I didn’t say it had to be unethical. I said it had to parallel this one. C’mon it should be easy. It should be common place if there is no ethical issue and its just a matter of consenting adults! Find something that’s offered by a government composed of a small chance at a short-term gain traded for an organ’s function. Now mind you, this organ has to have the same import as even sven is indicating in her posts.
You do remember that I made posts prior to this one right? It’s deceiving people because of our mental biases when faced with gambling. Our ability to make calculations based on odds ratios is steadily lost as the odds of the event’s occurrence shrink and the excitement of the event increases.
I would only work to stop the government from making these flash-in-the-pan offers.
Faith in the people in government to make fair offers? You certainly do.
Why would it be commonplace? There needs to be something in it for the party making such an offer, which may well be quite rare – but the rarity of that condition has no bearing on whether there’s something in it for both parties this time.
Again, I’d like to test that theory by asking whether you’d take the offer in question. Or whether you play the lottery. Or whether you gamble with a bookie. That sort of thing. How are you when it comes to turning down a chance to make a lot of money with a poor “odds ratio”?
Only the government? Or does your stance extend to preventing flash-in-the-pan offers from private entities? I’m trying to follow your logic, here.
On the contrary; I have faith that people in government will make offers I find unfair, as well as those I find fair. I also have faith that private entities will similarly make offers I find unfair as well as those I find fair. I have faith that I’ll reject the offers I find unfair while accepting those I find fair – and have faith in you to do likewise. Is your judgment as good as I think it is?
So you simply can’t think of any. You can probably think of many examples that are obviously ethical but none of them share all the features with the example in the article. You can probably think of many that are unethical. Take one of your from earlier, how come is it that all things being equal, a 12 year old can’t give consent while an 18 year old can?
This line of reasoning your taking makes absolutely no sense at all.
We are talking about a government in a specific situation. I don’t care to discuss the broader implications of this or that thought.
Good for you; how do you know if an offer is fair if you are being deceived?
I agree with this argument. Most people don’t understand that spending the few bucks on a lottery ticket is essentially throwing the money away. But for most people a couple of bucks isn’t a lot of money, so it is no big deal.
Yet, some people spend more than they should which is detrimental to them and to their loved ones. No denying it. But this group is far smaller than the former.
What percentage of people if offered a chance, remember they are not being promised they will win, but just a chance, are willing to chop off body parts for a bet? For a million dollars? Sure you’d get a few. No one, no matter how poor, is going to do it for a chance at a blender unless they have no issue with getting the procedure done, or have thought of doing it before.
Well, I am composing this post from the den of my big Roma extended family home (five generations live in the house and surrounding trailers and smaller houses) where the behavior you have just described toward relatives, especially of an older generation, would be inconceivable. IMHO any culture espousing such values toward their family members deserves being wiped out. And a family acting like that among many Roma groups wouldn’t last long because they would quickly be shunned no one would want to do business or marry into their family. Having so many kids is why those poor, rural people are so poor. That’s what I have learned growing up in a culture and community that has only recently been able to climb out of poverty.
Oh? Let me see if I can clarify. You stated – perhaps incorrectly – that “I absolutely do not think people are capable of understanding the odds in most gambling. Humans do not exhibit the mathematical ability to understand an odds ratio without other cognitive biases creeping in”.
I think you’re wrong. I believe that people – you, for example – are capable of understanding the odds in question, such that you can accept or reject offers accordingly. If you can, then your prior statement would be in error. So before we go any further, please spell this out for me: are you, personally, capable of that?
Again, I disagree with your choice of terms. Still, for the sake of clarity:
How do I know whether it’s fair if I’m being “deceived”? If we use “deceived” the way I have in mind, to mean they gave me false information – well, then, yeah, that sure is a problem, you bet.
How do I know whether it’s fair if I’m being “deceived”? If we use “deceived” the way you have in mind, to mean they gave me truthful information about the odds and the prizes and so on – then, no, that’s not really a problem, as I see it.
