Welcome back everybody. This is Food for Thought
with Thoughts If It Were You by Neogentrics. We're
finishing up on the moral series. I do believe
I have two here for you we're going to cover
tonight in this episode and the next episode,
which will then leave us with about 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7 of them left. So, look forward to
those. Tonight we're going to go ahead and cover
fairness. By definition, that is the impartial
or just treatment or behavior without favoritism
or discrimination. The quality of having light
-colored hair or a pale complexion. I don't know
really how the second definition of this word
meets in comparison, but at the same time, it
makes up a very valid point. Fairness... In all
honesty means to treat everyone equally, okay?
This also applies to your skin color, your race,
how you do things, basically everybody. But at
this point, talking about racism is basically
a mute point. But for some people out there who
don't even know what the difference between being
racist is and the difference in being fair...
I'm going to cover fairness tonight. I will cover
racism at a later date. There's a lot of things
and a lot of aspects that go into that, but we
will worry about that later. This is a fairly
short topic for this moral series, but we're
going to go ahead and go into it and get started.
Fairness is one of those values that Americans
love to expose. It's just as beloved in technical
circles where it's often introduced as one of
the things that neutral computers do. We collectively
perceive ourselves and our systems to be fair
and push against any assertions that our practices
are unfair. But what do we even mean by fairness
in the first place? One of the things you have
to think about. In the United States, fairness
has historically been a battle between equality
and equity. Equality is the notion that everyone
should have an equal opportunity. It's the core
of the meteorocracy and central to the American
dream that everyone wants to have. of corruption
and yet as civil rights leaders have long argued
we don't all start out from the same place okay
uh privilege does matter but to a point i'm gonna
go ahead and say that right now as a result we've
seen historical battles over equity arguing and
fairness is only possible when we take into account
systemic marginalism, and differences of ability,
opportunity, and access. You know, when civil
rights leaders fought for equity in the 60s,
they were labeled communists, basically. Still,
equity -based concepts like affirmative action
managed to gain traction even today. i'm gonna
go ahead and pause for a second and define the
word equity so that you know the difference between
equity and equality equity is the quality of
being fair and impartial the value of the shares
issued by a company as a good example okay and
the reason i bring that up is while everyone
thinks that equality is the next best thing you
need to consider equity as a result as well equality
means everyone is the same which is fine but
In terms of equity, which in terms of being fair,
say you have three people, a tall person, a medium
person, and a short person, and there's three
boxes there, and you're trying to look over the
fence to see the baseball game. Equality states
that everybody gets a box so that everybody can
see. However, the only problem is only the tall
person and the medium -sized person can see,
whereas the short person can barely see over
the top of the fence. Equity states that we give
one box to the medium person so he can at least
see because the tall person can already see,
and put two boxes underneath the short person.
That's the difference between equity and equality.
Okay? Going back into what I was saying, today
we've shifted from communism to socialism as
the anti -equity justification. Many purposefully
refuse to acknowledge that people don't start
out from the same position and take offense at
any effort to right historical wrongs through
equity -based models. Affirmative action continues
to be dismantled, and the very notion of reparation
sends many into, as they say, a tizzy. Beyond
the cultural fight over equity and equality,
a new battle to define fairness has emerged.
Long normative in business and a market logic
of fairness is moving beyond industry to increasingly
become more normative understanding of fairness
in America. I mean, the difference between the
two is enormous, okay? Let me go ahead and cover
this. To understand market -driven models of
fairness, consider frequent flyer programs. If
you are a high status on Delta, you get all sorts
of privileges. You don't have to pay $25 to check
in a bag. You get better seats, frequent upgrades.
You get free food and extra services, yada, yada,
yada. We consider this fair because it enables
business to compete. However, Delta cares to
keep you as a customer base. because they rely
on you spending a lot of money over the year
or through a lifetime of program than you cost
in terms of perks. So, let's say a guy named
Bob. On the other hand, he isn't that interested
to Delta. If he only flies once a year and isn't
even eligible for the credit card, thus Bob doesn't
get the perks and is, in effect, charged more
for the equivalent services. Now how's that fair?
What happens when this logic of fairness alters
the foundations of society? Consider your financial
services where businesses rub up against something
so practical and seemingly necessary such as
housing. Okay? Martha Poon has done phenomenal
work in the history of the FICO scores, which
originally empowered new populations to gain
access to credit. Nowadays... I'm pretty sure
I'm butchering the word, but FICO, F -I -C -O,
whatever, scores are used for many things beyond
financial services, but even in the financial
services domain, things aren't as equitable as
one might think. The scores are not necessarily
fair, and their uses introduces new problems.
If you're seeking a loan and you have a better
score than Bob, then you may pay a lower interest.
This is considered acceptable because you are
at a lower risk than Bob. But just like Delta
wants to keep you as a customer, so does Chase.
And so they start to give you deals to compete
with other banks for your business. In effect,
they minimize the profit they make directly off
of the wealthiest because they need the high
-end customers for secondary competitive reasons.
As a result, Not only is Bob burdened with the
higher interest loans, but all the profits are
also made off of him as well. So, it's basically
a win -lose system. Fairness has taken the place
of a lot of things in life, and while it may
seem like it's fair, in honesty, it's probably
not. So, The most important thing we all need
to recognize is that how fairness is instantiated
significantly affects the very architecture of
our society. I regularly come back to the quote
by Alistair Crowell. Our social safety net is
woven on uncertainty. We have welfare, insurance,
and other institutions precisely because we can't
tell what's going to happen. So we amortize the
risk across... shared resources. The better we
are at predicting the future, the less we'll
be willing to share our fates with others. And
the more those predictions look like facts, the
more justice looks like thought crime. I mean,
and he brings up a valid point. The more we try
to be fair about everything, the more distrust,
disinterest, and the more loyalty is lost as
a result of it. the market -driven logic of fairness
is fundamentally about individuals at the expense
of the social fabric not surprising the tech
industry very non -liberal in cultural ideology
embraces market -driven fairness as the most
desirable form of fairness because it is the
model that is the most about individual empowerment
but of course this form of empowerment is at
the expense of others and significantly At the
expense of those who all have been historically
marginalized and ostracized as well. We are collectively
architecting the technological infrastructure
of this world. You know, I have a question for
you. Are we okay with what we're doing and how
will it affect the society around us? Think about
this for a minute. You know, in all honesty,
is being fair only about what... you can do where
it benefits only you at the extreme of the other
person and or should fairness be considered the
equality of everybody to the point where equity
isn't even a question whether it's equality versus
equity shouldn't it be both basically this is
a thought for a lot of people and something that
a lot of people will not consider But it is a
thing out here in this world nowadays. Much like
the previous morals that we covered, fairness
is one of the one that is leastly thought about.
And what it is, you often hear the phrase, well
that's true, but you know, the world's not fair.
Nothing in the world is fair. I mean, just because
he wins doesn't mean you will. And while I can
understand everything is against the odds. As
far as gambling and such, this doesn't generally
apply to everybody. The world is fair. It's the
people in it that aren't. Just because everyone
else isn't playing fair doesn't mean you shouldn't
either. And that is all I have to say on the
topic of fairness as far as the Moral Series
goes. So, with that, I thank you for listening.
And tomorrow, which will be in a few minutes...
we are going to cover acceptance. Enjoy the rest
of your day.