
Life's unfair? Do something Or just get used to it. - Concours
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-10869722
======
RiderOfGiraffes
I remember the first time I worked out that life's not fair. There's no over-
arching justice to ensure that just because someone beats be at one thing they
won't beat me at another. Nature as a whole has no sense of fair play. The
best you can do is get on with life.

Having said that, if you treat people well you often find that their sense of
fair play gives you a safety net.

But always remember:

    
    
        "Life is pain, highness. Anyone who tells you
        differently is selling something."
     
            — William Goldman (The Princess Bride)
    

ADDED IN EDIT: I've just been checking - although the line is in the film,
it's not in the book.

~~~
gaius
"Fair" is "if you don't work you don't eat" but that isn't what people
actually want...

~~~
cema
Fair is more complicated. Mercy is part of fair. And, of course, treating our
young and old in a different way than healthy adults is fair.

~~~
gaius
Mercy is an _exemption_ from fair. Sometimes mercy is right, true. But as
often, mercy to one is "unfair" to another.

------
rdtsc
Life is not fair objectively but there is the belief that it _ought_ to be
fair. That makes a big difference. It is part of the common sense protocol of
interacting with people. _Most_ people will assume that life ought to be fair,
they also assume that others assume the same thing.

This belief in fairness can be exploited by sociopaths and those who end up in
power. Of course, one can argue they ended up in a position of power because
they exploited others' "fairness" expectation.

This probably has implications for how crime and punishment is treated by
different cultures. The strong belief in a universal justice often gets used
by the penal system to punish criminals in proportion to how much
"retribution" the victim (or their family) demands. This is usually veiled in
a some kind of a "the victim's family needs closure" type argument.

At the same time, I think, this revenge based justice is a result (and a
perversion) of a universal religious justice that many members of the society
have (had?). The idea that life is fair even beyond life, and afterlife is a
place where retribution and rewards are dealt with.

It is interesting how for such a Christian nation, America has such a harsh
penal system -- one would expect all those Christians to just let the
criminals be punished in the afterlife.

EDIT: some syntax errors, clarity

~~~
valkyrja
_It is interesting how for such a Christian nation, America has such a harsh
penal system -- one would expect all those Christians to just let the
criminals be punished in the afterlife._

It's not really that surprising. If I'm not wrong, the range of offenses in
America included "sins" like idolatry, blasphemy and witchcraft. Society
reflects on what gets a man into prison. Religious judgment has had something
to say and it's not always "turn the other cheek"

Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh penal
system is naive at its best.

~~~
rdtsc
I guess the point is that it indirectly reflects the hypocrisy and highlights
the lack of faith in the religious beliefs for those who profess them. In
other words, the extreme expected outcome would be to either forgive, or to
not forgive and let afterlife take care of delivering the just reward or
punshment. Neither one of those choices should result in severe punishment for
criminals just for the sake of revenge.

> Believing that a christian nation wouldn't be able to have such a harsh
> penal system is naive at its best.

I do not actually believe that. I was arguing more as a logic exercize, to
highlight the inherent inconsistency and hypocricy in how the judicial and
legal system is setup vis-a-vis the prevalent religious beliefs in this
country.

------
Tichy
I think it is just wrong to assume that social security exists because people
are so good in their hearts and like being taken advantage of. Probably many
(the majority) thinks so, but in reality, it is simply a form of insurance.
Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street. That is a
purely selfish reason - I think solid political systems should be based on
selfishness.

~~~
rick888
" Also, I pay up to keep the beggars and robbers off the street."

More social programs just create a lower class that has a lifetime dependence
on the government for money. It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate.
Detroit is a good example of this. There were more social programs and money
pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate is #2 in the US.

~~~
adin
_It also doesn't seem to lower the crime rate. [...] There were more social
programs and money pumped into that city than any other, yet the murder rate
is #2 in the US._

This should be pretty obvious to most HN readers, but I'm reminding people
anyway. "Correlation does not imply causation".

------
gaius
_The past three years have seen the economies in both countries contract
violently because of shenanigans by financial speculators hiding behind the
legitimacy of our banking institutions_

Typical BBC revisionism - you would think that the deficit didn't exist prior
to 2008. A deficit created by people who believed "fair" meant "some people
work and the rest live off them".

