
Insurance Policies on Slaves: New York Life’s Complicated Past - JumpCrisscross
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/18/us/insurance-policies-on-slaves-new-york-lifes-complicated-past.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_dk_20161219&nl=dealbook&nl_art=0&nlid=65508833&ref=headline&te=1
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fred256
Also see "dead peasant insurance":
[http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/deadpeasant.asp](http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/deadpeasant.asp)

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powera
Just because everything in the past was horrible doesn't mean we need to burn
it all down.

We definitely don't need a culture of victimhood where anyone with documented
ties to the past gets vilified.

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ubernostrum
_Just because everything in the past was horrible doesn 't mean we need to
burn it all down_

Spoiler: this is where a solid libertarian argument for universal basic income
begins. Since we know just about every distribution of property/wealth in the
present day traces back to a use of force or fraud in the recorded past, but
just about _everybody_ has cause against _someone_ , it would be impossible to
equitably settle every case individually in order to create a clean slate on
which to build a libertarian society. It would also be impossible to just
declare "libertarianism, starting right now" and lock in the current known-
inequitable distributions of wealth and property. Adding a universal basic
income, given to everyone and funded by taxation of everyone, offers a way
around this conundrum.

~~~
wahern
No it doesn't. There's no immutable law of nature that requires that the use
of force against distant ancestors is at all relevant to contemporary
judgments of equality, justice, and fairness.

And there's no immutable law of nature that says a universal basic income
would excuse any current or future disputes regarding equality, justice, and
fairness. Indeed, UBI could even exacerbate feelings of unfairness in myriad,
unpredictable ways.

The fundamental issue is that concepts like equality, justice, and fairness
are highly dynamic and often far removed from most objective measurements of
well-being.

That's not a critique against those concepts. Our need to feel treated
"fairly" is innate. But the reality is extremely messy. The meaning of "fair"
is constantly evolving, from the perspective of each individual, each
community, and society-wide. And it rarely if ever means the same thing to any
two people or groups, and hardly ever means the same thing to the same person
across time or other context.

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ubernostrum
"Fair", to a libertarian, has an objective definition. No force, no fraud,
contract freely entered by all parties. If that definition is not met, then
it's not fair.

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snowpanda
Can you give examples of how (in 2016) "white supremacy" is affecting "anyone
who's black in America"?

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dang
I'm late to seeing this but it needs a moderation response.

Whether you intended it that way or not, this amounts to trolling. It can lead
to nothing but flamewars and ideological battles that are completely unwelcome
here, so please don't do it again.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13216240](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13216240)
and marked it off-topic.

