Re:Chief scientist of major corporation can’t handle critici...
by jrmg on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @01:01PM
(#33722453)
I’ve been thinking about this more, and it’s occurred to me that there is an underlying assumption in It’s not he purpose of the loan industry… that corporations are required to make decisions amorally - which is don’t think is or should be the case. That may be an underlying schism in our argument.
Re:Chief scientist of major corporation can’t handle critici...
by dekhn on Wednesday November 23, 2022 @01:41PM
(#33722975)
You are correct. I expect that corporations understand they exist in a competitive environment and incorporating morality represents a real risk that your competitor will replace you, because morality is not profitable.
I do agree that if you expect corporations to act morally, then it would be sensible for them to be more careful in understanding and correcting long-term social ills.
Another way to say that - one that appears less uncaring to readers - would be “yes, including birth month or race in insurance risk calculations would be unfair+, so it should not be done. If necessary, the government should step in to prevent this”.
+ you may squabble with the use of ‘unfair’ here - obviously it is not ‘unfair’ in the stastical sense, but that’s not what the word generally means in spoken English. ‘Inequitable’ would be better, but for some reason ‘equity’ seems to be evolving to mean ‘at all costs, produces equality of outcome’ and so is a victim to the same problem in the opposite direction. I chose the more common word.
[edit: I used insurance here, sorry - the same would apply to loans I think]