~~~
varjag
Or, the deficit created by people who believed financial instruments of
service economy is a better route ahead than genuinely productive society.

~~~
gaius
What are you talking about?

The structural deficit in its present form existed prior to 2008, therefore
anyone who says it was caused by the bank bailout is trying to pull the wool
over your eyes. What was the deficit in 1997?

~~~
varjag
Reliance on the finance sector existed before 2008, how that contradicts what
I say?

~~~
gaius
Oh I see, you are asserting that services aren't "real" economic activity.
That's not actually true. It is true that the financial services sector
accounts for a higher proportion of our economy than it does in other EU
countries (still less than 10%). But it's also true that it is far more
diverse than just subprime mortgages, and also true that most of its revenues
are earned overseas.

~~~
varjag
Sorry for not being clear enough.

No, services are indeed an economic activity. Just that I don't see service
reliant economies as sustainable in the long term. They are all in debt, and
always were working into debt, unlike traditional industrial societies, which
have better track record. And along those lines, it is unfair to complain
about high degree of welfare dependency: not everyone can work in the City,
and there's only so much pipework to be fixed for plumbers.

~~~
confuzatron
I'm afraid I don't see where you have successfully linked service-reliant
economies with debt. There may be a correlation - I haven't looked at the
data, but is A a cause of B?

~~~
varjag
I've seen no half-decent model of wealth creation in service economies. It's
the equivalent of dark matter in modern economics, and all attempts at it I've
seen end up in explaining away why the accumulating debt is not an issue.

If you know of a good one, please point me to it. I would like to be proven
wrong here, and educate myself.

Service economy sounds wrong superficially, and doesn't have clear,
satisfactory explanation when you dig into details either. I feel the major
reason why it is cited as future is that it's the way society drifts to at the
moment. That, coupled with their actual underperformance, is what pushes me to
this, apparently unpopular, conclusion.

~~~
confuzatron
OK, it appears that we both lack any argument to back up our positions, but my
position is 'Hmmm. I don't know about that'. I feel like I'm more justified in
taking my position than you are in taking yours. :)

------
known
America has better <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility>

~~~
forinti
But the article states at the bottom that "the USA fairs very poorly when
compared to European countries".

And the Guardian showed the USA does worse than most OECD economies:

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-
worst...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/mar/10/oecd-uk-worst-social-
mobility)

~~~
gyardley
Isn't it interesting that 'worse' and 'very poorly' imply a negative value
judgement?

We seem to (well, at least I seem to) instinctively dislike the child of
privilege, but at the same time I'm very interested in passing on whatever
success I manage to have in life to my descendants, and systems and societies
that make it more difficult for me to do so strike me as completely unfair.

There's a bit of a contradiction here.

~~~
arethuza
Indeed, I've become a hypocrite myself - I used to abhor private education
when I was younger (although I didn't actually have any contact with anyone
who had been privately educated when I was at school). Now that I can afford
it and the benefits are obvious I send my son to private school where you _do_
get an "unfair" advantage.

------
splat
Also related: Experimental Economist Bart Wilson on the Meaning of "Fair"

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaFpB7z5y3Y>

~~~
gyardley
Fascinating - the researcher in the video mentioned that 'fair' is an English-
language concept without a precise one-to-one translation in other languages.

Briefly messing about with Google Translate seems to bear this out - for many
of the other languages I checked, Google suggested one word meaning 'just' and
another meaning 'equitable'.

~~~
cema
Deep down these are philosophical concepts, so it should not be surprising
that different natural languages developed words with slightly different
shades of meaning.

Language may be misleading too. For example, I think that the fair in "fair
game" is different from the fair as in "fair society".

------
lionhearted
> I think history shows Americans want fundamental fairness for all who are
> just like them. For everyone else: if life is not fair, that's tough.

If anyone is bored and wants some insight onto the results of political
shifts, make a list of your estimates of the most powerful countries in the
world in 1700, 1800, 1900, and 2000. Note the positions of European countries
on the list, particularly Great Britain, who I'd rate at #1 in 1700, #1 in
1800, #1 in 1900, and in 2000 ... somewhere between #5 and #10? This trend is
both fascinating and seems to be accelerating.

