This is a subject that interests me, and since you clicked on this, I hope it interests you. Here is an email that I sent Geico concerning my policy.
To whom it may concern, I have been driving for more than X years, and I have been with Geico for X years now. Recently, I submitted my information to request another quote with my gender selected as female (given that I am male). I noticed that the quoted price was substantially lower than that of a male. I find this type of discrimination incredibly hurtful and unwarranted. I don't feel that anyone should have their personal worth attacked or their fees raised solely because of their gender. Given this, I would like to request that my policy for this term be refunded the difference between the quoted genders. Else, I would like my policy to be refunded the maximum amount and immediately canceled.
I appreciate your consideration,
XXXXX
Update:
After speaking with a Geico representative, they told me that I am going to be refunded the difference between the quoted policies. Which happened to be about a 15% discount.
I must mention that the reason for the difference in the quoted policies, according to the nice lady on the phone, was not because I changed my gender--rather it was because they have a "new way" of calculating how much to charge a specific person for their policy. Either way, I now pay 15% less for standing up in what I believe in!
Numbers in parentheses signify a negative balance. But you already knew that.
On November 23 2010 11:56 Ruthless wrote: My view on this thread is that the OP started with a weak unthought out complaint. Realized he got owned about 3 pages in and started citing the definition of sexism and changed his arguement to revolve around meeting it.
I thibk everyone can agree this is discrimination and further more since its sex based it is also sexism. But your original premise is that this is unjustified sexism which i think almost everyone here disagrees with.
The reason other discrimination forms have been removed is because they were unfounded or even worse they were self fulfilling profecies.
If you put segregation on education and offer worse schools to a group of people then your pining them down to failure.
Theres a number of other reason i can think of but the gist of my post is that you back peddled into "but guys it is discrimination" because your orginal point sucked.
I wasn't trying to create the universal and omnipotent argument for men's rights or men's activism. I was merely trying to create a discussion concerning one aspect of sexism against men: insurance rates. A number of the arguments posted here were repititions, and I don't have time to reply to each and every single one.
At least you understood my original premise. This is unjustified. Discriminating solely on the basis of sex is immoral and is protected in the United States of America, yet they get away with it due to statistics.
I think we should consider that each one of us is Vanished131, the most careful driver. Do you deserve to have your rates raised just because a select 1 or 2 percent of your gender thinks they are the most macho piece that ever walked the Earth?
The fact that this is discrimination, I don't believe, has yet to be defeated by anyone here. Citing news reports and wikipedia articles is a bad habit.
They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
I'm pretty sure this is based on scientific research though (ie. males are proven more likely to get into car crashes than females.) Is that really sexism? Otherwise, the different female and male leagues in sports would be sexist too.
...But don't mind me, I'm the lurker with the low post count lol
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
I'm sure members of different ethnicities have higher rates of accidents too. They do not ask for your race when recieving a quote.
What's the difference? Seperate but equal is okay now?
On November 23 2010 10:55 NathanSC wrote: They base their rates entirely on risk assessment, which is just statistical analysis. I'm sorry, but it's not sexism.
Why do they refrain from requesting one's race then? Wouldn't it just be statistical analysis? You realize something is wrong, and you know it.
Statistically Men are in more accidents because we are cocky and like to race.
Genetically Men are better drivers due to the development of the spatially thinking side of the brain caused by the high levels of Testosterone during development.
I remember hearing that the accident rate isn't so much greater for men. Rather, men tend to get into more expensive accidents. Not sure if that is true, but it could explain this.
men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
On November 23 2010 10:56 Raiden X wrote: Statistically Men are in more accidents because we are cocky and like to race.
Genetically Men are better drivers due to the development of the spatially thinking side of the brain caused by the high levels of Testosterone during development.
On November 23 2010 10:57 zeppelin wrote: men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
Heresay. Please post sources or refrain from posting in this thread.
I don't consider this to be a substantial complaint. Insurance companies determine rates based on statistics and males are statistically worse drivers. Should women pay more because men drive worse?
There could be a real discussion about sexism against men. How courts deal with divorce and custody cases would be a good topic, how domestic violence against men isn't taken seriously would be a good topic, male body image would be a good topic, insurance rates are not. Perfectly good young drivers pay huge rates because their demographic is statistically much worse at driving.
i know more women who get into social car crashes then men, offen with stupid things like doing makeup.
the main reason this above stats are true (men are in more) is because of the social imbalance of number of owners beging mostley males, getting better paid jobs..
On November 23 2010 10:58 Kwidowmaker wrote: I don't consider this to be a substantial complaint. Insurance companies determine rates based on statistics and males are statistically worse drivers. Should women pay more because men drive worse?
There could be a real discussion about sexism against men. How courts deal with divorce and custody cases would be a good topic, how domestic violence against men isn't taken seriously would be a good topic, male body image would be a good topic, insurance rates are not. Perfectly good young drivers pay huge rates because their demographic is statistically much worse at driving.
I agree completely. What gives them the right to discriminate against men though?
We won't win in court. Women are more likely to recieve custody of children AND recieve alimony; this is known.
On November 23 2010 10:55 NathanSC wrote: They base their rates entirely on risk assessment, which is just statistical analysis. I'm sorry, but it's not sexism.
That "risk assessment" doesn't constitute sexism is a dubious premise. It's discrimination based on gender. Yes, it is statistical, but racial profiling is considered illegal despite it also being based on the same premise. Same thing for not accepting women in certain positions because they are statistically more likely to perform at a lower level than men (e.g. as soldiers, firefighters, police officers, or anything where physical strength is often used).
I suspect the reason that insurance companies aren't forced to disregard gender when giving rates is because of money: it's an established practice that would cost insurance companies large losses if it were to be outlawed, and there isn't a sufficient equality push from outside to overcome the money that these companies are feeding politicians and lobbyists to keep it legal.
On November 23 2010 10:58 TibblesEvilCat wrote: i know more women who get into social car crashes then men, offen with stupid things like doing makeup.
the main reason this above stats are true (men are in more) is because of the social imbalance of number of owners beging mostley males, getting better paid jobs..
I do believe it's percentage-based, which completely nullifies your reasoning.
In any event, I wouldn't really call this sexism, but I also don't approve of being statically lumped into a group and being forced to pay that amount when you know you might be better than someone paying less or worse than someone paying more.
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement (e.g. make a traffic stop or arrest). -Wikipedia
Let's say 99% of crimes are committed by black people in a given area and only 1% are white/miscellaneous. You still aren't allowed (it's illegal) to check every black person in that area on the hunch that they might be involved in a crime, even though its statistically backed. Yet in the case of insurance, that same kind of profiling is allowed. In a hypothetical where 99% of white males in their 20s cause accidents, suddenly I'm paying exorbitant rates, even if I personally have nothing that points to me being a bad driver. You're condemned because of those in a similar demographic.
I guess the argument is private versus public(?), but I still find it distasteful.
On November 23 2010 10:56 Raiden X wrote: Statistically Men are in more accidents because we are cocky and like to race.
Genetically Men are better drivers due to the development of the spatially thinking side of the brain caused by the high levels of Testosterone during development.
On November 23 2010 10:57 zeppelin wrote: men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
Heresay. Please post sources or refrain from posting in this thread.
On November 23 2010 10:55 Vanished131 wrote: Why do they refrain from requesting one's race then? Wouldn't it just be statistical analysis? You realize something is wrong, and you know it.
I would guess, and this is only a guess, that race has very little to do with accident rates. More likely is education level, driving experience, etc. which are questions they do ask. And if some of those things also correlate highly to race then that's a separate issue.
Oh man, and here I came in expecting a write-up on the rise of militant feminism, the social acceptance of misandry, lopsided legal statistics regarding domestic violence, divorce, and custody cases, and the various other societal and cultural difficulties facing young men in western society. Oh well.
On topic, I don't think there's anything sexist about unequal insurance rates for the sexes, assuming they make that distinction based on actual statistics rather than anecdotal experience.
On November 23 2010 10:59 Turbovolver wrote: Men drive more, so pay more for insurance.
Say what you want about higher accident rates, that's a point which is up in the air.
The interesting point here is that they are not asking for race, but are asking for gender. This isn't really sexism.
Sexism - Discrimination based on gender, especially discrimination against women.
Discrimination - treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
On November 23 2010 10:58 Kwidowmaker wrote: I don't consider this to be a substantial complaint. Insurance companies determine rates based on statistics and males are statistically worse drivers. Should women pay more because men drive worse?
There could be a real discussion about sexism against men. How courts deal with divorce and custody cases would be a good topic, how domestic violence against men isn't taken seriously would be a good topic, male body image would be a good topic, insurance rates are not. Perfectly good young drivers pay huge rates because their demographic is statistically much worse at driving.
I agree completely. What gives them the right to discriminate against men though?
We won't win in court. Women are more likely to recieve custody of children AND recieve alimony; this is known.
I'm sure that if a woman forces a man out of his career so that he stays home to raise the kids, he will be the one getting custody and alimony.
Basically, women only drive 2/3 as much as men, but are about 10% or 15% more likely to be in a crash per mile. Men, however, are 80% more likely to be in an accident that results in a fatality. Women are more likely to hit parked cars or reverse into cars, but men are more likely to be involved in accidents with pedestrians, cyclists, or animals.
Men, the author conjectures, are more likely to drive on highways which is considered safer than city driving. So perhaps men aren't really more "safe." Also, in couples, men generally drive.
But people are right in asserting it's all based on statistics. It's called actuarial science and involves risk-management. An issue is some sorts of information are impossible to reliably collect at this point, i.e. frequency of driving etc.
So it's just based on what they can easily observe, i.e. gender, age, number of previous crashes.
But someone brought up a good point about race. Women generally make less than men too, even within some professions (not just across professions, say because women like to be teachers and men like to be engineers or something). So the question of justice is cloudy but they do what's legal to maximize their profit.
Men are way more likely to be in dangerous car accidents, especially men under 25 years. They just drive faster and more aggressively as a group. Higher insurance is fair.
What makes insurance companies special in that they are allowed to discriminate based on statistics because it will make them more money? What if statistically it was shown that a certain ethnicity was more likely to steal from 7-11 compared to other ethnicities? Does that mean 7-11 should be allowed to say "people of that ethnicity have to pay extra on every purchase to make up for the stealing"? But it's statistics so that makes it alright?
On November 23 2010 11:03 Scorcher2k wrote: It isn't sexism. It is all based on risk assessment.
Please look up the definition of sexism. You'll find that being based on risk assessment instead of anger, hate, or factually incorrect information does not exclude something from being sexist.
This "sexism against men" thing is popping up more and more, it's really dangerous reactionary garbage considering women are the most oppressed and exploited group of people in world history. MY INSURANCE
On November 23 2010 11:05 Zzoram wrote: Men are way more likely to be in dangerous car accidents, especially men under 25 years. They just drive faster and more aggressively as a group. Higher insurance is fair.
Would you agree the same based on racial metrics? Would it be fair to charge different races different rates, as they must have different accident rates?
On November 23 2010 10:56 Raiden X wrote: Statistically Men are in more accidents because we are cocky and like to race.
Genetically Men are better drivers due to the development of the spatially thinking side of the brain caused by the high levels of Testosterone during development.
On November 23 2010 10:57 zeppelin wrote: men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
Heresay. Please post sources or refrain from posting in this thread.
Not heresy its facts. My source compilation of Biology and psychology with statistics class.
On November 23 2010 10:56 Raiden X wrote: Statistically Men are in more accidents because we are cocky and like to race.
Genetically Men are better drivers due to the development of the spatially thinking side of the brain caused by the high levels of Testosterone during development.
On November 23 2010 10:57 zeppelin wrote: men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
Heresay. Please post sources or refrain from posting in this thread.
also "heresay" isn't a word, you would probably get paid more if you knew that
This isn't a grammar debate. You started a sentence without capatilizing the first letter. You also have a comma splice in the middle of your sentence, but you would probably get paid more if you knew that.
Sources without relevant discussion are worthless. Please revise your post.
Non-discriminatory insurance is a good idea but it isn't really something the market can provide. And frankly the government should start with health insurance before car insurance, and perhaps even start subsidizing public transportation more than it subsidizes driving before it would make sense for it to get into selling car insurance.
On November 23 2010 10:55 Vanished131 wrote: Why do they refrain from requesting one's race then? Wouldn't it just be statistical analysis? You realize something is wrong, and you know it.
I would guess, and this is only a guess, that race has very little to do with accident rates. More likely is education level, driving experience, etc. which are questions they do ask. And if some of those things also correlate highly to race then that's a separate issue.
Race may not have to do with it, but race is correlated with different income levels and education levels. Not because of skin color, but because of history, discrimination, and other social factors. Like the reception certain races face from others, and what the media portrays they are supposed to be like (as well as belonging to a race that is poorer on average means your parents are more likely to be more, again not because of genetics in any way but because of probability).
On November 23 2010 11:03 Krigwin wrote: Oh man, and here I came in expecting a write-up on the rise of militant feminism, the social acceptance of misandry, lopsided legal statistics regarding domestic violence, divorce, and custody cases, and the various other societal and cultural difficulties facing young men in western society. Oh well.
On topic, I don't think there's anything sexist about unequal insurance rates for the sexes, assuming they make that distinction based on actual statistics rather than anecdotal experience.
Insurance agencies need to separate the population into different categories of risk and they use various personal attributes, like gender, to determine who is most likely to cause them to need to pay out money for repairs. It sounds kind of discriminatory, but its just how insurance agencies work.
If they weren't allowed to charge different rates everyone would have either charge everyone very high rates or just not exist (The insurance companies that is. O.O)
On November 23 2010 11:05 smashczar wrote: This "sexism against men" thing is popping up more and more, it's really dangerous reactionary garbage considering women are the most oppressed and exploited group of people in world history. MY INSURANCE
This isn't about what was, this is about what is. In this country.
I think the Men's Rights movement is going through the same phases that the feminist movement had to go through: being categorized as a bunch of angry losers who are complaining about something that is normal and isn't a big deal. See feminists as "ugly women who can't get a date and hate men as a result and just want to make life hard on men" versus men's rights people as "creepy guys who women won't talk to and are misogynistic as a result, and just want to bring up stupid things."
Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
On November 23 2010 11:02 TyPsi5 wrote: Actuarial science. Not sexism.
They aren't mutually exclusive.
Indeed. I.Q Tests in the past have "scientifically proven" women and certain ethnicities to be dumber than caucasian males. Science isn't always objective.
This isn't a grammar debate. You started a sentence without capatilizing the first letter. You also have a comma splice in the middle of your sentence, but you would probably get paid more if you knew that.
Sources without relevant discussion are worthless. Please revise your post.
i get paid enough to not have to complain about how much my insurance costs
sources: women get paid less relevant discussion: quit acting like an entitled baby because they pay 10 bucks a month less on car insurance
On November 23 2010 11:05 smashczar wrote: This "sexism against men" thing is popping up more and more, it's really dangerous reactionary garbage considering women are the most oppressed and exploited group of people in world history. MY INSURANCE
This isn't about what was, this is about what is. In this country.
I think the Men's Rights movement is going through the same phases that the feminist movement had to go through: being categorized as a bunch of angry losers who are complaining about something that is normal and isn't a big deal.
The men's rights movement already went through that phase in America. We won the Revolutionary War—that was a while ago.
I wish someone would post statistics of the accident rates or whatever is behind this. I am also curious about the insurance rates for elderly people (don't their rates go down as their eyesight and reflexes diminish?).
On November 23 2010 11:08 nozh wrote: Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
We are talking about now. Here. Now. And while you are trying to lampoon men as angry people calling women feminazis, you are inadvertently revealing yourself as the same: someone with a lot of anger towards a movement that wants gender equality.
This isn't a grammar debate. You started a sentence without capatilizing the first letter. You also have a comma splice in the middle of your sentence, but you would probably get paid more if you knew that.
Sources without relevant discussion are worthless. Please revise your post.
i get paid enough to not have to complain about how much my insurance costs
sources: women get paid less relevant discussion: quit acting like an entitled baby because they pay 10 bucks a month less on car insurance
My insurance is very low actually. This is not a material debate; it's a social debate that concerns all of us.
Go look at the quotes for your own car insurance, sometimes the difference is more than $10, it can be hundreds or thousands.
On November 23 2010 11:02 TyPsi5 wrote: Actuarial science. Not sexism.
They aren't mutually exclusive.
Actuarial science is discrimination, except it's an awesome kind that allows us to have insurance.
Yeah, and slavery is an awesome system that allows us to get our crops in. Just calling something "awesome" and saying that its profitable / does a service doesn't mean it's morally acceptable.
They also discriminate based on income, school grades, where you live, how much you drive, whether or not you've had traffic violations, etc. And since so many people don't seem to understand the point of insurance, I will attempt to explain it.
The point of insurance is because people are risk-averse. We would much rather pay $100 every month for 100 months rather than face a 10% probability of losing $100,000 during those 100 months, even though the expected loss ($10,000) is the exact same. We prefer the constant low payments so much more, that we're willing to pay someone to provide it. That's where insurance companies come in, who might for example charge me $101 per month for 100 months and promise to cover the $100,000 loss if it occurs, and I would probably accept it.
Now why would an insurance company do this? Shouldn't they hate the $100,000 loss as much as anyone else? Normally, they would, but they can become nearly "risk-neutral" by offering the $101/month insurance product to a lot of people. So let's say they have 10,000 customers with that product. Now, through the magic of statistics, they expect around 10 people every month to hit that $100k loss, and it won't be much more or less than that. So to the insurance company, this is basically a guaranteed loss of around $1,000,000 every month in exchange for the guaranteed gain of $1,010,000 every month, and of course they'd take that deal.
So why do auto insurance companies charge you more for being a guy? Because as a macho guy, the probability of you getting into an accident is higher than if you were a girl. (So in my example, maybe you have an 11% chance of losing $100,000.) Either your individual rate would have to go up to cover the increased probability, or the insurance company can spread it out over all its customers; basically, women pay more relative to what they should pay given the probability of them getting into an accident and men pay less. The problem with this latter approach is that a competing insurance company could just come along and discriminate, charging women less and men more rather than charging them the average. All the women from the first company will go to the second, and now the first company is screwed because now it's entire clientele is men being charged rates that are lower than they should be. This is called adverse selection.
Thus, in a perfect world, insurance companies charge you a perfectly personalized rate that fits your chances of getting into an accident, plus extra to cover administrative fees and to make a competitive profit. Unfortunately, insurance companies don't know you perfectly, so instead they use your gender as a proxy.
On November 23 2010 11:05 Zzoram wrote: Men are way more likely to be in dangerous car accidents, especially men under 25 years. They just drive faster and more aggressively as a group. Higher insurance is fair.
Would you agree the same based on racial metrics? Would it be fair to charge different races different rates, as they must have different accident rates?
Zzoram I feel you're making that up. I think that might be part of it, but to paint a simple picture without at least observational research, if not experimental research, and the creation of some kind of regression to isolate correlations it's useless. Or even a source who already did the work for you.
And cz, I wouldn't agree that different races are more aggressive or drive faster, but as mentioned above other factors due to the current socioeconomic distribution of different races will lead to a whole slew of identifiable statistical differences. But the genetic difference between races is insignificant, and I could provide sources if you really wanted, or you could get on Wikipedia or Google.
Not that I'm suggesting you're saying it's genetic. And also, all the insurance rates are based on STATISTICS ONLY. So again, it has nothing to do with why, just the numbers.
Like BNet 0.2 ranking, only win/loss, not APM, game knowledge, etc. matter.
reminder that i cannot imbed images properly to save my life and also that women are literally the nigger of the world
This is the Western world, not the rest of the world: yes women are in a lot of shitty places worldwide, but we are talking about this country, not Saudi Arabia.
On November 23 2010 11:02 TyPsi5 wrote: Actuarial science. Not sexism.
They aren't mutually exclusive.
Indeed. I.Q Tests in the past have "scientifically proven" women and certain ethnicities to be dumber than caucasian males. Science isn't always objective.
IQ tests are objective, and caucasian males score about average.
On a side-note, does it make sense to use sex/race/age as determining factors over other available data, such as driving record? I know driving record is taken into account, but my personal experience is less so than age is... which does not seem very "scientific".
The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish you luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
I would be interested in seeing how exactly they determine these statistics. How many men drive in comparison to woman? How recent are the statistics, does it include info just on the last 10-20 years, or 50-60 years? I don't know if I would classify this as sexism, but I think it's a little out of hand.
As a personal example I would have to pay $2000 more a year for insurance than my sister if we both got our own insurance (as of now I'm co-signed under my parents since it's cheaper); I have 4 more years driving experience and have never been involved in an accident meanwhile my sister has been driving for less than 6 months.
Why is the difference so large? And does anyone know if there is any amount of government control over insurance companies and if there isn't should there be? After all, insurance is required. I don't really know where I stand on the issue since I'm always wary of government involvement when it comes to these things, but its worth considering.
On November 23 2010 11:05 Zzoram wrote: Men are way more likely to be in dangerous car accidents, especially men under 25 years. They just drive faster and more aggressively as a group. Higher insurance is fair.
Would you agree the same based on racial metrics? Would it be fair to charge different races different rates, as they must have different accident rates?
Zzoram I feel you're making that up. I think that might be part of it, but to paint a simple picture without at least observational research, if not experimental research, and the creation of some kind of regression to isolate correlations it's useless. Or even a source who already did the work for you.
And cz, I wouldn't agree that different races are more aggressive or drive faster, but as mentioned above other factors due to the current socioeconomic distribution of different races will lead to a whole slew of identifiable statistical differences. But the genetic difference between races is insignificant, and I could provide sources if you really wanted, or you could get on Wikipedia or Google.
Not that I'm suggesting you're saying it's genetic. And also, all the insurance rates are based on STATISTICS ONLY. So again, it has nothing to do with why, just the numbers.
Like BNet 0.2 ranking, only win/loss, not APM, game knowledge, etc. matter.
Sources please.
My point was that it would be illegal to discriminate based on race, but it's allowed based on sex. Both are protected traits under the law.
Anyway the reason that insurance rates are legally sexist is because of money: it'd take a lot of push to get the politicians to go against the money and lobbyists that the insurance companies are giving, and that push isn't there. Yet.
On November 23 2010 11:02 TyPsi5 wrote: Actuarial science. Not sexism.
They aren't mutually exclusive.
Indeed. I.Q Tests in the past have "scientifically proven" women and certain ethnicities to be dumber than caucasian males. Science isn't always objective.
The IQ tests could be racially biased themselves. But it's also absurd to claim that discrimination in the past (and present) has not led to a multitude of problems for various races now. If a schoolteacher pays less attention to a poor black child because she believes he has little potential, he will end up being less successful than otherwise.
The insurance companies that discriminate ethnicity, sex, or anything that a customer cannot change because they were BORN with that category might have STATISTICAL (NOT SCIENCE DIPSH*TS) data to help them make a profit, but it's still unfair, immoral, and illegal.
On November 23 2010 11:14 Z3kk wrote: The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish yo luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
It is sexist BY DEFINITION. I understand actuarial science and how it determines rates based on risk, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Or that it's not wrong.
On November 23 2010 11:11 Vanished131 wrote: My insurance is very low actually. This is not a material debate; it's a social debate that concerns all of us.
Go look at the quotes for your own car insurance, sometimes the difference is more than $10, it can be hundreds or thousands.
it would have been very difficult to pick a more trivial perceived social injustice to get upset about
On November 23 2010 11:15 AAtwelve wrote: File a lawsuit, this is blatant sexism.
The insurance companies that discriminate ethnicity, sex, or anything that a customer cannot change because they were BORN with that category might have STATISTICAL (NOT SCIENCE DIPSH*TS) data to help them make a profit, but it's still unfair, immoral, and illegal.
On November 23 2010 11:12 domovoi wrote: They also discriminate based on income, school grades, where you live, how much you drive, whether or not you've had traffic violations, etc.
I think the OP is a bit silly for claiming its sexism per se. At the same time, they don't charge people of different races different premiums do they? I'm pretty sure statistically there are differences in the rate of accidents between ethnicities, but the insurance companies won't adjust for that right?
On November 23 2010 11:15 AAtwelve wrote: File a lawsuit, this is blatant sexism.
The insurance companies that discriminate ethnicity, sex, or anything that a customer cannot change because they were BORN with that category might have STATISTICAL (NOT SCIENCE DIPSH*TS) data to help them make a profit, but it's still unfair, immoral, and illegal.
Statistics is science, and it's completely fair to do this whether it's based on ethnicity or sex. People aren't genetic copies of each other.
On November 23 2010 11:08 nozh wrote: Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
Stop acting like an idiot.
Past misdeeds do not justify present or future ones. We could just as easily open this can of worms with affirmative action or parts of Title IX, but that would go beyond the scope of this thread. Suffice to say, you have no ground to stand on.
On November 23 2010 11:02 TyPsi5 wrote: Actuarial science. Not sexism.
They aren't mutually exclusive.
I didn't say they were, but you're going to have a hard time showing sexism is the cause when there is a lot of data backing up the position that (young) men are typically worse drivers.
On November 23 2010 11:12 domovoi wrote: They also discriminate based on income, school grades, where you live, how much you drive, whether or not you've had traffic violations, etc.
I think the OP is a bit silly for claiming its sexism per se. At the same time, they don't charge people of different races different premiums do they? I'm pretty sure statistically there are differences in the rate of accidents between ethnicities, but the insurance companies won't adjust for that right?
they charge me more because i live in an urban area with lots of dangerous minorities who might jack my stereo, is that racist of them and should i be outraged by it
On November 23 2010 11:08 nozh wrote: Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
We are talking about now. Here. Now. And while you are trying to lampoon men as angry people calling women feminazis, you are inadvertently revealing yourself as the same: someone with a lot of anger towards a movement that wants gender equality.
Gender equality is women getting paid the same as men.
Gender equality is not being questioned or ignored or humiliated when coming forward about being raped or sexually assaulted.
Gender equality is not having domestic violence be the number one cause of injury to women.
You make me sick. Don't compare your bullshit hardships to what women have gone through and still go through.
On November 23 2010 11:15 AAtwelve wrote: File a lawsuit, this is blatant sexism.
The insurance companies that discriminate ethnicity, sex, or anything that a customer cannot change because they were BORN with that category might have STATISTICAL (NOT SCIENCE DIPSH*TS) data to help them make a profit, but it's still unfair, immoral, and illegal.
On November 23 2010 11:15 AAtwelve wrote: File a lawsuit, this is blatant sexism.
The insurance companies that discriminate ethnicity, sex, or anything that a customer cannot change because they were BORN with that category might have STATISTICAL (NOT SCIENCE DIPSH*TS) data to help them make a profit, but it's still unfair, immoral, and illegal.
Statistics is science, and it's completely fair to do this whether it's based on ethnicity or sex. People are genetic copies of each other.
You don't get it. Saying that actuarial science or statistics or whatever means that it would make sense for insurance companies to charge higher rates for men (because they statistically cost more $ in claims) doesn't mean it's justified to do so as a result of discrimination based on sex (sexism). There's a difference between wanting to and being allowed to (and being justified in).
On November 23 2010 11:08 nozh wrote: Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
We are talking about now. Here. Now. And while you are trying to lampoon men as angry people calling women feminazis, you are inadvertently revealing yourself as the same: someone with a lot of anger towards a movement that wants gender equality.
Gender equality is women getting paid the same as men.
Gender equality is not being questioned or ignored or humiliated when coming forward about being raped or sexually assaulted.
Gender equality is not having domestic violence be the number one cause of injury to women.
You make me sick. Don't compare your bullshit hardships to what women have gone through and still go through.
There's a term for this, but I can't think of it. Attempting to trivialize something because something else exists somewhere that's worse is a despicable practice.
There's plenty of examples of legalized discrimination. It's not illegal.
Married people pay less insurance, even if you're married to someone without a license. Curves for women (A chain of gyms) only allows female members. Convicted felons can't vote in many states. Kid's don't have freedom of speech while in school. VFWs obviously are for veterans. Senior Citizens and Children often can pay less for anything from a bus/movie ticket to getting additional menu options at restaurants.
On November 23 2010 11:14 Servolisk wrote: On a side-note, does it make sense to use sex/race/age as determining factors over other available data, such as driving record? I know driving record is taken into account, but my personal experience is less so than age is... which does not seem very "scientific".
It would make sense that someone's driving record would take precedence over sex, race, or age [age is controversial].
On November 23 2010 11:08 nozh wrote: Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
We are talking about now. Here. Now. And while you are trying to lampoon men as angry people calling women feminazis, you are inadvertently revealing yourself as the same: someone with a lot of anger towards a movement that wants gender equality.
Gender equality is women getting paid the same as men.
Gender equality is not being questioned or ignored or humiliated when coming forward about being raped or sexually assaulted.
Gender equality is not having domestic violence be the number one cause of injury to women.
You make me sick. Don't compare your bullshit hardships to what women have gone through and still go through.
And those are genuine issues which people are working to ameliorate. Men and women. But to go and say that because women have historically (and still do) have certain gendered discriminator situations doesn't mean that's it's okay for men to be in the same situations.
Women being discriminated as a result of gender? Problem, everyone agrees.
Men being discriminated against as a result of gender? Apparently you think this is "okay" because women have problems. But we are working at those problems; shouldn't we be working at the male problems too?
On November 23 2010 11:18 cz wrote: You don't get it. Saying that actuarial science or statistics or whatever means that it would make sense for insurance companies to charge higher rates for men (because they statistically cost more $ in claims) doesn't mean it's justified to do so as a result of discrimination based on sex (sexism). There's a difference between wanting to and being allowed to (and being justified in).
They're justified in doing it because of things called adverse selection and moral hazard. Also, it would be unfair to charge women the same as men, because in reality, women would be paying more than men (since men receive more insurance payouts).
On November 23 2010 11:15 AAtwelve wrote: File a lawsuit, this is blatant sexism.
The insurance companies that discriminate ethnicity, sex, or anything that a customer cannot change because they were BORN with that category might have STATISTICAL (NOT SCIENCE DIPSH*TS) data to help them make a profit, but it's still unfair, immoral, and illegal.
Statistics is science, and it's completely fair to do this whether it's based on ethnicity or sex. People aren't genetic copies of each other.
You don't get it. Saying that actuarial science or statistics or whatever means that it would make sense for insurance companies to charge higher rates for men (because they statistically cost more $ in claims) doesn't mean it's justified to do so as a result of discrimination based on sex (sexism). There's a difference between wanting to and being allowed to (and being justified in).
On November 23 2010 11:14 Z3kk wrote: The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish yo luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
It is sexist BY DEFINITION. I understand actuarial science and how it determines rates based on risk, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Or that it's not wrong.
Okay, I was under the impression that we were discussing the social issues: i.e. whether or not there is a "reverse sexism" going on here...I'm not being (or trying to be, at least) inflammatory, but at this point you're discussing semantics. Definition is somewhat subjective--not all of us will agree on an exact definition--but if your definition is accepted (any form of bias towards a race), then sure: it's sexist. However, this "sexism" isn't what I'm referring to, and has little to no impact on the social issue of sexism (which, in this case, I believe is ludicrous because companies are merely trying to determine the best course of action to reap a profit).
Actuarial science may or may not be incorrect sometimes, but it's something with which companies can work, and they're definitely going to do that if they want any hope of earning money.
On November 23 2010 11:20 Cauld wrote: There's plenty of examples of legalized discrimination. It's not illegal.
Married people pay less insurance, even if you're married to someone without a license. Curves for women (A chain of gyms) only allows female members. Convicted felons can't vote in many states. Kid's don't have freedom of speech while in school. VFWs obviously are for veterans. Senior Citizens and Children often can pay less for anything from a bus/movie ticket to getting additional menu options at restaurants.
Private organizations such as curves are a little different than car insurance companies in that you are not REQUIRED to go to a gym. We are required to get insurance for our vehicles.
On November 23 2010 11:08 nozh wrote: Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
We are talking about now. Here. Now. And while you are trying to lampoon men as angry people calling women feminazis, you are inadvertently revealing yourself as the same: someone with a lot of anger towards a movement that wants gender equality.
Gender equality is women getting paid the same as men.
Gender equality is not being questioned or ignored or humiliated when coming forward about being raped or sexually assaulted.
Gender equality is not having domestic violence be the number one cause of injury to women.
You make me sick. Don't compare your bullshit hardships to what women have gone through and still go through.
Believe it or not, there are actually two sides to this coin.....
On November 23 2010 11:20 Cauld wrote: There's plenty of examples of legalized discrimination. It's not illegal.
Married people pay less insurance, even if you're married to someone without a license. Curves for women (A chain of gyms) only allows female members. Convicted felons can't vote in many states. Kid's don't have freedom of speech while in school. VFWs obviously are for veterans. Senior Citizens and Children often can pay less for anything from a bus/movie ticket to getting additional menu options at restaurants.
Private organizations such as curves are a little different than car insurance companies in that you are not REQUIRED to go to a gym. We are required to get insurance for our vehicles.
On November 23 2010 10:56 Raiden X wrote: Statistically Men are in more accidents because we are cocky and like to race.
Genetically Men are better drivers due to the development of the spatially thinking side of the brain caused by the high levels of Testosterone during development.
On November 23 2010 10:57 zeppelin wrote: men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
Heresay. Please post sources or refrain from posting in this thread.
It's common knowledge, please have some common sense or refrain from posting in this thread.
On November 23 2010 11:18 cz wrote: You don't get it. Saying that actuarial science or statistics or whatever means that it would make sense for insurance companies to charge higher rates for men (because they statistically cost more $ in claims) doesn't mean it's justified to do so as a result of discrimination based on sex (sexism). There's a difference between wanting to and being allowed to (and being justified in).
They're justified in doing it because of things called adverse selection and moral hazard. Also, it would be unfair to charge women the same as men, because in reality, women would be paying more than men (since men receive more insurance payouts).
Trivial argument, as when someone files a claim with an insurance company, their rates increase.
On November 23 2010 11:20 Cauld wrote: There's plenty of examples of legalized discrimination. It's not illegal.
Married people pay less insurance, even if you're married to someone without a license. Curves for women (A chain of gyms) only allows female members. Convicted felons can't vote in many states. Kid's don't have freedom of speech while in school. VFWs obviously are for veterans. Senior Citizens and Children often can pay less for anything from a bus/movie ticket to getting additional menu options at restaurants.
Private organizations such as curves are a little different than car insurance companies in that you are not REQUIRED to go to a gym. We are required to get insurance for our vehicles.