Well – look, if you want to limit the discussion to a government in this specific situation, I guess that’s fine…
…aw, c’mon, man; you answer mine and I’ll answer yours, huh? Even leaving aside that you keep refusing to answer when I ask whether you’d accept or reject offers to gamble, remember that I don’t even know what your position is on the private/government point, and so I don’t really know what your objection to this specific situation; I genuinely don’t know whether you’d object to a private entity making the same offer, or whether you think there’s something special about offers from the government.
By contrast, you already know that I lump age-of-consent in with gun-to-the-head or fraud-by-false-advertising when thinking up hypothetical objections that aren’t in effect in this case; before you move on to asking why I’d hypothetically object to a twelve-year-old signing away his anatomy, can’t you at least tell me whether you’d hypothetically object to a grown man signing with a private entity instead of a governmental one?
(At that, you presumably already know how I feel about the private/government point; it doesn’t make a difference to me whether you’re consenting to a private entity or a governmental one, it matters to me whether you’re consenting. My position is easy to understand, even if you disagree with it – but I honestly don’t know what your position is, which is why I’m asking.)
I agree with what you are saying, but if it is the case then there should be no need for anything beyond the offer of a free vasectomy.
I know on one level that a 1 in a million chance is smaller than a 1 in 1000 chance. I don’t really understand the difference mind you. I just know they are different because I had a good education. Even with this being true, my decision to take part in a contest is an emotional one that is highly influenced by how the prize excites me. To look at it in another way: people do not fear being killed by a shark because of the odds.
Everything concerning the rest of your post can be summed up by understanding what is meant by “age of consent”. 12 year-olds can’t gamble their ability to reproduce away because they are considered too young to understand the consequences of the act and cannot be reliably asked to engage in contracts. In other words: They do not understand the terms of the agreement.
When you confuse the decision to commit to an offer by introduces gambling, and since it is known that this particular type of gambling has unknowable odds, then those who participate cannot possibly understand the terms of the agreement.
The clearest ethical way to offer vasectomies is to simply inform what it means to get one and offer them. Adding in all this marketing and gambling horseshit to obfuscate the consequences of the decision is unethical and it is what this government is engaging in.
Please, only large multi-national corporations can be exploitative. Everyone knows that.
Or governments. Sorry, only democratically elected governments in the West.
See, this is why I want to discuss situations that aren’t a perfect parallel but line up on this point. Sometimes folks get asked to donate blood for nothing – but sometimes a reward is offered. Why? Does the first possibility mean there’s no conceivable need for the second? Some fundraisers get by upon merely asking for money – but others involve a raffle that offers a chance to get a hundred times as much cash back. Why? If the first works sometimes, why do we ever bother with the second?
To me, the answer is simple: with blood drives that may or may not offer rewards, or fundraisers that may or may not involve raffles – or vasectomy drives that may or may not double as lotteries – in each case, it’s a splendid irrelevance that sometimes you can net result A by offering no shot at compensation but can net result B by offering a shot at compensation.
When I bring this up, you immediately (and correctly) shift focus to aspects that make the parallel imperfect; the irreversible-loss-of-an-organ’s-use bit, say. But if you’re going to do that, then you should completely drop the part where they do parallel each other – because you don’t really care about that part. Near as I can tell, the whole reason you shift away from the general statements at that moment is because you don’t really mean them.
Or maybe you do; that’s why I’m asking. Consider:
Do you really mean that as a general statement, for situations that parallel this one*** to that extent?*** Would you likewise object to a fundraiser, structured as a raffle, with odds that are likewise unknowable because they change with the number of entrants?
The difference, though, is the possibility of a brisk two-step.
If you tell me my odds of winning are one in a thousand, and they are one in a thousand, then I can understand the terms of the agreement; I can accept or reject the offer, providing genuine consent if I wish. If you tell me my odds of winning are one in a thousand while knowing they’re only one in a million – well, then, you’re making it impossible for me to understand the terms of the agreement; I can’t provide genuine consent.
