Journal Journal: Inequities 15
Act I
A FA on the front page laments that more potholes have gotten fixed in wealthier neighborhoods in some city because their residents were more likely to own smartphones and download the report-a-hole app.
My thinking of course was, yeah, the squeakiest wheel tends to get the grease. That's just how it is, if there's not the gumption or resources to proactively/preventatively frequently attend to every wheel. Such as in city services.
I would think there'd still be a phone number to call to report them, since smartphones haven't always existed, and most everyone has at least a land line. So those who are bothered by them the most get them fixed first.
Doesn't sound terrible, but it's only a meant to serve (and does so very poorly) as just one example of a greater, overall concern: Data analytics could end up reinforcing inequities in housing, credit, employment, health and education.
Act II
I'm reminded of a popular, smarmy retort of the past to the accusation of Left-wing bias in the media: Life [itself] has a Liberal bias! The implication intended for conveyance, but not really believed by the utterer, of course, was that Left-wing slant in the content of reports about things in life was not actually injected, but innate. I.e. it's not a problem, it's what's normal.
Well, then: Life reinforces inequities.
Act III
But if all these naturally-occurring inequities are bad, shouldn't all naturally-occurring inequities be bad?
How about some we never hear about:
1) The number of news sources
The Left occupies 90-some percent of the news dissemination sources in the country, from news networks (like CNN) to non-news networks (like Comedy Central). Given that probably about 1/3 of the country is solid Left, that should be their quota on programming that distributes news. Or at most 2/3rds of all news-distributing media outlets, since you can also argue that the political middle has been lost to the Left.
2) Positions in (public) education
Leftism is grossly over-represented in academia. Why is diversity in the student body so important but not in the faculty?
3) Voter registration
At least in this state, even in so-called Republican areas the # of registered D's easily outnumbers the # of registered R's. And around here I've heard something to the effect that we've gotten rid of runoff elections being between the highest vote getting D and the highest vote getting R, to just the top two highest vote getters. Which will probably take that disparity and tend to make it even worse.
Maybe Democrat registration should be effectively capped at the current level of Republican registration in a district. For example lets say a city has 4 million residents with 45% registered D and 30% registered R. That's 1,800,000 expected D voters and 1,200,000 expected R voters. To make things more fair, shouldn't the number of D votes counted be stopped at 1,200,000? This still wouldn't guarantee equitable outcomes but it could be a start. Then it would be a matter of absolute turnout, on a level playing field.
4) Intelligence (that is, you never hear about this except from "racists")
Inherited wealth must be confiscated, for redistribution by the state, because it's too much of an advantage those of future generations. Well intelligence is passed down as well, and that's an even bigger factor. Maybe mandatory IQ testing should be performed at an early age, with forced dope ingestion in formative years to "equalize" the IQ of those more gifted.
5) Work Ethic
Cultural and home-life attitudes towards achievement also greatly factor in to outcomes in people in life. Jewish and especially Asian households are guilty of placing expectations and pushing their children to successes in life. Public school alone is insufficient in completely counter-acting this parental-instilled drive.
Maybe Child Protective Services' mission should be expanded. Not only do children need protection from their bad parents, but they need protection from others' good parents, who in raising their own children puts others at a disadvantage.
Some type of mandatory foster care in addition to public schooling might do the trick. Say state-run boarding schools, where you have to send your kids to go live 2 years for every 1 year they live with you, or whatever ratio is needed to eradicate the unfairness.