A private company is a private company. You aren't required to drive. If you want nationalized car insurance go for it. Or you can try to find a car insurance company that doesn't charge different rates for different genders. That's how our system works.
Gender equality is women getting paid the same as men.
Gender equality is not being questioned or ignored or humiliated when coming forward about being raped or sexually assaulted.
Gender equality is not having domestic violence be the number one cause of injury to women.
You make me sick. Don't compare your bullshit hardships to what women have gone through and still go through.
Believe it or not, there are actually two sides to this coin.....
Not in this issue about auto insurance rates.
There are real issues of gender inequality when it comes to parental rights, abortion rights, alimony, societal acceptance of being a victim of rape/domestic violence, etc.
Auto insurance rates is a stupid issue to hang your hat on.
On November 23 2010 11:23 howerpower wrote: do gay men get a discount?
Dunno, but according to some people here it would be homophobia if gay men's rates went up/down as a result of that group having more/fewer accidents. It's ridiculous.
On November 23 2010 11:23 nozh wrote: i'm sorry but your insurance rates are not nearly as important as women's issues and no amount of rationalizing will ever make them as important.
yeah but if you watch tv commercials the wife is always smart and savvy and the husband is a bumbling fat guy whats up with that this world is so unfair sometimes
On November 23 2010 10:56 Raiden X wrote: Statistically Men are in more accidents because we are cocky and like to race.
Genetically Men are better drivers due to the development of the spatially thinking side of the brain caused by the high levels of Testosterone during development.
On November 23 2010 10:57 zeppelin wrote: men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
Heresay. Please post sources or refrain from posting in this thread.
It's common knowledge, please have some common sense or refrain from posting in this thread.
Assuming something is common knowledge is not very wise... Common sense to someone in a different culture may be different than your version of common sense. Please post sources.
I happen to think that men deserve the same pleasantries as women enjoy.
On November 23 2010 11:14 Z3kk wrote: The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish yo luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
It is sexist BY DEFINITION. I understand actuarial science and how it determines rates based on risk, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Or that it's not wrong.
Okay, I was under the impression that we were discussing the social issues: i.e. whether or not there is a "reverse sexism" going on here...I'm not being (or trying to be, at least) inflammatory, but at this point you're discussing semantics. Definition is somewhat subjective--not all of us will agree on an exact definition--but if your definition is accepted (any form of bias towards a race), then sure: it's sexist. However, this "sexism" isn't what I'm referring to, and has little to no impact on the social issue of sexism (which, in this case, I believe is ludicrous because companies are merely trying to determine the best course of action to reap a profit).
Actuarial science may or may not be incorrect sometimes, but it's something with which companies can work, and they're definitely going to do that if they want any hope of earning money.
Agreeing on definitions and pointing out when a word fits a definition is not semantics, it's the most basic piece of work that has to be established in order for communication to work. And if you think that "discrimination based on sex" is an unusual definition for "sexism," then you are wildly unaware. Saying that "A fits the definition of X, and X is wrong" is not semantics, its the most basic of analytic arguments.
I'm not disputing the math of actuarial science, I'm disputing the morality. I'm aware that it increases profits for insurance companies, but that doesn't make it morally right, especially as we have established in our culture and our laws that sexism (discrimination based on sex, statistically or otherwise) is illegal. There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
I'm not disputing the math of actuarial science, I'm disputing the morality. I'm aware that it increases profits for insurance companies, but that doesn't make it morally right, especially as we have established in our culture and our laws that sexism (discrimination based on sex, statistically or otherwise) is illegal. There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
Discrimination is justified if two subgroups don't act equally.
On November 23 2010 11:23 nozh wrote: i'm sorry but your insurance rates are not nearly as important as women's issues and no amount of rationalizing will ever make them as important.
Why are they mutually exclusive? Can't we have discussions and make progress on gender equality in both?
I really don't understand why you are so angry. I support feminist issues, and I guess would generally be regarded as a feminist myself. That doesn't mean that I don't also want gender equality in other situations, which include places where men are being discriminate against in an immoral way.
On November 23 2010 11:23 nozh wrote: i'm sorry but your insurance rates are not nearly as important as women's issues and no amount of rationalizing will ever make them as important.
yeah but if you watch tv commercials the wife is always smart and savvy and the husband is a bumbling fat guy whats up with that this world is so unfair sometimes
Only if the advertisement is targeted towards women. If it's a beer commercial (or another ad targeting men) then its the other way around.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
How in the hell is it morally wrong to charge women less when women end up receiving less payments from insurance companies within the lifetime of their policies???
That's like saying women and men should be charged the same for meals even though women tend to eat less than men.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
You don't have a right to get charged less for insurance than your statistical risk.
On November 23 2010 11:14 Z3kk wrote: The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish yo luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
It is sexist BY DEFINITION. I understand actuarial science and how it determines rates based on risk, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Or that it's not wrong.
You are aware there are other factors that determine rates, right? As an outrageous example, a 16 year old girl pays way more than an 50 year old man with a good record. For a less outrageous example, a 40 year old man with a good record pays less than a 40 year old woman with a bad record. It's not discrimination based on gender, it's discrimination based on demographics and history. Honestly, I don't see how you sincerely have an issue with this.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
I hate paying higher insurance as much as the next guy, but discrimination is how insurance works. They break people into groups and determine which groups, on average, have the highest risk and then charge them more. Unless you propose that everyone pay the same rate, your argument is baseless.
I don't really care if women are charged less based on their demographic, but there does seem to be something more at work here than just that. I mean, there are females my age that have been in multiple accidents that will be charged less insurance than me. I've never been in an accident, period. How does that make sense? I'm still somehow more likely to get into an accident than a female who's been in multiple accidents, just because I'm male?
I highly doubt there's any sort of statistic that can support that theory. Seems that gender is given far more weight than driving record, which is retarded.
On November 23 2010 11:08 nozh wrote: Nevermind the hundreds of years of exploitation that women have faced.... What those crazy feminazis don't understand is that MY INSURANCE is more important. Can I get a HELL YEAH, BROS?????????
We are talking about now. Here. Now. And while you are trying to lampoon men as angry people calling women feminazis, you are inadvertently revealing yourself as the same: someone with a lot of anger towards a movement that wants gender equality.
Gender equality is women getting paid the same as men.
Gender equality is not being questioned or ignored or humiliated when coming forward about being raped or sexually assaulted.
Gender equality is not having domestic violence be the number one cause of injury to women.
You make me sick. Don't compare your bullshit hardships to what women have gone through and still go through.
There's a term for this, but I can't think of it. Attempting to trivialize something because something else exists somewhere that's worse is a despicable practice.
On November 23 2010 11:14 Z3kk wrote: The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish yo luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
It is sexist BY DEFINITION. I understand actuarial science and how it determines rates based on risk, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Or that it's not wrong.
You are aware there are other factors that determine rates, right? As an outrageous example, a 16 year old girl pays way more than an 50 year old man with a good record. For a less outrageous example, a 40 year old man with a good record pays less than a 40 year old woman with a bad record. It's not discrimination based on gender, it's discrimination based on demographics and history. Honestly, I don't see how you sincerely have an issue with this.
So it takes a grown man more than half of his WHOLE life to become equal to a 16 year old girl?
On November 23 2010 11:29 shinosai wrote: I don't really care if women are charged less based on their demographic, but there does seem to be something more at work here than just that. I mean, there are females my age that have been in multiple accidents that will be charged less insurance than me. I've never been in an accident, period. How does that make sense? I'm still somehow more likely to get into an accident than a female who's been in multiple accidents, just because I'm male?
I highly doubt there's any sort of statistic that can support that theory. Seems that gender is given far more weight than driving record, which is retarded.
There's more factors than driving record and gender.
There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
How in the hell is it morally wrong to charge women less when women end up receiving less payments from insurance companies within the lifetime of their policies???
That's like saying women and men should be charged the same for meals even though women tend to eat less than men.
Because it's discrimination based on a protected trait (sex). It's illegal to make decisions based on that in many situations. In Canada, for example, a landlord can't refuse a potential renter based on their gender, race, religion, etc. Women are also in general less available workers (they have longer maternity leave, work less on average) but you can't discriminate in your hiring based on sex by law.
The difference between other factors like income/what car you drive/driving history/location and SEX/ETHNICITY is that you are born with a sex and ethnicity...
On November 23 2010 11:28 Myles wrote: This is stupid.
I hate paying higher insurance as much as the next guy, but discrimination is how insurance works. They break people into groups and determine which groups, on average, have the highest risk and then charge them more. Unless you propose that everyone pay the same rate, your argument is baseless.
If everyone were charged the same rate then drivers in demographics less likely to have an accident are going to be charged more than drivers in riskier demographics, in the name of fairness.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
How in the hell is it morally wrong to charge women less when women end up receiving less payments from insurance companies within the lifetime of their policies???
The argument is that suppose you are Vanished131, the most careful driver in the world, and you are forced to pay extra because people who have the same gender as you tend to get into accidents more frequently. That is roughly the same argument that "suppose you are black, people of your ethnicity commit more violent crimes."
I don't personally have an issue with it, but it's not about "morally wrong to charge women less", it's the concept of applying an aggregate measure to an individual that is the issue.
On November 23 2010 11:31 Typhon wrote: The argument is that suppose you are Vanished131, the most careful driver in the world, and you are forced to pay extra because people who have the same gender as you tend to get into accidents more frequently. That is roughly the same argument that "suppose you are black, people of your ethnicity commit more violent crimes."
There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
How in the hell is it morally wrong to charge women less when women end up receiving less payments from insurance companies within the lifetime of their policies???
The argument is that suppose you are Vanished131, the more careful driver in the world, and you are forced to pay extra because people who have the same gender as you tend to get into accidents more frequently. That is roughly the same argument that "suppose you are black, people of your ethnicity commit more violent crimes."
I don't personally have an issue with it, but it's not about "morally wrong to charge women less", it's the concept of applying an aggregate measure to an individual that is the issue.
Yeah fuck those insurance companies. For ages they've had magical time machines that let them know which drivers were going to have an accident but they don't use 'em cuz they're jerks
There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
How in the hell is it morally wrong to charge women less when women end up receiving less payments from insurance companies within the lifetime of their policies???
That's like saying women and men should be charged the same for meals even though women tend to eat less than men.
Because it's discrimination based on a protected trait (sex). It's illegal to make decisions based on that in many situations. In Canada, for example, a landlord can't refuse a potential renter based on their gender, race, religion, etc. Women are also in general less available workers (they have longer maternity leave, work less on average) but you can't discriminate in your hiring based on sex by law.
It's not discrimination based on sex. Men and women are not receiving the same product, because women receive less insurance payouts than men over the life of their policy.
It would in fact be discrimination to charge them the same rates, because now women are putting more money into it than what they take out relative to men.
Discrimination is justified if two subgroups don't act equally.
The black kids around the corner from me act very differently than myself. Let's raise their home insurance...errr...rent!
Where's your scientific justification? And don't try to backpedal and be pedantic.
Black people are statistically more likely to not only be involved in crime, but be victims as well. Thus, there is a higher probability that the black kids may be robbed and the property damaged. Thus, raising their home insurance would be the correct thing to do. If home insurance companies pay out more damages to black people than white people or asian people, isn't it discrimination to charge them the same rates?
There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
How in the hell is it morally wrong to charge women less when women end up receiving less payments from insurance companies within the lifetime of their policies???
That's like saying women and men should be charged the same for meals even though women tend to eat less than men.
Because it's discrimination based on a protected trait (sex). It's illegal to make decisions based on that in many situations. In Canada, for example, a landlord can't refuse a potential renter based on their gender, race, religion, etc. Women are also in general less available workers (they have longer maternity leave, work less on average) but you can't discriminate in your hiring based on sex by law.
It's not discrimination based on sex. Men and women are not receiving the same product, because women receive less insurance payouts than men over the life of their policy.
It would in fact be discrimination to charge them the same rates, because now women are putting more money into it than what they take out relative to men.
Discrimination: "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit"
It is discrimination. It is based on sex. It is therefore sexism.
And they are receiving the same product: a certain insurance protection, which has whatever attributes you want. You get the same thing. One just pays more, and I understand why, but it's still sexism. And that's still wrong.
On November 23 2010 11:29 shinosai wrote: I don't really care if women are charged less based on their demographic, but there does seem to be something more at work here than just that. I mean, there are females my age that have been in multiple accidents that will be charged less insurance than me. I've never been in an accident, period. How does that make sense? I'm still somehow more likely to get into an accident than a female who's been in multiple accidents, just because I'm male?
I highly doubt there's any sort of statistic that can support that theory. Seems that gender is given far more weight than driving record, which is retarded.
There's more factors than driving record and gender.
Yea, there are. Too bad gender seems to be the most important one, eh?
Discrimination is justified if two subgroups don't act equally.
The black kids around the corner from me act very differently than myself. Let's raise their home insurance...errr...rent!
Where's your scientific justification? And don't try to backpedal and be pedantic.
Black people are statistically more likely to not only be involved in crime, but be victims as well. Thus, there is a higher probability that the black kids may be robbed and the property damaged. Thus, raising their home insurance would be the correct thing to do. If home insurance companies pay out more damages to black people than white people or asian people, isn't it discrimination to charge them the same rates?
On November 23 2010 11:31 Typhon wrote: The argument is that suppose you are Vanished131, the most careful driver in the world, and you are forced to pay extra because people who have the same gender as you tend to get into accidents more frequently. That is roughly the same argument that "suppose you are black, people of your ethnicity commit more violent crimes."
Are there more policemen in black neighborhoods?
I can't answer that for sure, but from my personal experiences, there are more policemen in rich well-to-do, predominantly white neighborhoods. Especially so if they border less well-to-do areas.
On November 23 2010 11:14 Z3kk wrote: The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish yo luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
It is sexist BY DEFINITION. I understand actuarial science and how it determines rates based on risk, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Or that it's not wrong.
Okay, I was under the impression that we were discussing the social issues: i.e. whether or not there is a "reverse sexism" going on here...I'm not being (or trying to be, at least) inflammatory, but at this point you're discussing semantics. Definition is somewhat subjective--not all of us will agree on an exact definition--but if your definition is accepted (any form of bias towards a race), then sure: it's sexist. However, this "sexism" isn't what I'm referring to, and has little to no impact on the social issue of sexism (which, in this case, I believe is ludicrous because companies are merely trying to determine the best course of action to reap a profit).
Actuarial science may or may not be incorrect sometimes, but it's something with which companies can work, and they're definitely going to do that if they want any hope of earning money.
Agreeing on definitions and pointing out when a word fits a definition is not semantics, it's the most basic piece of work that has to be established in order for communication to work. And if you think that "discrimination based on sex" is an unusual definition for "sexism," then you are wildly unaware. Saying that "A fits the definition of X, and X is wrong" is not semantics, its the most basic of analytic arguments.
I'm not disputing the math of actuarial science, I'm disputing the morality. I'm aware that it increases profits for insurance companies, but that doesn't make it morally right, especially as we have established in our culture and our laws that sexism (discrimination based on sex, statistically or otherwise) is illegal. There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
Ugh, I guess I wasn't clear enough...that was my fault. What I meant was that you're confining the definition of sexism specifically to anything discriminatory towards a sex. If we use the wikipedia definition, you're saying that its morally wrong for there to be "sex discrimination"--that is, discrimination based on sex. Sexism itself is an entire attitude or prejudice towards a sex. Insurance rate disparities might be sex discrimination, but it's not an underlying attitude that specifically targets males.
It's a clear and defined fact that men, on average, accumulate more costs in damages. Thus, a firm might "sexually discriminate" (and in this case, I mean differentiate, not offensively carry a bias) between the two and recognize that it should increase rates for men, so as not to lose too much money. It's not truly immoral or sexist to do so, because being truly bigoted (i.e. sexist) would imply an overall belief or attitude that men are inferior or otherwise worse than women.
Gender equality is women getting paid the same as men.
Gender equality is not being questioned or ignored or humiliated when coming forward about being raped or sexually assaulted.
Gender equality is not having domestic violence be the number one cause of injury to women.
You make me sick. Don't compare your bullshit hardships to what women have gone through and still go through.
Believe it or not, there are actually two sides to this coin.....
Not in this issue about auto insurance rates.
There are real issues of gender inequality when it comes to parental rights, abortion rights, alimony, societal acceptance of being a victim of rape/domestic violence, etc.
Auto insurance rates is a stupid issue to hang your hat on.
Yes, but those issues are generally imperfect in both directions, not just one direction.
Why should a woman earn the same wage as a man in the same job, if they have different productivity? Shouldn't the more productive employee earn more? Nooooo, because that would be sexist.....
Of course, nobody should be ignored or humiliated when coming forward about sexual assaults, however, do you know how fucked up shit gets when you get charged for sexual assault for something that was consensual, but her boyfriend found out about it? Thankfully, I had it dropped, and my family was out of the country at the time, so they know nothing about what happened.....
Also, those domestic violence statistics would be skewed somewhat differently if men actually came forward with their injuries from it..... It's not only one gender that suffers from that.
Of course, you're also going to forget things like custody battles though, since it's better for the kids to be with their mothers, right? How about spousal support, since it's creating undue stress and hardship on the woman of the household?
I know someone who finished Law school, and during the party afterwards, he got drunk and ended up getting a girl pregnant. Believe it or not, this was actually her plan (she lied about taking birth control). She won't even let him have contact with his kid, and if he ever works (he's still living in his parent's basement), she'll take something like 30% of it until the kid is 18. And, yes, this is Canada we're talking about here. It's a fucking shame, because he's fucking brilliant, and he is completely against the ruling, so his course of action is to simply not work.....
A lot of people who have your type of romanticized/chivalristic view of gender equality really need a wakeup call.
The argument is that suppose you are Vanished131, the most careful driver in the world, and you are forced to pay extra because people who have the same gender as you tend to get into accidents more frequently. That is roughly the same argument that "suppose you are black, people of your ethnicity commit more violent crimes."
I don't personally have an issue with it, but it's not about "morally wrong to charge women less", it's the concept of applying an aggregate measure to an individual that is the issue.
That is an issue that goes beyond gender. If Vanished131 is truly the most careful driver in the world, how the hell is the insurance company supposed to know that? At some level, you have to apply aggregates because such personal information is impossible for the insurance company to obtain (though they would love to have it).
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
On November 23 2010 11:14 Z3kk wrote: The thrust of this is that insurance companies are there to make money, and they won't do it by being blatantly and needlessly sexist or discriminatory. In fact, flagrant discrimination might result in a devastating lawsuit and a public relations disaster.
As everyone else has been saying, it's actuarial science. Companies will make more money if they manage risks effectively. They look at statistics, and men's overall rates are worse (as many are saying). Men also make significantly more money than do women, so a ten-dollar difference in insurance rates is immaterial.
I wish yo luck with your protest to Geico, but I'm telling you now that you really don't have much of a case. There are cases in which sexism is involved, but this isn't one of them.
It is sexist BY DEFINITION. I understand actuarial science and how it determines rates based on risk, but that doesn't mean it isn't sexist. Or that it's not wrong.
Okay, I was under the impression that we were discussing the social issues: i.e. whether or not there is a "reverse sexism" going on here...I'm not being (or trying to be, at least) inflammatory, but at this point you're discussing semantics. Definition is somewhat subjective--not all of us will agree on an exact definition--but if your definition is accepted (any form of bias towards a race), then sure: it's sexist. However, this "sexism" isn't what I'm referring to, and has little to no impact on the social issue of sexism (which, in this case, I believe is ludicrous because companies are merely trying to determine the best course of action to reap a profit).
Actuarial science may or may not be incorrect sometimes, but it's something with which companies can work, and they're definitely going to do that if they want any hope of earning money.
Agreeing on definitions and pointing out when a word fits a definition is not semantics, it's the most basic piece of work that has to be established in order for communication to work. And if you think that "discrimination based on sex" is an unusual definition for "sexism," then you are wildly unaware. Saying that "A fits the definition of X, and X is wrong" is not semantics, its the most basic of analytic arguments.
I'm not disputing the math of actuarial science, I'm disputing the morality. I'm aware that it increases profits for insurance companies, but that doesn't make it morally right, especially as we have established in our culture and our laws that sexism (discrimination based on sex, statistically or otherwise) is illegal. There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
Ugh, I guess I wasn't clear enough...that was my fault. What I meant was that you're confining the definition of sexism specifically to anything discriminatory towards a sex. If we use the wikipedia definition, you're saying that its morally wrong for there to be "sex discrimination"--that is, discrimination based on sex. Sexism itself is an entire attitude or prejudice towards a sex. Insurance rate disparities might be sex discrimination, but it's not an underlying attitude that specifically targets males.
It's a clear and defined fact that men, on average, accumulate more costs in damages. Thus, a firm might "sexually discriminate" (and in this case, I mean differentiate, not offensively carry a bias) between the two and recognize that it should increase rates for men, so as not to lose too much money. It's not truly immoral or sexist to do so, because being truly bigoted (i.e. sexist) would imply an overall belief or attitude that men are inferior or otherwise worse than women.
The wikipedia definition is not a definition at all, it's the beginning of an encyclopedia entry. If you consult the dictionary you'll see that sexism is essentially "discrimination based on sex."
I'm not disputing the reasoning behind insurance companies rate pricing: if I were a CEO driven to increase profits, I'd use the same system. But it's still sexism, per the definition (not wikipedia's long essay).
Insurance is about cost spreading. The really high burdens of car accidents are spread across all of the policyholders, who pay for such costs with their premiums. A countervailing principle is that costs should be individualized rather than spread across the group. Premiums that account for age, sex, good grade discount etc etc try to strike a balance between these two ideas. You are paying for the amount that a average person of your standing/sex/driving record/etc costs the social fund paid to by all policyholders.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
I can imagine that if women were statistically more prone to accidents and were thus charged higher insurance that this would be a big deal, and it would be considered sexism.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
There's a carve out for insurance companies, but that's because of money: I'm arguing it's morally wrong, not that it isn't reasonable for insurance companies to act as they do.
How in the hell is it morally wrong to charge women less when women end up receiving less payments from insurance companies within the lifetime of their policies???
That's like saying women and men should be charged the same for meals even though women tend to eat less than men.
Because it's discrimination based on a protected trait (sex). It's illegal to make decisions based on that in many situations. In Canada, for example, a landlord can't refuse a potential renter based on their gender, race, religion, etc. Women are also in general less available workers (they have longer maternity leave, work less on average) but you can't discriminate in your hiring based on sex by law.
It's not discrimination based on sex. Men and women are not receiving the same product, because women receive less insurance payouts than men over the life of their policy.
It would in fact be discrimination to charge them the same rates, because now women are putting more money into it than what they take out relative to men.
Discrimination: "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit"
It is discrimination. It is based on sex. It is therefore sexism.
And they are receiving the same product: a certain insurance protection, which has whatever attributes you want. You get the same thing. One just pays more, and I understand why, but it's still sexism. And that's still wrong.
As an observer to the thread (Full disclosure: also an active anti-feminist) from the definition of discrimination it seems obvious that insurance rates are an example of sex-based discrimination.
It should be obvious it is a bad thing insurance companies use cherry picked aggregates (often those legally allowed) and apply them to individuals. It should also be obvious that doing it based on individuals is a million times more complex. Where that leaves us is up in the air. It gives us a goal, at the least.
To me it seems like insurance companies are doing the sensible thing. Perhaps not a great thing, and certainly not the best thing, but the sensible thing.
Yes, rates are determined by statistics. Does gender happen to be one of those statistics? Yes. Why? Because it's pretty easy to follow who's a dude and who's a dudette. For the people arguing "Why not use race?", implying that it is discriminatory, I'd actually suggest insurance companies could use that data. Follow along with me though, let's go further. What about personal history?
I'd argue that if companies could collect and compare and then use individual data feasibly, that they should do so. Leave no stone unturned. Get each person their own quote.
Oh, wait a minute. That means everyone pays differently. So obviously, my higher rates must be discriminating against my poor celestial fortunes when it comes to driving.
Well, that last part was entirely sarcastic, but to sum up my point, these companies offer a service to cover you in case of accidents. That's a good thing, right? They also have to provide this service relatively quickly. If they had the ability to just snap their fingers and make everything just right, don't you think they would?
I'm assuming they don't require race as information because of the outcry it would cause, even though statistics are merely cold hard numbers. This male-female thing slipped under the radar, most likely because of the "women had to put up with it, so you should be fine with discrimination too" argument general apathy we have about it when it comes to the male side of discrimination.
I think we're all getting worked up over something minor. At the end of the day, the OP wasn't championing male rights and equality. He just wanted to save some cash. Unless of course he was going to use the refunded premiums in support of charities for discriminated men everywhere.
Also:
I don't feel that anyone should have their personal worth attacked or their fees raised solely because of their gender.
I find it quite absurd that anyone's personal worth can be attacked through an insurance policy.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
I'm saying if you extend this cry of "sexism", they will go bankrupt. I mean, the reasons why men are more likely to get involved in serious accidents are grounded in studies(higher aggressiveness, more likely longer trips, higher alcohol use.) Basically if you're going to disavow this, grounded in science, you have to treat everyone as equal no matter what. And that would cause them to go bankrupt.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
It's something that is accepted and absolutely shouldn't be. This is not 1950. We are not seperate and equal.
:/ You see, this is different. Segregation and racism has no backing to it. Black people can be just as smart as any white person. This is different :/
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
It's something that is accepted and absolutely shouldn't be. This is not 1950. We are not seperate and equal.
One thing that I think is a misconception about the "Men's Rights" movement is one of mutual exclusivity. People (women especially) seem to think that if you support men's rights issues (e.g. insurance rates, custody bias, etc) then you must not also support female right's issues.
It's not like that. Yes, there are a lot of angry men in the "movement," but there are a lot of well balanced individuals who are both feminists and support men's rights. When we see something with a women being discriminated against, we say "that's wrong, how can we fix this?" and when we see men being discirminated against, we say the same thing. It's not mutually exclusive: you can write to your senator about custody bias on behalf of men in the morning and attend an anti-rape vigil in the evening.
The wikipedia definition is not a definition at all, it's the beginning of an encyclopedia entry. If you consult the dictionary you'll see that sexism is essentially "discrimination based on sex."
I'm not disputing the reasoning behind insurance companies rate pricing: if I were a CEO driven to increase profits, I'd use the same system. But it's still sexism, per the definition (not wikipedia's long essay).
I was posting under the opinion that "sexism" implies an actual attitude (as AAtwelve used the dictionary.com definition--I was subconsciously assuming the first definition) or belief. Literally, and by technical definition, it's "sexist" because there's a fundamental difference between the rates (as an example), but my point was that this isn't true sexism, because that would involve an illogical belief or attitude of debasing a particular sex.
My other point is that if we accept this sexism's definition, it means nothing, because it just means that we can empirically see that there's a difference, but it means nothing socially, because it doesn't actually mean that the companies have an attitude.
If you were a CEO who used the same system to increase profits, you wouldn't be sexist because you don't hold an attitude that men are poor drivers or anything of the like. You wouldn't have an actual belief in anything other than the fact that charging men more for insurance is the optimal way to increase profit.
Insurance companies also charge a different amount depending on the model of the car and the locale in which it is typically parked. Do you wish to charge them with classism as well?
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
I'm saying if you extend this cry of "sexism", they will go bankrupt. I mean, the reasons why men are more likely to get involved in serious accidents are grounded in studies(higher aggressiveness, more likely longer trips, higher alcohol use.) Basically if you're going to disavow this, grounded in science, you have to treat everyone as equal no matter what. And that would cause them to go bankrupt.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it has studies behind it, obviously.
How would it cause them to go bankrupt? They'd just increase rates for women while lowering them for men as they can no longer use sex (a protected trait) to discriminate.
On November 23 2010 11:46 Risen wrote: Simple answer. Different races are not physically different, genders are. Therefor sexism is allowed while racism is not in this case
Wrong. Different races are physically different. Skin pigmentation. And have you ever seen an asian's eyes, or an african's nose?
The wikipedia definition is not a definition at all, it's the beginning of an encyclopedia entry. If you consult the dictionary you'll see that sexism is essentially "discrimination based on sex."
I'm not disputing the reasoning behind insurance companies rate pricing: if I were a CEO driven to increase profits, I'd use the same system. But it's still sexism, per the definition (not wikipedia's long essay).
I was posting under the opinion that "sexism" implies an actual attitude (as AAtwelve used the dictionary.com definition--I was subconsciously assuming the first definition) or belief. Literally, and by technical definition, it's "sexist" because there's a fundamental difference between the rates (as an example), but my point was that this isn't true sexism, because that would involve an illogical belief or attitude of debasing a particular sex.
My other point is that if we accept this sexism's definition, it means nothing, because it just means that we can empirically see that there's a difference, but it means nothing socially, because it doesn't actually mean that the companies have an attitude.
If you were a CEO who used the same system to increase profits, you wouldn't be sexist because you don't hold an attitude that men are poor drivers or anything of the like. You wouldn't have an actual belief in anything other than the fact that charging men more for insurance is the optimal way to increase profit.
As you say, by the technical definition (e.g. the actual one), it's sexist. True sexism = fits the technical definition, not what some wikipedia page says. That's all I wanted to get across, besides the moral position that sexism is wrong (which you may or may not share).
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
I'm saying if you extend this cry of "sexism", they will go bankrupt. I mean, the reasons why men are more likely to get involved in serious accidents are grounded in studies(higher aggressiveness, more likely longer trips, higher alcohol use.) Basically if you're going to disavow this, grounded in science, you have to treat everyone as equal no matter what. And that would cause them to go bankrupt.
On November 23 2010 11:43 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:40 Pandain wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:37 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:31 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:28 Krigwin wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:27 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it has studies behind it, obviously.
How would it cause them to go bankrupt? They'd just increase rates for women while lowering them for men as they can no longer use sex (a protected trait) to discriminate.
Again, I'm saying if you continue the basis for this "sexism" that EVERYTHING IS EQUAL NO MATTER WHAT. The fact is men ARE more likely to be involved in crashes, and that that in that regard is NOT equal. If you go by this logic, then insurance has to consider EVERYTHING equal, no matter how aggressive you are(everyone's equal), addition to alcohol(everyone's equal). Then they would go bankrupt.
Ok, how about this: 1) There is a difference between determining insurance rates by cars/driving history/locale and by sex. 2) There is a difference between determining insurance rates by cars/driving history/locale and by ethnicity. 3) TLO is freaking handsome.
Discrimination: "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit"
It is discrimination. It is based on sex. It is therefore sexism.
I don't know where you got that stupid definition of discrimination, but taking it literally, the fact that, for example, I get handed ads in Las Vegas for female prostitutes because of my gender rather than anything to do with my individualized preference for prostitutes (as someone with a girlfriend, I have no interest in prostitutes) would be sexism. Or how about a doctor recommending that I check myself for testicular cancer because I'm a man rather than because of my individualized propensity for testicular cancer. Sexism too, amirite?
A better definition is disparate treatment of a person despite the same results. In the context of consumer goods, it's stupid to say a good targeted at a gender rather than the individual's preference (e.g. lingerie, which not all women desire to wear) would somehow be sexist. Instead, we would say charging a man more than a woman for a certain product would be sexist. I can agree to that.
And they are receiving the same product: a certain insurance protection, which has whatever attributes you want. You get the same thing. One just pays more, and I understand why, but it's still sexism. And that's still wrong.
You do not get the same thing. Men get more money from their policies than women on average so it makes perfect sense to have men on average pay more for such policies. That they have the same label does not mean it's the same product except in the same naive sense that a woman buying dinner is the "same" as a man buying dinner.
It would be sexist to charge women the same as men, because only then are women paying more for what they get relative to men. It would be like saying men and women should always pay the same amount for dinner, even though women eat less.
Slightly off topic, theres a program in hong kong which is Mr.Hong Kong, and surpsingly, Miss.Hong Kong.
Mr.Hong Kong features male contestants trying to show some talent (and muscles >>) to be crowned Mr.Hong Kong, this show features thousands of women in the audience who will reach out and grab/touch the contestants. But whats interesting to note is males are BANNED from buying tickets to go to this show.
However, the Mrs.Hong Kong show features all the female contestants, tickets are available to both men and women, and of course (as expected) theres nobody reaching out and grabbing at the women (obviously this would be sexual harassment).
Just interesting how sexism exists in so many different forms across the world.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
I'm saying if you extend this cry of "sexism", they will go bankrupt. I mean, the reasons why men are more likely to get involved in serious accidents are grounded in studies(higher aggressiveness, more likely longer trips, higher alcohol use.) Basically if you're going to disavow this, grounded in science, you have to treat everyone as equal no matter what. And that would cause them to go bankrupt.
On November 23 2010 11:43 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:40 Pandain wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:37 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:31 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:28 Krigwin wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:27 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it has studies behind it, obviously.
How would it cause them to go bankrupt? They'd just increase rates for women while lowering them for men as they can no longer use sex (a protected trait) to discriminate.
While it wouldn't be anything as extreme as bankruptcy, they might lose a lot of money, because men, taken as a group, drive more than do women, and if we were to make the insurance rates exactly equivalent to each other, who knows how much that would cost in the long run?
It's almost absurd to talk about establishing rates that are exactly the same. How would they set this rate in perfect balance? If they raised or lowered the rate, one group of the other would have the right to call bias. For example, it's unfair to women for their rates to be raised because even though they drive more carefully or get into fewer accidents, they still have to pay more money for insurance.
On November 23 2010 11:49 AAtwelve wrote: Ok, how about this: 1) There is a difference between determining insurance rates by cars/driving history/locale and by sex. 2) There is a difference between determining insurance rates by cars/driving history/locale and by ethnicity. 3) TLO is freaking handsome.
How so. Let's say this:
Classifying by Alchohol addiction: Is it unequal? You might say no. I would say"BUT EVERYONE'S EQUAL." But you would say "well, but they're statistically more likely to get involved in car accidents." Then you would normally agree with me.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it were shown that being white correlated to being in more accidents, then yes, white people should be charged more for insurance. If that correlation disappeared when other factors were considered then no, being white shouldn't (and wouldn't) be a cause for higher rates. To illustrate:
Suppose Starcraft players were shown to be more likely to get into accidents. At face value we would think it would be right to charge Starcraft players more for insurance. Now, later on, another study is done and it turns out that most Starcraft players are fine drivers, except the Terran players are more likely to get into accidents. Now the basis for charging more is not that a driver plays Starcraft, but instead that the driver is a Terran player.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it were shown that being white correlated to being in more accidents, then yes, white people should be charged more for insurance. If that correlation disappeared when other factors were considered then no, being white shouldn't (and wouldn't) be a cause for higher rates. To illustrate:
Suppose Starcraft players were shown to be more likely to get into accidents. At face value we would think it would be right to charge Starcraft players more for insurance. Now, later on, another study is done and it turns out that most Starcraft players are fine drivers, except the Terran players are more likely to get into accidents. Now the basis for charging more is not that a driver plays Starcraft, but instead that the driver is a Terran player.