But if you tell me my odds of winning are unknowable – that, say, they’ll change according to the final number of entrants – then I can understand that, sure as those are the terms of the agreement. I can accept or reject the offer, providing genuine consent if I wish.
And we can’t use a brisk two-step like that to get consent from a 12-year-old. The parallel fails on point: he could understand if he were old enough, we could say, but he’s too young to do it now, we’d add – and we can’t then go on to say that telling a child of 12 he’s too young suffices to make him understand.
I can consent to a deal without knowing the odds, so long as I know I don’t know the odds; it sounds clunky if we say it too fast, but it’s true if we break it down. Well, except for this:
You don’t? You can’t tell me whether your odds are ten times worse, or a hundred times worse, or a thousand times worse? Really? I can do that with ease; you can’t do it at all?
Something’s not adding up; why haven’t you gone broke yet? If what you’re saying is true, wouldn’t you have long since gambled away all your money on low-percentage contests with exciting prizes? What’s been preventing such emotional decisions all this time?
I don’t see that it’s obfuscation to say “the odds of winning are one in a thousand”, or to say that “the odds of winning are one in a million”, or to say that “the odds of winning are unknown” – so long as the information is, y’know, accurate. “Adding in all this marketing and gambling horseshit” only strikes me as troubling if it crosses the line into false advertising – in this context and in others. Does it only trouble you in this context, or does it likewise trouble you in others?
Who said it was noble and what’s the villagers’ alternative?
Nah, it’s an ill-conceived government program that even if it hit its targets wouldn’t have a significant effect on population growth. If you really think about the logic of the whole program it steadily loses its rationale. What would 30,000 sterilizations mean for a country with a population over a billion? Nothing.
Are you still trying to rescue those analogies? Besides the permanent loss of organ function you forget mine and other peoples’ problems with the contest: (1) it targets a particular social class, who, judging from this Wikipedia entry, must not be terribly literate and (2) it attacks a problem that is better addressed through other gov’t programs and may harm the lives of rural 3rd world people. This isn’t going to a social event and laying out $5 for some raffle tickets that you could hardly care about winning. It’s disconnecting you from your balls for a chance at a prize that looms larger than $20 for blood.
The analogies have no parallel with this situation and it would probably help you to understand it more and ask the right questions if you let them go. Because I don’t think through the lens of these analogies I am more likely to ask the question “Can the people most likely to engage in this contest even read?”. These are poor rural people in an area prone to drought. You said before that you understand but I really don’t think you do given the quality of your analogies and your desire to stick with them despite the flaws in every respect except “people entered into an agreement”. Even this last little string attaching all your analogies and this situation together is completely flawed because the people entering into this bargain cannot understand the terms well enough to give consent.
Relative to a poor rural Indian, I come from a well-educated, wealthy background with years of math education and the difference between 1:1000 and 1:1000000000 means nothing to me when it comes to decision time. This is true of everyone. There is no two-step because the people asked to make the decision have no clue about step #1.
Sure I can do that but can you illustrate what it means without referring to math? You can’t and nobody can or ever will. If we could we wouldn’t need calculators and scientific notation and all the other ways in which we turn large numbers into something we can just barely grasp.
Well, as a rationalization for why they should keep having kids, it’s pretty weak. Breeding kids to be pack animals and dooming them to the same poverty you suffer from doesn’t strike me as a humanitarian solution. Personally, I’d rather just die destitute than add another generation of suffering, but maybe that’s just my cultural perspective.
You’re missing the point; slow down and try to grasp it.
I know they’re bad analogies. I know they’re only relevant to a single aspect of the situation, and I know you want to talk about your other problems with this transaction. That’s why I want you to drop the argument these analogies actually do apply to.
