Ethics and Science Quarantine Zone - The Bear and Badger

Facewon

Lol.

Facewon

Lololol.

Brooks

Lololol... ol?

[Deleted User]

Brooks wrote:

You guys.

I know, right?

Tempy

Nice of Skerrer to pass the Thought Leader mantle to another Aussie I guess? We are a charitable bunch.

JRPC

Facewon wrote:

To backtrack a second. Apart from it being questionable that you're right that redistribution couldn't or wouldn't result from "halving our access to painkillers," which is a strange phrase for it by the way, doing a Harris with your hypotheticals here ignores the issues around pricing, patents and general supply control that goes on with medicines, in particular. Its not a simple case of hoarding. Your example doesn't demonstrate much. Why did you use the term access, btw? For well proven drugs what do you think is holding back access? Either in the west or in poorer countries?

You’re missing the point, and I have to say as for someone who claims an interest in philosophy you seem suspiciously unfamiliar it’s foundational building block of the thought experiment.

Face wrote:

“But why was the trolley left unsupervised?”

“Who tied those people to the tracks in the first place?”

“The real issue here is railway health and safety legislation”.

It doesn't matter.

Let's say all the tablets evaporated into thin air and so did all the machines used to make them.

The point is that I could give you a thousand examples, theoretical and real world, where inequality is reduced producing worse outcomes without any silver lining.

This is hostile to the idea that inequality is fundamentally immoral.

I feel like I should spell out more clearly my objections to Stophs list that so many seem so impressed by and feel like I’m ignoring.

“Inequality causes X” with X being some bad thing. This is not an argument.

Take this one “inequality leads to pay gaps between the sexes”. This is meaningless. You may as well say “inequality leads to AIDS” (for which you could also no doubt find a correlation).

If you filter his post through the common false synonyms for inequality of poverty and unfairness (neither of which are the same as inequality), then you’re not left with a great deal.

Some examples there make more sense and like I’ve already conceded the issue of political leverage is real and significant.

But to jump from that to “income inequality is intrinsically bad” makes as much sense as arguing that economic inequality is intrinsically a good thing by pointing to the mass extreme poverty brought about through ‘‘the great levelers’ (mass mobilisation warfare; communism; state collapse; and plague and pandemic episodes) which have reliably brought about economic equity throughout history.

But of course nobody is making that argument but if they were it would be no less valid than ‘The Left's New Theory of Everything’ that inequality has become.

JRPC

[Deleted User]

I still don't understand how poverty isn't related to inequality. Surely poverty is just a label for a section of the equality spectrum.

Yossarian

But I’ve provided a whole load of evidence about why inequality is intrinsically bad. That article linked to multiple research papers that said that very thing.

[Deleted User]

I'm amazed this thread is still going actually. You guys have insane patience.

Facewon

JRPC wrote:

You’re missing the point, and I have to say as for someone who claims an interest in philosophy you seem suspiciously unfamiliar it’s foundational building block of the thought experiment

Ooh. Spicy. Disappointed we didn't get a hubris mention this time.

The point is that I could give you a thousand examples, theoretical and real world, where inequality is reduced producing worse outcomes without any silver lining.

And yet, tellingly, you've failed to provide any....

I feel like I should spell out more clearly my objections to Stophs list that so many seem so impressed by and feel like I’m ignoring.

Ya think, for someone so supposedly well versed in philosophy it's taken you 2 and half broad debates to notice that you might need to be clearer. Lol.

“Inequality causes X” with X being some bad thing. This is not[/size] an argument.

Well, it is, if you can demonstrate that it does cause x.

I'd like some real world examples please. You have thousands.

If your only trick is turning every argument into a simply if x then Y, without being charitable around the underpinnings and subtleties of the gender pay gap, or to use yours, aids, then you're not actually interested in dealing with reality, you're interested in just-soism.

You're splitting hairs while the world burns for a great many people.

hunk

Sliding scale where economic inequality turns into poverty. Obviously.

Poverty being the point where average folk are essentially unable to provide basic care for themselves: safe housing, food, running water, sanitation, medical healthcare etc, even if they do have a payin job. Economic inequality in a society isn't bad in and of itsself, it's when that treshold is reached and the average citizen struggles to make ends meet. The point where it becomes almost impossible to climb the SES ladder from bottom to top (american dream?) and people start reaching for their pitchforks/AK's.

Combine that with a political system that's essentially rigged favoring people with wealth and you're bound to get an imbalance at one point or another. Big Business controls and influences everything around us. The wealthy can literally buy political influence through lobbying and if that fails they'll force it through other shadier means. Think Bannon/Mercer's Cambridge Analytica/Aggregate IQ initiative.

So yeah, in any society there needs to be a balance between poverty and economic inequality. The 'elite' needs to keep an eye on that as that's in their best interests. If they don't people might rise up and start to riot. Worst case scenario: heads might roll in a violent civil strife.

Vela

Sorry JRPC, I already posted a QED so the argument is over.

trippy

JRPC wrote:

You’re missing the point, and I have to say as for someone who claims an interest in philosophy you seem suspiciously unfamiliar it’s foundational building block of the thought experiment.

You've been presenting 'your' 'thought experiments' as facts though, and using them to further your arguments. This is the first time you've suggested we're just going on a thinking journey. Shame we never get past your front door.

hunk

Boommm! Mic drop.

acemuzzy

I think there could be an interesting debate about whether (more inequality but better quality of life for the poorest) is better or worse than (less inequality but worse QOL all round).

But
- that's a hypothetical debate, as others have pointed out; there are many other options
- its very statement explicitly needs to offer some good to offset the damage of the extra inequality, fairly obviously suggesting the inequality is bad
- it isn't how jrpc is freaking the debate anyway

So yeah, I might have been interested, but given that and the inability to discuss sensibly, I'm out.