Discrimination: "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit"
It is discrimination. It is based on sex. It is therefore sexism.
I don't know where you got that stupid definition of discrimination, but taking it literally, the fact that, for example, I get handed ads in Las Vegas for female prostitutes because of my gender rather than anything to do with my individualized preference for prostitutes (as someone with a girlfriend, I have no interest in prostitutes) would be sexism. Or how about a doctor recommending that I check myself for testicular cancer because I'm a man rather than because of my individualized propensity for testicular cancer. Sexism too, amirite?
A better definition is disparate treatment of a person despite the same results. In the context of consumer goods, it's stupid to say a good targeted at a gender rather than the individual's preference (e.g. women's underwear) would somehow be sexist. Instead, we would say charging a man more than a woman for a certain product would be sexist. I can agree to that.
And they are receiving the same product: a certain insurance protection, which has whatever attributes you want. You get the same thing. One just pays more, and I understand why, but it's still sexism. And that's still wrong.
You do not get the same thing. Men get more money from their policies than women on average so it makes perfect sense to have men on average pay more for such policies. That they have the same label does not mean it's the same product except in the same naive sense that a woman buying dinner is the "same" as a man buying dinner.
It would be sexist to charge women the same as men, because only then are women paying more for what they get relative to men. It would be like saying men and women should always pay the same amount for dinner, even though women eat less.
I don't even... I regret posting in this thread...
Also, people really need to read through the entire thread before posting comments.
Let's say 99% of crimes are committed by black people in a given area and only 1% are white/miscellaneous. You still aren't allowed (it's illegal) to check every black person in that area on the hunch that they might be involved in a crime, even though its statistically backed. Yet in the case of insurance, that same kind of profiling is allowed. In a hypothetical where 99% of white males in their 20s cause accidents, suddenly I'm paying exorbitant rates, even if I personally have nothing that points to me being a bad driver. You're condemned because of those in a similar demographic.
I guess the argument is private versus public(?), but I still find it distasteful.
Your analogy really has no viable relation to the actual situation. Contrary to what you just said, law is very much enforced by statistics and probability. For example, areas of cities which have higher crime rates are assigned more law enforcement to monitor them. If someone who looks like a gang member is walking down the street, police have the right to issue a pat down.
Also, you left out an essential principle in your analogy. You created a situation where 99% of crimes were committed by african americans and 1% by whites. The reason police would not be allowed to check every african american in this situation is not due to some ethical reasoning. It is only because only a small percentage of the african american community would actually be committing the crimes previously mentioned.
Discrimination: "treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit"
It is discrimination. It is based on sex. It is therefore sexism.
I don't know where you got that stupid definition of discrimination, but taking it literally, the fact that, for example, I get handed ads in Las Vegas for female prostitutes because of my gender rather than anything to do with my individualized preference for prostitutes (as someone with a girlfriend, I have no interest in prostitutes) would be sexism. Or how about a doctor recommending that I check myself for testicular cancer because I'm a man rather than because of my individualized propensity for testicular cancer. Sexism too, amirite?
A better definition is disparate treatment of a person despite the same results. In the context of consumer goods, it's stupid to say a good targeted at a gender rather than the individual's preference (e.g. lingerie, which not all women desire to wear) would somehow be sexist. Instead, we would say charging a man more than a woman for a certain product would be sexist. I can agree to that.
And they are receiving the same product: a certain insurance protection, which has whatever attributes you want. You get the same thing. One just pays more, and I understand why, but it's still sexism. And that's still wrong.
You do not get the same thing. Men get more money from their policies than women on average so it makes perfect sense to have men on average pay more for such policies. That they have the same label does not mean it's the same product except in the same naive sense that a woman buying dinner is the "same" as a man buying dinner.
It would be sexist to charge women the same as men, because only then are women paying more for what they get relative to men. It would be like saying men and women should always pay the same amount for dinner, even though women eat less.
1) Yes, your examples fit the definition of sexism. You'll see that those types of basic social situations are discussed as sexism often by third wave feminists, but with reference to women being on the receiving end ("why does my boss always give me cosmetics as a company gift when the men get taken out to a bar?")
2) Your definition of sexism fits the above examples and the one you give about insurance.
3) Men get the same products, the same amount of coverage. Men pay higher rates for the same amount of coverage guaranteed by the insurer. That is the product that the person receives, and the price for it is disparate based on gender. Yes, the company will statistically pay more for males, but that's not the product that the consumer is receiving. They receive coverage that guarantees payment (of a certain amount) from an insurer in certain situations: it costs more for men than women.
My view on this thread is that the OP started with a weak unthought out complaint. Realized he got owned about 3 pages in and started citing the definition of sexism and changed his arguement to revolve around meeting it.
I thibk everyone can agree this is discrimination and further more since its sex based it is also sexism. But your original premise is that this is unjustified sexism which i think almost everyone here disagrees with.
The reason other discrimination forms have been removed is because they were unfounded or even worse they were self fulfilling profecies.
If you put segregation on education and offer worse schools to a group of people then your pining them down to failure.
Theres a number of other reason i can think of but the gist of my post is that you back peddled into "but guys it is discrimination" because your orginal point sucked.
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
I'm saying if you extend this cry of "sexism", they will go bankrupt. I mean, the reasons why men are more likely to get involved in serious accidents are grounded in studies(higher aggressiveness, more likely longer trips, higher alcohol use.) Basically if you're going to disavow this, grounded in science, you have to treat everyone as equal no matter what. And that would cause them to go bankrupt.
On November 23 2010 11:43 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:40 Pandain wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:37 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:31 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:28 Krigwin wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:27 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:25 jalstar wrote: The biggest men's rights issues is false rape charges and will continue to be for a while. This isn't even a men's rights issue.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it has studies behind it, obviously.
How would it cause them to go bankrupt? They'd just increase rates for women while lowering them for men as they can no longer use sex (a protected trait) to discriminate.
While it wouldn't be anything as extreme as bankruptcy, they might lose a lot of money, because men, taken as a group, drive more than do women, and if we were to make the insurance rates exactly equivalent to each other, who knows how much that would cost in the long run?
It's almost absurd to talk about establishing rates that are exactly the same. How would they set this rate in perfect balance? If they raised or lowered the rate, one group of the other would have the right to call bias. For example, it's unfair to women for their rates to be raised because even though they drive more carefully or get into fewer accidents, they still have to pay more money for insurance.
I didn't mean exactly equal, I just assumed that's where the market would trend once using gender as a discriminatory attribute was removed.
you must consider it from the insurance agency's point of view too. Its not just "OH HAHAHAH IM A GREEDY FAT CAT HERE TO LEACH YOU DRY," if insurance looses money, it means there is that much less money for other people who have accidents. So essentially, as a customer, you are paying them to discriminate as much as possible against all risks, so that as a whole customer base you get the best reimbursement for your money and risks. In other words, they are caring after other customers too, not just you.
Also, i doubt there are other competitors who can provide an equal level of service who do not gender discriminate. Good luck finding one though, it would be ideal not to have that discrimination, but I understand the reason for it.
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
I'm saying if you extend this cry of "sexism", they will go bankrupt. I mean, the reasons why men are more likely to get involved in serious accidents are grounded in studies(higher aggressiveness, more likely longer trips, higher alcohol use.) Basically if you're going to disavow this, grounded in science, you have to treat everyone as equal no matter what. And that would cause them to go bankrupt.
On November 23 2010 11:43 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:40 Pandain wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:37 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:31 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:28 Krigwin wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:27 cz wrote: [quote]
Sure it is. It has to do with sexism against men, which would be a violation of men's rights.
I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it has studies behind it, obviously.
How would it cause them to go bankrupt? They'd just increase rates for women while lowering them for men as they can no longer use sex (a protected trait) to discriminate.
While it wouldn't be anything as extreme as bankruptcy, they might lose a lot of money, because men, taken as a group, drive more than do women, and if we were to make the insurance rates exactly equivalent to each other, who knows how much that would cost in the long run?
It's almost absurd to talk about establishing rates that are exactly the same. How would they set this rate in perfect balance? If they raised or lowered the rate, one group of the other would have the right to call bias. For example, it's unfair to women for their rates to be raised because even though they drive more carefully or get into fewer accidents, they still have to pay more money for insurance.
I didn't mean exactly equal, I just assumed that's where the market would trend once using gender as a discriminatory attribute was removed.
The thing is, the market is trending this way on its own, and you're calling it sexism.
On November 23 2010 11:57 Railxp wrote: you must consider it from the insurance agency's point of view too. Its not just "OH HAHAHAH IM A GREEDY FAT CAT HERE TO LEACH YOU DRY," if insurance looses money, it means there is that much less money for other people who have accidents. So essentially, as a customer, you are paying them to discriminate as much as possible against all risks, so that as a whole customer base you get the best reimbursement for your money and risks. In other words, they are caring after other customers too, not just you.
Also, i doubt there are other competitors who can provide an equal level of service who do not gender discriminate. Good luck finding one though, it would be ideal not to have that discrimination, but I understand the reason for it.
Basing moral decisions on the potential losses to private companies should not be how our government and our society works.
As stated, though, the insurance companies wouldn't lose money: women would see a rise in rates, men would see a lowering. I'm guessing it'd even out.
On November 23 2010 11:28 Krigwin wrote: [quote] I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
They wouldn't go bankrupt, they'd just raise rates overall (women would face higher rates than previous, men the opposite). As for "acceptable sexism," I disagree. And why it's allowed is because there isn't enough push to get it changed against the ever strong tide of lobbyists and money from insurance companies on politicians.
I'm saying if you extend this cry of "sexism", they will go bankrupt. I mean, the reasons why men are more likely to get involved in serious accidents are grounded in studies(higher aggressiveness, more likely longer trips, higher alcohol use.) Basically if you're going to disavow this, grounded in science, you have to treat everyone as equal no matter what. And that would cause them to go bankrupt.
On November 23 2010 11:43 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:40 Pandain wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:37 AAtwelve wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:31 cz wrote:
On November 23 2010 11:28 Krigwin wrote: [quote] I'm not going to get into some semantics argument regarding the definition of sexism, but please let's not equate something as trivial as insurance rates with actual men's right issues like false rape charges.
It's not semantics. It's the most basic part of an argument. If anyone is being semantic, it's you in trying to claim that "discrimination based on sex" is somehow not the definition of sexism.
And I'm not claiming that insurance rates are the biggest issue.
Yea, I'm just going to say cz seems to get it.
Can we agree on this: 1) The definition of sexism is: discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities (taken from dictionary.com) 2) Therefore, it is sexist to charge different rates for men and women. and finally, 3) TLO is really handsome.
its sexist, but you can't sue them for that. That's how they do rates. If you asked them to do everything individually, then they'd go bankrupt. (have to spend tons of money figuring out how safe someone is...etc...).
It's acceptable sexism. There's a difference between saying "women get in less car accidents" and "men are worse drivers." The same difference between "black people are poor" and "more poor people in the US are black than white.".
So would it be "acceptable" for insurance companies to discriminate between people of different ethnic backgrounds? ... Sigh...
If it has studies behind it, obviously.
How would it cause them to go bankrupt? They'd just increase rates for women while lowering them for men as they can no longer use sex (a protected trait) to discriminate.
While it wouldn't be anything as extreme as bankruptcy, they might lose a lot of money, because men, taken as a group, drive more than do women, and if we were to make the insurance rates exactly equivalent to each other, who knows how much that would cost in the long run?
It's almost absurd to talk about establishing rates that are exactly the same. How would they set this rate in perfect balance? If they raised or lowered the rate, one group of the other would have the right to call bias. For example, it's unfair to women for their rates to be raised because even though they drive more carefully or get into fewer accidents, they still have to pay more money for insurance.
I didn't mean exactly equal, I just assumed that's where the market would trend once using gender as a discriminatory attribute was removed.
The thing is, the market is trending this way on its own, and you're calling it sexism.
That's not what I'm calling sexism. You know what I'm calling sexism, I don't need to repeat it.
On November 23 2010 11:03 Krigwin wrote: Oh man, and here I came in expecting a write-up on the rise of militant feminism, the social acceptance of misandry, lopsided legal statistics regarding domestic violence, divorce, and custody cases, and the various other societal and cultural difficulties facing young men in western society. Oh well.
I look forward to someone making this thread, things are getting crazy...
1) Yes, your examples fit the definition of sexism. You'll see that those types of basic social situations are discussed as sexism often by third wave feminists, but with reference to women being on the receiving end ("why does my boss always give me cosmetics as a company gift when the men get taken out to a bar?")
Your example is different from my example, because in your example, you show disparate treatment. My examples, which fit within the literal confines of the definition you're using, do not require disparate treatment. My point is that sexism is entirely about disparate treatment, rather than treating me as a man without regard to my individual preferences, which happens all the fucking time, because it's simply impossible for most people to know my individual preferences that well.
(Is it sexist to have urinals in men's bathrooms in complete disregard to every individual's desire to use a urinal?)
3) Men get the same products, the same amount of coverage. Men pay higher rates for the same amount of coverage guaranteed by the insurer. That is the product that the person receives, and the price for it is disparate based on gender. Yes, the company will statistically pay more for males, but that's not the product that the consumer is receiving. They receive coverage that guarantees payment (of a certain amount) from an insurer in certain situations: it costs more for men than women.
It's a different product, because the end result is that you receive something tangibly different as a man: MORE MONEY. Again, would you say a woman buying a happy meal and being satisfied is buying the same product as a man who buys a big mac meal and being satisfied? Even though both of them are labeled as dinner and the end result is caloric satisfaction (e.g. peace of mind from coverage)? No you wouldn't.
its just risk assessment. whether we like it or not, young male drivers tend to be in the most accidents (due to speeding, careless driving, and drunk driving). we pay the price.
On November 23 2010 11:56 Ruthless wrote: My view on this thread is that the OP started with a weak unthought out complaint. Realized he got owned about 3 pages in and started citing the definition of sexism and changed his arguement to revolve around meeting it.
I thibk everyone can agree this is discrimination and further more since its sex based it is also sexism. But your original premise is that this is unjustified sexism which i think almost everyone here disagrees with.
The reason other discrimination forms have been removed is because they were unfounded or even worse they were self fulfilling profecies.
If you put segregation on education and offer worse schools to a group of people then your pining them down to failure.
Theres a number of other reason i can think of but the gist of my post is that you back peddled into "but guys it is discrimination" because your orginal point sucked.
I wasn't trying to create the universal and omnipotent argument for men's rights or men's activism. I was merely trying to create a discussion concerning one aspect of sexism against men: insurance rates. A number of the arguments posted here were repititions, and I don't have time to reply to each and every single one.
At least you understood my original premise. This is unjustified. Discriminating solely on the basis of sex is immoral and is protected in the United States of America, yet they get away with it due to statistics.
I think we should consider that each one of us is Vanished131, the most careful driver. Do you deserve to have your rates raised just because a select 1 or 2 percent of your gender thinks they are the most macho piece that ever walked the Earth?
The fact that this is discrimination, I don't believe, has yet to be defeated by anyone here. Citing news reports and wikipedia articles is a bad habit.
On November 23 2010 11:46 Risen wrote: Simple answer. Different races are not physically different, genders are. Therefor sexism is allowed while racism is not in this case
It's not really sexism. Sexism is unwarranted judgements, but this is justified, males do tend to drive more aggressively and is a higher risk.
If I were to say "Females have smaller brains"
Althought it sounds sexism, and probably is, given the right context, we cannot classify the statement itself as a sexist statement by itself.
If I were to say "Females have smaller brains therefore they are not eligible for a certain job" in the context of a hiring process, that will be sexism as that it is not a measuring for job competency, and my judgement on the competency of females are not justified. That is to say, unless I can prove smaller brains leads to lower job performance in a convincing way, that statement will not be correct.
In your case, they do have hard data that say males tend to be higher risk, and so it's logical for them to raise your price.
That being said, the take away point is that we should bear in mind that male and female ARE different, they are different with pros and cons, which needs different treatments and different accomidations. It is correct to acknoledge these differences, and it will be wrong to ignore these differences. What is wrong, in term of sexism, is that you infer extra differences between male and female in place where there is no difference.
1) Yes, your examples fit the definition of sexism. You'll see that those types of basic social situations are discussed as sexism often by third wave feminists, but with reference to women being on the receiving end ("why does my boss always give me cosmetics as a company gift when the men get taken out to a bar?")
Your example is different from my example, because in your example, you show disparate treatment. My examples, which fit within the literal confines of the definition you're using, do not require disparate treatment. My point is that sexism is entirely about disparate treatment, rather than treating me as a man without regard to my individual preferences, which happens all the fucking time, because it's simply impossible for most people to know my individual preferences that well.
(Is it sexist to have urinals in men's bathrooms in complete disregard to every individual's desire to use a urinal?)
3) Men get the same products, the same amount of coverage. Men pay higher rates for the same amount of coverage guaranteed by the insurer. That is the product that the person receives, and the price for it is disparate based on gender. Yes, the company will statistically pay more for males, but that's not the product that the consumer is receiving. They receive coverage that guarantees payment (of a certain amount) from an insurer in certain situations: it costs more for men than women.
It's a different product, because the end result is that you receive something tangibly different as a man: MORE MONEY. Again, would you say a woman buying a happy meal and being satisfied is buying the same product as a man who buys a big mac meal and being satisfied? Even though both of them are labeled as dinner and the end result is caloric satisfaction (e.g. peace of mind from coverage)? No you wouldn't.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
I understand that A) men are more likely to use their insurance plan and B) thus the insurance company pays more per insurance plan given to men, but that isn't the PRODUCT that is being bought.
Take two people: they both by insurance, the same plan, same thing in every way. Same guarantees, same payouts, etc. The plan is for one year. One person crashes his car and claims his insurance, the other doesn't and never "uses" it. They both bought the same product, though.
I think we should consider that each one of us is Vanished131, the most careful driver. Do you deserve to have your rates raised just because a select 1 or 2 percent of your gender thinks they are the most macho piece that ever walked the Earth?
If that were the actually the case, then that would be unfair, but insurance companies would climb all over themselves to figure out how to determine who that 1-2% are. But when it comes to gender and insurance payouts, actuaries cannot find a third variable that better explains the correlation, though they've been trying for decades.
The fact that this is discrimination, I don't believe, has yet to be defeated by anyone here. Citing news reports and wikipedia articles is a bad habit.
It's not discrimination because as a man, you receive more money from insurance companies.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
Yes, men are charged more for making more claims and receiving more money than women. So, yes, they do get more. If women want more, they can simply make more claims and the insurance company will charge them more. If men want less, they can simply make less claims and the insurance company will charge them less.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
On November 23 2010 12:08 AAtwelve wrote: I was citing wiki for a definition, feel free to use any sort of dictionary to determine the definitions of sexism...
Anyways, I'm going back to TLO fanclub page, cya. GL HF.
I didn't have any problems with your definition of sexism.
On November 23 2010 12:02 da_head wrote: its just risk assessment. whether we like it or not, young male drivers tend to be in the most accidents (due to speeding, careless driving, and drunk driving). we pay the price.
its just risk assessment. whether we like it or not, black clients tend to not be reliable financially (due to bad education, careless spending habits, and history of drug-related problems). we pay the price.
On November 23 2010 12:03 evanthebouncy! wrote: If I were to say "Females have smaller brains therefore they are not eligible for a certain job" in the context of a hiring process, that will be sexism as that it is not a measuring for job competency, and my judgement on the competency of females are not justified. That is to say, unless I can prove smaller brains leads to lower job performance in a convincing way, that statement will not be correct.
In your case, they do have hard data that say males tend to be higher risk, and so it's logical for them to raise your price.
Your argument: In your case, they do have hard data that say males tend to be higher risk, and so it's logical for them to raise your price.
Anti-segmentation argument: On average, females know less graduate-level physics than males. But it's unfair to pay female professors less because of that.
Pro-segmentation argument: Well, because you can look at the professor's qualifications before you hire them. Most drivers start off with a clean history, and your premiums do go up if you've gotten into accidents before. If you had to hire professors based on demographics and no interview or reviewing their publications, you'd probably go for the old bearded guy in thick glasses too.
Anti-segmentation argument: And why should old bearded guys have the advantage?
On November 23 2010 12:02 da_head wrote: its just risk assessment. whether we like it or not, young male drivers tend to be in the most accidents (due to speeding, careless driving, and drunk driving). we pay the price.
its just risk assessment. whether we like it or not, black clients tend to not be reliable financially (due to bad education, careless spending habits, and history of drug-related problems). we pay the price.
This is true of people from bad socio-economic backgrounds. Black people tend to be disproportionately represented in these groups. This is an example where other factors are more important.
It is a FACT that men, on average, have more accidents than females.
"Discriminating solely on the basis of sex is immoral and is protected in the United States of America, yet they get away with it due to statistics."
The logic of this statement leads me to believe that on a fundamental level you do not understand how and or possibly why insurance rates are calculated the way they are. Perhaps instead of taking a tongue lashing from this forum you should have first informed yourself on the subject. My advice which by no means do I expect you to take, however others that may agree with you might, is to watch this lecture by Robert Shiller on the subject of insurance.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
The point is how the product is used is not relevant from the consumers point of view. You buy the same piece of paper that gives you the same protections, man or women, but more expensive for a man. Yes, the man is statistically more likely to cost the insurance company more money (via that piece of paper), but from the consumer's point of view that is not part of the product.
On November 23 2010 12:03 evanthebouncy! wrote: It's not really sexism. Sexism is unwarranted judgements, but this is justified, males do tend to drive more aggressively and is a higher risk.
It's not really racism. Racism is unwarranted judgements, but this is justified, blacks do tend to commit more crimes.
If I were to say "Females have smaller brains"
Althought it sounds sexism, and probably is, given the right context, we cannot classify the statement itself as a sexist statement by itself.
If I were to say "Blacks have lesser cranial capacity"
Althought it sounds racist, and probably is, given the right context, we cannot classify the statement itself as a racist statement by itself.
That being said, the take away point is that we should bear in mind that male and female ARE different, they are different with pros and cons, which needs different treatments and different accomidations. It is correct to acknoledge these differences, and it will be wrong to ignore these differences. What is wrong, in term of sexism, is that you infer extra differences between male and female in place where there is no difference.
That being said, the take away point is that we should bear in mind that blacks and whites ARE different, they are different with pros and cons, which needs different treatments and different accomidations. It is correct to acknoledge these differences, and it will be wrong to ignore these differences. What is wrong, in term of racism, is that you infer extra differences between blacks and whites in place where there is no difference.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
I'm sure members of different ethnicities have higher rates of accidents too. They do not ask for your race when recieving a quote.
What's the difference? Seperate but equal is okay now?
On November 23 2010 10:55 NathanSC wrote: They base their rates entirely on risk assessment, which is just statistical analysis. I'm sorry, but it's not sexism.
Why do they refrain from requesting one's race then? Wouldn't it just be statistical analysis? You realize something is wrong, and you know it.
I don't it's fair to take an all or nothing approach. Let's be reasonable here, mate.
Sure they could take into account other factors like race if they wanted. But they are not obliged to merely because they take into account sex and age. The insurance companies have to draw a line at some point where they think they've individualised the risk analysis enough as a matter of business efficacy.
There is nothing hypocritical or wrong about taking into account sex but refraining from taking into account other data such as race. It's just stats, risk and business.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
The point is how the product is used is not relevant from the consumers point of view. You buy the same piece of paper that gives you the same protections, man or women, but more expensive for a man. Yes, the man is statistically more likely to cost the insurance company more money (via that piece of paper), but from the consumer's point of view that is not part of the product.
its a fucking service not a god damn product. people in the service sector always use "product" to describe their service to catch dumb people not understanding what a service is. So please stop using product to describe the thing the insurance company gives you.
This case seems to be currently going through the EU at the moment. Basically the EU Advocate General has said it is discrimination, however her view is not binding. A decision is expected in 2011
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
At least you understood my original premise. This is unjustified. Discriminating solely on the basis of sex is immoral and is protected in the United States of America, yet they get away with it due to statistics.
This obviously isn't the case. The lower rates are due to statistics, not "solely on the basis of sex."
I'm not going to get into whether it's right or wrong, but you are certainly misstating the position of insurers. The morality of the consumer or provider is independent of the data.
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
I'm sure members of different ethnicities have higher rates of accidents too. They do not ask for your race when recieving a quote.
What's the difference? Seperate but equal is okay now?
On November 23 2010 10:55 NathanSC wrote: They base their rates entirely on risk assessment, which is just statistical analysis. I'm sorry, but it's not sexism.
Why do they refrain from requesting one's race then? Wouldn't it just be statistical analysis? You realize something is wrong, and you know it.
I don't it's fair to take an all or nothing approach. Let's be reasonable here, mate.
Sure they could take into account other factors like race if they wanted. But they are not obliged to merely because they take into account sex and age. The insurance companies have to draw a line at some point where they think they've individualised the risk analysis enough as a matter of business efficacy.
There is nothing hypocritical or wrong about taking into account sex but refraining from taking into account other data such as race. It's just stats, risk and business.
No, you can argue that there is nothing wrong about taking age into account (because we all age the same), but taking sex into account would be similar to taking race into account.
The reason other discrimination forms have been removed is because they were unfounded or even worse they were self fulfilling profecies.
The OP is a bit silly but this is garbage too. Probably more so Racism isn't bad because its statistically unfounded, and it wouldn't be any better if it was.
Only a naive romanticist could honestly believe that all racial genepools have identical strengths and gender dispositions have no effect. How they are weighted of course, and how severely, is anybodies guess.
That isn't the point of why Racism is bad. Racism is bad because individuals need to be treated as just that, individuals, without be shackled by there birth status. Even if, say, Black race is somehow genetically, statistically less intelligent then another race by 8 points (NOT saying that they are, just as an example), it wouldn't mean shit because there would still be tons of black geniuses and black men of extreme intellect, just due to the way of how genetic variation WORKS, and we need a society that can recognize them for there strengths. Even if women were inferior to men in athleticism, devoid of any social context (Once again, hypothetical example), that doesn't mean athletic racism would be ok because there would still be tons of women who would be extremely proficient athletically, and society shouldn't repress individuals to conform with the racial, ethnic, or gender/gender identity they were born with.
I swear in my area, females and males are charged the same due to the fact that females are now classified as high-risk drivers too - might have to do with their extra curricular driving activities (texting and make-up application, etc). Either that or they are making sure that there is 'equality' amongst genders.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
The point is how the product is used is not relevant from the consumers point of view. You buy the same piece of paper that gives you the same protections, man or women, but more expensive for a man. Yes, the man is statistically more likely to cost the insurance company more money (via that piece of paper), but from the consumer's point of view that is not part of the product.
its a fucking service not a god damn product. people in the service sector always use "product" to describe their service to catch dumb people not understanding what a service is. So please stop using product to describe the thing the insurance company gives you.
Fine. It's an agreement between the insurer and the insuree that provides the insuree with certain methods of making claims upon the insurer. Those claims have maximum payouts and certain stipulations for when they can be validly claimed ("the attributes of the agreement" hereafter). Policies with certain attributes cannot be obtained commercially at the same cost for men and women, based on statistical analysis of claim payouts expected. That constitutes sexism in that it is discrimination based on gender with respect to what can be purchased. The agreement itself and its stipulations (attributes) is what is being bought by the insuree ("consumer"): to him/her the statistical payout is not being bought, but rather the ability to make claims for certain amounts in certain situations ("attributes").
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
The point is how the product is used is not relevant from the consumers point of view. You buy the same piece of paper that gives you the same protections, man or women, but more expensive for a man. Yes, the man is statistically more likely to cost the insurance company more money (via that piece of paper), but from the consumer's point of view that is not part of the product.
I definitely agree with this point. Insurance companies are not offering different products to men and women. They have the same coverage, deductibles etc. It is true that companies pay out more money to men than women, and receive more in payments from men. This does not men that mean get a better product. If one day every woman in the world had a brutal car accident and no man crashed, insurance companies would suddenly pay out a lot more to women. This does not mean that women had a better product that day.
If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
This has to be the WORST possible way to try to get lower insurance rates. They will probably print out the email and post it on the office bulletin board for the greater lulz. The OP would have been better off calling various insurance companies to try to get them to bid against each other.
This is applied sexism, but unequal rates is more fair than having equal rates.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
The point is how the product is used is not relevant from the consumers point of view. You buy the same piece of paper that gives you the same protections, man or women, but more expensive for a man. Yes, the man is statistically more likely to cost the insurance company more money (via that piece of paper), but from the consumer's point of view that is not part of the product.
its a fucking service not a god damn product. people in the service sector always use "product" to describe their service to catch dumb people not understanding what a service is. So please stop using product to describe the thing the insurance company gives you.
Fine. It's an agreement between the insurer and the insuree that provides the insuree with certain methods of making claims upon the insurer. Those claims have maximum payouts and certain stipulations for when they can be validly claimed ("the attributes of the agreement" hereafter). Policies with certain attributes cannot be obtained commercially at the same cost for men and women, based on statistical analysis of claim payouts expected. That constitutes sexism in that it is discrimination based on gender with respect to what can be purchased. The agreement itself and its stipulations (attributes) is what is being bought by the insuree ("consumer"): to him/her the statistical payout is not being bought, but rather the ability to make claims for certain amounts in certain situations ("attributes").
Clear?
i'm absolutly on a line with you about sexism for maximizing profits and how it sucks, I just hate it that services are called products when they're not.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
The point is how the product is used is not relevant from the consumers point of view. You buy the same piece of paper that gives you the same protections, man or women, but more expensive for a man. Yes, the man is statistically more likely to cost the insurance company more money (via that piece of paper), but from the consumer's point of view that is not part of the product.
its a fucking service not a god damn product. people in the service sector always use "product" to describe their service to catch dumb people not understanding what a service is. So please stop using product to describe the thing the insurance company gives you.
Fine. It's an agreement between the insurer and the insuree that provides the insuree with certain methods of making claims upon the insurer. Those claims have maximum payouts and certain stipulations for when they can be validly claimed ("the attributes of the agreement" hereafter). Policies with certain attributes cannot be obtained commercially at the same cost for men and women, based on statistical analysis of claim payouts expected. That constitutes sexism in that it is discrimination based on gender with respect to what can be purchased. The agreement itself and its stipulations (attributes) is what is being bought by the insuree ("consumer"): to him/her the statistical payout is not being bought, but rather the ability to make claims for certain amounts in certain situations ("attributes").
Clear?
i'm absolutly on a line with you about sexism for maximizing profits and how it sucks, I just hate it thats services are called products when they're not.
I don't even know if it's a service. Insurance is more of an agreement whereby the purchaser gains the legal right to make certain claims of the insurance company over a certain period in certain conditions with certain payouts based on various things. Whether an agreement constitutes a service, I don't know.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
But insurance isn't required by law. It's only required if you want to drive. Driving isn't a right (Though I agree that in much of the country it is required in practice, if not by law). So I believe that's a false equivalence, though I'm by no means an expert on logic or logical phrases.
Is there evidence that the law in regards to the situations you mentioned above works counter to statistical evidence? For example is sexism illegal in regards to university admissions despite the fact that one gender is more likely to succeed in university?
1) Yes, your examples fit the definition of sexism. You'll see that those types of basic social situations are discussed as sexism often by third wave feminists, but with reference to women being on the receiving end ("why does my boss always give me cosmetics as a company gift when the men get taken out to a bar?")
Your example is different from my example, because in your example, you show disparate treatment. My examples, which fit within the literal confines of the definition you're using, do not require disparate treatment. My point is that sexism is entirely about disparate treatment, rather than treating me as a man without regard to my individual preferences, which happens all the fucking time, because it's simply impossible for most people to know my individual preferences that well.
(Is it sexist to have urinals in men's bathrooms in complete disregard to every individual's desire to use a urinal?)
3) Men get the same products, the same amount of coverage. Men pay higher rates for the same amount of coverage guaranteed by the insurer. That is the product that the person receives, and the price for it is disparate based on gender. Yes, the company will statistically pay more for males, but that's not the product that the consumer is receiving. They receive coverage that guarantees payment (of a certain amount) from an insurer in certain situations: it costs more for men than women.
It's a different product, because the end result is that you receive something tangibly different as a man: MORE MONEY. Again, would you say a woman buying a happy meal and being satisfied is buying the same product as a man who buys a big mac meal and being satisfied? Even though both of them are labeled as dinner and the end result is caloric satisfaction (e.g. peace of mind from coverage)? No you wouldn't.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
I understand that A) men are more likely to use their insurance plan and B) thus the insurance company pays more per insurance plan given to men, but that isn't the PRODUCT that is being bought.
Take two people: they both by insurance, the same plan, same thing in every way. Same guarantees, same payouts, etc. The plan is for one year. One person crashes his car and claims his insurance, the other doesn't and never "uses" it. They both bought the same product, though.
Your argument may make sense if you can view insurance as a product that you buy as a standard package. But really, an insurance policy is a contract between the policy holder and the insurer. The policy holder gives a certain premium in exchange for insurance by the insurer. The insurer determines the premium price based off what the insurer thinks the insurance is worth to the policy holder (ie based off the policy holder's risk of making a claim). Therefore, the 'product' is actually individual to each policy holder. It's not just a standard package, it's just the business demands that make it more streamlined. But never forget insurance is an individual contract between the insurer and policy holder --- and that's the only way it would get legally enforced anyway.
In any event, it is better described as the allocation of risk across society (or at least the policy holders). So looking at the bigger picture of allocating risk is probably the better way of examining insurance.
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that the statistics necessarily reflect the reality. More men drive than women (think of the senior population... how many elderly couples are there where grandma doesn't drive at all?) and thus could probably have more absolute accidents, but not necessarily more when taking proportion into account.