But you’re the one who – for some reason – keeps circling back to the points you’ll again abandon as soon as I bring those analogies back up. It serves no purpose; anyone who’s paying attention can tell that you don’t actually care about the points you bring up and drop and bring up and drop: you genuinely don’t want to talk about the ways in which the analogies are relevant. But shortly after you drop 'em to focus on something new, you – bring 'em back up!
I’m just not buying it. If it’s true of you, why haven’t you gambled away all your wealth “when it comes to decision time”? If it’s true of me, why haven’t I? Isn’t that the outcome your claims should produce?
Well, “without math” is pretty broad. How about this: let’s say I’m offered a chance to gamble one dollar for a hundred-dollar payoff if I win. Do I accept the offer if the odds are ten-to-one against me? Yes. Do I accept the offer if the odds are a thousand-to-one against me? No. Is that “referring to math”?
Or how about this:
Okay, let’s really go with that for a moment. Would you lay out $5 for some raffle tickets? Would you donate blood for $20? Would you agree to lose your balls for said chances of winning said prizes? Do you play the lottery?
I know how I’d answer those questions, and I suspect I know how you’d answer. I can’t help but think you’re being disingenuous in claiming it’s humanly impossible to understand the odds.
All apologies, but I want to make sure we’re on the same page: what, precisely, are you saying these people have no clue about?
Again, I want to know exactly how little respect you have for the people in question; help me understand what you think they can and can’t consent to. What other bargains do you think they can’t understand well enough? Obviously you know my answer; I don’t yet know yours.
So, it should target those people who are literate and have the best resources to raise children? It makes sense to target the group who have the least education, the least chance of success, and the fewest resources to bring others into the world.
Illiterate or not, when someone says you have a chance to win a blender, but we’ll chop your balls off as the entry fee it doesn’t matter if the chance is 100%, 1-10, 1-1000, or 1-1000000. It is the fee that counts. Are you willing to have your balls cut off for a blender because that is the most you will win.
As far as I know it’s an effective breeding strategy that has worked for poor across cultures and throughout history. I would not want to mess with the system unless it was thoroughly understood why people adopt this strategy and how it changes over time.
Every problem I have mentioned in regards to this farce I do actually care about; otherwise I would never mention them.
Neither of us are motivated to engage in contest after contest until all our cash is gone. That doesn’t change the fact that there are contests, with prizes, in the right setting, that motivates us to take part. It doesn’t change the fact that contests can be constructed and used in such a way that they are self-destructive.
See? You can’t do it.
I have never done any of these things - so no.
Like I said, in the vague sense that one possibility is more remote than another, but not a real understanding. It’s not part of normal human brain thinking and is one of the reasons why math is important.
I think it is unlikely that they could know what they are agreeing to. They do not know the likelihood of winning or losing. If they were looking for that vasectomy anyway then all the power to them, but I doubt it is that simple.
I didn’t say they couldn’t consent. They certainly can. It’s just they have little idea of what they are consenting to. You keep ignoring that my problem is with the government offering up a silly contest. It’s not their job to do so in such a way.
The ethical way to offer up this vasectomy is to simply offer it, educate the potential participants on what it means, educate them on what the outcomes both short and long term will be, and leave it at that. When the participant consents it is unambiguous what they are consenting to. I know it, they know it, the government knows it and the doctor knows it. The unethical way is to obfuscate, to add in extraneous details or select specific types of information.
By the way, respect isn’t assuming that people are “just like me”. Respect is learning about the people in and of themselves without reference to who you are. You are the one showing no respect and the assumptions you are making are the kind of assumptions I called ‘arrogant’ in my first post.
Once again, this ‘targeting’ can be accomplished through education and making the procedure freely available. Your other comment was disgustingly funny.
Yes, it is a very effective strategy to keep them poor across cultures and throughout history. Some of us however aspire to the day when an underclass of minimally surviving destitute people is not a norm across socities, but a relic of the past. People can survive at a lot of levels that are very, unpleasant. That doesn’t mean the rest of us should encouage them to remain in that state of suffering.
