that would be cognitivist. You couldn’t hang out with Alice because she has a positive outlook on life, because that would discriminate against the mentally ill (those who are currently experiencing depression for starters). You couldn’t invite Alice out for lunch because you think she’s cute, because that would be lookist. ect. ect.
Without the ability to discriminate between the people who have traits we find desirable or useful and those we don’t, without a bad conscience, most people would be pretty miserable and perpetually repressed. Indeed considering humans are social creatures I’d say the repression and psychological damage would dwarf anything ever caused by even the most puritanical sexual norms.
See faul_sname’s comment below; “discrimination” should really be tabooed with “prejudice based on weak prior evidence without any personal contact” in this discussion.
“Discrimination” usually just means “applying statistical knowledge about the group to individuals in the group” and is a no-no in our society. If you examine it too closely, it stops making sense, but it is useful in a society where the “statistical knowledge” is easily faked or misinterpreted.
The problem is that one of the only ways to prove someone is indeed using statistical knowledge, on the handful of cases that we have forbidden it, is to analyse their patterns of behaviour, basically look at the recorded statistics of their interactions. Both the records and the results of such an analysis which can be easily faked and misinterpreted.
Which means that if the forbidden statistical knowledge is indeed useful and reliable enough to be economical to use it, and someone else is very very serious about preventing it from being used, the knowledge will both be employed in a clandestine way and most of the economic gains from it will be eaten up by the cost of avoiding detection. This leads to a net loss of wealth.
Say a for-profit company that spends 90% of the gains from forbidden knowledge on avoidance of detection, the governments spends half or a third of that amount to monitor the company. The company would be indirectly paying for government monitoring regardless if it used the knowledge or not. It is therefore irrational for the company to not use the particular forbidden set statistical knowledge in such a situation.
BTW To get the full suckiness hidden in the bland phrase “net loss of wealth” most people need some aid to fix their intuitions. Converting “wealth” to happy productive years or dead child currency sometimes works.
(nods) That certain simplifies the task of comparing it to the loss of happy productive years and/or the increase in dead children that sometimes follows from the bland phrase “using forbidden statistical knowledge.”
Once we convert everything to Expected Number of Happy Productive Years (for example), it’s easier to ask whether we’d prefer system A, in which Sum(ENoHPY) = N1 and Standard Deviation(ENoHPY) = N2, or system B where Sum(ENoHPY) = (N1 - X) and Standard Deviation(ENoHPY) = N2- Y.
That is kind of the point of being a utilitarian. And remembering to consider opportunity cost let alone estimate it often is the hard part when it comes to policy.
I read an interesting article on the legal side of this in the USA, annoyingly despite being sure I’d saved it I can’t find anything.
There are two problems: statistical knowledge being easily faked or misinterpreted and life being a multiple-repetition game.
It is hard to apply the knowledge of “many X are Y and it is bad” when X is easier to check than Y in such a way as to not diminish the return on investment of X who work hard to not be Y. The same with the positive case: if you think that MBA programs teach something useful and think “many MBAs have learnt the useful things from MBA program” then getting into the program and not learning starts making sense. And we have that effect!
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/10/12/why-do-only-top-mba-programs-practice-grade-non-disclosure/
But don’t people talking about discrimination often claim that the statistical trends aren’t there?
Yes. For instance, the proportion of black Americans who use illegal drugs is well below the proportion of white Americans who do; however, black Americans are heavily overrepresented in illegal drugs arrests, convictions, and prison sentences. The arrest rates indicate that the law-enforcement system “believes” that black Americans use illegal drugs more — a statistical trend which isn’t there.
Another way of thinking about these issues, rather than talking about “discrimination against ”, is “privilege held by ”. This can describe the same thing but in terms which can cast a different (and sometimes useful) light on it.
For instance, one could say ” people are harassed by police when they hang out in public parks.” However, this could be taken as raising the question of what those people are doing in those parks to attract police attention — which would be privileging the hypothesis (no pun intended). Another way of describing the same situation, without privileging the hypothesis, is ” people get to hang out in public parks without the police taking interest.”
Where does the data about the actual proportion come from, since it can’t be the legal system’s data?
Having re-checked the above from, e.g. the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, done by the Department of Health & Human Services, I retract the claim that black Americans use drugs less than white Americans.
Rather, it appears to be the case that white Americans are well overrepresented in lifetime illegal drugs use, but black Americans are slightly overrepresented in current illegal drugs use; which is what would feed into arrests — after all, you don’t get arrested for snorting coke two decades ago. The white:black ratio in the population as a whole is 5.7, according to the Census. In lifetime illegal drugs use, 6.6; in last-month illegal drugs users, 5.1.
However, from the Census data on arrests, the white:black ratio in illegal drugs arrests is 1.9. Now, this doesn’t break down by severity of alleged offenses, e.g. possession vs. dealing; or quantities; or aggravating factors such as school zones.
Sorry, I don’t understand that. Does it simply mean that white people in general as seen here used to do more drugs some years/decades ago, but now their proportion dropped below that of blacks?
Maybe but not necessarily. It would be consistent with, for instance, there being proportionally more white people who tried illegal drugs once and didn’t continue using.
Illegal drugs are an interesting place to try some Bayescraft.
In fact your interpretation is wrong. It is not “the law-enforcement system “believes”″ that blacks use more. It is that blacks are more often dealers, and it is easier to get a conviction or plea bargain as a user than as a dealer, since the latter requires intent as well as possession and will be fought harder because of higher penalties.
I suspect that blacks are not over-represented as drug dealers. Rather, blacks live in urban areas, which can be policed at lower cost than rural areas for population density reasons.
Hell, that seems to be an understatement to me. There’s a particular reason that racial discrimination is by far the most taboo and reviled form of it, beyond the memory of Nazism; real current political groups—that are very nasty—are always hoping for the chance to pounce on the issue once they’re allowed to get close to it.
The practice in the US of alerting people in the neighbourhood to the presence of convicted child molesters (or was it rapists? I don’t remember) seems to indicate that at least some people think that it’s a great idea. I think that as we get better at testing people for sociopathy we’re likely to move towards certain types of legal discrimination towards them too.
None of this affects my personal ideas of equality though. I would prefer not to be friends with an evil megalomaniac in the same way that I would prefer not to be friends with a drug addict, but if I met an interesting person and then discovered that they were an evil megalomaniacal drug addict I wouldn’t necessarily cut them out of my life, either.
As vague context, the whole area of equality and discrimination is something that nags me at me as not making enough sense. I hope with enough pondering to come up with a clear view on things, but it’s failing so far.