If I look at my highschool graduating class, the proportion of women who had accidents is MUCH higher than that of men. I will admit that most of these accidents were minor (meaning more of them weren't reported to avoid the insurance claims altogether), but there were still some of them related to dangerous driving. Of course my highschool graduating class from 4 years ago is a small sample of people, but it's still a sample.
If I think in my family, I don't think any of the men, aside from my almost legally blind grandfather, have had accidents (at least not in the last 20 years). Again, grandma doesn't drive in this case so we can't really compare. I do however know for a fact that 2/5 aunts have had accidents in this same span of time.
I don't know. I guess I'm just a little upset with the fact that my girlfriend, while an excellent driver (no better or worse than myself) pays less than one third of what I pay for insurance. Quite literally, I'm paying 3600$/year, on a 2002 4-cyl Honda Accord, while she's paying about 1100$/year driving a 2002 V6 Chrysler Sebring (a way nicer car, with way bigger balls ) . Neither of us have been in any accidents. We're both 20 and have both completed driver training (which lowers insurance costs). Her insurance policy has been lowering her costs since she got her licence, while mine have actually been rising. What's up with that?
I get that insurance companies have to base their policies on overall tendencies to a certain extent... but I'd really like to pay insurance for my driving record and not the rest of the province's <.<
I have seen little justification of the statistics used to determine rates.
Someone posted a link showing men are in more fatal accidents. That is obviously incomplete in scope and missing normalizing factors such as how many men vs. women are drivers, and how many men are in more risky driving jobs (taxi, truck, etc).
Secondly, even if women, overall, were completely less likely to be involved in accidents, it is not a highly useful statistic. Gender is very simple and highly variable; there are much better statistics the companies could use to more accurately fulfill their risk-assessment purposes.
Lastly, this is not justified given that the companies do not follow this with race and age (for the younger side of the scale they do, but iirc they do not compensate for elderly drivers, though I may be wrong). It is not justifiable to only selectively apply such general metrics.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
But insurance isn't required by law. It's only required if you want to drive. Driving isn't a right (Though I agree that in much of the country it is required in practice, if not by law). So I believe that's a false equivalence, though I'm by no means an expert on logic or logical phrases.
Is there evidence that the law in regards to the situations you mentioned above works counter to statistical evidence? For example is sexism illegal in regards to university admissions despite the fact that one gender is more likely to succeed in university?
Well, access to jobs and universities and housing isn't required by law, but sex (and religion and race, etc) are protected traits.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
Game charges not really an argument of "fairness" though.
Take the MMO example. they used to all be "pay-per-month" ish, so basically the hardcore players benefitted the most and the casuals kind of got a worse deal.
Now, a lot of MMOs are micro-transaction based. which means the hardcore players pay more (often because they'd be disadvantaged if they didn't) and the casuals pay close to nothing.
two different models, catering to different crowds. I wouldn't call either mode more "fair" than the other.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
You don't "use the insurance more often," it's the insurance company that decides when to pay. And they pay men more than they pay women. That is by definition receiving more.
What do you mean by "they pay men more than they pay women." Do you mean that per claim filed men are paid more or that mend tend to make more claims per person per annum?
I believe it's both, but regardless, over the lifetime of a policy, men receive more money than women. Hence, the products are not the same and it would in fact be discriminatory to charge women and men the same amount, because women would end up receiving much less.
The whole point of insurance is to trade constant small payments in place of unpredictable large payments. Women have less unpredictable large payments. It would be like if because of uncontrollable factors, there was a men's lottery and women's lottery. The men's lottery pays more money with a higher probability of winning, and the women's lottery pays less money with a lower probability of winning. Charging them the same price would in fact be discriminatory, because women are getting something "inferior."
The point is how the product is used is not relevant from the consumers point of view. You buy the same piece of paper that gives you the same protections, man or women, but more expensive for a man. Yes, the man is statistically more likely to cost the insurance company more money (via that piece of paper), but from the consumer's point of view that is not part of the product.
its a fucking service not a god damn product. people in the service sector always use "product" to describe their service to catch dumb people not understanding what a service is. So please stop using product to describe the thing the insurance company gives you.
Fine. It's an agreement between the insurer and the insuree that provides the insuree with certain methods of making claims upon the insurer. Those claims have maximum payouts and certain stipulations for when they can be validly claimed ("the attributes of the agreement" hereafter). Policies with certain attributes cannot be obtained commercially at the same cost for men and women, based on statistical analysis of claim payouts expected. That constitutes sexism in that it is discrimination based on gender with respect to what can be purchased. The agreement itself and its stipulations (attributes) is what is being bought by the insuree ("consumer"): to him/her the statistical payout is not being bought, but rather the ability to make claims for certain amounts in certain situations ("attributes").
Clear?
i'm absolutly on a line with you about sexism for maximizing profits and how it sucks, I just hate it thats services are called products when they're not.
I don't even know if it's a service. Insurance is more of an agreement whereby the purchaser gains the legal right to make certain claims of the insurance company over a certain period in certain conditions with certain payouts based on various things. Whether an agreement constitutes a service, I don't know.
In economics its the textbook example of a service. as I said, the term products is used to "polish" the service so the dumb peon thinks he has something in his hand when he clearly does not. It's the same reason why the car seller asks you for your autograph rather than your signature. They all play catching the dumb.
On a related subject did you know that airlines price in a discriminatory manner as well?
Ever wondered why they say business or pleasure? Ever wondered why tickets get more expensive as the take off date approaches?
I think that is a much more valid discussion about price discrimination founded upon what is the moral thing to do. Perhaps if the OP were better educated, or better informed, he could have drawn parallels between the two to support his argument, what a pity.
On November 23 2010 12:36 Servolisk wrote: I have seen little justification of the statistics used to determine rates.
Someone posted a link showing men are in more fatal accidents. That is obviously incomplete in scope and missing normalizing factors such as how many men vs. women are drivers, and how many men are in more risky driving jobs (taxi, truck, etc).
Secondly, even if women, overall, were completely less likely to be involved in accidents, it is not a highly useful statistic. Gender is very simple and highly variable; there are much better statistics the companies could use to more accurately fulfill their risk-assessment purposes.
Lastly, this is not justified given that the companies do not follow this with race and age (for the younger side of the scale they do, but iirc they do not compensate for elderly drivers, though I may be wrong). It is not justifiable to only selectively apply such general metrics.
No one is even arguing about statistics justification. The insurance companies aren't charging you more because they hate penises.
1) Yes, your examples fit the definition of sexism. You'll see that those types of basic social situations are discussed as sexism often by third wave feminists, but with reference to women being on the receiving end ("why does my boss always give me cosmetics as a company gift when the men get taken out to a bar?")
Your example is different from my example, because in your example, you show disparate treatment. My examples, which fit within the literal confines of the definition you're using, do not require disparate treatment. My point is that sexism is entirely about disparate treatment, rather than treating me as a man without regard to my individual preferences, which happens all the fucking time, because it's simply impossible for most people to know my individual preferences that well.
(Is it sexist to have urinals in men's bathrooms in complete disregard to every individual's desire to use a urinal?)
3) Men get the same products, the same amount of coverage. Men pay higher rates for the same amount of coverage guaranteed by the insurer. That is the product that the person receives, and the price for it is disparate based on gender. Yes, the company will statistically pay more for males, but that's not the product that the consumer is receiving. They receive coverage that guarantees payment (of a certain amount) from an insurer in certain situations: it costs more for men than women.
It's a different product, because the end result is that you receive something tangibly different as a man: MORE MONEY. Again, would you say a woman buying a happy meal and being satisfied is buying the same product as a man who buys a big mac meal and being satisfied? Even though both of them are labeled as dinner and the end result is caloric satisfaction (e.g. peace of mind from coverage)? No you wouldn't.
You don't get more. You get the same piece of paper which guarantees you the same things: a certain maximal insurance payout and the stipulations for the situations that the company pays for. That's what the consumer buys: that men happen to use the insurance more often than women doesn't change that the product being bought is the same. And it costs more for men than women.
I understand that A) men are more likely to use their insurance plan and B) thus the insurance company pays more per insurance plan given to men, but that isn't the PRODUCT that is being bought.
Take two people: they both by insurance, the same plan, same thing in every way. Same guarantees, same payouts, etc. The plan is for one year. One person crashes his car and claims his insurance, the other doesn't and never "uses" it. They both bought the same product, though.
Your argument may make sense if you can view insurance as a product that you buy as a standard package. But really, an insurance policy is a contract between the policy holder and the insurer. The policy holder gives a certain premium in exchange for insurance by the insurer. The insurer determines the premium price based off what the insurer thinks the insurance is worth to the policy holder (ie based off the policy holder's risk of making a claim). Therefore, the 'product' is actually individual to each policy holder. It's not just a standard package, it's just the business demands that make it more streamlined. But never forget insurance is an individual contract between the insurer and policy holder --- and that's the only way it would get legally enforced anyway.
In any event, it is better described as the allocation of risk across society (or at least the policy holders). So looking at the bigger picture of allocating risk is probably the better way of examining insurance.
True, but if we were to have two people the same in every way but for being male and female we'd see a difference premium being offered to each. The bottom line, then, is that the sex of the person has an effect on premium while the insurance company's agreement (its payout agreement, etc) is kept constant. That's where the discrimination based on sex (sexism) is.
Aren't males more likely to total their cars? I think women are more likely to ding them up, but men drive longer distances and crash them. Actuaries probably did the math and that's what they arrived at.
It's similar to how males pay more for life insurance. They're higher risks for dying at a younger age from all the stress.
On November 23 2010 12:37 TrainFX wrote: On a related subject did you know that airlines price in a discriminatory manner as well?
Ever wondered why they say business or pleasure? Ever wondered why tickets get more expensive as the take off date approaches?
I think that is a much more valid discussion about price discrimination founded upon what is the moral thing to do. Perhaps if the OP were better educated, or better informed, he could have drawn parallels between the two to support his argument, what a pity.
They aren't discriminating on a protected trait. Review American (or Canadian or basically any Western country's) law and you'll see that certain traits are considered protected from discrimination in a wide variety of situations. These traits are usually race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and a few more.
On November 23 2010 12:37 TrainFX wrote: On a related subject did you know that airlines price in a discriminatory manner as well?
Ever wondered why they say business or pleasure? Ever wondered why tickets get more expensive as the take off date approaches?
I think that is a much more valid discussion about price discrimination founded upon what is the moral thing to do. Perhaps if the OP were better educated, or better informed, he could have drawn parallels between the two to support his argument, what a pity.
That's market segmentation -- which is a little different (and less arguable). business travellers have less time and more money and so they are willing to pay for tighter schedules and larger seats (which is what business class offers -- it's not "businessmen get automatically charged more for the ticket"). It's the same concept as selling name-brand shampoo alongside generic -- people who can afford it buy what they like and the people who can't buy at their price point.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
But insurance isn't required by law. It's only required if you want to drive. Driving isn't a right (Though I agree that in much of the country it is required in practice, if not by law). So I believe that's a false equivalence, though I'm by no means an expert on logic or logical phrases.
Is there evidence that the law in regards to the situations you mentioned above works counter to statistical evidence? For example is sexism illegal in regards to university admissions despite the fact that one gender is more likely to succeed in university?
Well, access to jobs and universities and housing isn't required by law, but sex (and religion and race, etc) are protected traits.
Well, the government doesn't provide car insurance, but it does provide housing, jobs and universities. Maybe that's related to the sexism issue. I'm not convinced it is illegal to discriminate based on sex for education. I mean there are single gender universities.
I juste want to point out, this type of discrimination dont maximize their profit. They can have the same cash flow by asking the same premium at everyone. They dont make more money by using this tarification method. So stop saying they do it to maximize their profit, it's stupid...
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
But insurance isn't required by law. It's only required if you want to drive. Driving isn't a right (Though I agree that in much of the country it is required in practice, if not by law). So I believe that's a false equivalence, though I'm by no means an expert on logic or logical phrases.
Is there evidence that the law in regards to the situations you mentioned above works counter to statistical evidence? For example is sexism illegal in regards to university admissions despite the fact that one gender is more likely to succeed in university?
Well, access to jobs and universities and housing isn't required by law, but sex (and religion and race, etc) are protected traits.
Well, the government doesn't provide car insurance, but it does provide housing, jobs and universities. Maybe that's related to the sexism issue. I'm not convinced it is illegal to discriminate based on sex for education. I mean there are single gender universities.
I think single-gender universities are a separate issue. Also I'm talking about jobs and housing in general, not just govt. provided, same for private universities taking no govt funding.
Women entering the professional workforce (doctors, lawyers, etc) and entering universities was a HUGE issue in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was ended with new laws that made gender a protected trait whereby discrimination in a wide variety of areas was illegal.
On November 23 2010 12:40 html wrote: I juste want to point out, this type of discrimination dont maximize their profit. They can have the same cash flow by asking the same premium at everyone. They dont make more money by using this tarification method. So stop saying they do it to maximize their profit, it's stupid...
no, it's obviously unprofitable.
Company A charges $400 for everyone Company B charges $350 for women, and $400 for men.
Assuming that women actually do cost less and Company B is making a profit at $350, then B takes all the good customers and company A has all the high-risk customers.
the segmented pricing will always beat a flat pricing, as long as someone is calculating the odds correctly. And the insurance companies have all the numbers, so they can calculate the odds better than anyone else can.
Well, the governments "claim" they are protecting people from discriminating against race, religion, gender, handicapped, etc. More often than not it's the governments actively discriminating based on those characteristics to correct some perceived imbalance in society.
On November 23 2010 12:40 html wrote: I juste want to point out, this type of discrimination dont maximize their profit. They can have the same cash flow by asking the same premium at everyone. They dont make more money by using this tarification method. So stop saying they do it to maximize their profit, it's stupid...
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
On November 23 2010 12:43 TanGeng wrote: Well, the governments "claim" they are protecting people from discriminating against race, religion, gender, handicapped, etc. More often than not it's the governments actively discriminating based on those characteristics to correct some perceived imbalance in society.
Discrimination happens.
Just because affirmative action happens doesn't mean sexism/racism/etc are okay in other areas. Affirmative action is itself a separate issue.
On November 23 2010 12:40 html wrote: I juste want to point out, this type of discrimination dont maximize their profit. They can have the same cash flow by asking the same premium at everyone. They dont make more money by using this tarification method. So stop saying they do it to maximize their profit, it's stupid...
no, it's obviously unprofitable.
Company A charges $400 for everyone Company B charges $350 for women, and $400 for men.
Assuming that women actually do cost less and Company B is making a profit at $350, then B takes all the good customers and company A has all the high-risk customers.
the segmented pricing will always beat a flat pricing, as long as someone is calculating the odds correctly. And the insurance companies have all the numbers, so they can calculate the odds better than anyone else can.
Ur not fair, the point of my example was:
imagine all companies dont use discrimination They wount have less money^^
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
it does a lot, because you own the product but you use the service. so it does not matter at all how many hours you play a golf game offline. all you can compare is the online service you use you didnt buy as a product but as a service.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
it does a lot, because you own the product but you use the service. so it does not matter at all how many hours you play a golf game offline. all you can compare is the online service you use you didnt buy as a product but as a service.
And how does this affect the point I was making?
I am going to use the service more than my sister... that doesn't mean I was offered a different service than her.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
it does a lot, because you own the product but you use the service. so it does not matter at all how many hours you play a golf game offline. all you can compare is the online service you use you didnt buy as a product but as a service.
I think he meant his game was offline-only, which as you said "doesn't matter at all," which was his point: you are buying the same product (or whatever).
On November 23 2010 12:36 Servolisk wrote: I have seen little justification of the statistics used to determine rates.
Someone posted a link showing men are in more fatal accidents. That is obviously incomplete in scope and missing normalizing factors such as how many men vs. women are drivers, and how many men are in more risky driving jobs (taxi, truck, etc).
Secondly, even if women, overall, were completely less likely to be involved in accidents, it is not a highly useful statistic. Gender is very simple and highly variable; there are much better statistics the companies could use to more accurately fulfill their risk-assessment purposes.
Lastly, this is not justified given that the companies do not follow this with race and age (for the younger side of the scale they do, but iirc they do not compensate for elderly drivers, though I may be wrong). It is not justifiable to only selectively apply such general metrics.
No one is even arguing about statistics justification. The insurance companies aren't charging you more because they hate penises.
We should at least see the basis in math before being wrapped in an argument justifying it, but whatever. I would not personally assume every rate decision is infallible, for many reasons, such as the mathematical basis varies between companies and that rate justification of insurance companies is something scrutinized by law, and not only for ethics (so why not by us?).
I'm sure that when immigrants arrived in North America, there were statistical disparities between them and the rest of the population. That doesn't mean that these groups were different just because they were of a different origin - it was likely caused by socioeconomic factors, instead.
I don't think we can rule out the possibility of something outside of genetics that causes the differences in car safety between men and women. And until we find out what's causing it, and smooth it out if we can, this discrimination is immoral in my eyes.
On November 23 2010 12:37 TrainFX wrote: On a related subject did you know that airlines price in a discriminatory manner as well?
Ever wondered why they say business or pleasure? Ever wondered why tickets get more expensive as the take off date approaches?
I think that is a much more valid discussion about price discrimination founded upon what is the moral thing to do. Perhaps if the OP were better educated, or better informed, he could have drawn parallels between the two to support his argument, what a pity.
That's market segmentation -- which is a little different (and less arguable). business travellers have less time and more money and so they are willing to pay for tighter schedules and larger seats (which is what business class offers -- it's not "businessmen get automatically charged more for the ticket"). It's the same concept as selling name-brand shampoo alongside generic -- people who can afford it buy what they like and the people who can't buy at their price point.
ahhh but business men are "automatically charged more for the ticket" . The lady at the computer doesn't stop to ask if your business is doing well or not does she?
Anyways what I'm trying to argue is supply and demand. Insurance companies, like all other companies that sell products must arrive at a price to sell their product. While the price may seem arbitrary it is not. If I were to accept that insurance companies are discriminating against men by charging higher prices simply because they are men then I must also accept the belief that Apple is discriminating against poor people by charging more than the cost of the product simply because I'm poor. Insurance companies, like Apple, factor in cost and markup to determine the final selling price. Once again for any of the slower people out there, how could they get people to pay their prices if supply wasn't meeting demand?????
Alas free market capitalism strikes again!
EDIT: Yea I know legally you have to have insurance but my point is valid none the less.
Unfortunately sexism has turned a lot like racism, if it goes the other way it's "okay". My uncle has been fighting for years for custody of his kids from his negligent, alcoholic, deadbeat ex.
On November 23 2010 12:40 html wrote: I juste want to point out, this type of discrimination dont maximize their profit. They can have the same cash flow by asking the same premium at everyone. They dont make more money by using this tarification method. So stop saying they do it to maximize their profit, it's stupid...
no, it's obviously unprofitable.
Company A charges $400 for everyone Company B charges $350 for women, and $400 for men.
Assuming that women actually do cost less and Company B is making a profit at $350, then B takes all the good customers and company A has all the high-risk customers.
the segmented pricing will always beat a flat pricing, as long as someone is calculating the odds correctly. And the insurance companies have all the numbers, so they can calculate the odds better than anyone else can.
Ur not fair, the point of my example was:
imagine all companies dont use discrimination They wount have less money^^
Unless you go through the government, the companies won't just stop using risk-adjusted prices. If they "all agreed to fix a price," that would probably result in some anti-trust suit. So I'm going to continue to say that it maximises their profit, unless they are legally forbidden from doing so.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
it does a lot, because you own the product but you use the service. so it does not matter at all how many hours you play a golf game offline. all you can compare is the online service you use you didnt buy as a product but as a service.
And how does this affect the point I was making?
I am going to use the service more than my sister... that doesn't mean I was offered a different service than her.
as I said you mixed up things you can't mix up like this and it was product and service. you said you and your sister bought the same product, thats correct. then you said you should be charged more because you cost the company more because you also use their online SERVICE.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
But insurance isn't required by law. It's only required if you want to drive. Driving isn't a right (Though I agree that in much of the country it is required in practice, if not by law). So I believe that's a false equivalence, though I'm by no means an expert on logic or logical phrases.
Is there evidence that the law in regards to the situations you mentioned above works counter to statistical evidence? For example is sexism illegal in regards to university admissions despite the fact that one gender is more likely to succeed in university?
Well, access to jobs and universities and housing isn't required by law, but sex (and religion and race, etc) are protected traits.
Well, the government doesn't provide car insurance, but it does provide housing, jobs and universities. Maybe that's related to the sexism issue. I'm not convinced it is illegal to discriminate based on sex for education. I mean there are single gender universities.
I think single-gender universities are a separate issue. Also I'm talking about jobs and housing in general, not just govt. provided, same for private universities taking no govt funding.
Women entering the professional workforce (doctors, lawyers, etc) and entering universities was a HUGE issue in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was ended with new laws that made gender a protected trait whereby discrimination in a wide variety of areas was illegal.
I guess I just don't see the need for protecting every type of discrimination. I know that its a hard to determine 'line' and that it will vary from person to person, but I just don't see the issue in regards to gender and differing car insurance premiums. If one gender weren't allowed insurance at all I would certainly be opposed to that. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to making it illegal to use gender as a basis for insurance, but I don't really see the need for that either.
Are you similarly opposed to life insurance policies being cheaper for women than for men, since their life expectancy is longer?
On November 23 2010 12:37 TrainFX wrote: On a related subject did you know that airlines price in a discriminatory manner as well?
Ever wondered why they say business or pleasure? Ever wondered why tickets get more expensive as the take off date approaches?
I think that is a much more valid discussion about price discrimination founded upon what is the moral thing to do. Perhaps if the OP were better educated, or better informed, he could have drawn parallels between the two to support his argument, what a pity.
That's market segmentation -- which is a little different (and less arguable). business travellers have less time and more money and so they are willing to pay for tighter schedules and larger seats (which is what business class offers -- it's not "businessmen get automatically charged more for the ticket"). It's the same concept as selling name-brand shampoo alongside generic -- people who can afford it buy what they like and the people who can't buy at their price point.
ahhh but business men are "automatically charged more for the ticket" . The lady at the computer doesn't stop to ask if your business is doing well or not does she?
Anyways what I'm trying to argue is supply and demand. Insurance companies, like all other companies that sell products must arrive at a price to sell their product. While the price may seem arbitrary it is not. If I were to accept that insurance companies are discriminating against men by charging higher prices simply because they are men then I must also accept the belief that Apple is discriminating against poor people by charging more than the cost of the product. Insurance companies, like Apple, factor in cost and markup to determine the final selling price. Once again for any of the slower people out there, how could they get people to pay their prices if supply wasn't meeting demand?????
Alas free market capitalism strikes again!
I don't see how your Apple analogy is analogous: poor people are being offered the same product at the same price, but simply can't afford it. Men aren't being offered the same insurance product (or service or agreement or whatever) at the same price as an (identical) female would, so it's different. Yes, men will statistically cost the insurance company more but as argued before lengthily that's not part of the product/service that is being bought.
On November 23 2010 12:50 TrainFX wrote: ahhh but business men are "automatically charged more for the ticket" . The lady at the computer doesn't stop to ask if your business is doing well or not does she?
You can actually show up to the ticket counter with a suit and briefcase and buy economy class, you know? the lady won't force you to buy business class.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
it does a lot, because you own the product but you use the service. so it does not matter at all how many hours you play a golf game offline. all you can compare is the online service you use you didnt buy as a product but as a service.
And how does this affect the point I was making?
I am going to use the service more than my sister... that doesn't mean I was offered a different service than her.
as I said you mixed up things you can't mix up like this and it was product and service. you said you and your sister bought the same product, thats correct. then you said you should be charged more because you cost the company more because you also use their online SERVICE.
I still don't see how this somehow invalidates or changes my ultimate point (or are you not asserting that?) My sister and I were both granted access to the same 'free' service as a result of purchasing the product. The fact that I'm using it more does not mean I was offered something different from my sister.
Often pricing schemes depends on asymmetrical information. The more information the vendor has about the customer at the point of sale, the more accurate prices can be tailored to the particular customer. In the case of insurance, they will have your age, your sex, your driving history, and your car. That's what they use to compute a price for you.
In the case of insurance this is particularly important since the risk profiles for all individuals are different and forcing everyone to the same price point would mean an unjustified sharing of risk and be a potential moral hazard. Generally this mean low risk individuals are rewarded greatly for being so low risk, and high risk individuals are sufficiently punished as a signal for them to reduce their risky behavior. It's an important lesson to communicate to the people of society and helps to keep premiums lower for everyone.
I've read every post, and right now I'm too enraged to allow coherent thoughts to pass from my brain to my finger tips.
I don't understand how anyone can possibly believe this is "fair" or a "scientific risk assessment?"
The OP is not being a whiny baby about having to pay 15 bucks a month more for his car insurance. It's about principal... this brings me to a true story:
My father is the chief engineer at a very large pipe manufacturing company. His job is basically to oversee/organize/teach the engineers who design the machinery. A position came available and he was to interview three different applicants.
The first 2, were well educated young white married males. He didn't hire either of them because he didn't think they would be a good fit for the company. Plain, simple, cut and dry, "Sorry, I wish you the best, but we've gone another route with our hiring process" type of thing.
The third applicant was a single, black mother who had an engineering degree from an unaccredited university and was unable to form complete sentences in proper English during the interview. She didn't get hired either. After her interview was over my father's boss approached him to ask if he had decided to hire her. When my father told his boss that he hadn't, the lawyers went into crisis mode.
My father had to sit with 2 attorneys for a day and a half explaining why, answering questions, writing letters, etc. to show that he had just cause for not hiring her, and that she was less qualified that two other applicants who also didn't get hired.
Now, I recognize that that story was pretty off topic, but it DOES cover the the United States' view on discrimination quite accurately.
My personal opinion on ANY type of preference given to a person is that it should be based entirely on merit.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
But insurance isn't required by law. It's only required if you want to drive. Driving isn't a right (Though I agree that in much of the country it is required in practice, if not by law). So I believe that's a false equivalence, though I'm by no means an expert on logic or logical phrases.
Is there evidence that the law in regards to the situations you mentioned above works counter to statistical evidence? For example is sexism illegal in regards to university admissions despite the fact that one gender is more likely to succeed in university?
Well, access to jobs and universities and housing isn't required by law, but sex (and religion and race, etc) are protected traits.
Well, the government doesn't provide car insurance, but it does provide housing, jobs and universities. Maybe that's related to the sexism issue. I'm not convinced it is illegal to discriminate based on sex for education. I mean there are single gender universities.
I think single-gender universities are a separate issue. Also I'm talking about jobs and housing in general, not just govt. provided, same for private universities taking no govt funding.
Women entering the professional workforce (doctors, lawyers, etc) and entering universities was a HUGE issue in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was ended with new laws that made gender a protected trait whereby discrimination in a wide variety of areas was illegal.
I guess I just don't see the need for protecting every type of discrimination. I know that its a hard to determine 'line' and that it will vary from person to person, but I just don't see the issue in regards to gender and differing car insurance premiums. If one gender weren't allowed insurance at all I would certainly be opposed to that. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to making it illegal to use gender as a basis for insurance, but I don't really see the need for that either.
Are you similarly opposed to life insurance policies being cheaper for women than for men, since their life expectancy is longer?
The law has established the precedents with respect to what society feels should be protected. As noted, most of that occurred to protect women.
And yes I'd support the life insurance thing, though it is different as life insurance is not required by law (though you don't have to own a car).
On November 23 2010 12:40 html wrote: I juste want to point out, this type of discrimination dont maximize their profit. They can have the same cash flow by asking the same premium at everyone. They dont make more money by using this tarification method. So stop saying they do it to maximize their profit, it's stupid...
no, it's obviously unprofitable.
Company A charges $400 for everyone Company B charges $350 for women, and $400 for men.
Assuming that women actually do cost less and Company B is making a profit at $350, then B takes all the good customers and company A has all the high-risk customers.
the segmented pricing will always beat a flat pricing, as long as someone is calculating the odds correctly. And the insurance companies have all the numbers, so they can calculate the odds better than anyone else can.
Ur not fair, the point of my example was:
imagine all companies dont use discrimination They wount have less money^^
Unless you go through the government, the companies won't just stop using risk-adjusted prices. If they "all agreed to fix a price," that would probably result in some anti-trust suit. So I'm going to continue to say that it maximises their profit, unless they are legally forbidden from doing so.
If at least you understand they could maximises their profit in an environment without discrimination, I'm ok with that.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
I had to think about your post for a bit. I have a couple things to say about why it isn't a great analogy. First, you enter an agreement with insurance companies to pay them at regular intervals and receive a payment when you are in an accident. There is no formal agreement in your golf game example. The free online servers are a freebie you get with the game - your money is spent to purchase the game, not maintain an agreement. There are many cases where online service is discontinued and in breach of no contract.
Second, reliable statistics do not exist in your example while they do for car insurance. Even if there are good statistics on who plays games, and even what genre, I contend that the specific games are still in question. Some FPS players play CS, others BF, others CoD, some all three, and some play a game until the next big one comes out.
On November 23 2010 10:49 Vanished131 wrote: At least you understood my original premise. This is unjustified. Discriminating solely on the basis of sex is immoral and is protected in the United States of America, yet they get away with it due to statistics.
I'm a guy, and I'm also pursuing a degree in mathematics and statistics. It's not a matter of getting away with it, nor is it sexual discrimination. They feed the numbers in to a computer, and ask it which things are key predictors of insurance claims. It says gender, end of story, you charge higher rates based on gender. That would be like saying that its unfair to charge women more than men for breast cancer insurance.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
I had to think about your post for a bit. I have a couple things to say about why it isn't a great analogy. First, you enter an agreement with insurance companies to pay them at regular intervals and receive a payment when you are in an accident. There is no formal agreement in your golf game example. The free online servers are a freebie you get with the game - your money is spent to purchase the game, not maintain an agreement. There are many cases where online service is discontinued and in breach of no contract.
Second, reliable statistics do not exist in your example while they do for car insurance. Even if there are good statistics on who plays games, and even what genre, I contend that the specific games are still in question. Some FPS players play CS, others BF, others CoD, some all three, and some play a game until the next big one comes out.
I don't see why we can't be more specific with my example to make it comparable.
1) Purchasing the golf game constitutes a legal contract with the company where they promise to let you have access to their free online servers for a minimum of 1 year. 2) Extensive research has been done by the videogame company's actuaries to evaluate who is "high risk" for using the free online servers a lot.
On November 23 2010 12:54 Moody wrote: I've read every post, and right now I'm too enraged to allow coherent thoughts to pass from my brain to my finger tips.
I don't understand how anyone can possibly believe this is "fair" or a "scientific risk assessment?"
The OP is not being a whiny baby about having to pay 15 bucks a month more for his car insurance. It's about principal... this brings me to a true story:
My father is the chief engineer at a very large pipe manufacturing company. His job is basically to oversee/organize/teach the engineers who design the machinery. A position came available and he was to interview three different applicants.
The first 2, were well educated young white married males. He didn't hire either of them because he didn't think they would be a good fit for the company. Plain, simple, cut and dry, "Sorry, I wish you the best, but we've gone another route with our hiring process" type of thing.
The third applicant was a single, black mother who had an engineering degree from an unaccredited university and was unable to form complete sentences in proper English during the interview. She didn't get hired either. After her interview was over my father's boss approached him to ask if he had decided to hire her. When my father told his boss that he hadn't, the lawyers went into crisis mode.
My father had to sit with 2 attorneys for a day and a half explaining why, answering questions, writing letters, etc. to show that he had just cause for not hiring her, and that she was less qualified that two other applicants who also didn't get hired.
Now, I recognize that that story was pretty off topic, but it DOES cover the the United States' view on discrimination quite accurately.
My personal opinion on ANY type of preference given to a person is that it should be based entirely on merit.
/end raged typing
Your true story is only tangentially related to the issue at hand.
edit: to clarify, the concept at issue is that someone is pre-judged based on some category and whether they deserve it. The way I see it, the OP is the black mother who got two points off for being a "high-risk" category, rather than the other way around. It doesn't have to do with affirmative action at all.
On November 23 2010 12:14 Kashll wrote: Insurance companies I believe are the only companies allowed to legally discriminate. And they do it based solely on statistics.
That's not true at all and I already posted examples. Discrimination simply isn't illegal. Kid's menus are discrimination. Senior Citizen discounts are discrimination. Affirmative actions is discrimination and clearly government sponsored. Curves for women is discrimination. Bars discriminate as well by not serving minors, and this again is government mandated. There's plenty of examples out there, just look for them.
But the law has mandated that sexism in certain situations is illegal, such as with respect to hiring, university admissions, housing and a slew of other situations. I / we are making the argument that the reasoning behind that mandate should mean that it should also apply to insurance companies, because insurance is required by law.
But insurance isn't required by law. It's only required if you want to drive. Driving isn't a right (Though I agree that in much of the country it is required in practice, if not by law). So I believe that's a false equivalence, though I'm by no means an expert on logic or logical phrases.
Is there evidence that the law in regards to the situations you mentioned above works counter to statistical evidence? For example is sexism illegal in regards to university admissions despite the fact that one gender is more likely to succeed in university?
Well, access to jobs and universities and housing isn't required by law, but sex (and religion and race, etc) are protected traits.
Well, the government doesn't provide car insurance, but it does provide housing, jobs and universities. Maybe that's related to the sexism issue. I'm not convinced it is illegal to discriminate based on sex for education. I mean there are single gender universities.
I think single-gender universities are a separate issue. Also I'm talking about jobs and housing in general, not just govt. provided, same for private universities taking no govt funding.
Women entering the professional workforce (doctors, lawyers, etc) and entering universities was a HUGE issue in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was ended with new laws that made gender a protected trait whereby discrimination in a wide variety of areas was illegal.
I guess I just don't see the need for protecting every type of discrimination. I know that its a hard to determine 'line' and that it will vary from person to person, but I just don't see the issue in regards to gender and differing car insurance premiums. If one gender weren't allowed insurance at all I would certainly be opposed to that. I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to making it illegal to use gender as a basis for insurance, but I don't really see the need for that either.
Are you similarly opposed to life insurance policies being cheaper for women than for men, since their life expectancy is longer?
The law has established the precedents with respect to what society feels should be protected. As noted, most of that occurred to protect women.
And yes I'd support the life insurance thing, though it is different as life insurance is not required by law (though you don't have to own a car).
Now I'm confused. You say the law has established the precedents with respect to what society feels should be protected, but you admit that there's been no precedent set with respect to insurance. So is your issue with society, insurance companies, government, etc.?
