Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–147 of 147 posts

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#141

Post by dnautics »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #76
dnautics wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the opposite. You can't provide an equality of access that meets any given standard of fairness without creating inequality, because now you are favoring those who happen to conform to/ or be better suited to/ or have a better temperament for the new standard over the old.

But, this begs the question, as it assumes equality or fairness in the old standard. The point seems to be that this is not the case, thus provisions are required as a means of correction.

no such assumption. The statement at the end is that there in inequality created at the end. I.E. there will be winners and losers. Now you could argue that the 'right correction' would create the 'right winners and right losers' but I think historically, almost all of the best-intentioned corrections applied by the states have ultimately hurt the dispossessed.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#142

Post by redblacktree »

stvswn wrote: post #133
redblacktree wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sam Walton built a business. His kids inherited a fortune.

True, and I don't have an issue with inheritance. I'd prefer no estate tax. Whether zeroed-out grantor-retained annuity trusts should be a valid tax avoidance scheme is a valid question, if that's your point.

My point was that the Waltons existing today deserve no special credit for having created a business; they didn't. There is nothing dynamic or entrepreneurial about inheriting a fortune. It's dumb luck.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#143

Post by jsprogrammer »

Eliezer wrote: post #140
jsprogrammer wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read Permutation City yet, but it's on my list. I haven't heard of the other book, but I'll be looking into it. Thank you for the suggestion. Multiple universes may just be an artifact of our math. For instance, Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory may provide or point to a resolution. Ultimately, the economy is measured in "units moved", which is ultimately tied to the amount of "units" available in the enti…

> Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory That's not even close to being what that math is about.

Care to expand? Do you know of a physical theory that would not be affected by new results in number theory?

That is, a refutable, physical theory that is not based at all on integers?

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#144

Post by saulrh »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #143
Eliezer wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory That's not even close to being what that math is about.

Care to expand? Do you know of a physical theory that would not be affected by new results in number theory? That is, a refutable, physical theory that is not based at all on integers?

The way this works is:

* We take a set of axioms, just like any other mathematics. Say ZFC.

* We construct an isomorphism - a bijective mapping - between states of universes and the reals. This step is honestly pretty trivial. Our laws of physics, as far as we can tell, are just big continuous-ish differential equations, so it's just going to be a serialization.

* We construct the reals from our axioms.

* By the isomorphism from before, we have constructed all possible universes which run under our laws of physics.

* We have constructed our universe.

Epistemologically speaking, mathematics doesn't work like anything else. Just about everything else you ever do is fundamentally bayesian in nature - we form hypotheses and attempt to disprove them by comparing them to our observations, and all we can do is disprove hypotheses, and even then not particularly strongly. Consult Karl Popper's works on empirical falsification for deeper discussion. Mathematics, in contrast, is inductive. We can prove that a statement is True by combining other True statements, and once we've done this it's done and cannot be "disproven" by the addition of more information. Well, unless you count Godel's result, but that's a bit of a special case and we usually ignore it because it's annoying.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#145

Post by jsprogrammer »

saulrh wrote: post #144
jsprogrammer wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to expand? Do you know of a physical theory that would not be affected by new results in number theory? That is, a refutable, physical theory that is not based at all on integers?

The way this works is: * We take a set of axioms, just like any other mathematics. Say ZFC. * We construct an isomorphism - a bijective mapping - between states of universes and the reals. This step is honestly pretty trivial. Our laws of physics, as far as we can tell, are just big continuous-ish differential equations, so it's just going to be a serialization. * We construct the reals from our axioms. * By the isom…

Sure. I'm actually reading through (a translation of) The Logic of Scientific Discovery right now, but I am already familiar with the ideas, conclusions, etc of Popper, Godel, and others whom have done related work.

However, mathematical induction is different from "inductive reasoing" (as opposed to deductive, or "the deductive theory of testing", as Popper's translators call it). In fact, I don't believe it is a contrast to Popper's work; mathematical induction is actually a form of deductive reasoning (of course, this makes it rather confusing to talk about). Popper's method requires first formulating a system (axioms) in pure mathematics (logic). Then deriving the logical conclusions from the system and determining tests that could be performed that could contradict those conclusions. Popper also provides a schema for comparing systems, deriving contradictory conclusions, and designing experiments to distinguish between the various theories under consideration.

>The way this works is:

I don't mean to be obtuse, but it's not immediately clear to me at the moment what "this" refers to (although, from the context of the prior post, I would assume it refers to Inter-universal Teichmuller Theory). Is there another way you could clarify what we are talking about?

Edit: Ok, I read my last post again and I think maybe you are giving a physical theory that is not based on integers or number theory? My concern with that interpretation is that I'm not sure how meaningful of a distinction can be made between Integers, ZFC, or Logic within the context of physical theories. Doesn't Shannon's work allow us to collapse all writable (a necessary precondition to execute Popper's method) theories to integers?

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#146

Post by thatswrong0 »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #122
thatswrong0 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we drop the "conservatives are evil" mantra at some point? It really adds nothing to the discourse. Having a family full of conservatives (mind you I can't speak for all), I can tell you that for them, it comes down to how big the system is and what benefits should be provided by the government or not. The difference in where the line is drawn and why it's drawn is the difference between conservatives and democra…

> I can tell you that for them, it comes down to how big the system is and what benefits should be provided by the government or not. While that's certainly not a bad thought, we have all benefited from larger government. History shows out that the more government spending and distribution of goods and services there is, the better the economic outlook. Even amongst most developed countries today, the government acco…

That is all way besides the point, seeing as I was describing my family's political philosophy as something that is not evil, not offering it up as something right or wrong. Yeesh.

Re: People Want Fairness, Not Economic Equality

#147

Post by stlHusker »

The elephant in the room is how do you measure fairness? We devolve into measuring the end results in terms of equality which ultimately provide a negative feedback loop and move the conversation and solutions into trying to make things equal instead of fair.

Governmental policy devolves into this to the detriment of everyone involved.

Entire political campaigns are centered around not making things "fair" but "equal". Watch and see who communities vote for and why they vote for them; it is closely related to the child who prefers to have one and everyone else zero as opposed to everyone getting two.

Post reply on HN