Where did I say encourage? I said I wouldn’t mess with it, and I certainly wouldn’t play eugenics-style games with them. You can’t just turn them into top hat wearing capitalists in a single generation.
I am only saying that the poor operate on the same basic principles of rational choice and incentives that motivate everyone. They are not, on the whole, crazy or brainless (which is what you’d have to be to make choices that go against the incentives available to you). If they are doing something, it is because there are positive or negative incentives motivating them to do it.
In this particular case, it’s not a huge mystery. A couple of generations ago in the oh-so-rational West, we had piles of children on dirt poor farms. This was for basically the same reason why someone in India or Kenya might have piles of children on a dirt poor farm. As our economic system moved towards cities and educated jobs, we didn’t suddenly jump IQ points or stop being crazy. We simply reacted to the incentives and started focusing on raising a smaller number of better educated kids. And you see this exact same phenomena in Chennai or Nairobi as people move into cities and have fewer kids.
Anyway, if you want to address a behavior, the best way to do it is to manipulate the incentives, not the people. And no, a blender or lottery ticket is not a good incentive. I worked with a reproductive health program in India. They paired their contraceptive/reproductive health education programs with vocational training and maternal health/nutrition (to counter high infant mortality that motivates people to have “extra” kids just in case.) These kinds of programs are pretty successful, and actually make individual’s lives better as they improve society on the whole.
But what is unsaid here is that making lives better has never been the goal of any eugenics program, including this one. A generation ago we’d be saying “They breed just like animals! They have no shame!” Two generations ago we’d be talking about pseudo-scientific “degenerate bloodlines” rather than todays pseudo-scientific “degenerate IQs.” Three generations ago, we’d be saying they were all devil worshippers and needed some good old fashioned Christianity. But not then, and not now, is any of this based on any sort of respect, compassion or caring for people or their lives.
No, you would rather that they die destitute. If you were a poor farmer, you’d probably find that your life is not “a life not worth living.” You’d live for your faith, your work, love, holidays and milestones, your children and the smell of the wet earth (or whatever sensory pleasures you enjoy.) Being poor sucks, but life for the poor is not entirely some unending hell. In peaceful places where people have land, it’s actually pretty damn pleasant most of the time- but it would be nice to have a well a bit closer or have some money to buy some bricks so you don’t have to rebuild your mud house every year.
Remember that nearly every book ever written, every faith, nearly every song, nearly every poem, almost all art, 99.9999999% of lovers and newborns and happy old folks, every cathedral, and pretty much everything humans have wrought, with the exception of the products of a tiny fraction of human history in a small corner of the world, has been created in an environment of poverty. Has human life only recently become worthwhile or meaningful? Is the difference really a matter of cars and ranch homes (or even classrooms or roads)?
Yes, disease sucks, and poverty is tied to disease. But don’t forget that every single one of us will most likely die of a painful, agonizing, horrific disease. Cancer comes for us as sure as TB for the farmer. Does it invalidate everything good in your life that you will almost certainly die of disease? Then why do you think it invalidates someone else’s?
In any case, by all accounts India is on its way up. Even in the poorest villages, they are seeing steady improvement in their lives. Remember that on the scale of human history, the West has been rich for just the merest blink of an eye- remember that in the middle of the last century Europe was full of war, genocide, famine and authoritarianism. Today, on the grand scale even the poorest countries are just a fractional step behind us. India, in particular, stands to eliminate extreme poverty with a generation or two. Why would you give up just moments before the finish line? Why would you suddenly decide that a group of people. who largely for structural reasons related to centuries of enforced inequality in India, are poorer than other Indians are somehow reproductively unfit?
Eliminating poverty is not the same as eliminating the poor.
-Sven, who thinks the poor are people pretty much like her (but poorer)