On November 23 2010 12:57 html wrote: If at least you understand they could maximises their profit in an environment without discrimination, I'm ok with that.
In an insurance market, the market segments because competition exists. Firms would price different coverage packages at differing pricing points and the segmentation would naturally occur in that men would select more coverage (higher premiums) and women would select less. Firms would carve up the marketplace like that or go out of business.
There is no "profit maximization" without discrimination unless there is government intervention.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
it does a lot, because you own the product but you use the service. so it does not matter at all how many hours you play a golf game offline. all you can compare is the online service you use you didnt buy as a product but as a service.
And how does this affect the point I was making?
I am going to use the service more than my sister... that doesn't mean I was offered a different service than her.
as I said you mixed up things you can't mix up like this and it was product and service. you said you and your sister bought the same product, thats correct. then you said you should be charged more because you cost the company more because you also use their online SERVICE.
I still don't see how this somehow invalidates or changes my ultimate point (or are you not asserting that?) My sister and I were both granted access to the same 'free' service as a result of purchasing the product. The fact that I'm using it more does not mean I was offered something different from my sister.
I think it's a bad example as the product (the gane) is not needed at all. You compare a service you payed for along with a product. That service is not free as it is a mix calculation. All this makes the example bad and overcomplicated mostly because you mixed in an unneeded product.
My example would be the price for the internet access. I would charge men more because they tend to download way more pron and produce a lot more traffic because of it. That would also be sexist but eventually increase profit.
I finally finished reading the whole thread, and am of the opinion that this kind of discrimination should not be accepted.
What if banks, based on statistical evidence that males more reliably repay their loans than females, decided to offer different interest rates to customers? A guy walks in and gets his loan at 6%, but when a female of the same demographic walks in she is charged 7% instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male. People may complain that this is sexist, but as the bank you can tell them to fuck off because you have statistical evidence to back up your policy so it's legit.
Would this kind of policy fly? I highly doubt it, feminist groups would be up in arms overnight. I don't see how this is any different to the insurance dilemma.
On November 23 2010 13:02 WhuazGoodJaggah wrote: I think it's a bad example as the product (the gane) is not needed at all. You compare a service you payed for along with a product. That service is not free as it is a mix calculation. All this makes the example bad and overcomplicated mostly because you mixed in an unneeded product.
My example would be the price for the internet access. I would charge men more because they tend to download way more pron and produce a lot more traffic because of it. That would also be sexist but eventually increase profit.
Of course, everything is a bad example to some degree.
The internet service *can* fairly charged after the fact, and based on usage. They do it in many places
Insurance is designed specifically to not be fairly charged after the fact, because the whole point is that people can't afford the huge lump of damage they do at that point in time. So they get into a risk-sharing pool with others.
On November 23 2010 12:27 micronesia wrote: If someone gave me and my sister a golf videogame for the Holidays, we both got the same product. My sister would play single player for 15 minutes and then never pick the game up again (even that's an exaggeration lol). I would play for 100 hours and use their free online servers a lot and whatnot. I am costing the company more money, I got a lot more out of it, etc. But, my sister and I were both offered the same product. Charging me more for the game because men are more likely to play golf online, and charging my sister less because women typically play for 15 minutes and then put the game down permanently is analogous to this insurance debate.
the game is a product the usage of the online service is a "service" the insurance is also a service can't mix all that up.
I'm fine with calling it a service. I don't think that affects my point though.
I had to think about your post for a bit. I have a couple things to say about why it isn't a great analogy. First, you enter an agreement with insurance companies to pay them at regular intervals and receive a payment when you are in an accident. There is no formal agreement in your golf game example. The free online servers are a freebie you get with the game - your money is spent to purchase the game, not maintain an agreement. There are many cases where online service is discontinued and in breach of no contract.
Second, reliable statistics do not exist in your example while they do for car insurance. Even if there are good statistics on who plays games, and even what genre, I contend that the specific games are still in question. Some FPS players play CS, others BF, others CoD, some all three, and some play a game until the next big one comes out.
I don't see why we can't be more specific with my example to make it comparable.
1) Purchasing the golf game constitutes a legal contract with the company where they promise to let you have access to their free online servers for a minimum of 1 year. 2) Extensive research has been done by the videogame company's actuaries to evaluate who is "high risk" for using the free online servers a lot.
Then let me offer a third: Insurance payouts are discrete, sparse and large drains. Online service use is a continuous and small drain. It is possible to allot a certain amount of playtime, but not to allot a certain amount of accidents.
On November 23 2010 13:04 FuRong wrote: I finally finished reading the whole thread, and am of the opinion that this kind of discrimination should not be accepted.
What if banks, based on statistical evidence that males more reliably repay their loans than females, decided to offer different interest rates to customers? A guy walks in and gets his loan at 6%, but when a female of the same demographic walks in she is charged 7% instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male. People may complain that this is sexist, but as the bank you can tell them to fuck off because you have statistical evidence to back up your policy so it's legit.
Would this kind of policy fly? I highly doubt it, feminist groups would be up in arms overnight. I don't see how this is any different to the insurance dilemma.
That is a very good analogy! And it makes perfect sense.
On November 23 2010 13:04 FuRong wrote: I finally finished reading the whole thread, and am of the opinion that this kind of discrimination should not be accepted.
What if banks, based on statistical evidence that males more reliably repay their loans than females, decided to offer different interest rates to customers? A guy walks in and gets his loan at 6%, but when a female of the same demographic walks in she is charged 7% instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male. People may complain that this is sexist, but as the bank you can tell them to fuck off because you have statistical evidence to back up your policy so it's legit.
Would this kind of policy fly? I highly doubt it, feminist groups would be up in arms overnight. I don't see how this is any different to the insurance dilemma.
Banks have your credit rating, which, if females were worse at paying debts, would be worse for females on average. So yes, they probably do discriminate based on gender but they go even further in depth. Insurance companies can't get more than they can legally ask you.
In short, your example supports the opposite side than the one you're claiming it supports.
On November 23 2010 13:04 FuRong wrote: I finally finished reading the whole thread, and am of the opinion that this kind of discrimination should not be accepted.
What if banks, based on statistical evidence that males more reliably repay their loans than females, decided to offer different interest rates to customers? A guy walks in and gets his loan at 6%, but when a female of the same demographic walks in she is charged 7% instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male. People may complain that this is sexist, but as the bank you can tell them to fuck off because you have statistical evidence to back up your policy so it's legit.
Would this kind of policy fly? I highly doubt it, feminist groups would be up in arms overnight. I don't see how this is any different to the insurance dilemma.
Banks all ready discriminate based on a more significant variable than gender: credit rating.
On November 23 2010 13:04 FuRong wrote: I finally finished reading the whole thread, and am of the opinion that this kind of discrimination should not be accepted.
What if banks, based on statistical evidence that males more reliably repay their loans than females, decided to offer different interest rates to customers? A guy walks in and gets his loan at 6%, but when a female of the same demographic walks in she is charged 7% instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male. People may complain that this is sexist, but as the bank you can tell them to fuck off because you have statistical evidence to back up your policy so it's legit.
Would this kind of policy fly? I highly doubt it, feminist groups would be up in arms overnight. I don't see how this is any different to the insurance dilemma.
You can capture that in credit ratings.
As for loans, US government is already doing that with respect to race. About 20 years ago there was a home ownership "gap" that the statisticians noticed. There was an effort to close that "gap" by forcing banks to "close" the "gap" by lending to less qualified minorities. It has not had a happy outcome.
Homeowners need to buy houses they can afford after they develop the good habits that earn them a good credit rating. Anything to "help" the process only pushed people into ownership when they weren't ready.
On November 23 2010 13:02 WhuazGoodJaggah wrote: I think it's a bad example as the product (the gane) is not needed at all. You compare a service you payed for along with a product. That service is not free as it is a mix calculation. All this makes the example bad and overcomplicated mostly because you mixed in an unneeded product.
My example would be the price for the internet access. I would charge men more because they tend to download way more pron and produce a lot more traffic because of it. That would also be sexist but eventually increase profit.
Of course, everything is a bad example to some degree.
The internet service *can* fairly charged after the fact, and based on usage. They do it in many places
Insurance is designed specifically to not be fairly charged after the fact, because the whole point is that people can't afford the huge lump of damage they do at that point in time. So they get into a risk-sharing pool with others.
It's almost backwards.
Thx for pointing that out. The problem for insurance companys to accuratly charge you is the key point. To isolate that key problem its good to have a simple "counter" example to show it. The product service mixture covers to much to extract that info easly thats why I pointed that out,
Personally I have no problem with the sexism used to determine how much I need to pay. They have to start somewhere. I do pay very little for health insurance for example because I almost never go to the doctor and I dont take any medicine at all. As long as such factors weigh in good enough im fine with the discrimination by gender ethnicity or penis length or whatever,
On November 23 2010 12:57 html wrote: If at least you understand they could maximises their profit in an environment without discrimination, I'm ok with that.
I understand the concept, but the main argument of the free market system is that it is the most efficient.
Imagine all companies are out to make money. Actually, you don't have to imagine. it's true.
Now, imagine the government says, okay, you guys all have to charge *exactly* the same price.
Then, as company A, I could, say, charge exactly the same as everyone else, but then I offer, say, a free manicure package as a bonus signup. To entice the lower-risk women category. Or I could hire advertising experts who specialize in women-focussed advertising. Now, I have a bunch of women customers, and I'm making a huuge profit off of them. Whenever you artificially fix a price at what the market doesn't want, it's an inefficiency that smart people will make money off of.
You can't just "fix" a price of anything without ramifications, and the market dynamics will still work. Think about that a little. Or read some books on economics. They usually have great real-life examples.
I think Vanished has a good point - statistics of this nature could then also state that a certain group of people can't have a loan because they are statistically in a group of people who default more often.
On November 23 2010 13:15 Norway wrote: I think Vanished has a good point - statistics of this nature could then also state that a certain group of people can't have a loan because they are statistically in a group of people who default more often.
On November 23 2010 12:57 html wrote: If at least you understand they could maximises their profit in an environment without discrimination, I'm ok with that.
I understand the concept, but the main argument of the free market system is that it is the most efficient.
That depends a little on what you cover with "efficiency". Generating the most money certanly, yes.
On November 23 2010 13:15 Norway wrote: I think Vanished has a good point - statistics of this nature could then also state that a certain group of people can't have a loan because they are statistically in a group of people who default more often.
The bank does do credit checks on you though. They can get reasonable evidence of your ability to pay based on your credit card payments, your current income, your past loan payments. That's the only reason why they can assess the risk of lending you money.
The insurance company usually doesn't have these statistics because the majority of people don't come in with a huge history of crashes on their record. So they have to guess.
On November 23 2010 13:15 Norway wrote: I think Vanished has a good point - statistics of this nature could then also state that a certain group of people can't have a loan because they are statistically in a group of people who default more often.
But you don't need to go purely by the statistics. That's what a face to face interview is for. If the banker decides that it is worth his time, he can meet his prospective client and try to get feel personally. Then the banker will have more information than what his statistics tell him. The same principle may go towards rejecting a potential client whose statistics are positive but gives off an irresponsible feel.
On November 23 2010 12:57 html wrote: If at least you understand they could maximises their profit in an environment without discrimination, I'm ok with that.
I understand the concept, but the main argument of the free market system is that it is the most efficient.
That depends a little on what you cover with "efficiency". Generating the most money certanly, yes.
not arguing that point I'm just pointing out that it's hard to design a self-balancing system just by fixing prices. It's a subject that many people smarter than me have failed to come to a good solution for.
So this is a little off topic, but it talks about the rise of men in an age of feminism and what role we have to play. It is from the website artofmanliness.com. I hope this can be insightful to some:
On November 23 2010 13:02 WhuazGoodJaggah wrote: I think it's a bad example as the product (the gane) is not needed at all. You compare a service you payed for along with a product. That service is not free as it is a mix calculation. All this makes the example bad and overcomplicated mostly because you mixed in an unneeded product.
My example would be the price for the internet access. I would charge men more because they tend to download way more pron and produce a lot more traffic because of it. That would also be sexist but eventually increase profit.
Of course, everything is a bad example to some degree.
The internet service *can* fairly charged after the fact, and based on usage. They do it in many places
Insurance is designed specifically to not be fairly charged after the fact, because the whole point is that people can't afford the huge lump of damage they do at that point in time. So they get into a risk-sharing pool with others.
It's almost backwards.
Thx for pointing that out. The problem for insurance companys to accuratly charge you is the key point. To isolate that key problem its good to have a simple "counter" example to show it. The product service mixture covers to much to extract that info easly thats why I pointed that out,
Personally I have no problem with the sexism used to determine how much I need to pay. They have to start somewhere. I do pay very little for health insurance for example because I almost never go to the doctor and I dont take any medicine at all. As long as such factors weigh in good enough im fine with the discrimination by gender ethnicity or penis length or whatever,
First of all, I think your arguments were horrible, especially the useless "product vs service" one against micronesia. You jumped on something that wasn't even significant in relation to this discussion to begin with no matter how hard you tried to blow it out of proportion.
Secondly, would you really agree to be discriminated just because you are 5.6, left-handed and major psychology? If you have no problem with sexism then you don't belong here because this whole debate revolves around "sexism or not". If this was your essay you would get an F for failing to address the subject.
I wouldn't be surprised if asian drivers were statistically worse drivers than other races, but we can't raise their insurance rates based on that now, can we? Fuck no. I've seen so many terrible female drivers and so many great male drivers. Higher rates for men is BULLSHIT. The statistics can go fuck themselves
On November 23 2010 13:04 FuRong wrote: I finally finished reading the whole thread, and am of the opinion that this kind of discrimination should not be accepted.
What if banks, based on statistical evidence that males more reliably repay their loans than females, decided to offer different interest rates to customers? A guy walks in and gets his loan at 6%, but when a female of the same demographic walks in she is charged 7% instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male. People may complain that this is sexist, but as the bank you can tell them to fuck off because you have statistical evidence to back up your policy so it's legit.
Would this kind of policy fly? I highly doubt it, feminist groups would be up in arms overnight. I don't see how this is any different to the insurance dilemma.
I used to work in a bank (selling insurance there as well) so I would just like to point out a flaw in your analogy. (Yea i'm in the high risk demographic too)
When you are taking up an insurance policy they look at your driving/criminal history as well, and take that into consideration when determining your risk level. The comparison with a persons monetary history is a little flawed
instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male
its flawed because History IS taken into account - In both instances. It just means that as a guy you need to pay even higher premiums, or take out a policy which has crazy a high excess. Banks just are more likely to decline you, insurance firms are more likely to cover you, charge you huge amounts of $$$ and then not pay out because you forgot to disclose something when filling out the paperwork.
Also as a bank their lending rates are mostly determined by their savings account/term deposit rates. High Savings % -> High Lending %, low savings % -> Low Lending.
Its also funny how people are viewing it negatively. You could just as well say that it is positive discrimination. Anyone who fits into lower risk categories gets a discount. (is the glass half empty or half full?). Also how is it fair for everyone else in the insurance pool to have to pay more even though they are lower risk - because making excess and premiums the same will just increase costs across the board.
Anyway, my final point is this: If you have a pool of people in a high risk demographic who are charged the same amount as everyone else, then the insurance company doesn't make any money off you, they make losses. So why bother to insure you at all? Its only because of the higher premiums/excess that you actually get to have insurance at all. There is not good way for insurance companies to asses your risk factor on an individual basis, banks have transaction statements to see what your spending patterns are like, and take security so they can get their money back. Insurance companies best bet is to sub brand with different insurance pools and to create higher costs for its higher risk customers so the insurance company doesn't lose money and go out of business.
So statistically men have more car accidents than women and you are surprised that the it costs more to get insurance because you are a male driver?
This is pretty much how insurance has always worked and why some people call it "gambling". The insurance company gives you their "odds" of you having an accident based on their own (considerable) data and you either take it or leave it.
If women really are more responsible on roads (doesn't surprise me at all) then well done to them, their reward for being safer drivers is cheaper premiums.
I honestly don't see the problem. I am male by the way.
On November 23 2010 13:37 Generic SC wrote: Anyway, my final point is this: If you have a pool of people in a high risk demographic who are charged the same amount as everyone else, then the insurance company doesn't make any money off you, they make losses. So why bother to insure you at all? Its only because of the higher premiums/excess that you actually get to have insurance at all. There is not good way for insurance companies to asses your risk factor on an individual basis, banks have transaction statements to see what your spending patterns are like, and take security so they can get their money back. Insurance companies best bet is to sub brand with different insurance pools and to create higher costs for its higher risk customers so the insurance company doesn't lose money and go out of business.
Paying higher premiums based off your personal history is legitimate while paying higher premiums because you are black/muslim/a woman should be ruled out as a discrimination. Insurance companies make money off their higher risk customers paying more versus low risk customers paying less, they will not go out of business for another million years just because they excluded gender profiling as a risk factor.
On November 23 2010 13:38 vek wrote: So statistically men have more car accidents than women and you are surprised that the it costs more to get insurance because you are a male driver?
This is pretty much how insurance has always worked and why some people call it "gambling". The insurance company gives you their "odds" of you having an accident based on their own (considerable) data and you either take it or leave it.
If women really are more responsible on roads (doesn't surprise me at all) then well done to them, their reward for being safer drivers is cheaper premiums.
I honestly don't see the problem. I am male by the way.
---
So statistically blacks have more car accidents than whites and you are surprised that the it costs more to get insurance because you are a black driver?
This is pretty much how insurance has always worked and why some people call it "gambling". The insurance company gives you their "odds" of you having an accident based on their own (considerable) data and you either take it or leave it.
If whites really are more responsible on roads (doesn't surprise me at all) then well done to them, their reward for being safer drivers is cheaper premiums.
I honestly don't see the problem. I am black by the way.
---
Would that be OK with you? Because I'm sure you could find some racial trends and use those to profile people.
Hell, if they charged women more, imagine the outrage. It's a ridiculous double standard and I really think that our society needs to start saying "Discrimination is wrong," rather than "Discrimination is wrong but only when it is against a group of people that we feel bad for discriminating against."
Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
On November 23 2010 13:02 WhuazGoodJaggah wrote: I think it's a bad example as the product (the gane) is not needed at all. You compare a service you payed for along with a product. That service is not free as it is a mix calculation. All this makes the example bad and overcomplicated mostly because you mixed in an unneeded product.
My example would be the price for the internet access. I would charge men more because they tend to download way more pron and produce a lot more traffic because of it. That would also be sexist but eventually increase profit.
Of course, everything is a bad example to some degree.
The internet service *can* fairly charged after the fact, and based on usage. They do it in many places
Insurance is designed specifically to not be fairly charged after the fact, because the whole point is that people can't afford the huge lump of damage they do at that point in time. So they get into a risk-sharing pool with others.
It's almost backwards.
Thx for pointing that out. The problem for insurance companys to accuratly charge you is the key point. To isolate that key problem its good to have a simple "counter" example to show it. The product service mixture covers to much to extract that info easly thats why I pointed that out,
Personally I have no problem with the sexism used to determine how much I need to pay. They have to start somewhere. I do pay very little for health insurance for example because I almost never go to the doctor and I dont take any medicine at all. As long as such factors weigh in good enough im fine with the discrimination by gender ethnicity or penis length or whatever,
First of all, I think your arguments were horrible, especially the useless "product vs service" one against micronesia. You jumped on something that wasn't even significant in relation to this discussion to begin with no matter how hard you tried to blow it out of proportion.
Secondly, would you really agree to be discriminated just because you are 5.6, left-handed and major psychology? If you have no problem with sexism then you don't belong here because this whole debate revolves around "sexism or not". If this was your essay you would get an F for failing to address the subject.
Ofc it is important to not mix products with services as they work very different. It also is definitly not the key problem of the topic in this thread.
Secondly, yes. I have no problem beeing discriminated as a male driver as insurance works this way. I do not have a problem with beeing sexually discriminated in school sports because I have to jum 1.4m for a B and chicks only need 1m. I DO have a problem with sexism as I already said, but in other areas such as military payment or salary. I pay military chicks not, I get more money for the same work.
If you were my teacher giving me a mark for my eassay you would be fired for not correctly reading my shit.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
While i agree that i as a male have a higher chance to be in a car accident as a female version of me. I understand this idea, but what gets me is how prominent it is.
For example, me and my girlfriend have both been driving for three years. Aside from me being male and and her being female, she is a year older and has also been in five car accidents to my one. I want you to guess who pays more for insurance, and by how much.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
On November 23 2010 13:15 Norway wrote: I think Vanished has a good point - statistics of this nature could then also state that a certain group of people can't have a loan because they are statistically in a group of people who default more often.
But you don't need to go purely by the statistics. That's what a face to face interview is for. If the banker decides that it is worth his time, he can meet his prospective client and try to get feel personally. Then the banker will have more information than what his statistics tell him. The same principle may go towards rejecting a potential client whose statistics are positive but gives off an irresponsible feel.
The banker really doesn't give a shit whether or not they give off an irresponsible feel unless it's outrageous/suspicious.
But how does this point compare with insurance? They don't meet down with you and try to get a feel whether or not they should give you a better deal.
All they see are numbers - I've never had an accident, never had a ticket - yet I pay more and a friend who's a girl who has had an accident as well as a couple speeding tickets pays less. Do they call that the right gamble?
On November 23 2010 13:15 Norway wrote: I think Vanished has a good point - statistics of this nature could then also state that a certain group of people can't have a loan because they are statistically in a group of people who default more often.
But you don't need to go purely by the statistics. That's what a face to face interview is for. If the banker decides that it is worth his time, he can meet his prospective client and try to get feel personally. Then the banker will have more information than what his statistics tell him. The same principle may go towards rejecting a potential client whose statistics are positive but gives off an irresponsible feel.
Bankers can be awesome. Recently, myself and another exec in our Starcraft club opened up a bank account for club purposes. Turns out the banker is into Starcraft Broodwar, and we've played a few games since then. lol.
On November 23 2010 13:15 Norway wrote: I think Vanished has a good point - statistics of this nature could then also state that a certain group of people can't have a loan because they are statistically in a group of people who default more often.
The bank does do credit checks on you though. They can get reasonable evidence of your ability to pay based on your credit card payments, your current income, your past loan payments. That's the only reason why they can assess the risk of lending you money.
The insurance company usually doesn't have these statistics because the majority of people don't come in with a huge history of crashes on their record. So they have to guess.
They are both very similar but one discrimates against sex and one does not.
If you're going to go by stats then bring them all out. Don't bring out an absurd one such as sex and then forget major ones such as where do you live? (city driving vs country driving)... or how crime riddled your neighborhood is?... Or what about if you have some absurd disability that would have a small factor on driving such as having one eye? Or one arm?
Wouldn't that increase the risk of getting into an accident more than what sex you are?
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Crime Rates
* Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery. * When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife. * Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate. * The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Interracial Crime
* Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent. * Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black. * Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery. * Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs
* Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white. * Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration
* Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million. * Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.
Not that it answers your question directly it does give an idea of some of the rates. Source(s): Arrest data: FBI, Crime in the United States, 2001 (USGPO, 2002), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2002 (USGPO, 2003), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2003 (USGPO, 2004), p. 288
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Crime Rates
* Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery. * When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife. * Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate. * The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Interracial Crime
* Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent. * Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black. * Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery. * Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs
* Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white. * Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration
* Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million. * Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.
Not that it answers your question directly it does give an idea of some of the rates. Source(s): Arrest data: FBI, Crime in the United States, 2001 (USGPO, 2002), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2002 (USGPO, 2003), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2003 (USGPO, 2004), p. 288
Should I post statistics about how blacks are overrepresented in poor communities, and therefor much more likely to commit crimes? Should I post statistics of purely white communities in which the poor commit more crimes than the rich? Should I post statistics showing that more blacks are incarcerated for equal crimes than their white counterparts?
Statistics are fun
Edit: I've been reading too many business law books lately, forgive all prior, present, and future uses of therefor (in place of therefore)
On November 23 2010 13:38 vek wrote: So statistically men have more car accidents than women and you are surprised that the it costs more to get insurance because you are a male driver?
This is pretty much how insurance has always worked and why some people call it "gambling". The insurance company gives you their "odds" of you having an accident based on their own (considerable) data and you either take it or leave it.
If women really are more responsible on roads (doesn't surprise me at all) then well done to them, their reward for being safer drivers is cheaper premiums.
I honestly don't see the problem. I am male by the way.
---
So statistically blacks have more car accidents than whites and you are surprised that the it costs more to get insurance because you are a black driver?
This is pretty much how insurance has always worked and why some people call it "gambling". The insurance company gives you their "odds" of you having an accident based on their own (considerable) data and you either take it or leave it.
If whites really are more responsible on roads (doesn't surprise me at all) then well done to them, their reward for being safer drivers is cheaper premiums.
I honestly don't see the problem. I am black by the way.
---
Would that be OK with you? Because I'm sure you could find some racial trends and use those to profile people.
Hell, if they charged women more, imagine the outrage. It's a ridiculous double standard and I really think that our society needs to start saying "Discrimination is wrong," rather than "Discrimination is wrong but only when it is against a group of people that we feel bad for discriminating against."
I wouldn't be surprised if they already did in some places. Why is it such a big deal anyway? Take your business elsewhere if it bothers you that much that insurance companies are (shock) trying to make money by having as competitive rates as they possibly can.
As has been discussed elsewhere in the thread there are so many other factors, conditions and statistics taken into account when calculating insurance premiums that this is just not worth getting worked up over.
On November 23 2010 14:06 Norway wrote: If you're going to go by stats then bring them all out. Don't bring out an absurd one such as sex and then forget major ones such as where do you live? (city driving vs country driving)... or how crime riddled your neighborhood is?... Or what about if you have some absurd disability that would have a small factor on driving such as having one eye? Or one arm?
Wouldn't that increase the risk of getting into an accident more than what sex you are?
they don't discriminate based on people who have one eye because, while it does impair vision (you get a notice printed on your license ) it isn't frequent enough to majorly affect their margins.
As for area in which you drive, that does play a factor. I moved from in-city to right-outside and got a better premium. As an aside, my insurance application also asked things like how far away I live from work and whether I took the highway or not. I assume they have some factor in my premiums, but I haven't exactly filled out enough applications to tell.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
I would agree with OP if he walk in to a restaurant and get charged more than what female would. However, in some case, we have to respect the different. Black-white, Asian-European, male-female, Mr. A- Mr. B. It is depend on each case.
I believe the insurance company doesn't look at gender particularly or intentionally discriminate male. They just doing what they think it's best interest for their company.
On November 23 2010 14:36 pedduck wrote: I would agree with OP if he walk in to a restaurant and get charged more than what female would. However, in some case, we have to respect the different. Black-white, Asian-European, male-female, Mr. A- Mr. B. It is depend on each case.
I believe the insurance company doesn't look at gender particularly or intentionally discriminate male. They just doing what they think it's best interest for their company.
Sure, but that doesn't make it non-discriminatory. If a restaurant decided to cater to racist customers by excluding [undesired race], that would still be illegal, even if they did it soley for the $$$.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
On November 23 2010 14:36 pedduck wrote: I would agree with OP if he walk in to a restaurant and get charged more than what female would. However, in some case, we have to respect the different. Black-white, Asian-European, male-female, Mr. A- Mr. B. It is depend on each case.
I believe the insurance company doesn't look at gender particularly or intentionally discriminate male. They just doing what they think it's best interest for their company.
Here in America people strive to be treated equally no matter what is in the best interest of a company they are dealing with. That is why such inequality constitutes discrimination.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
On November 23 2010 13:04 FuRong wrote: I finally finished reading the whole thread, and am of the opinion that this kind of discrimination should not be accepted.
What if banks, based on statistical evidence that males more reliably repay their loans than females, decided to offer different interest rates to customers? A guy walks in and gets his loan at 6%, but when a female of the same demographic walks in she is charged 7% instead, simply based on the tendencies of her gender, despite having a better credit record than the aforementioned male. People may complain that this is sexist, but as the bank you can tell them to fuck off because you have statistical evidence to back up your policy so it's legit.
Would this kind of policy fly? I highly doubt it, feminist groups would be up in arms overnight. I don't see how this is any different to the insurance dilemma.
That is a very good analogy! And it makes perfect sense.
I find it interesting that you accept, without any evidence, that women are likely to have higher loan default rates than men. I'm pretty sure its the other way around.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Crime Rates
* Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery. * When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife. * Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate. * The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Interracial Crime
* Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent. * Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black. * Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery. * Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs
* Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white. * Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration
* Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million. * Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.
Not that it answers your question directly it does give an idea of some of the rates. Source(s): Arrest data: FBI, Crime in the United States, 2001 (USGPO, 2002), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2002 (USGPO, 2003), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2003 (USGPO, 2004), p. 288
Should I post statistics about how blacks are overrepresented in poor communities, and therefor much more likely to commit crimes? Should I post statistics of purely white communities in which the poor commit more crimes than the rich? Should I post statistics showing that more blacks are incarcerated for equal crimes than their white counterparts?
Statistics are fun
Edit: I've been reading too many business law books lately, forgive all prior, present, and future uses of therefor (in place of therefore)
you're practically making my point for me. Statistics can show a lot - and incorrectly used they can used as discrimination. I think in the matter of if I should pay more for my car insurance than a woman it's discrimination - just as much as women getting less money doing the same work.
I keep reading circular arguments - much to the same extent as 'that's just how it is' It might be how it is - but do you really believe it should be how it should be?
I don't think any insurance company would have any problem charging the same rate for men and women, if that means bumping the rate of women up. That might appear fair to you, but if you don't understand how they got the numbers, how would you know the difference?
On November 23 2010 14:36 pedduck wrote: I would agree with OP if he walk in to a restaurant and get charged more than what female would. However, in some case, we have to respect the different. Black-white, Asian-European, male-female, Mr. A- Mr. B. It is depend on each case.
I believe the insurance company doesn't look at gender particularly or intentionally discriminate male. They just doing what they think it's best interest for their company.
Sure, but that doesn't make it non-discriminatory. If a restaurant decided to cater to racist customers by excluding [undesired race], that would still be illegal, even if they did it soley for the $$$.
This is actually just untrue. If I wanted to make a restaurant that only served white people, I would be perfectly allowed to. It would, however, be illegal for me to make a restaurant that only hired white people.
On November 23 2010 14:41 Risen wrote: It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
First of all, you are wrong. I'm not going to get into this, just read something relevant (online will do). Secondly, you are missing the point. Even if there is a "mental difference" no one should be discriminated on that basis because it is illegal. No one should be discriminated against whether it is based on race, religion, sexual preference or gender.
On November 23 2010 14:59 Risen wrote: Aren't you just so clever. You come into a thread where there is serious discussion and derail with an idiotic post. Hope the hammer falls.
I must disappoint you but you had nothing to do with a serious discussion in this thread. Your arguments are comical.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
BELIEVE ME BECAUSE I TYPE IN BOLDFACE
Aren't you just so clever. You come into a thread where there is serious discussion and derail with an idiotic post. Hope the hammer falls.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Science disagrees with that last statement.
Science agrees, you mean.
On November 23 2010 14:14 Norway wrote:
On November 23 2010 14:11 Risen wrote:
On November 23 2010 13:50 matjlav wrote:
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Crime Rates
* Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery. * When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife. * Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate. * The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of the population that is black and Hispanic.
Interracial Crime
* Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent. * Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black. * Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery. * Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs
* Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white. * Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration
* Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million. * Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.
Not that it answers your question directly it does give an idea of some of the rates. Source(s): Arrest data: FBI, Crime in the United States, 2001 (USGPO, 2002), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2002 (USGPO, 2003), p. 252. FBI, Crime in the United States, 2003 (USGPO, 2004), p. 288
Should I post statistics about how blacks are overrepresented in poor communities, and therefor much more likely to commit crimes? Should I post statistics of purely white communities in which the poor commit more crimes than the rich? Should I post statistics showing that more blacks are incarcerated for equal crimes than their white counterparts?
Statistics are fun
Edit: I've been reading too many business law books lately, forgive all prior, present, and future uses of therefor (in place of therefore)
you're practically making my point for me. Statistics can show a lot - and incorrectly used they can used as discrimination. I think in the matter of if I should pay more for my car insurance than a woman it's discrimination - just as much as women getting less money doing the same work.
I keep reading circular arguments - much to the same extent as 'that's just how it is' It might be how it is - but do you really believe it should be how it should be?
I didn't prove your point at all. You tried to make me prove your point by making me concede that statistics can be warped and women maybe aren't as reliable drivers as men and their rates shouldn't be different. Unfortunately, in my previous posts I have already stated that there is a concrete difference between men and women that is lacking between blacks and whites.
The point I will agree with on, and I had not considered was made by FuRong. It isn't that his example may or may not be false, that wasn't the point. The point was to show that, were such a thing to be true, would banks be justified in giving different rates to different sexes. I would argue that they would be totally justified in doing such.
Arguments like these usually come down to personal opinion on whether we should hold people all to a singular standard, or whether we should hold people to different standards based upon the means of their group. I happen to be in the latter group, OP is in the former.
Note: I am in the latter group ONLY when it comes to scientifically proven differences, i.e. the difference between a woman and a man. If you place stock in a "social science" that's on you (Clearly I do not)
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Men and women are not nearly as different as dogs are. It is inconceivable that any dog could be as good at driving as any non-disabled human. You can't say the same for men vs. women.
On November 23 2010 14:41 Risen wrote: Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
If there is a statistical difference between two demographic groups with respect to car accident rates, why do your unfounded conjectures on the roots of the difference matter? It's all just statistics and business, right?
On November 23 2010 13:43 matjlav wrote: Hell, if they charged women more, imagine the outrage. It's a ridiculous double standard and I really think that our society needs to start saying "Discrimination is wrong," rather than "Discrimination is wrong but only when it is against a group of people that we feel bad for discriminating against."
Women (below age 40 or 45) are a higher health risk and get charged more for individual health insurance. There is intense pressure to change this... in fact I think the US reform bill made it illegal for insurers to charge more for women than for men whenever the bill kicks in.
So sure, there are points for and against using gender as a factor in determining premiums. What's ridiculous is, as you point out, that there's only opposition to it being used in one way, but not in the other.
Either ban the practice or allow it. Logical consistency is always good
HOWEVER, if you're one of those types that goes around spouting off "Life isn't fair, get over it", then why not realize that life COULD be more fair if people didn't just shrug their shoulders at issues like this and let these things slide.
