We are talking past each other, but with the correct tone maybe we could find if and what we disagree on.
Lets apply a quota system to those system above that today operate on individual assessment, using current imbalance that statistical evidence can detect.
Banks have data on who defaults on loans based on any number of conceivable categories, and likely incorporate some of that during an assessment. A quota system where they would grant or deny loans based on a single identity would not only be less fair because individuals can be part of multiple groups, but it would also institutionalize discrimination based on historical data. For the benefit of society it would be better if the system was more blind and relied less on the fact that people from low economic class defaults more on their loan that those from the higher economic classes.
Insurance companies is in the same boat. Having people of different categories pay higher rates make sense from a historical perspective, but it make for a worse society when women automatically pay higher medical insurance and men pay higher car insurance. Quotas where people are sorted into specific rates create a worse society.
Thankfully for both banking and insurance, individual assessment is more economical from a corporate perspective. A strict quota system which simply represented a single category of assumed risk is less effective at predicting a individual person. Individual employees of companies might still use discriminative quotas as shortcuts, but thankfully in most places that is illegal under anti-discrimination laws. There is no quota on how many African Americans can get a loan regardless of the rate of defaulting that that group historically has.
Some people have jested and suggested to have quotas in the legal system to correct existing bias. They say: Simply put more white people (and women) in jail! Obviously a quota system here would be terrible and the issue of racism and sexism in the legal system should be fixed through better individual assessments rather than quotas. Race and gender blindness would be a major improvement, while quotas would make society a much darker place.
See the theme here where blindness is the general cure to the ailment of bias and where quotas based on historical data would be terrible? Let see some examples where quotas are used.
There is an infamous school "lottery" in some places where kids from rich families have multiple choices (since they can sigh up to any number of good schools and move to places where they "win"), while kids from low economical class do not have that option and simply has to hope that they get one of the token slots from the good schools that their class get a quota from. Quotas has made matters worse, as been argued by teacher, parents and politicians alike. You don't fix the problem of good and bad schools through quotas, but rather by fixing the schools. The school should be blind to how much money a child parents has and simply provide the teaching that each individual child need.
Which lead us to the last area, medicine. Here quotas is currently used as a cost saving mechanism, where instead of individual assessment you have screenings and vaccines based on race, gender and age. It is a definitively worse system but since individual assessments are costly and doctors are limited in numbers it is still being used. The idea to give people medical care without medical assessment is at odds with modern practice of not doing harm, and the optimal solution is always to do individual assessments based on personal needs. Quotas is used as a last ditch effort when the benefits clearly outweighs the cost through careful and very conservative considerations. Quotas are dangerous and medical history is full of the harm they have done.
This is why I brought those examples. Each of them operate today on treating people as individuals and while neither system is perfect, adding quotas to them makes things worse rather then better. At best it can be used as a last ditch effort, but only if all other methods have been explored and one recognize the massive potential for harm that it introduce. I understand why it quotas feel attractive but to claim that it is impossible to treat people as individuals is practically giving up on the foundation of modern society.
Your points about these things are right in that you can’t just randomly apply a quota anywhere in the process and expect a good result. Eg the solution to discrimination in the justice system is probably not to put more white people in jail for no reason. But if everybody received the same punishment for the same crime, that would actually happen.
“Blindness” is ideal once people get into the stages of the process where they are being evaluated on an individual level. It should be the goal.
Quotas are not targeted at those problems.
The important piece that a lot of us people seem to miss is that the ongoing effect of historical racism and sexism messes things up and creates unfairness before people even get in the room. Massive unfairness. Compounded in a thousand different ways over somebody’s life. Creating pressure away from one kind of life and towards another simply through historical inertia, because for most of history people like them did not have full rights as human beings.
Quotas seem bad at solving the problems you point out because they are not for that. They are an attempt to measure, and correct for, much bigger trends.
Well-designed quotas at the right places in processes could let the pool of people (who are then evaluated blindly) be a much more representative group. Quotas (or some other measurement) would let you know if some proxies for discrimination were still getting through the process.
Insurance companies my not use race, but a zip code can be a proxy for race, and the kind of neighborhood a person lives in can make them more likely to suffer a break-in or make a claim for some other reason.
I really do believe that it’s impossible to treat people as individuals with 100% certainty that that’s what you are doing. No matter how hard you try. Even in all the examples you gave, there is progress but things are not done.
Lets apply a quota system to those system above that today operate on individual assessment, using current imbalance that statistical evidence can detect.
Banks have data on who defaults on loans based on any number of conceivable categories, and likely incorporate some of that during an assessment. A quota system where they would grant or deny loans based on a single identity would not only be less fair because individuals can be part of multiple groups, but it would also institutionalize discrimination based on historical data. For the benefit of society it would be better if the system was more blind and relied less on the fact that people from low economic class defaults more on their loan that those from the higher economic classes.
Insurance companies is in the same boat. Having people of different categories pay higher rates make sense from a historical perspective, but it make for a worse society when women automatically pay higher medical insurance and men pay higher car insurance. Quotas where people are sorted into specific rates create a worse society.
Thankfully for both banking and insurance, individual assessment is more economical from a corporate perspective. A strict quota system which simply represented a single category of assumed risk is less effective at predicting a individual person. Individual employees of companies might still use discriminative quotas as shortcuts, but thankfully in most places that is illegal under anti-discrimination laws. There is no quota on how many African Americans can get a loan regardless of the rate of defaulting that that group historically has.
Some people have jested and suggested to have quotas in the legal system to correct existing bias. They say: Simply put more white people (and women) in jail! Obviously a quota system here would be terrible and the issue of racism and sexism in the legal system should be fixed through better individual assessments rather than quotas. Race and gender blindness would be a major improvement, while quotas would make society a much darker place.
See the theme here where blindness is the general cure to the ailment of bias and where quotas based on historical data would be terrible? Let see some examples where quotas are used.
There is an infamous school "lottery" in some places where kids from rich families have multiple choices (since they can sigh up to any number of good schools and move to places where they "win"), while kids from low economical class do not have that option and simply has to hope that they get one of the token slots from the good schools that their class get a quota from. Quotas has made matters worse, as been argued by teacher, parents and politicians alike. You don't fix the problem of good and bad schools through quotas, but rather by fixing the schools. The school should be blind to how much money a child parents has and simply provide the teaching that each individual child need.
Which lead us to the last area, medicine. Here quotas is currently used as a cost saving mechanism, where instead of individual assessment you have screenings and vaccines based on race, gender and age. It is a definitively worse system but since individual assessments are costly and doctors are limited in numbers it is still being used. The idea to give people medical care without medical assessment is at odds with modern practice of not doing harm, and the optimal solution is always to do individual assessments based on personal needs. Quotas is used as a last ditch effort when the benefits clearly outweighs the cost through careful and very conservative considerations. Quotas are dangerous and medical history is full of the harm they have done.
This is why I brought those examples. Each of them operate today on treating people as individuals and while neither system is perfect, adding quotas to them makes things worse rather then better. At best it can be used as a last ditch effort, but only if all other methods have been explored and one recognize the massive potential for harm that it introduce. I understand why it quotas feel attractive but to claim that it is impossible to treat people as individuals is practically giving up on the foundation of modern society.