RedDave2

I must admit, I find JRPCs angle hard to grasp. To a certain degree as acemuzzy says a certain degree of inequality isn't a problem (a case maybe of high tides rise all boats) so if the 'haves' are doing great and the rest are doing decent than yes, no major issues. But for stuff like health, education I can't understand why inequality can be viewed as anything other than a problem.

I also don't get the drugs analogy because that's not inequality. Others have made the point but I dont think its been responded to but the issue is not the availability of drugs, it's the fact that the drug producer knows they have a high earning top market to sell to who can afford huge inflation. But they cant reduce the price for the lesser markets so we get the inequality of if you are rich you can easily afford the drug but if you are on low wages it's a much bigger ask. So it's not the amount of the drug available, its the marketing plan behind it.

JonB

Turns out the plague wasn't a good thing because it reduced inequality.

I'm learning a lot here.

Facewon

JRPC wrote:

Face wrote:“But why was the trolley left unsupervised?”

“Who tied those people to the tracks in the first place?”

“The real issue here is railway health and safety legislation”.

It doesn't matter.

Well no, it doesn't matter if you get to put words in my mouth and change the questions.

So again I'll ask why you used the term "access"?

You could answer that, or you could keep trying to squeeze a non real world example (like the trolley problem) into a space where we had a perfectly good real world example.

And this is a Harrisism, btw, because the Sudanese factory bombing was the real world example, and he chose to talk about Al Qaeda sending medicine to the states or whatever the fuck his unnecessary example was.

Access implies that there's permission to be given, access begs the question what are the barriers to it, access ignores the question of whether there is enough of whatever is being asked for. You know, all the important things about getting medicine to people who need it in the third world.

[Deleted User]

He has a mental health issue bud, I'd leave him well alone.

hunk

Inequality from the perspective of someone in the 9.9% top bracket.
Could've posted in the ills thread but since the topic of economic inequality is being discussed here...

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/the-birth-of-a-new-american-aristocracy/559130/

hunk

Proof that hi iq doesn't exclude ignorant tardiness (read: murky morals)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/12/einsteins-travel-diaries-reveal-shocking-xenophobia

Brooks

Ducks, milkshaken, not stirred.

[Deleted User]

Come on now, Einstein was born in the 19th century. In Germany. What do we expect?

Facewon

https://currentaffairs.us18.list-manage.com/track/click?u=e6cb9720181d518f966bb21f4&id=12cb3f82e5&e=1d64478feb

NJR, continuing gods work.

If poor people in America today are better off than poor people were during the Great Depression, then poverty isn’t a moral outrage. Arguments of this variety are deployed throughout Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, which downplays the complaints of leftists by showing that human beings now are better off than they were during, say, the Holocaust or the Great Irish Famine.

We can see why arguments of this type fail. If I say that sweatshops are “good,” and my evidence is that when sweatshops were introduced into a country, the wages of those who went to work in the sweatshops were higher than the country’s average wages, I may sound persuasive. But if the factories I am talking about are crowded, unsafe, abusive places in which people exhaust themselves, destroy their bodies, and have little control over their work, it’s perverse to describe this situation as good merely because it is marginally better than what came before. We have to have a notion of “good” independent of mere “better” and “worse.” Otherwise, if “better” means “good,” then a kidnapper who said they would either kill one of my children or both of them would be offering me a “good” choice. Instead, they are offering me two horrific options, one of which I may be stuck with, but which is only “better” in the narrowest sense of the word.

JonB

Yes, this 'things aren't so bad' narrative is becoming a real bugbear of mine. Notice how it nearly always comes from white guys in western countries who are doing just fine thanks.

djchump

“Stop complaining! I know I’m punching you in the face, but just think how bad you’d have it if you were a peasant dying of the Black Plague! Stop trying to make things better!”

The most transparently daft part of it all is the pillorying of “social justice warriors” - I.e. the very people trying to improve life and the world so that in future generations things are still improving.

JRPC

If poor people in America today are better off than poor people were during the Great Depression, then poverty isn’t a moral outrage. Arguments of this variety are deployed throughout Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, which downplays the complaints of leftists by showing that human beings now are better off than they were during, say, the Holocaust or the Great Irish Famine.

Jesus! Some laughable strawmanning there. He's utterly misrepresenting Pinker in EN.

Deliberate or just ignorant? I could easily imagine he hasn't actually read the book from that, but I'm still going with the former. Gotta get those clicks!

D-

I'd recommend actually reading the book.

And maybe less shit journalism.

Otherwise, if “better” means “good,” then a kidnapper who said they would either kill one of my children or both of them would be offering me a “good” choice. Instead, they are offering me two horrific options, one of which I may be stuck with, but which is only “better” in the narrowest sense of the word.

Lol

djchump

JRPC wrote:

...Deliberate or just ignorant? I could easily imagine he hasn't actually read the book from that, but I'm still going with the former. Gotta get those clicks!

D-

I'd recommend actually reading the book.
...

So what are we all thinking the odds are that JRPC actually read the article? Or just jumped straight on the quote?

JRPC

djchump wrote:

JRPC wrote:

...Deliberate or just ignorant? I could easily imagine he hasn't actually read the book from that, but I'm still going with the former. Gotta get those clicks!

D-

I'd recommend actually reading the book.
...

So what are we all thinking the odds are that JRPC actually read the article? Or just jumped straight on the quote?

Omg I totally haven’t read the article! That quote is plenty sufficient thanks.

Here’s perhaps a more relevant question though; hands up if you’ve actually read the book in question?

Howdy, Stranger!

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