Nothing pisses me off more than those types of people, and I certainly don't feel like it's fair that I should have to pay for the mistakes of my male peers when I myself have never driven like a maniac. Press down harder on the people who give the males a bad name by charging them even more to recoop any lost income not earned by unfairly charging innocent male drivers.
Wanna know where to put your statistics? Bend over, and I'll show you where.
On November 23 2010 13:43 matjlav wrote: Hell, if they charged women more, imagine the outrage. It's a ridiculous double standard and I really think that our society needs to start saying "Discrimination is wrong," rather than "Discrimination is wrong but only when it is against a group of people that we feel bad for discriminating against."
Women (below age 40 or 45) are a higher health risk and get charged more for individual health insurance. There is intense pressure to change this... in fact I think the US reform bill made it illegal for insurers to charge more for women than for men whenever the bill kicks in.
That's interesting, and I never realized that.
I assume that doesn't generate as much controversy as the car insurance thing would, because charging women more for health insurance doesn't carry a connotation of "women are stupid."
On November 23 2010 14:41 Risen wrote: It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
First of all, you are wrong. I'm not going to get into this, just read something relevant (online will do). Secondly, you are missing the point. Even if there is a "mental difference" no one should be discriminated on that basis because it is illegal. No one should be discriminated against whether it is based on race, religion, sexual preference or gender.
Your last point on gender is debatable. Your first point, the difference in the biological growth of various ethnic groups is debatable as well, as most scientific studies look at data gathered from groups in different areas, not in a controlled test group (because this would be unethical)
So again, please stop trying to pass off your social "science" statistics concerning different races.
This argument is so pointless. Insurance companies run an amazingly well optimized, mathematically backed business model, and insurance rates are integral to that model.
This "sexism" isn't sexism in the general sense of the word, their is no moral defect causing insurance companies to construe a misguided hate towards women. Its all based on facts and facts that have proven to save them money. Insurance companies are chasing a high profit margin, this actually has nothing to do with hate towards any sex, race or whatever.
Now you ask: Why don't they ask your race, religion, etc? They don't because there would be a very negative backlash from the rest of society, and there would be endless lawsuits from overzealous civil rights groups. This apparent "discrimination" by insurance companies is a fact of life and you just need to live with it. Please don't mistake it as you getting cheated because of who you are.
Its funny seeing all the people talk about how "statistics can show anything blah blah." Yes you're right they can give a warped view of what's happening but were talking about multi-billion dollar entities, they don't just whip up a few google-searched statistics reports, they have entire workforces constantly optimizing how they do business. See Actuarial sience
Other races have other cultures associated with them, and so this can lead to developmental differences even if there is nothing genetically different at some key level.
However, sexes work the same way. Science can go ahead and demonstrate key "differences" between the sexes, but it's a lot harder to prove that these aren't a result of biased upbringings.
The key difference between men and women is hormone levels, which is why you can still have masculine women and feminine men. I'm sure there are hormonal differences observed between races, too. Again, upbringing can affect hormone levels.
People who are suggesting that race is completely independent and gender is obviously dependent are not really thinking about this deeply enough, of that I am sure.
Just take the example of that lacking gene which is far more common in Asian people (possibly only women? I forget) when it comes to the metabolising of alcohol, causing flushing of the face and other symptoms.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Men and women are not nearly as different as dogs are. It is inconceivable that any dog could be as good at driving as any non-disabled human. You can't say the same for men vs. women.
On November 23 2010 14:41 Risen wrote: Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
If there is a statistical difference between two demographic groups with respect to car accident rates, why do your unfounded conjectures on the roots of the difference matter? It's all just statistics and business, right?
People from the inner city are already charged more for car insurance than those in the burbs, so I'm perfectly fine with two different demographic groups being charged different amounts. Don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Edit: And just like the points made earlier by others, I'm using hyperbole to make a point.
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Now you ask: Why don't they ask your race, religion, etc? They don't because there would be a very negative backlash from the rest of society, and there would be endless lawsuits from overzealous civil rights groups.
And this is the problem. Our society is at a point where one direction of discrimination is considered okay or even commendable (for example, the fact that black and hispanic students are ridiculously favored for college admissions and scholarships).
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: This apparent "discrimination" by insurance companies is a fact of life and you just need to live with it.
Lol. "Life isn't fair" is never a good justification for anything. Ever.
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Please don't mistake it as you getting cheated because of who you are.
ummm... but, it is me getting cheated because of who I am. That's more on the fact side of the spectrum.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Men and women are not nearly as different as dogs are. It is inconceivable that any dog could be as good at driving as any non-disabled human. You can't say the same for men vs. women.
On November 23 2010 14:41 Risen wrote: Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
If there is a statistical difference between two demographic groups with respect to car accident rates, why do your unfounded conjectures on the roots of the difference matter? It's all just statistics and business, right?
People from the inner city are already charged more for car insurance than those in the burbs, so I'm perfectly fine with two different demographic groups being charged different amounts. Don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Last I recall, you got mad when anyone brought up race. (edit: removed silly inflammatory exaggeration by me)
On November 23 2010 15:06 Risen wrote: Edit: And just like the points made earlier by others, I'm using hyperbole to make a point.
On November 23 2010 14:20 vek wrote: Take your business elsewhere if it bothers you that much that insurance companies are (shock) trying to make money by having as competitive rates as they possibly can.
They all do it. There isn't some magical company that gives everyone equal rates that isn't also significantly higher overall (e.g. one of those shady low-coverage insurers like "The General").
Even if you had an alternative, it wouldn't justify the act.
On November 23 2010 13:47 Risen wrote: Whoops was at a volleyball event. Anywho, when I said not physically different I meant that people from different ethnic backgrounds are all the same "mentally" in a physical way. As in we all have the same brains, so shouldn't be discriminated based on that. Men and women do not have the same brains, do not have the same controllers men do, and can be held to something different.
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant b/c one of the points made earlier was that if you can change prices based upon sex, then you can change prices based upon race.
Differences in race are skin deep only, differences in gender go all the way to the brain
Why is this relevant? Why does it make discrimination okay?
It's relevant for the same reason we don't let dogs drive, and if we did they'd have STUPID high insurance costs. Wanna know why? Because they're different.
Men and women are not nearly as different as dogs are. It is inconceivable that any dog could be as good at driving as any non-disabled human. You can't say the same for men vs. women.
On November 23 2010 14:41 Risen wrote: Edit: And people STILL bring up race. Holy fuck people cmon... there is no mental difference between peoples of different ethnic backgrounds. THERE IS A MENTAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MALES AND FEMALES
If there is a statistical difference between two demographic groups with respect to car accident rates, why do your unfounded conjectures on the roots of the difference matter? It's all just statistics and business, right?
People from the inner city are already charged more for car insurance than those in the burbs, so I'm perfectly fine with two different demographic groups being charged different amounts. Don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Last I recall, you got mad when anyone brought up race. (edit: removed silly inflammatory exaggeration by me)
On November 23 2010 15:06 Risen wrote: Edit: And just like the points made earlier by others, I'm using hyperbole to make a point.
and I explained why it doesn't apply here.
Demographic - the statistical study of human populations especially with reference to size and density, distribution, and vital statistics (from the definition of demography)
Please get your definitions straight. (I believe you are looking for something along the lines of black people in the inner city vs white people in the inner city, I don't usually argue semantics but I feel some people have to be dragged through an argument)
Also, you didn't explain why it doesn't apply here, all you said was dogs aren't as different as man v women. You are implying in your statement that men are different from women, ergo they can be held to different standards
Edit: I got mad when people were saying that sexism and racism were equivalent (when they are not)
On November 23 2010 15:04 Risen wrote: Your last point on gender is debatable. Your first point, the difference in the biological growth of various ethnic groups is debatable as well, as most scientific studies look at data gathered from groups in different areas, not in a controlled test group (because this would be unethical)
So again, please stop trying to pass off your social "science" statistics concerning different races.
Did you know your physical existence is debatable? Please stop trying to pass off your own deranged ideas, show me a study proving that chemical differences between males and females amount for females being better drivers.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety also reported that from 1975 to 2003, female deaths in motor vehicle crashes increased 14 percent, compared with an 11 percent decline for male motorists during that same period. Insurance industry experts peg the rise in female deaths in vehicular crashes to more women obtaining driver's licenses than in the past and driving more miles than, say, 25 years ago.
Plus, it seems as if female motorists are getting more aggressive. "It's true that men do take more risks than women," says Carolyn Gorman, vice president of the Insurance Information Institute. "However, [women] are partaking in more risky behaviors than ever before. The gap is closing quickly."
You can throw some statistics at me and point out that men are usually involved into worse accidents but you will not get any closer to the subject of this thread: why is it okay to discriminate based on gender.
I wonder why poll taxes were removed in the 60's? because it discriminated against people of a certain group [poor + usually black]
But wait? Couldn't you make an argument that people with more money are more likely to have a better grasp of politics & business? So doesn't it make sense to have a poll tax? We don't want people who have no idea what they're doing voting for a guy because everyone else is or that's what they were told to do. Put a price tag on the ballot and maybe people will want to read up a bit on their candidate or make sure they get their moneys worth by researching who's running for local positions.
Whether or not it makes sense it's still discrimination. IMO no grey zone can be allowed.
On November 23 2010 15:00 BruceLee6783 wrote: It's a well known fact that life isn't fair.
HOWEVER, if you're one of those types that goes around spouting off "Life isn't fair, get over it", then why not realize that life COULD be more fair if people didn't just shrug their shoulders at issues like this and let these things slide.
Nothing pisses me off more than those types of people, and I certainly don't feel like it's fair that I should have to pay for the mistakes of my male peers when I myself have never driven like a maniac. Press down harder on the people who give the males a bad name by charging them even more to recoop any lost income not earned by unfairly charging innocent male drivers.
Wanna know where to put your statistics? Bend over, and I'll show you where.
You need to calm down a bit... Think about it from the insurance companys point of view:
- New customer wants insurance - Look at age group, location, type of car, length of time with license, sex, criminal offences (basically any information they can get since they have no personal information on you yet). - Compare this information to people - Determine average premiums based on the "risk category" they end up placing you in.
I don't know how it is in the US but in Australia pretty much all car insurance companies reward things like not having any claims in a certain time period, being a long time customer etc. You have to remember that before they know anything about you personally they have to guess based on the data they currently have available to them.
Once a company "gets to know you" through hard data that they collect they adjust the premiums accordingly.
Sure they could do per person interviews but everyone will say "I am a perfect driver, I only drive to church on Sundays ololo". Insurance companies are running a business, they do what is right by them.
The reason they don't just bump up the cost of insurance for female drivers is pretty simple to see for me. It would have started out as one company realising that female drivers are involved in less accidents/make less claims so they drop the premiums to entice females from other insurance companies to switch. The other companies match this because they don't want to lose customers.
They would do the same with males but it is not profitable. This is just capitalism hard at work
On November 23 2010 14:20 vek wrote: Take your business elsewhere if it bothers you that much that insurance companies are (shock) trying to make money by having as competitive rates as they possibly can.
They all do it. There isn't some magical company that gives everyone equal rates that isn't also significantly higher overall (e.g. one of those shady low-coverage insurers like "The General").
Even if you had an alternative, it wouldn't justify the act.
I know they all do it They all do it because it makes good business sense.
vek, this isn't about why they do it. This is about why they shouldn't do it. It' called discrimination. And it is no different than, say, racial preference on a real estate market.
On November 23 2010 14:59 Risen wrote: there is a concrete difference between men and women that is lacking between blacks and whites.
)
I hope you've never passed a biology class. Really, I do.
Yes, he did school you by pointing out aggregate statistics regarding correlation do not mean causation >.<
How nice of you to drop in and try to point out that OMG BLACK PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT SKIN COLOR THAN WHITE PEOPLE I HOPE YOU FAILED BIOLOGY LOLOLOL. Read all previous posts before you jump in. Continuing...
On November 23 2010 15:04 Risen wrote: Your last point on gender is debatable. Your first point, the difference in the biological growth of various ethnic groups is debatable as well, as most scientific studies look at data gathered from groups in different areas, not in a controlled test group (because this would be unethical)
So again, please stop trying to pass off your social "science" statistics concerning different races.
Did you know your physical existence is debatable? Please stop trying to pass off your own deranged ideas, show me a study proving that chemical differences between males and females amount for females being better drivers.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety also reported that from 1975 to 2003, female deaths in motor vehicle crashes increased 14 percent, compared with an 11 percent decline for male motorists during that same period. Insurance industry experts peg the rise in female deaths in vehicular crashes to more women obtaining driver's licenses than in the past and driving more miles than, say, 25 years ago.
Plus, it seems as if female motorists are getting more aggressive. "It's true that men do take more risks than women," says Carolyn Gorman, vice president of the Insurance Information Institute. "However, [women] are partaking in more risky behaviors than ever before. The gap is closing quickly."
You can throw some statistics at me and point out that men are usually involved into worse accidents but you will not get any closer to the subject of this thread: why is it okay to discriminate based on gender.
((There is still debate as to whether men are truly more aggressive than women, look at the critiques listed within the wiki article. Insurance companies use male aggressiveness as a justification, so there's your example))
Also, you want me to prove a chemical difference between men and women? Sigh...
I enjoy being told by people that I need to pass a biology class, and then I'm confronted by people trying to argue that there is no difference between male and female brains :/
Don't get me wrong, I am perfectly calm, I am just trying to speak from the heart.
I don't want people to act like nothing in the world is worth getting angry over, because there are many things that are definitely worth getting angry over.
Being treated unfairly is definitely worth getting angry, especially if you believe that there is a way to make it fair. There's got to be a better way to screen for bad drivers, other than just being lazy and using statistics as your justification.
Don't ask me how to make it better, because I honestly don't know, but if these companies can pay math experts to research their stats, they can also pay some people to find a better way to screen for bad drivers.
On November 23 2010 15:29 News wrote: Risen, you are undereducated in general. I'm sorry Rinse and repeat and you'll get it.
Did you even read the post RIGHT above this?
Edit: The true sign of defeat is when you start to break down and insult a person's character.
I'll let you reread my post with that "show me a study proving that chemical differences between males and females amount for females being better drivers" line before trying to convince me that "there's chemical differences between men and women". You've never addressed my points relevant to the topic, you are just continuously arguing out of your own stupidity.
On November 23 2010 15:29 News wrote: Risen, you are undereducated in general. I'm sorry Rinse and repeat and you'll get it.
Actually I just clicked on your link. You never went to college and never will. "Study on bobo dolls(1961)".
Are you serious? Does the internet give you so much license to be a dick? Grow up and argue my points not my "pedigree" because you CLEARLY have no idea what you're talking about when it comes to me. Did you click on the second link? Or are you going to pick a study from recent history and say it's invalid because it was done under 5 decades ago. Suddenly all studies from before 2010 are irrelevant? Where is the cutoff so I can find you something more recent than such
On November 23 2010 14:59 Risen wrote: there is a concrete difference between men and women that is lacking between blacks and whites.
)
I hope you've never passed a biology class. Really, I do.
Yes, he did school you by pointing out aggregate statistics regarding correlation do not mean causation >.<
How nice of you to drop in and try to point out that OMG BLACK PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT SKIN COLOR THAN WHITE PEOPLE I HOPE YOU FAILED BIOLOGY LOLOLOL. Read all previous posts before you jump in. Continuing...
On November 23 2010 15:04 Risen wrote: Your last point on gender is debatable. Your first point, the difference in the biological growth of various ethnic groups is debatable as well, as most scientific studies look at data gathered from groups in different areas, not in a controlled test group (because this would be unethical)
So again, please stop trying to pass off your social "science" statistics concerning different races.
Did you know your physical existence is debatable? Please stop trying to pass off your own deranged ideas, show me a study proving that chemical differences between males and females amount for females being better drivers.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety also reported that from 1975 to 2003, female deaths in motor vehicle crashes increased 14 percent, compared with an 11 percent decline for male motorists during that same period. Insurance industry experts peg the rise in female deaths in vehicular crashes to more women obtaining driver's licenses than in the past and driving more miles than, say, 25 years ago.
Plus, it seems as if female motorists are getting more aggressive. "It's true that men do take more risks than women," says Carolyn Gorman, vice president of the Insurance Information Institute. "However, [women] are partaking in more risky behaviors than ever before. The gap is closing quickly."
You can throw some statistics at me and point out that men are usually involved into worse accidents but you will not get any closer to the subject of this thread: why is it okay to discriminate based on gender.
((There is still debate as to whether men are truly more aggressive than women, look at the critiques listed within the wiki article. Insurance companies use male aggressiveness as a justification, so there's your example))
Also, you want me to prove a chemical difference between men and women? Sigh...
I enjoy being told by people that I need to pass a biology class, and then I'm confronted by people trying to argue that there is no difference between male and female brains :/
You've shown men and women have differences. Congratulations, nobody disagreed with you.
Now, prove people do not have behavior, physical, or mental differences (DNA in general) that may affect their driving within their gender and thus there is not merely correlation (and aggregate sexism is acceptable instead of individual assessment) and people may begin to listen to you.
On November 23 2010 15:37 Rebornlife wrote: I find this really stupid as well. Women on average get in more accidents than men, yet our rates are higher? Bullshit.
It was already stated earlier in the thread that women as an overall group may get into more accidents, but we are focusing on a smaller target group (young). It has also been stated previously that men tend to get into more "expensive" accidents than women, so perhaps their rates are higher because of this.
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Now you ask: Why don't they ask your race, religion, etc? They don't because there would be a very negative backlash from the rest of society, and there would be endless lawsuits from overzealous civil rights groups.
And this is the problem. Our society is at a point where one direction of discrimination is considered okay or even commendable (for example, the fact that black and hispanic students are ridiculously favored for college admissions and scholarships).
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Please don't mistake it as you getting cheated because of who you are.
ummm... but, it is me getting cheated because of who I am. That's more on the fact side of the spectrum.
The thing is insurance companies don't discriminate in the general sense of the word. They are using scientifically backed methods to produce a plan that will give them the most money. That's what I think people are missing, there is a fundamental difference between how an insurance company chooses what rates to charge someone and how a cop racially profiles someone. Its the same thing for affirmative action.
No you're not getting cheated because of who you are, you are simply playing buy the rules of capitalism. Insurance companies are trying to make money, it turns out that using math cleverly can make them a lot of money.
You pay insurance, if you're a girl you're less likely to cost the insurance company money. If you're a guy you're more likely to cause the insurance company money. This is a general trend, and by applying this trend to all costumers the insurance companies make money.
It would be very stupid of them to say "lol we don't want to be sexists durp durp" and lose BILLIONS of dollars. Plus the best way to get lower insurance rates is to actually drive safer, who would have thought.
And I never said "life isn't fair." To rephrase what I said last post: Big business will do everything they can to make money, that IS a fact of life.
People need to stop being so self centered, this actually isn't about you getting discriminated against, get over yourselves.
people are still trying to make arguments without addressing the fact that it's straight up discrimination! Whether you paint a fence black, brown, or orange it's still a fence.
You can dress this up as much as you want but it's still discrimination.
On November 23 2010 15:43 Norway wrote: ughhhh this is so frustrating
people are still trying to make arguments without addressing the fact that it's straight up discrimination! Whether you paint a fence black, brown, or orange it's still a fence.
You can dress this up as much as you want but it's still discrimination.
No, its not. Its a good business model. If you want to discuss semantics go elsewhere.
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Now you ask: Why don't they ask your race, religion, etc? They don't because there would be a very negative backlash from the rest of society, and there would be endless lawsuits from overzealous civil rights groups.
And this is the problem. Our society is at a point where one direction of discrimination is considered okay or even commendable (for example, the fact that black and hispanic students are ridiculously favored for college admissions and scholarships).
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: This apparent "discrimination" by insurance companies is a fact of life and you just need to live with it.
Lol. "Life isn't fair" is never a good justification for anything. Ever.
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Please don't mistake it as you getting cheated because of who you are.
ummm... but, it is me getting cheated because of who I am. That's more on the fact side of the spectrum.
The thing is insurance companies don't discriminate in the general sense of the word. They are using scientifically backed methods to produce a plan that will give them the most money. That's what I think people are missing, there is a fundamental difference between how an insurance company chooses what rates to charge someone and how a cop racially profiles someone. Its the same thing for affirmative action.
No you're not getting cheated because of who you are, you are simply playing buy the rules of capitalism. Insurance companies are trying to make money, it turns out that using math cleverly can make them a lot of money.
You pay insurance, if you're a girl you're less likely to cost the insurance company money. If you're a guy you're more likely to cause the insurance company money. This is a general trend, and by applying this trend to all costumers the insurance companies make money.
It would be very stupid of them to say "lol we don't want to be sexists durp durp" and lose BILLIONS of dollars. Plus the best way to get lower insurance rates is to actually drive safer, who would have thought.
And I never said "life isn't fair." To rephrase what I said last post: Big business will do everything they can to make money, that IS a fact of life.
People need to stop being so self centered, this actually isn't about you getting discriminated against, get over yourselves.
They wouldn't lose billions of dollars - they would just target the bad drivers on the male side and the bad drivers on the female side - and the actual good drivers would get breaks - regardless if they are male or female. Start everyone at the same rate when they get a car and whether they fuck up or do well is up to them.
On November 23 2010 15:43 Norway wrote: ughhhh this is so frustrating
people are still trying to make arguments without addressing the fact that it's straight up discrimination! Whether you paint a fence black, brown, or orange it's still a fence.
You can dress this up as much as you want but it's still discrimination.
No, its not. Its a good business model. If you want to discuss semantics go elsewhere.
You just replaced discrimination with "good business model" then told SOMEONE ELSE not to discuss semantics? Lord Mercy.
On November 23 2010 15:40 MadVillain wrote: The thing is insurance companies don't discriminate in the general sense of the word. They are using scientifically backed methods to produce a plan that will give them the most money. That's what I think people are missing, there is a fundamental difference between how an insurance company chooses what rates to charge someone and how a cop racially profiles someone. Its the same thing for affirmative action.
No you're not getting cheated because of who you are, you are simply playing buy the rules of capitalism. Insurance companies are trying to make money, it turns out that using math cleverly can make them a lot of money.
You pay insurance, if you're a girl you're less likely to cost the insurance company money. If you're a guy you're more likely to cause the insurance company money. This is a general trend, and by applying this trend to all costumers the insurance companies make money.
It would be very stupid of them to say "lol we don't want to be sexists durp durp" and lose BILLIONS of dollars. Plus the best way to get lower insurance rates is to actually drive safer, who would have thought.
And I never said "life isn't fair." To rephrase what I said last post: Big business will do everything they can to make money, that IS a fact of life.
People need to stop being so self centered, this actually isn't about you getting discriminated against, get over yourselves.
How come you can discriminate just because you have a statistical evidence to back it up? Why men but not Asians then? Or Mexicans?
Once it comes to singling people out it doesn't matter what statistic a company is employing. If both genders are legally protected from being discriminated it should be unlawful to do otherwise.
On November 23 2010 15:43 Norway wrote: ughhhh this is so frustrating
people are still trying to make arguments without addressing the fact that it's straight up discrimination! Whether you paint a fence black, brown, or orange it's still a fence.
You can dress this up as much as you want but it's still discrimination.
No, its not. Its a good business model. If you want to discuss semantics go elsewhere.
Discrimination is never a good business model. Why would I go elsewhere? This is practically all about semantics!
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Now you ask: Why don't they ask your race, religion, etc? They don't because there would be a very negative backlash from the rest of society, and there would be endless lawsuits from overzealous civil rights groups.
And this is the problem. Our society is at a point where one direction of discrimination is considered okay or even commendable (for example, the fact that black and hispanic students are ridiculously favored for college admissions and scholarships).
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: This apparent "discrimination" by insurance companies is a fact of life and you just need to live with it.
Lol. "Life isn't fair" is never a good justification for anything. Ever.
On November 23 2010 15:06 MadVillain wrote: Please don't mistake it as you getting cheated because of who you are.
ummm... but, it is me getting cheated because of who I am. That's more on the fact side of the spectrum.
The thing is insurance companies don't discriminate in the general sense of the word. They are using scientifically backed methods to produce a plan that will give them the most money. That's what I think people are missing, there is a fundamental difference between how an insurance company chooses what rates to charge someone and how a cop racially profiles someone. Its the same thing for affirmative action.
No you're not getting cheated because of who you are, you are simply playing buy the rules of capitalism. Insurance companies are trying to make money, it turns out that using math cleverly can make them a lot of money.
You pay insurance, if you're a girl you're less likely to cost the insurance company money. If you're a guy you're more likely to cause the insurance company money. This is a general trend, and by applying this trend to all costumers the insurance companies make money.
It would be very stupid of them to say "lol we don't want to be sexists durp durp" and lose BILLIONS of dollars. Plus the best way to get lower insurance rates is to actually drive safer, who would have thought.
And I never said "life isn't fair." To rephrase what I said last post: Big business will do everything they can to make money, that IS a fact of life.
People need to stop being so self centered, this actually isn't about you getting discriminated against, get over yourselves.
They wouldn't lose billions of dollars - they would just target the bad drivers on the male side and the bad drivers on the female side - and the actual good drivers would get breaks - regardless if they are male or female. Start everyone at the same rate when they get a car and whether they fuck up or do well is up to them.
Right I'm sure the multi-billion dollar corporations who higher Ph.D mathematicians, and spend millions of dollars on market research never thought of that plan. The logic behind insurance rates is SCIENCE. They make money by assuming you're a bad driver until you prove otherwise. Doing it any other way would be stupid on their part and bad business.
And people in this thread seem to be arguing the dictionary definition of "discrimination." If thats all you're arguing then I guess you win, but then there really isn't much to talk about.
I actually don't know why insurance companies don't ask what race you are, probably because there would be a shitstorm from overzealous civil rights groups. But it would be the same thing, if I spend years researching and find that on average asian drivers cost me more money then I would charge them more, because it would be good business. This is just the nature of insurance, its all based on risk assessment. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.
On November 23 2010 14:59 Risen wrote: there is a concrete difference between men and women that is lacking between blacks and whites.
)
I hope you've never passed a biology class. Really, I do.
Yes, he did school you by pointing out aggregate statistics regarding correlation do not mean causation >.<
How nice of you to drop in and try to point out that OMG BLACK PEOPLE HAVE DIFFERENT SKIN COLOR THAN WHITE PEOPLE I HOPE YOU FAILED BIOLOGY LOLOLOL. Read all previous posts before you jump in. Continuing...
On November 23 2010 15:17 News wrote:
On November 23 2010 15:04 Risen wrote: Your last point on gender is debatable. Your first point, the difference in the biological growth of various ethnic groups is debatable as well, as most scientific studies look at data gathered from groups in different areas, not in a controlled test group (because this would be unethical)
So again, please stop trying to pass off your social "science" statistics concerning different races.
Did you know your physical existence is debatable? Please stop trying to pass off your own deranged ideas, show me a study proving that chemical differences between males and females amount for females being better drivers.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety also reported that from 1975 to 2003, female deaths in motor vehicle crashes increased 14 percent, compared with an 11 percent decline for male motorists during that same period. Insurance industry experts peg the rise in female deaths in vehicular crashes to more women obtaining driver's licenses than in the past and driving more miles than, say, 25 years ago.
Plus, it seems as if female motorists are getting more aggressive. "It's true that men do take more risks than women," says Carolyn Gorman, vice president of the Insurance Information Institute. "However, [women] are partaking in more risky behaviors than ever before. The gap is closing quickly."
You can throw some statistics at me and point out that men are usually involved into worse accidents but you will not get any closer to the subject of this thread: why is it okay to discriminate based on gender.
((There is still debate as to whether men are truly more aggressive than women, look at the critiques listed within the wiki article. Insurance companies use male aggressiveness as a justification, so there's your example))
Also, you want me to prove a chemical difference between men and women? Sigh...
I enjoy being told by people that I need to pass a biology class, and then I'm confronted by people trying to argue that there is no difference between male and female brains :/
You've shown men and women have differences. Congratulations, nobody disagreed with you.
Now, prove people do not have behavior, physical, or mental differences (DNA in general) that may affect their driving within their gender and thus there is not merely correlation (and aggregate sexism is acceptable instead of individual assessment) and people may begin to listen to you.
Edit: fixed a butchered sentence
Clearly, News disagreed with me, he asked me to prove that men were chemically different than women (I probably shouldn't have fed him, alas...)
Ok, you seem to think that I have to prove that there is no variation within the gender... I don't have to do this, because insurance companies do not have variable rates within gender amongst similar demographics (as far as I'm aware). The only thing I have to prove is that women cost less to insure than men. To do this I'll post an article referencing a study done by insurance.com
All these studies have come out where it is shown that men drive more dangerously than women, and are more expensive to insure. I'm not quite sure why you want me to prove that there is no variation within gender. I would argue that within these studies "all" variation of differences in behavior, physical, or mental differences are taken into account.
I think I see your point, so let me try to come around to it and you tell me if I'm right or not. Fuck it, explain it to me. I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to figure out what you're saying and I can't wrap my mind around it. I keep coming back to the fact that these variations within gender should be distributed evenly and taken into account during previous studies
On November 23 2010 15:43 Norway wrote: ughhhh this is so frustrating
people are still trying to make arguments without addressing the fact that it's straight up discrimination! Whether you paint a fence black, brown, or orange it's still a fence.
You can dress this up as much as you want but it's still discrimination.
No, its not. Its a good business model. If you want to discuss semantics go elsewhere.
You just replaced discrimination with "good business model" then told SOMEONE ELSE not to discuss semantics? Lord Mercy.
On November 23 2010 15:40 MadVillain wrote: The thing is insurance companies don't discriminate in the general sense of the word. They are using scientifically backed methods to produce a plan that will give them the most money. That's what I think people are missing, there is a fundamental difference between how an insurance company chooses what rates to charge someone and how a cop racially profiles someone. Its the same thing for affirmative action.
No you're not getting cheated because of who you are, you are simply playing buy the rules of capitalism. Insurance companies are trying to make money, it turns out that using math cleverly can make them a lot of money.
You pay insurance, if you're a girl you're less likely to cost the insurance company money. If you're a guy you're more likely to cause the insurance company money. This is a general trend, and by applying this trend to all costumers the insurance companies make money.
It would be very stupid of them to say "lol we don't want to be sexists durp durp" and lose BILLIONS of dollars. Plus the best way to get lower insurance rates is to actually drive safer, who would have thought.
And I never said "life isn't fair." To rephrase what I said last post: Big business will do everything they can to make money, that IS a fact of life.
People need to stop being so self centered, this actually isn't about you getting discriminated against, get over yourselves.
How come you can discriminate just because you have a statistical evidence to back it up? Why men but not Asians then? Or Mexicans?
Once it comes to singling people out it doesn't matter what statistic a company is employing. If both genders are legally protected from being discriminated it should be unlawful to do otherwise.
That statistics don't support males in their disapproval of a law that grants women supior rights is quite simple minded and typical of a person who luckily stumbles upon a morally sound position by right of their finding it popular, rather than justifiable. Perhaps such a person is forgetting that blacks are, i don't doubt, statistically more inclined to crime than whites. Whatever your argument about one case being more justifiable due to its relative severity than the other, the point is that yes, correlation is not causation, and furthermore that statistics are a presumptuous, practical as opposed to idealistic way of prejudging anyone. The individual should be granted, ideally, insofar as you favour idealism over practicality, his/her own fair portion of the beneifit of the doubt, so that we can all have a greater chance of proving ourselves and ultimately defying stereotypes. Whatever you believe to be the case, see that you're consistent between your judgement on scenarios of racism and sexism.
On November 23 2010 15:55 MadVillain wrote: I actually don't know why insurance companies don't ask what race you are, probably because there would be a shitstorm from overzealous civil rights groups. But it would be the same thing, if I spend years researching and find that on average asian drivers cost me more money then I would charge them more, because it would be good business. This is just the nature of insurance, its all based on risk assessment. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.
It doesn't matter if it's good for business or whether it's the nature of insurance - it's main foundation is based off of discrimination which shouldn't be allowed in any forms.
Blacks have predispositions to certain health risks - therefore health insurance companies can charge them higher premiums? That doesn't make a lot of sense. But as long as it's good for business...
i disagree that service and pricing differs according to age and demographics. IMO the services and prices should average out and everyone should pay the same price. Having statistics is fine, but isn't it possible to charge everyone equally rather than basing premium prices on statistics? Yes, it's clever, but it's not fair. Not in the slightest. It IS a form of prejudice. A statistic does not make it fact.
On November 23 2010 15:55 MadVillain wrote: I actually don't know why insurance companies don't ask what race you are, probably because there would be a shitstorm from overzealous civil rights groups. But it would be the same thing, if I spend years researching and find that on average asian drivers cost me more money then I would charge them more, because it would be good business. This is just the nature of insurance, its all based on risk assessment. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.
It doesn't matter if it's good for business or whether it's the nature of insurance - it's main foundation is based off of discrimination which shouldn't be allowed in any forms.
Blacks have predispositions to certain health risks - therefore health insurance companies can charge them higher premiums? That doesn't make a lot of sense. But as long as it's good for business...
That discrimination shouldn't be allowed in any forms, are you sure that that's a basic enough assumption to satisfy as an axiom, or don't you think that that would be defining your personal disposition to the end of encouraging a fissure in society and placing yourself conveniently on one side of it, as opposed to knowing what side you stand on and trying to win people over for the sake of something you would invest in as being an objective truth?
I think I see your point, so let me try to come around to it and you tell me if I'm right or not. Fuck it, explain it to me. I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to figure out what you're saying and I can't wrap my mind around it. I keep coming back to the fact that these variations within gender should be distributed evenly and taken into account during previous studies
I am saying that aggregate data that shows correlation over two broad groups is a very flimsy defense of discrimination. You seemed to want to show that men and women are different and that it justifies the discrimination. We got that, but you must also show that there isn't significant variation within genders. If there is significant variation within genders (there is) then the discrimination is purely based off of laziness, weak correlation and profit seeking rather than causation.
I advocate individual assessments as a goal of reform, as I stated in my last post.
On November 23 2010 15:55 MadVillain wrote: I actually don't know why insurance companies don't ask what race you are, probably because there would be a shitstorm from overzealous civil rights groups. But it would be the same thing, if I spend years researching and find that on average asian drivers cost me more money then I would charge them more, because it would be good business. This is just the nature of insurance, its all based on risk assessment. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.
