xkvd's comments

What do you mean by "privatize the profits" here? Are you ignoring taxation?

One way to view the government's role here is that it shifts around externalities to achieve efficiency. You can put cap-and-trade restrictions to absorb negative externalize in high-pollution industries and redistribute that to consumer/producer markets that suffer from the pollution.

You can probably apply a similar piece of reasoning across time. Government can tax industries during booms and then redistribute that during busts.

Appealing to the veil is a good but insufficient step. For instance, we might disagree what people would agree on behind the veil (imo because we encode moral assumptions into our conclusions from it). Nonetheless, if we were to get that far I'd say the veil would be doing its job.

For example, suppose I beleive in the systematic rejection of blind people from bus driving positions. I can see myself getting behind this even if I wouldn't know whether I'd be blind or not because I imagine behind the veil I'd put greater moral value associated with the safety of bus passengers than blind people's rights to the bus driving job. In other words, I've exposed the "driving" moral valuation behind my stance.

Yes, and it's still unclear to me how it'd be applied here.

Yeah, but I have a feeling that we're both outside of the set of people who would make the statement I was quoting in my OC, which might explain why you and I can't find such a rule.

My examples are just 4 quick things off the top of my head, there are probably many more. I also don't see your point about the deaf person (they're still treated differently -- you wouldn't talk vocally to them).

I agree with your rule of thumb, but that seems like a positive description of the situation, not the normative one I'm looking for. You're giving me the conditions under which there will be outrage for discrimination (i.e., there exists a socially vocal/outspoken group that identifies with the quality being discriminated on). However, I was trying to tease out what the moral rule purported by such groups could be, since I see the "don't discriminate for how I was born" claim so often (and so forcefully put). I would suppose there should be some deep moral law being broken.

> [if someone thinks people should] be treated differently because of how they were born [then outrage they face is justified]

This has always piqued my curiosity -- would you mind explaining? Why is this such a deep tenet that I hear it so often as justification for shunning people? Apparently, there is something egregious about "treating people differently" because of "how they were born." What is wrong about this? Can you make this statement more concrete? How are the following "treatments" egregious?

* Someone is born deaf, so his parents give him care related to his disability, which is different compared to what they would have done otherwise.

* Someone was born with a great vocal range, so people encourage them to become a singer.

* Someone is born with great mathematical abilities, so later in life they are top-pick by quantitative companies, which pay them extra for the value they are expected to deliver.

* Someone has many insecurities and a history of nervous breakdowns and psychological damage, so we don't give them a high-stress job (for instance, the military doesn't hire them).