It doesn't matter if it's good for business or whether it's the nature of insurance - it's main foundation is based off of discrimination which shouldn't be allowed in any forms.
Blacks have predispositions to certain health risks - therefore health insurance companies can charge them higher premiums? That doesn't make a lot of sense. But as long as it's good for business...
The insurance business is extremely competitive, as is all big business. Denying them the right to run a highly efficient business model would be limiting the free market in a sense as it would be decreasing the competitiveness of the market. Whether
In regards to your example, in that case insurance companies actually wouldn't discriminate against you because you're black, they would discriminate against you based on health records/genetic background. Whether 0society deems this "morally fit" is up to society. Nevertheless, I think a "scientifically backed discrimination" is very different from how the word is being used in this thread, because at that point it comes down to logic, not questionable morals.
Edit:
To respond to your last post Romantic:
I think you're underestimating the amount of research that goes into determining insurance rates. The statistical data is anything but flimsy, insurance companies have been around for a long time and so has math, and billions of dollars have been spent on finding the best way to run an insurance company. Anyway you look at it insurance companies probably run the most efficient of businesses, and charging people on individual merit would cause them to lose money.
On November 23 2010 12:36 Servolisk wrote: I have seen little justification of the statistics used to determine rates.
Someone posted a link showing men are in more fatal accidents. That is obviously incomplete in scope and missing normalizing factors such as how many men vs. women are drivers, and how many men are in more risky driving jobs (taxi, truck, etc).
Secondly, even if women, overall, were completely less likely to be involved in accidents, it is not a highly useful statistic. Gender is very simple and highly variable; there are much better statistics the companies could use to more accurately fulfill their risk-assessment purposes.
Lastly, this is not justified given that the companies do not follow this with race and age (for the younger side of the scale they do, but iirc they do not compensate for elderly drivers, though I may be wrong). It is not justifiable to only selectively apply such general metrics.
Actual Loss Data Some California class rating plans are available online. For example, you can find state farm's by this http://www.insurance.ca.gov/0250-insurers/0800-rate-filings/0050-viewing-room/ select the Web Access to Rate and Form Filings (WARFF) link. In Company: *State Farm* (include *'s) In Line Type: Select Personal In Line Description: Select Auto Phys/Auto Liab In type of Filing: Select Class Plan hit search. Select the top filing (s/b 99-6333)
California is useful for this discussion for another reason; they mandate a specific set of factors that must be considered. They are (in order)
1) Safety Record 2) Mileage 3) Years Licensed
There's also a set of factors that they allow, and most companies use them. Age, sex, & marital status are normally combined, and State Farm's exhibit is 4.E-CP Page 1. Sex is a differential in loss costs
If anyone wants, I can walk them through the exhibits. Basically, they show that State farm has a male-female cost differential after Safety Record, Mileage, and Years Licensed are considered. The indicated factors, based on comparable ages & marital status are:
0-5 Male 2.634 0-5 Female 2.134 6-8 Male 1.489 6-8 Female 1.388 * State farm has another factor that splits the years driven into finer categories, but doesn't impact male/female differentials. Good student discounts also differ for male/female changing the factors.
Basically, all insurance companies show this trend. Male drives who just got their licenses are extremely bad risks. Females are also bad with a few years experience driving, but get better quicker than males. Best Loss Indicators
There's a lot of thought that there are better indicators than ASM (age sex marital status), but there's a lot of problems with them.
The first that everyone thinks is ... accidents. People who have accidents are more likely to have more accidents. While this is true, and state farm charges 2.5x the non accident rate for people who have major accidents, the overall percent of people this impacts (<5%) is small. It just doesn't account for everything.
Driving violations (speeding, etc) would seem to be important, but unfortunately have a similar problem. Major violation (mainly drunk driving) show a huge loss increase. Multiple minor violations show moderate increases. Unfortunately for insurers, a lot of states have implemented driving programs which remove points from driving records, reducing the usefulness of this.
Miles Driven is expensive to check, and even for companies that do check odometers every few years, not that useful. Type of driving (city, highway, time of day) is more important than overall mileage.
For California, and a lot of other states with large urban populations, location is a very good indicator of loss potential. Its also a huge political football because drawing the boundries of the location maps. Historically, race has been an issue here, as well as insurance accessibility and loss sharing (eg Reason rates in SF are expensive has to do both with natives and people driving into the city).
The problem is that they are providing you with a service, and based on statistics completed by the insurance companies, they find that men are getting in accidents more than women. Because of this, the risk factor for being male and driving a car is increased.
This is a good business model. Why would you charge the men less if they are wrecking more cars? Its hard to say charge the women more to even it out because that is not fair either.
What I think should be looked into is whether or not these statistics are looking at all factors. If I were to make an assumption, it would be that there are more males driving at any given time than females. I mostly think this because in the city I live in, Taxi drivers, Police officers, bus drivers, truck drivers, mailmen, and UPS drivers all seem to be primarily male.
Here I could be wrong, but if all of these occupations are filled by men, and men are driving on the road more, wouldn't that be the reason why more men are in accidents?
Then again there are a ridiculous amount of soccer moms and when I was in traffic court recently I found most of the other defendants to be black females (however I do live in the city) but yeah I dont believe that being a male and an aggressive driver makes you more prone to being in an accident. I have never once hit any object on my own accord, driving for 6 years.
After reading around on the internet I discovered that mostly this "discrimination" is against the younger customers. Young males have higher rates than young females...and this makes sense t me. I also found numbers claiming that males drive up to 80% more miles than women. This would make them more likely to get in accidents.
Actuarial science is the discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in the insurance and finance industries. Actuaries are professionals who are qualified in this field through education and experience. In India, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and several other countries, actuaries must demonstrate their competence by passing a series of rigorous professional examinations. Actuarial science includes a number of interrelating subjects, including probability, mathematics, statistics, finance, economics, and computer programming. Historically, actuarial science used deterministic models in the construction of tables and premiums. The science has gone through revolutionary changes during the last 30 years due to the proliferation of high speed computers and the union of stochastic actuarial models with modern financial theory (Frees 1990).
Insurance companies don't just casually look at the latest statistics to determine insurance rates, there is an entire field of study dedicated to it.
On November 23 2010 15:59 Norway wrote: Blacks have predispositions to certain health risks - therefore health insurance companies can charge them higher premiums? That doesn't make a lot of sense. But as long as it's good for business...
In the USA, predispositions are built into your health insurance premium. People who have family history of heart disease get charged more. People who have chronic conditions get charged more. My friend who is on several meds pays about 10k a year in health insurance whereas I, who haven't seen a doctor in 5 years, pay less than 2k. My plan even has better coverage.
On November 23 2010 16:15 Rage178 wrote: The problem is that they are providing you with a service, and based on statistics completed by the insurance companies, they find that men are getting in accidents more than women. Because of this, the risk factor for being male and driving a car is increased.
This is a good business model. Why would you charge the men less if they are wrecking more cars? Its hard to say charge the women more to even it out because that is not fair either.
What I think should be looked into is whether or not these statistics are looking at all factors. If I were to make an assumption, it would be that there are more males driving at any given time than females. I mostly think this because in the city I live in, Taxi drivers, Police officers, bus drivers, truck drivers, mailmen, and UPS drivers all seem to be primarily male.
Here I could be wrong, but if all of these occupations are filled by men, and men are driving on the road more, wouldn't that be the reason why more men are in accidents?
Then again there are a ridiculous amount of soccer moms and when I was in traffic court recently I found most of the other defendants to be black females (however I do live in the city) but yeah I dont believe that being a male and an aggressive driver makes you more prone to being in an accident. I have never once hit any object on my own accord, driving for 6 years.
After reading around on the internet I discovered that mostly this "discrimination" is against the younger customers. Young males have higher rates than young females...and this makes sense t me. I also found numbers claiming that males drive up to 80% more miles than women. This would make them more likely to get in accidents.
Commercial business is priced/rated separate from personal business. So UPS, taxi, cops, etc, are not grouped with non business drivers.
I think I see your point, so let me try to come around to it and you tell me if I'm right or not. Fuck it, explain it to me. I've been sitting here for five minutes trying to figure out what you're saying and I can't wrap my mind around it. I keep coming back to the fact that these variations within gender should be distributed evenly and taken into account during previous studies
I am saying that aggregate data that shows correlation over two broad groups is a very flimsy defense of discrimination. You seemed to want to show that men and women are different and that it justifies the discrimination. We got that, but you must also show that there isn't significant variation within genders. If there is significant variation within genders (there is) then the discrimination is purely based off of laziness, weak correlation and profit seeking rather than causation.
I advocate individual assessments as a goal of reform, as I stated in my last post.
I don't have to prove anything above variation within genders, all I have to prove is variation across genders, and show that such is spread by a significant amount.
and the statistics from the poster above me show that there IS a significant difference between young males and females. I can imagine there are similar statistics across various demographics that justify price changes that vary with area as well.
On November 23 2010 15:55 MadVillain wrote: I actually don't know why insurance companies don't ask what race you are, probably because there would be a shitstorm from overzealous civil rights groups. But it would be the same thing, if I spend years researching and find that on average asian drivers cost me more money then I would charge them more, because it would be good business. This is just the nature of insurance, its all based on risk assessment. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.
It doesn't matter if it's good for business or whether it's the nature of insurance - it's main foundation is based off of discrimination which shouldn't be allowed in any forms.
Blacks have predispositions to certain health risks - therefore health insurance companies can charge them higher premiums? That doesn't make a lot of sense. But as long as it's good for business...
The insurance business is extremely competitive, as is all big business. Denying them the right to run a highly efficient business model would be limiting the free market in a sense as it would be decreasing the competitiveness of the market.
How is it a free market when the state of Minnesota states I need car insurance to be able to drive a car. Seems like my hands are tied. All I'm saying is that they can find a better way without bringing sex into it; like I said before, starting everyone off at one rate and depending on how they do adjust it until it fits. Don't put me into a category with idiotic drivers - whether they be men or women. Make the bad drivers pay more and reward the good drivers - makes sense to me whether you're a woman or a man.
If this case was any other industry I would agree with the statements in the OP, however since this is in regards to the insurance industry I simply can't. It is impossible to be unbiased in an industry in which ones customers pay a relatively small fee (compared to the potential pay out on a claim) for essentially protection against having to take a lump sum of money out of their pocket in case of the unexpected. Furthermore in the case of car insurance it ensures that in the event of an unfortunate accident you do not have to pay (at least not in full) for the potentially extremely costly legal and other fees. As such the company must be very biased about how it assesses customers because it can't very well give a cheap rate to a known poor driver no more than it can give a lesser rate to certain gender/age/race groups than others because statistics whether we like it or not show that certain parts of any given group have better or worse driving statistics.
On November 23 2010 15:55 MadVillain wrote: I actually don't know why insurance companies don't ask what race you are, probably because there would be a shitstorm from overzealous civil rights groups. But it would be the same thing, if I spend years researching and find that on average asian drivers cost me more money then I would charge them more, because it would be good business. This is just the nature of insurance, its all based on risk assessment. Sorry if it hurts your feelings.
It doesn't matter if it's good for business or whether it's the nature of insurance - it's main foundation is based off of discrimination which shouldn't be allowed in any forms.
Blacks have predispositions to certain health risks - therefore health insurance companies can charge them higher premiums? That doesn't make a lot of sense. But as long as it's good for business...
The insurance business is extremely competitive, as is all big business. Denying them the right to run a highly efficient business model would be limiting the free market in a sense as it would be decreasing the competitiveness of the market.
How is it a free market when the state of Minnesota states I need car insurance to be able to drive a car. Seems like my hands are tied. All I'm saying is that they can find a better way without bringing sex into it; like I said before, starting everyone off at one rate and depending on how they do adjust it until it fits. Don't put me into a category with idiotic drivers - whether they be men or women. Make the bad drivers pay more and reward the good drivers - makes sense to me whether you're a woman or a man.
It's a free market because you have MANY options to choose from. Also, the reason car insurance is required is because if you wreck someone and you don't have the money to pay you've essentially fucked someone else.
You might argue, "Well that's taking away my liberty by forcing me to have insurance" you'd be somewhat correct on that point, but the classical counter-argument (and it's held up since the advent of forced insurance so don't try to argue it in this thread) is that driving is a privilege being granted, you're free to walk anywhere you want to. (or ride a bike, or a horse, or public transport, etcetcetc)
If it were legal to pay women ~70% of what one would pay a man for the same work (hint: it's not), women would comprise approximately 100% of the workforce. This is capitalism - petty sexism trumps the almighty dollar? Please.
EDIT - A bit more on topic, it is sexist to charge men more. Unfortunately, statistics justify this and our premiums won't change until our risk does. Tell your 'macho' friends to slow the fuck down and pay attention behind the wheel if you want that to change.
On November 23 2010 16:37 EzCheeze wrote: If it were legal to pay women ~70% of what one would pay a man for the same work (hint: it's not), women would comprise approximately 100% of the workforce. This is capitalism - petty sexism trumps the almighty dollar? Please.
EDIT - A bit more on topic, it is sexist to charge men more. Unfortunately, statistics justify this and our premiums won't change until our risk does. Tell your 'macho' friends to slow the fuck down and pay attention behind the wheel if you want that to change.
This is misleading. Of course it's not legal to pay women less for the same amount of work. The issue that comes up here (mainly in construction) is that it is illegal to pay women less than their male counterparts, in spite of how much work they do, as long as they are putting forth the same amount of "effort"
I skimmed through a lot of posts since there is 19 pages but uhmmm I think everyone is right in the argument... everybody has good points, but like alot have said, insurance companies are out there to make tons of money, some people win and some lose... thats why theres so much competition and you can switch to another company that might be cheaper to you. It's a service they are providing to you and they pretty much are gonna charge whatever they feel is worth for them, NOT YOU. It's like looking for jobs, they say they dont discriminate, etc... but trust me of course they discriminate, they just hide it and try to be careful...
While the statistical basis for the rates is certainly necessary, I do not think that it is the primary reason for why there would be a gender rate difference (as opposed to whatever other possible characteristic differences among people that you could come up with).
While I do not work in the insurance industry, I imagine society's reception of their policies is something that they have to put a lot of thought into. As you would imagine a policy that decided rates based on previous accidents would be far less controversial than a policy which decided rates based on their ethnicity. Assuming a strong and equal statistical basis were to exist for each of these, it is unlikely that they would be carried out equally because of how society would view them differently.
I think that in the case of higher rates for males, the insurance company likely found that society would not view this as controversial enough to cause problems. Why society views discrimination based on money, age, gender, history, and race all differently? I don't know. Is it okay to? I don't know.
I hate morality issues and I'm not even going to try to come up with an opinion on what I think is "right" in this situation. This is just why I think it is the situation. It'd take someone with more knowledge in sociology, though, to really get to the core of issue. I don't think this really has much to do with statistics, though... (Beyond that statistics are obviously a basic requirement for any proposed insurance policy).
I still don't think it is discrimination. What if I go to a nightclub and it is girl's night. The drink for any girls is half the price!! Is that discrimination?
Or if i go to buffet restaurant, and they charge everybody according to their weight, is that discrimination?
What about when I go to the barbershop and they charge a guy lower than they charge a women?
I don't think these are discrimination, they charge different price because the service they give to each gender has different cost, risk.
On November 23 2010 20:13 pedduck wrote: I still don't think it is discrimination. What if I go to a nightclub and it is girl's night. The drink for any girls is half the price!! Is that discrimination?
Or if i go to buffet restaurant, and they charge everybody according to their weight, is that discrimination?
What about when I go to the barbershop and they charge a guy lower than they charge a women?
I don't think these are discrimination, they charge different price because the service they give to each gender has different cost, risk.
maybe i have a little small brain and cant think deeper, but what you just said makes alot of sense ... I mean, its the truth
On November 23 2010 20:13 pedduck wrote: I still don't think it is discrimination. What if I go to a nightclub and it is girl's night. The drink for any girls is half the price!! Is that discrimination?
Or if i go to buffet restaurant, and they charge everybody according to their weight, is that discrimination?
What about when I go to the barbershop and they charge a guy lower than they charge a women?
I don't think these are discrimination, they charge different price because the service they give to each gender has different cost, risk.
If a restaurant makes a decision to charge a person more because of their weight, they're making a decision based upon them as an individual, not their gender.
I'm male. I'm probably the safest driver you will ever meet. I hate cars and drive as little as possible and would never do anything reckless. I'm a good driver, but have no interest in showing off and other behaviour some people are prone to. I can't parallel park to save my life, but I would never attempt to. I'm well aware of what I can and can not do. Why should I pay more just because some reckless idiots I've never met and have nothing in common with except sharing similar chromosomes? There are some pretty reckless female drivers out there, just not as many. These are generalisations. The idea that every male or female driver is the same based on their sex is of course ridiculous.
When younger, I actually had long hair and cutting it would take more time and effort than it would for most men. I had a female friend at the time who liked her hair short and wasn't very vain. Her hair required less time and effort to cut than mine. So how is it fair that I would be charged less than her based simply upon the fact she has breasts and I don't?
Of course, it's difficult to make a decision on someone's driving ability as an individual, but making generalisations against 50% of the population just because they all share a penis is still discrimination in my opinion.
On November 23 2010 17:53 his_shadow wrote: Hmmm, what if they included race in their equation. Certain racial groups probably have more accidents than others.
Insurance companies would not be able to get away with that surely, so how can they can do this with gender?
Interesting subject.
Most HMOs in the United States include race in their actuarial tables.
In Canada health care is free and universal, so we don't have to worry about that. But if it was private, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they judged me based on race/occupation/gender/age. That's what they do.
For all of those who think that since you're required to buy car insurance it should be non-discriminatory, run for office on a platform of making car insurance government-run. Until then, insurance companies will continue to judge people based on seemingly arcane points of fact.
... How is gender or race arcane? Given a large enough data sample I could run an OLS and tell you how much more likely X group is to be a crash than X group due to the general behaviors of members of X group...
If insurance is to be fair to every policy holder, it needs to operate by statistics and not political correctness.
You may be the safest driver in the world but if you're in a demographically more risky group it's only fair that you pay a higher premium.
If you don't like to be treated as part of a collective, then don't take part in collective financial endeavors like insurance. Make your own money and pay for all damages yourself.
On November 23 2010 16:31 Risen wrote: You might argue, "Well that's taking away my liberty by forcing me to have insurance" you'd be somewhat correct on that point, but the classical counter-argument (and it's held up since the advent of forced insurance so don't try to argue it in this thread) is that driving is a privilege being granted, you're free to walk anywhere you want to. (or ride a bike, or a horse, or public transport, etcetcetc)
Actually you're also free to drive anywhere you want, on your own property. It's driving on public roads that's the privilege.
On November 23 2010 22:01 Sabu113 wrote: ... How is gender or race arcane? Given a large enough data sample I could run an OLS and tell you how much more likely X group is to be a crash than X group due to the general behaviors of members of X group...
Yep.
An interesting recent example from Canada is that it's recently come to light that a person's credit score affects their home insurance rates. Using credit score to determine someone's car insurance has been illegal for 5 years, but there is no similar policy for home insurance. There are calls to change the law.
I'm sure there is definitely a correlation between bad credit and home insurance claims, but the government decided to draw an arguably arbitrary line beyond which insurance companies could not extend their actuarial calculations.
Again, anyone who doesn't think insurance companies are limited enough in their ability to discriminate should write their local representative and express their concern. Government regulates business, and you have to let the government know how much regulation you want.
On November 23 2010 22:01 Sabu113 wrote: ... How is gender or race arcane? Given a large enough data sample I could run an OLS and tell you how much more likely X group is to be a crash than X group due to the general behaviors of members of X group...
Yep.
An interesting recent example from Canada is that it's recently come to light that a person's credit score affects their home insurance rates. Using credit score to determine someone's car insurance has been illegal for 5 years, but there is no similar policy for home insurance. There are calls to change the law.
I'm sure there is definitely a correlation between bad credit and home insurance claims, but the government decided to draw an arguably arbitrary line beyond which insurance companies could not extend their actuarial calculations.
Again, anyone who doesn't think insurance companies are limited enough in their ability to discriminate should write their local representative and express their concern. Government regulates business, and you have to let the government know how much regulation you want.
I find it interesting that insurance companies lobbied to push legislation which would make the purchase of insurance mandatory.
They then realize that insuring everyone equally might make their business less profitable.
Solution: Everyone has to pay us whether they want to or not! Customized fees to pad out wallets woo!
On November 23 2010 22:30 Ryhn wrote: I find it interesting that insurance companies lobbied to push legislation which would make the purchase of insurance mandatory.
They then realize that insuring everyone equally might make their business less profitable.
The loss in per-customer profitability would be more than offset by mandating every citizen become a customer.
Anyway, universal insurance coverage isn't bad public policy. You don't want more people going bankrupt due to chance occurrences than there are right now (which is still a lot).
On November 23 2010 22:05 kojinshugi wrote: If insurance is to be fair to every policy holder, it needs to operate by statistics and not political correctness.
You may be the safest driver in the world but if you're in a demographically more risky group it's only fair that you pay a higher premium.
If you don't like to be treated as part of a collective, then don't take part in collective financial endeavors like insurance. Make your own money and pay for all damages yourself.
I agree with the bolded part.
The italicized part I would agree with, but in our wonderful backwards country it is required by law that your car is insured, despite the fact that you are not required by law to have health insurance. Go figure...
On November 23 2010 20:13 pedduck wrote: I still don't think it is discrimination. What if I go to a nightclub and it is girl's night. The drink for any girls is half the price!! Is that discrimination?
Or if i go to buffet restaurant, and they charge everybody according to their weight, is that discrimination?
What about when I go to the barbershop and they charge a guy lower than they charge a women?
I don't think these are discrimination, they charge different price because the service they give to each gender has different cost, risk.
If a restaurant makes a decision to charge a person more because of their weight, they're making a decision based upon them as an individual, not their gender.
I'm male. I'm probably the safest driver you will ever meet. I hate cars and drive as little as possible and would never do anything reckless. I'm a good driver, but have no interest in showing off and other behaviour some people are prone to. I can't parallel park to save my life, but I would never attempt to. I'm well aware of what I can and can not do. Why should I pay more just because some reckless idiots I've never met and have nothing in common with except sharing similar chromosomes? There are some pretty reckless female drivers out there, just not as many. These are generalisations. The idea that every male or female driver is the same based on their sex is of course ridiculous.
When younger, I actually had long hair and cutting it would take more time and effort than it would for most men. I had a female friend at the time who liked her hair short and wasn't very vain. Her hair required less time and effort to cut than mine. So how is it fair that I would be charged less than her based simply upon the fact she has breasts and I don't?
Of course, it's difficult to make a decision on someone's driving ability as an individual, but making generalisations against 50% of the population just because they all share a penis is still discrimination in my opinion.
Well, yes, it is not fair to judge you base on a large collective group. However, they don't discriminate male either. they don't discriminate anything or anyone. you and I are just fall in to the a group that have a higher risk of car accident (according to their statistic).
Insurance policies work on the basis of discrimination. That's what they are. Women cause less accidents compared to men, just like 20 year old men cause more accidents than 30 year old men.
People who live in areas where there is likely to be flooding/breakins will have higher home insurance. People with history of heart failure have higher health insurance.
It's exactly the same thing, and not unfair at all.
Honestly the way I see it, they should discriminate more. The matter of fact is that women get in less accidents, so they get cheaper insurance. That is just how the industry works. The insurance industry even pushed to be able to change your rate based on your race (My ex's mom works for an insurance company, and if you are Asian you are significantly more likely to get in an accident according to the stats, yup the stereotype is true), but that was shot down. I think that factors such as how long you have lived in the country you are currently in, race, quality of vision, driving experience. (i.e. If you are from hongkong and you move to Canada, you should be charged more for insurance since you likely suck at winter driving and aren't used to the different style of traffic flow, but that would never fly because "its racist"). Additionally id like to see a discount/penalty based on whether or not you have winter tires if you live in an area that gets show. I am so fucking tired of waiting in traffic because of accidents caused by idiots who can't drive in shitty weather. I would also like to see a driver education /licensing program where your driving skill is evaluated and your skill/judgment scores give you a driver skill rating which used to determine which rates you are eligible for. Canadian driver tests are too easy. Any half-coordinated idiot can pass after a few tries.
On November 23 2010 22:05 kojinshugi wrote: If insurance is to be fair to every policy holder, it needs to operate by statistics and not political correctness.
You may be the safest driver in the world but if you're in a demographically more risky group it's only fair that you pay a higher premium.
KK, let's start racially profiling, then. As long as it's statistically backed up, it's cool, right?
On November 23 2010 22:05 kojinshugi wrote: If you don't like to be treated as part of a collective, then don't take part in collective financial endeavors like insurance. Make your own money and pay for all damages yourself.
That's all well and good except it's illegal to drive without insurance, sooo...
KK, let's start racially profiling, then. As long as it's statistically backed up, it's cool, right?
Yes, why not? Doctors are more likely to instruct African-Americans to consume Vitamin D because of the increased melanin in their skin. The thing is, even if race is correlated with certain outcomes, it is not causative if there is a third variable that would better explain the correlation. And insurance companies have every motivation to find that third variable, because it will be more actuarially accurate, and that means additional profits.
The fact that after all these years, actuaries can't find a third variable to explain the disparities between the sexes shows that there is a causative factor from gender. This is plausible given the higher amounts of testosterone among males and the resulting increased aggressiveness.
On November 24 2010 01:44 Wr3k wrote: Honestly the way I see it, they should discriminate more. The matter of fact is that women get in less accidents, so they get cheaper insurance. That is just how the industry works. The insurance industry even pushed to be able to change your rate based on your race (My ex's mom works for an insurance company, and if you are Asian you are significantly more likely to get in an accident according to the stats, yup the stereotype is true), but that was shot down. I think that factors such as how long you have lived in the country you are currently in, race, quality of vision, driving experience. (i.e. If you are from hongkong and you move to Canada, you should be charged more for insurance since you likely suck at winter driving and aren't used to the different style of traffic flow, but that would never fly because "its racist"). Additionally id like to see a discount/penalty based on whether or not you have winter tires if you live in an area that gets show. I am so fucking tired of waiting in traffic because of accidents caused by idiots who can't drive in shitty weather. I would also like to see a driver education /licensing program where your driving skill is evaluated and your skill/judgment scores give you a driver skill rating which used to determine which rates you are eligible for. Canadian driver tests are too easy. Any half-coordinated idiot can pass after a few tries.
Really interesting veiw. Thank you for adding something new.
I feel that some of these ideas aren't practical (snow tires) as they are far to hard to keep people from lying about. Also as much as skill is a large factor in car related crashes I feel personality and cool headedness and many other factors also play large rolls and that to base your rate purely off skill wouldn't be as precise as intended. I think it is these internal traits that the insurance companies are trying to account for in their grouping of demographics.
On November 23 2010 22:05 kojinshugi wrote: If insurance is to be fair to every policy holder, it needs to operate by statistics and not political correctness.
You may be the safest driver in the world but if you're in a demographically more risky group it's only fair that you pay a higher premium.
If you don't like to be treated as part of a collective, then don't take part in collective financial endeavors like insurance. Make your own money and pay for all damages yourself.
I agree with the bolded part.
The italicized part I would agree with, but in our wonderful backwards country it is required by law that your car is insured, despite the fact that you are not required by law to have health insurance. Go figure...
I don't believe there is any law that you have your car insured. You have to have car insurance to cover the OTHER person's car. That way if you get in a crash at least they don't get screwed by your mistake. I don't see any problem with that whatsoever. Could be wrong, not really sure...
Sure this is discrimination, but so what? OP, are you really suggesting that insurance companies not be able to discriminate based on statistics? Do you know how much more expensive that would make everyone's insurance? Not to mention intensifying adverse selection problems, which could be crippling for insurance in general.
On November 24 2010 03:31 JWD wrote: Sure this is discrimination, but so what? OP, are you really suggesting that insurance companies not be able to discriminate based on statistics? Do you know how much more expensive that would make everyone's insurance rates? Not to mention intensifying adverse selection problems, which could be crippling for insurance in general.
And all for what? So that you can feel better about being a man? This baffles me.
this sums it up for me ^.^ although it is discrimination there is alot more to it then just that
On November 24 2010 03:31 JWD wrote: Sure this is discrimination, but so what? OP, are you really suggesting that insurance companies not be able to discriminate based on statistics? Do you know how much more expensive that would make everyone's insurance rates? Not to mention intensifying adverse selection problems, which could be crippling for insurance in general.
And all for what? So that you can feel better about being a man? This baffles me.
So, you're saying than an asian female should get higher insurance rates than a white female?
Because we ALL know how bad the asians drive. /sarcasm
But really, if the rates for one RACIAL GROUP, or an INCOME BRACKET get into more crashes, you WANT asians/latinos to pay more? You want low income families to pay more? You want people that are slightly overweight to pay more? You want people that have a family history of mental illness to pay more? You want people that have a job that requires long drives to pay more? You want people that are blue eyed to pay more? You want people that have red hair to pay more? You want people that are tanned to pay more? You want people that have a green house to pay more?
It's pretty sexist, as a society, that we accept this kind of thing when it comes to men, but when it comes to women we are willing to entertain the flimsiest statistics as evidence of discrimination.
That being said, I have no problem with insurance companies using this kind of metric. What I do have a problem with is insurance companies basically assuming all men are the same while ignoring plenty of more relevant information such as: Are you a drinker or drug user? What's your IQ? Your personality type? How much do you drive?
As an individual who doesn't drink and drive, use drugs, and has high conscientiousness and IQ, it seems pretty foolish to lump me into the same group as your average teenage gangbanger-wannabe. Furthermore, I use my license almost exclusively to get to and from work, yet the cost of my insurance per month comes out to about $1 per mile driven -- Yet someone who drives 10x as much as I do would pay the same monthly premium. Personally I think insurance companies could look at these factors, but I think it's more profitable for them to perpetuate the myth that "men" are higher insurance risks when in fact it's only a small subset of this population that actually is a high risk, they just want to pass the costs on to everyone.
the problem i see with it, is that its illegal to NOT have insurance, but then to discriminate against someone to FORCE them to have something is where it goes wrong.
if it insurance was optional and thats how they wanted to do it, fine. but its not, it needs to be regulated. insurance is the biggest f**kin scam in this country
On November 24 2010 03:31 JWD wrote: Sure this is discrimination, but so what? OP, are you really suggesting that insurance companies not be able to discriminate based on statistics? Do you know how much more expensive that would make everyone's insurance rates? Not to mention intensifying adverse selection problems, which could be crippling for insurance in general.
And all for what? So that you can feel better about being a man? This baffles me.
So, you're saying than an asian female should get higher insurance rates than a white female?
Because we ALL know how bad the asians drive. /sarcasm
But really, if the rates for one RACIAL GROUP, or an INCOME BRACKET get into more crashes, you WANT asians/latinos to pay more? You want low income families to pay more? You want people that are slightly overweight to pay more? You want people that have a family history of mental illness to pay more? You want people that have a job that requires long drives to pay more? You want people that are blue eyed to pay more? You want people that have red hair to pay more? You want people that are tanned to pay more? You want people that have a green house to pay more?
It's ridiculous.
If living in a green house causes you to drive worse, then yes they should pay more. How is that ridiculous? You cause more accidents, so you pay more. The point of insurance is that over the long run, the amount you put in it is close to the amount you take out of it (minus administrative costs and profit to the insurer), except you pay small amounts on a regular basis rather than huge amounts on an unpredictable basis, which most people prefer. But since nobody can predict the future, the only way to make the small, regular payments end up equal to the large, unpredictable payments is to try as hard as possible to find each driver's individualized probability of getting into a car accident.
And if that means living in a green house increases your probability, then you pay more.
On November 24 2010 04:01 PhiliBiRD wrote: the problem i see with it, is that its illegal to NOT have insurance, but then to discriminate against someone to FORCE them to have something is where it goes wrong.
if it insurance was optional and thats how they wanted to do it, fine. but its not, it needs to be regulated. insurance is the biggest f**kin scam in this country
Ignore what you know about health insurance (which actually is a clusterfuck); car insurance is very competitive and in no way a scam. The alternative to not liking your insurance company is to find another one. The fact that they all charge higher rates for men even though they are highly competitive should tell you something. (In case you can't figure it out, if being a male wasn't a causative factor in driving worse, then an insurance company would've found the causative factor by now and offer gender-equal rates for those males that the factor didn't apply.)
On November 24 2010 03:55 wail wrote: That being said, I have no problem with insurance companies using this kind of metric. What I do have a problem with is insurance companies basically assuming all men are the same while ignoring plenty of more relevant information such as: Are you a drinker or drug user? What's your IQ? Your personality type? How much do you drive?
they don't wtf
The original post in this thread was caused by the OP finding out that ceteris paribus (all other information being equal), if he was a woman he'd get a lower rate. That does not mean that all the other information is being ignored, gender is simply another contributing factor to the equation.
Obviously companies should provide tailor-made programs for every individual customer based on a weighting of all possible risk factors, but until that ideal becomes reality I don't really see the problem with the limited discrimination here based on actuarial science. Many people here are only seeing the drawbacks (ie the increased cost for the rare safe driver, and of course everyone thinks they're an above average driver) and not seeing the benefits, ie the reduced costs overall
There would have more of a case for sexism if driving was mandatory and thus insurance was mandatory, but otherwise not really. If you really have such a problem with it consider taking up alternative methods of transportation.
On November 24 2010 03:31 JWD wrote: Sure this is discrimination, but so what? OP, are you really suggesting that insurance companies not be able to discriminate based on statistics? Do you know how much more expensive that would make everyone's insurance rates? Not to mention intensifying adverse selection problems, which could be crippling for insurance in general.
And all for what? So that you can feel better about being a man? This baffles me.
So, you're saying than an asian female should get higher insurance rates than a white female?
Because we ALL know how bad the asians drive. /sarcasm
But really, if the rates for one RACIAL GROUP, or an INCOME BRACKET get into more crashes, you WANT asians/latinos to pay more? You want low income families to pay more? You want people that are slightly overweight to pay more? You want people that have a family history of mental illness to pay more? You want people that have a job that requires long drives to pay more? You want people that are blue eyed to pay more? You want people that have red hair to pay more? You want people that are tanned to pay more? You want people that have a green house to pay more?
It's ridiculous.
If Asian women are statistically getting into more accidents than white females, then yes, they should have to pay for =/
The real world is not fair, everyone is NOT equal in the eyes of money.
On November 24 2010 03:48 TLOBrian wrote: But really, if the rates for one RACIAL GROUP, or an INCOME BRACKET get into more crashes, you WANT asians/latinos to pay more? You want low income families to pay more? You want people that are slightly overweight to pay more? You want people that have a family history of mental illness to pay more? You want people that have a job that requires long drives to pay more? You want people that are blue eyed to pay more? You want people that have red hair to pay more? You want people that are tanned to pay more? You want people that have a green house to pay more?
It's ridiculous.
If the insurance companies find it beneficial to their business to research their clients and if the discrimination is merited, it will help control costs for everyone. If the discrimination is not merited competition through the free market will eliminate the discrimination.
When it is illegal to discriminate, the insurance markets develop moral hazard. The size of the moral hazard depends on the variation of risk profiles for the insured. For life insurance and car insurance, the costs are controlled by allowing discrimination on key characteristics like gender, age, and habits.
When it is illegal to discriminate base on key characteristics, like in health insurance market, the moral hazards cause the costs to spiral out of control. I'm sure everyone just loves that health insurance is ridiculously priced.
On November 23 2010 10:49 Vanished131 wrote: This is unjustified. Discriminating solely on the basis of sex is immoral and is protected in the United States of America, yet they get away with it due to statistics.
Testosterone makes you subject to random irrational aggression. If you have less than the average dude, it's unjust. If you have more or equal than the average dude, it's just.
On November 24 2010 03:55 wail wrote: That being said, I have no problem with insurance companies using this kind of metric. What I do have a problem with is insurance companies basically assuming all men are the same while ignoring plenty of more relevant information such as: Are you a drinker or drug user? What's your IQ? Your personality type? How much do you drive?
they don't wtf
The original post in this thread was caused by the OP finding out that ceteris paribus (all other information being equal), if he was a woman he'd get a lower rate. That does not mean that all the other information is being ignored, gender is simply another contributing factor to the equation.
I've asked my insurance carrier repeatedly whether they offer any sort of lower rate for non-drinkers. They don't, even though alcohol is a huge factor in automobile accidents. I'd even be willing to have a breathalyzer installed in my vehicle to confirm that I'm never getting behind the wheel intoxicated -- Again, nothing. No automobile insurance company has ever asked me for a urine or blood sample to test whether I've taken drugs either. I've never had any insurance carrier ask about say, my IQ, my grades in school, whether I had any disciplinary action taken against me, or any other sort of proxy metric for determining conscientiousness. No insurance carrier has ever requested any sort of psychological information confirming that I'm not a risk-taking personality. Some carriers do offer lower rates for low-mileage, however many don't. Even those that do break things down into very crude categories, e.g. Do you drive more/less than 5000 miles per year? Statistically miles driven is one of the biggest factors in predicting claim costs so there's really no excuse for not offering rates that scale based on mileage.
I think I've seen questions about weekly alcohol consumption on a car insurance application before, but don't hold me to that.
Metrics like grades and IQ are not all created equal, and you have to make sure an actuarial table is filled with rigorously comparable data that can be stretched, squeezed and rearranged into numerous permutations without losing its integrity. A standard psychological or intelligence metric would have to be applied to all applicants, and needless to say that would be at the company's cost.
On November 23 2010 10:57 zeppelin wrote: men get paid a lot more than women on average so if your income as a man doesn't more than make up for the difference in insurance premiums you should spend less time pretending to be a victim and more time improving your career skills
I dont know if that is true. A lot of statistics on wage by gender are corrupt. Imagine how many women miss work days because of their menstrual cycle or pregnancy matters? Then these days off are discounted in the women salary, and it looks as if they are receiving less. A lot of women with hgih degrees and MBA ends up getting married and choose to stay at home taking care of kids... I'm sure many statistics will label them as unemployed just to make it seem as if a woman's degree is less desired than a man's.
Anyway, what most people said is true. They do this sort of discrimination in many countries and the reason is based on statistics. Men are more likely to get in a car crash than women.
On November 24 2010 03:31 JWD wrote: Sure this is discrimination, but so what? OP, are you really suggesting that insurance companies not be able to discriminate based on statistics? Do you know how much more expensive that would make everyone's insurance rates? Not to mention intensifying adverse selection problems, which could be crippling for insurance in general.
And all for what? So that you can feel better about being a man? This baffles me.
So, you're saying than an asian female should get higher insurance rates than a white female?
Because we ALL know how bad the asians drive. /sarcasm
But really, if the rates for one RACIAL GROUP, or an INCOME BRACKET get into more crashes, you WANT asians/latinos to pay more? You want low income families to pay more? You want people that are slightly overweight to pay more? You want people that have a family history of mental illness to pay more? You want people that have a job that requires long drives to pay more? You want people that are blue eyed to pay more? You want people that have red hair to pay more? You want people that are tanned to pay more? You want people that have a green house to pay more?
It's ridiculous.
To put it simply, statistics don't lie. If you use proper math (which insurance companies do, they hire plenty of actuaries), then you can get solid confidence intervals with even a few thousand tests. With the sheer size of the data they have, if something is NOT correllated to accidents, there will be something like a 99.999999% chance that their analysis shows that it is not correllated. As such, tanning, house colour, eye colour, etc will not enter any of their equations because they're not related to accident rates. If they can legally ask you for the information, then it's already being included in insurance rates. If the absurd examples you've given have not entered them so far, then they never will, because you don't need more data than the hundreds of millions of units they've already included.
Basically, if the stats that insurance companies have say something, it's probably true. If they found that they could use ethnicity to get reliable information, while removing the correllation ethnicity has with time spent driving, then it would be fine. Basically, if they found that black people get in to 35% more accidents than white people, that wouldn't be enough evidence, because it may be the case that people with under 20 years of driving experience get in to 100% more accidents and black people are 35% more likely to have under 20 years of driving experience. They already discriminate based on the time you've been driving in the country, so there would be no need to double-ding them like that, which is why it doesn't happen.
In short, learn statistics, then post here, because if you don't understand how actuarial models work, then you're going to keep thinking they'll spit out absurd results, which they don't.
Simple answer. Different races are not physically different, genders are. Therefor sexism is allowed while racism is not in this case
There are many measurable differences between races, including aggression, IQ, inhibition, and physical strength, which provide equally strong evidence for differences as gender studies have. Statistics does not justify racism and the lack of statistics is not the reason for tolerance.
I've finally finished reading the last 22 pages, and the misconception seems to be that men are receiving more money from insurance payouts. Although not incorrect, we are using the wrong categorization for insurance payout.
The truth is that bad drivers, regardless of race/gender, are costing the company more. Fortunately for insurance companies, they can monitor this, through things such as previous accidents and traffic violations (both of which they do check for when deciding insurance rates).
The point is that men may cost more for companies, but bad drivers are far worse - why not increase the charges on them to offset the losses from making insurance rates gender-neutral?
I apologize in advance for the lack of clarity in the above post, bit too sleepy to make it more clear.
I apologise if this has been stated elsewhere in the previous 22 pages, but I haven't had time to trawl through all the posts so far.
A very similar case to this has been presented to the one of the various European Courts (Human Rights I believe, please do not quote me on this, it might be one of the Justice-flavours) recently (about a month ago), by the European Attorney General.
Under the universal declaration of human rights it is illegal to discriminate on grounds of gender. In other words gender can not be used as the basis for any decision - this specifically includes insurance quotes. Regardless of any statistical bias towards (or against) male drivers, it is not a legitimate statistic to include when providing a quote for a service.
Various groups have made their concerns know about the possibility of the EU outlawing the use of gender in insurance discrimination, in particular because it would destroy all the 'female only' insurance companies which have recently popped up, however, current laws as written require that this be the case.
Personally I feel insurance companies should be free to charge whatever they want, they provide a service and in a free country they can charge anything they want for it. At the end of the day its them that goes bankrupt if they decide to charge unreasonable premiums. This is nothing to do with gender rights but more to do with freedom of a market mechanism.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
It's the whole insurance system that is stupid, it punishes good drivers for being in the wrong demographic and rewards bad drivers by making others in their demographic pay for their mistakes.
As a male nursing student/CNA I experience some form of male sexism. Because I'm male I have a hard time getting home health cases and people don't trust me to take care of their parents or their children even though I'm well qualified and have a much easier time doing difficult physical tasks.
Funny because most of the CNA's who I see steal from and abuse residents are females.
That's about the worst of it I get. I think it's natural or people to be more trusting of females but it does suck when it directly impedes my career choice. I can work around it though.
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
That depends on what you mean by "usage statistics". If you mean "how many people want to buy gas or food as opposed to how much gas or food there is to sell", that's exactly how gas and food are sold.
Insurance is a transaction where a company takes on a risk of loss in exchange for a payment. Proper assessment of the price of risk (through risk analysis) is the only way for an insurance company to survive.
On November 24 2010 05:57 DoctorHelvetica wrote: As a male nursing student/CNA I experience some form of male sexism. Because I'm male I have a hard time getting home health cases and people don't trust me to take care of their parents or their children even though I'm well qualified and have a much easier time doing difficult physical tasks.
Funny because most of the CNA's who I see steal from and abuse residents are females.
That's about the worst of it I get. I think it's natural or people to be more trusting of females but it does suck when it directly impedes my career choice. I can work around it though.
Heh, wish every man on the planet was put through this, what an exceptional difference it would make. Inspirational thought.
What's the difference between discrimination of sex as the OP stated vs. discrimination of race in school admissions or affirmative action? Women are more likely to develop breast cancer and can get pregnant; does that mean that they should pay more for health insurance?
There are tons of cases which have words to say about the use of statistics to distribute costs and benefits based on gender, religion, age, race, etc. Anyone arguing that the OP doesn't understand actuarial science is really arguing a null point. I understand that the current models insurance companies use require companies do this sort of analysis to provide the benefits they do, but there are other means of distributing charges. It doesn't matter how the data is interpreted or fit together if the use of statistical analysis in this manner is deemed unethical in the first place.
On November 24 2010 06:14 kidcrash89 wrote: What's the difference between discrimination of sex as the OP stated vs. discrimination of race in school admissions or affirmative action?
There are tons of cases which have words to say about the use of statistics to distribute costs and benefits based on gender, religion, age, race, etc. Anyone arguing that the OP doesn't understand actuarial science is really arguing a null point. It doesn't matter how the data is interpreted or fit together if the use of statistical analysis in this manner is deemed unethical in the first place.
The alternative to the current method is to make car insurance public and bankrolled by the government. It eliminates any discrimination, but it's vastly more expensive.
Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
It's the whole insurance system that is stupid, it punishes good drivers for being in the wrong demographic and rewards bad drivers by making others in their demographic pay for their mistakes.
"All you can eat" buffets are priced based on usage statistics... they figure how much the average person who eats at the buffet will eat and then set the buffet price based on that.
Insurance is like that... paying $100 in premiums allows you more than $100 recovered. Otherwise it would be savings not insurance.
And saying auto insurance rates should be based on personal accident history is like saying life insurance rates should be based on the year that you died. Its missing the point.
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
That depends on what you mean by "usage statistics". If you mean "how many people want to buy gas or food as opposed to how much gas or food there is to sell", that's exactly how gas and food are sold.
Insurance is a transaction where a company takes on a risk of loss in exchange for a payment. Proper assessment of the price of risk (through risk analysis) is the only way for an insurance company to survive.
No, like "white 23 year old males eat X a month, so that will be your monthly food bill". That's how stupid it is.
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
It's the whole insurance system that is stupid, it punishes good drivers for being in the wrong demographic and rewards bad drivers by making others in their demographic pay for their mistakes.
"All you can eat" buffets are priced based on usage statistics... they figure how much the average person who eats at the buffet will eat and then set the buffet price based on that.
Insurance is like that... paying $100 in premiums allows you more than $100 recovered. Otherwise it would be savings not insurance.
Do they charge more for buffets based on the demographic of the person buying the buffer? Nope. Does not apply.
On November 24 2010 06:14 kidcrash89 wrote: What's the difference between discrimination of sex as the OP stated vs. discrimination of race in school admissions or affirmative action?
There are tons of cases which have words to say about the use of statistics to distribute costs and benefits based on gender, religion, age, race, etc. Anyone arguing that the OP doesn't understand actuarial science is really arguing a null point. It doesn't matter how the data is interpreted or fit together if the use of statistical analysis in this manner is deemed unethical in the first place.
The alternative to the current method is to make car insurance public and bankrolled by the government. It eliminates any discrimination, but it's vastly more expensive.
A few bills of legislation is all it requires in my eyes. No need for some central system. Don't get me wrong, the problem is a lot bigger than insurance policies. The supreme court has been very wishy-washy on such matters and really needs to get its story straight
On November 24 2010 06:18 Treemonkeys wrote: No, like "white 23 year old males eat X a month, so that will be your monthly food bill". That's how stupid it is.
If you had an arrangement where your landlord paid for board, that would be exactly how your food bill gets determined. Most people find that it's better for people to purchase their own food directly.
But for insurance it's people trying to buy protection from exposure to risk. Normally you wouldn't have to buy protection from risk, but in this case the government mandates it.
On November 24 2010 06:17 Struan wrote: Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
How does forcing all tax payers to pay for it make it more ethical? It doesn't. It's just a different way of making everyone pay for the mistakes of a few.
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
It's the whole insurance system that is stupid, it punishes good drivers for being in the wrong demographic and rewards bad drivers by making others in their demographic pay for their mistakes.
"All you can eat" buffets are priced based on usage statistics... they figure how much the average person who eats at the buffet will eat and then set the buffet price based on that.
Insurance is like that... paying $100 in premiums allows you more than $100 recovered. Otherwise it would be savings not insurance.
Do they charge more for buffets based on the demographic of the person buying the buffer? Nope. Does not apply.
I'm sure they have senior citizen discounts.
And if it was actually worth the time+expense, they would and should. (a restaurant stands to lose maybe 10$ worth of food from a single customer, not worth developing a complex model.... an insurance company can lose $100,000 from a single customer)
On November 24 2010 06:17 Struan wrote: Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
How does forcing all tax payers to pay for it make it more ethical? It doesn't. It's just a different way of making everyone pay for the mistakes of a few.
I'm not sure what kind of constructive alternative you're proposing, then. Abolishing insurance?
On November 24 2010 06:18 Treemonkeys wrote: No, like "white 23 year old males eat X a month, so that will be your monthly food bill". That's how stupid it is.
If you had an arrangement where your landlord paid for board, that would be exactly how your food bill gets determined. Most people find that it's better for people to purchase their own food directly.
But for insurance it's people trying to buy protection from exposure to risk. Normally you wouldn't have to buy protection from risk, but in this case the government mandates it.
Yes, because of this it is a requirement for driving first and foremost, not protection from risk.
Never hard of a landlord billing food that way, usually you pay a static price for a static amount of food. Like in college dorms.
Corperations are usually allowed to set their own pricing and can use sex as determination of pricing. Insurance can charge men more to drive, hair dressers can charge women more for a hair cut, ect. It's within their rights.
On November 24 2010 06:17 Struan wrote: Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
How does forcing all tax payers to pay for it make it more ethical? It doesn't. It's just a different way of making everyone pay for the mistakes of a few.
I'm not sure what kind of constructive alternative you're proposing, then. Abolishing insurance?
The alternatives are rather long winded, but it still should be said that forcing tax payers to pay for everything is not at all an workaround for unethical pricing.
On November 24 2010 06:26 SCdinner wrote: Corperations are usually allowed to set their own pricing and can use sex as determination of pricing. Insurance can charge men more to drive, hair dressers can charge women more for a hair cut, ect. It's within their rights.
Rights are pretty much arbitrary. Just because it's "within their rights" doesn't mean it is good.
On November 24 2010 06:17 Struan wrote: Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
How does forcing all tax payers to pay for it make it more ethical? It doesn't. It's just a different way of making everyone pay for the mistakes of a few.
I'm not sure what kind of constructive alternative you're proposing, then. Abolishing insurance?
The alternatives are rather long winded, but it still should be said that forcing tax payers to pay for everything is not at all an workaround for unethical pricing.
But forcing select groups of people, surely which contain "good" drivers, to pay more makes sense? Mind that individuals of such select groups would need to make up for the costs not paid for by people outside these groups leading to considerably higher rates than a standardized system. I fail to see the logic behind this difference
On November 24 2010 06:17 Struan wrote: Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
How does forcing all tax payers to pay for it make it more ethical? It doesn't. It's just a different way of making everyone pay for the mistakes of a few.
I'm not sure what kind of constructive alternative you're proposing, then. Abolishing insurance?
The alternatives are rather long winded, but it still should be said that forcing tax payers to pay for everything is not at all an workaround for unethical pricing.
But forcing select groups of people, surely which contain "good" drivers, to pay more makes sense? I fail to see the logic
I wouldn't say it makes more sense but at least it is screwing over less people.
On November 24 2010 06:17 Struan wrote: Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
How does forcing all tax payers to pay for it make it more ethical? It doesn't. It's just a different way of making everyone pay for the mistakes of a few.
I'm not sure what kind of constructive alternative you're proposing, then. Abolishing insurance?
The alternatives are rather long winded, but it still should be said that forcing tax payers to pay for everything is not at all an workaround for unethical pricing.
But forcing select groups of people, surely which contain "good" drivers, to pay more makes sense? I fail to see the logic
I wouldn't say it makes more sense but at least it is screwing over less people.
I agree, but it screws less people more.
I'm not trying to say one is right or wrong, just offering different outlooks. TBH insurance is a shit show to begin with
On November 24 2010 06:24 Treemonkeys wrote: Yes, because of this it is a requirement for driving first and foremost, not protection from risk.
It's a requirement for driving because the government has decided that no one will be able to cover the liability to others on their own. Government is compelling people to buy risk protection.
On November 24 2010 06:18 Treemonkeys wrote: No, like "white 23 year old males eat X a month, so that will be your monthly food bill". That's how stupid it is.
If you had an arrangement where your landlord paid for board, that would be exactly how your food bill gets determined. Most people find that it's better for people to purchase their own food directly.
But for insurance it's people trying to buy protection from exposure to risk. Normally you wouldn't have to buy protection from risk, but in this case the government mandates it.
Yes, because of this it is a requirement for driving first and foremost, not protection from risk.
Never hard of a landlord billing food that way, usually you pay a static price for a static amount of food. Like in college dorms.
It is protection from risk... that applies to other people (ie you don't need auto insurance if you have a savings bond dedicated to any damage you may cause other people)
Basically, I know that everyone else the government has let on the road is capable of paying for any damage they may cause to Me.
The problem is there is no way to give someone a 'static amount' of insurance coverage.
We will give you $100 for auto repair per month... you only need to pay us $105 per month... what type of idiot would take that? or We will give you $100 for auto repair per month... you only need to pay us $95 per month... what type of idiot would offer that?
No its we will give you $10,000 for auto repair if 1. you pay us 100$ per month AND 2. you have an accident that takes $10,000 to repair
#2 means no one consumes a static amount of coverage.... Insurance is ALWAYS a buffet, they are just trying to use statistics to figure how hungry you are going to be. They charge more money to people they thing are going to eat more food.
also, it is not unethical pricing... it is very ethical. Taxes charge rich people more is that unethical, or should US citizenship require yearly dues? (Gold Membership at $5,000/year and you get to vote in federal elections) No, because rich people generally get more benefits from government (they have more to $ lose in case of anarchy)
Differentiated pricing is not unethical, unsubstantiated differentiated pricing is a poor decision, and potentially unethical
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
It's the whole insurance system that is stupid, it punishes good drivers for being in the wrong demographic and rewards bad drivers by making others in their demographic pay for their mistakes.
"All you can eat" buffets are priced based on usage statistics... they figure how much the average person who eats at the buffet will eat and then set the buffet price based on that.
Insurance is like that... paying $100 in premiums allows you more than $100 recovered. Otherwise it would be savings not insurance.
Do they charge more for buffets based on the demographic of the person buying the buffer? Nope. Does not apply.
I'm sure they have senior citizen discounts.
And if it was actually worth the time+expense, they would and should. (a restaurant stands to lose maybe 10$ worth of food from a single customer, not worth developing a complex model.... an insurance company can lose $100,000 from a single customer)
Yes, because pissing off costumers by charging them differently for an "All you can eat" buffet is great for business.
On November 24 2010 06:18 Krikkitone wrote: And saying auto insurance rates should be based on personal accident history is like saying life insurance rates should be based on the year that you died. Its missing the point.
Not at all. Life insurance can be based on personal health history. That isn't discriminatory like saying "you are just like every other member of your race/gender so you pay that rate"
That kind of discrimination is ethically identical to saying "your a low-educated black male who lives in an urban neighborhood, and even though you haven't committed a crime yet we are gonna go ahead and put you in jail because you probably will"
Having late stage lung cancer should make you ineligible for life insurance. Just like putting people who have actually committed crimes in jail isn't discrimination.
On November 23 2010 11:05 smashczar wrote: This "sexism against men" thing is popping up more and more, it's really dangerous reactionary garbage considering women are the most oppressed and exploited group of people in world history. MY INSURANCE
Those are some interesting numbers right there, I didn't read the whole 23 pages to see if it was already asked/posted, but does anyone have reliable statistics for this one?
On November 24 2010 06:35 Struan wrote: Not at all. Life insurance can be based on personal health history. That isn't discriminatory like saying "you are just like every other member of your race/gender so you pay that rate"
That kind of discrimination is ethically identical to saying "your a low-educated black male who lives in an urban neighborhood, and even though you haven't committed a crime yet we are gonna go ahead and put you in jail because you probably will"
Having late stage lung cancer should make you ineligible for life insurance. Just like putting people who have actually committed crimes in jail isn't discrimination.
...and here we have the justification for not covering "pre-existing conditions", which the Obama administration abolished due to its being morally reprehensible.
On November 24 2010 06:17 Struan wrote: Basing insurance rates on anything more than personal previous accident history is unethical at best and in reality should probably be illegal. Does it make it hard to run insurance profitably? Probably, but that doesn't make that behavior ethical because you need it to make a profit. It is just another good argument for government run insurance that runs at cost and is fair and ethical to everyone.
How does forcing all tax payers to pay for it make it more ethical? It doesn't. It's just a different way of making everyone pay for the mistakes of a few.
I'm not sure what kind of constructive alternative you're proposing, then. Abolishing insurance?
The alternatives are rather long winded, but it still should be said that forcing tax payers to pay for everything is not at all an workaround for unethical pricing.
But forcing select groups of people, surely which contain "good" drivers, to pay more makes sense? I fail to see the logic
I wouldn't say it makes more sense but at least it is screwing over less people.
I agree, but it screws less people more.
I'm not trying to say one is right or wrong, just offering different outlooks. TBH insurance is a shit show to begin with
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
It's the whole insurance system that is stupid, it punishes good drivers for being in the wrong demographic and rewards bad drivers by making others in their demographic pay for their mistakes.
"All you can eat" buffets are priced based on usage statistics... they figure how much the average person who eats at the buffet will eat and then set the buffet price based on that.
Insurance is like that... paying $100 in premiums allows you more than $100 recovered. Otherwise it would be savings not insurance.
Do they charge more for buffets based on the demographic of the person buying the buffer? Nope. Does not apply.
I'm sure they have senior citizen discounts.
And if it was actually worth the time+expense, they would and should. (a restaurant stands to lose maybe 10$ worth of food from a single customer, not worth developing a complex model.... an insurance company can lose $100,000 from a single customer)
Yes, because pissing off costumers by charging them differently for an "All you can eat" buffet is great for business.
Which insurance companies do not have to worry about because their business is required by law.
On November 24 2010 06:18 Krikkitone wrote: And saying auto insurance rates should be based on personal accident history is like saying life insurance rates should be based on the year that you died. Its missing the point.
Not at all. Life insurance can be based on personal health history. That isn't discriminatory like saying "you are just like every other member of your race/gender so you pay that rate"
That kind of discrimination is ethically identical to saying "your a low-educated black male who lives in an urban neighborhood, and even though you haven't committed a crime yet we are gonna go ahead and put you in jail because you probably will"
Having late stage lung cancer should make you ineligible for life insurance. Just like putting people who have actually committed crimes in jail isn't discrimination.
Because the government is Specifically prevented from doing that doesn't mean it isn't a good idea.
There are those who argue the aborting of unwanted fetuses in the 70's and 80's led to the drop in crime in the 90s.
That does not mean it was moral to kill innocents, but it may have been effective.
And putting someone in jail/killing them is VERY different from having to pay more money. (especially for something voluntary)
btw, Charging men more for life insurance makes sense because they tend to die earlier, just like someone with a mild congenital disease.
On November 24 2010 05:53 Treemonkeys wrote: The OP is not being silly.
Paying for insurance based on statistics makes as much sense as paying for gas or food based on usage statistics instead of what you actually use.
It's the whole insurance system that is stupid, it punishes good drivers for being in the wrong demographic and rewards bad drivers by making others in their demographic pay for their mistakes.
"All you can eat" buffets are priced based on usage statistics... they figure how much the average person who eats at the buffet will eat and then set the buffet price based on that.
Insurance is like that... paying $100 in premiums allows you more than $100 recovered. Otherwise it would be savings not insurance.
Do they charge more for buffets based on the demographic of the person buying the buffer? Nope. Does not apply.
I'm sure they have senior citizen discounts.
And if it was actually worth the time+expense, they would and should. (a restaurant stands to lose maybe 10$ worth of food from a single customer, not worth developing a complex model.... an insurance company can lose $100,000 from a single customer)
Yes, because pissing off costumers by charging them differently for an "All you can eat" buffet is great for business.
It would be great for business if Rest. A charges 10$ for a buffet Rest. B charges teens 12$, children+seniors 5$, and adults 7$, for the buffet.
Rest. B gets all the children/senior/adult business, Rest. A goes out of business because feeding the teens is costing more than it can make at only 10$
On November 24 2010 06:35 Struan wrote: Not at all. Life insurance can be based on personal health history. That isn't discriminatory like saying "you are just like every other member of your race/gender so you pay that rate"
That kind of discrimination is ethically identical to saying "your a low-educated black male who lives in an urban neighborhood, and even though you haven't committed a crime yet we are gonna go ahead and put you in jail because you probably will"
Having late stage lung cancer should make you ineligible for life insurance. Just like putting people who have actually committed crimes in jail isn't discrimination.
...and here we have the justification for not covering "pre-existing conditions", which the Obama administration abolished due to its being morally reprehensible.
Health insurance is completely different from life insurance... and it is a gigantic ethical minefield of monopolies and massive bureaucracy.
Life insurance is just a bet with a company about when you will die. It is nothing more than a twisted form of gambling. And is no more ethically complicated than whether or not a casino should be allowed to exclude a race or gender entering because they are less profitable (obviously not).
On November 24 2010 06:48 Krikkitone wrote: It would be great for business if Rest. A charges 10$ for a buffet Rest. B charges teens 12$, children+seniors 5$, and adults 7$, for the buffet.
Rest. B gets all the children/senior/adult business, Rest. A goes out of business because feeding the teens is costing more than it can make at only 10$
There is a reason why restaurants don't discriminate on teens and adults and usually give deep discounts for children. Families place a premium on eating together which means that children and teens can be loss leaders for the rest of the family. As long as the restaurant makes money on the whole check, the restaurant is happy. College-age males usually are the worst for buffets, but restaurants can recover a profit on serving alcohol.
If the restaurant is really focused on buffet, then they will cut costs to the point where serving everybody at the prevailing buffet price is profitable - even for the giant eaters.
There are other strategies to pricing than perfectly matching up your costs to the prices you charge.
omg to the people who fail by citing statistics as a justified source of discrimination, consider this:
Black people are more likely (statistically speaking) to commit crimes and go to jail. Therefore it is justified to believe someone who is black is more likely to be a criminal than someone who is white, even though you have no other substantive information about them.
If you think this is a justified line of reasoning then chance is you're a simple-minded person who (either consciously or subconsciously) holds many unjustified prejudices. Plz think before forming opinions about how things work in the world.
Its pretty obvious that insurance companies exhibit an obvious lack of respect for people by grouping them into categories. This is convenient due to statistical analysis and probability, and "justified" through arguments based on economics. The point is you can't justify moral questions by referencing economics. Its a ludicrous and simple-minded approach that is the real reason why slavery existed, and today we have exploitative businesses thriving by taking advantage of desperate people in poor countries. Its a sad sad thing that so many people have been brainwashed into believing that this sort of reasoning is somehow morally acceptable.
This whole thread is like saying that betting sites are discriminating fans of certain football teams because they have worse odds. How is this even something a person thinks about for more than .003 seconds? It just seems a bit obvious.
And by the way it is discriminating but you are wrongfully attributing a negative value to the word itself.
On November 24 2010 07:11 Reason.SC2 wrote: Black people are more likely (statistically speaking) to commit crimes and go to jail. Therefore it is justified to believe someone who is black is more likely to be a criminal than someone who is white.
Given NO OTHER information, it is the correct heuristic. Clearly the heuristic is not the end all be all since you don't know anything else about the person. The rational line of thinking is to seek more information.
The heuristic is not an unjustified prejudice. The following is a statement of fact. If black people are more likely to commit crimes and go to jail, it's a tautology that someone who is black is more likely to be a criminal and go to jail than someone who is white. Whether or not you believe someone who is black is more likely to be a criminal (going to jail an entirely separate matter) depends on your belief in the justice of the legal and justice system.
Insurance agencies have to work by heuristics. They cannot serve their risk sharing function efficiently without grouping people into risk buckets. It's in their interest to group their clients into the right risk buckets since they will either lose their customers to competitors or lose money in covering more of their customers' losses more than they take in premiums.
On November 24 2010 07:11 Reason.SC2 wrote: omg to the people who fail by citing statistics as a justified source of discrimination, consider this:
Black people are more likely (statistically speaking) to commit crimes and go to jail. Therefore it is justified to believe someone who is black is more likely to be a criminal than someone who is white, even though you have no other substantive information about them.
If you think this is a justified line of reasoning then chance is you're a simple-minded person who (either consciously or subconsciously) holds many unjustified prejudices. Plz think before forming opinions about how things work in the world.
Its pretty obvious that insurance companies exhibit an obvious lack of respect for people by grouping them into categories. This is convenient due to statistical analysis and probability, and "justified" through arguments based on economics. The point is you can't justify moral questions by referencing economics. Its a ludicrous and simple-minded approach that is the real reason why slavery existed, and today we have exploitative businesses thriving by taking advantage of desperate people in poor countries. Its a sad sad thing that so many people have been brainwashed into believing that this sort of reasoning is somehow morally acceptable.
Wrong.
Here is why: The purpose of any company, be it insurance or anything else, is to make money. The best way to do so is by using statistics. Surely an interview along with psychometric tests would do a better job of predicting the extent to which someone is prone to accident but it is also more costly hence it wouln't make you more money.
This is why people who have previously been in accidents are charged more, old people are charged less. By the way, kids aren't allowed to drive for the exatly same reason (being prone to accident). The whole notion of this being some sort of moral-issue or discrimination (by a laypersons definition) is ridiculous simply because that debate has absolutely no place here. The company is doing what they are supposed to do and you need to accept their terms for using their service.
Furthermore, and this is just because I got a bit upset about your comment on the topic. Your understanding of prejudice is really overly-simplified, unusually incorrect and you even have the balls to insult other people on the basis of it. Prejudice is for all intents and purpuse a cognitive function which allows people to differenciate between enemy and friends and therefor potential danger. It is one of the many mechanisms mankind as developed because of a basic survival instinct. I hope you can follow this rather simply train of thought on your own but just to give an example of how my "simple-mind" works ill explain a bit more.
Assume that you are "prejudiced" againts black people. This is most likely due to them having a lot of attention in the media and are assosciated with commiting crimes (note: This is not by any means my own point of view, just a hypothetical example). This prejudice will cause you to avoid black people on a late night in a dark alley. Sure you may say its discriminating and morally incorrect but it is necessary for your own good.
If people never learned to categorize things into neat useful "packages of information" or cognitive schemes, we probably wouldn't be able to exist, at least not in the way we do now. Firstly because our brain is incapable of handling every single stimuli as a separate event and secondly because we would all walk around thinking "maybe this tigre doesn't have sharp teeth and isn't going to kill me, I think ill treat him like an individual instead of being prejudiced against tigres".
On November 24 2010 07:11 Reason.SC2 wrote: omg to the people who fail by citing statistics as a justified source of discrimination, consider this:
Black people are more likely (statistically speaking) to commit crimes and go to jail. Therefore it is justified to believe someone who is black is more likely to be a criminal than someone who is white, even though you have no other substantive information about them.
If you think this is a justified line of reasoning then chance is you're a simple-minded person who (either consciously or subconsciously) holds many unjustified prejudices. Plz think before forming opinions about how things work in the world.
Its pretty obvious that insurance companies exhibit an obvious lack of respect for people by grouping them into categories. This is convenient due to statistical analysis and probability, and "justified" through arguments based on economics. The point is you can't justify moral questions by referencing economics. Its a ludicrous and simple-minded approach that is the real reason why slavery existed, and today we have exploitative businesses thriving by taking advantage of desperate people in poor countries. Its a sad sad thing that so many people have been brainwashed into believing that this sort of reasoning is somehow morally acceptable.
You clearly do not understand how insurance works. If insurance companies could ignore gender and base their rates on the "other substantive information," they would. In fact, they already do, because your rate is more affected by how much you drive, how many traffic tickets you have, how many accidents you've been in and your age. But the fact is that even controlling for all those other factors, there is still a correlation between accidents and gender. More importantly, there isn't any third variable that would better explain this correlation. (At least none that can be legally measured.)
Insurance companies don't want to put you in buckets. If they had their druthers, they would charge a rate that is perfectly consistent with your individualized probability of getting into an accident. However, this is physically impossible to measure. Instead, insurance companies will use whatever data they can get to best guess your individualized probability, and gender has been shown to be a factor. If gender is not a causative factor in accidents, then the insurance company that discovers how to measure what really explains the increased rate would make a killing.
Ceteris paribus, is it sexist for life insurers to charge lower rates for women because they live longer on average? Is it sexist for health insurers to charge higher rates to women to cover breast cancer?
On November 24 2010 06:33 nihlon wrote: Yes, because pissing off costumers by charging them differently for an "All you can eat" buffet is great for business.
Which insurance companies do not have to worry about because their business is required by law.
You are required by the laws of nature to purchase food. I guess grocery stores and restaurants don't care about pissing off consumers? There is a market distortion in that a consumer can't choose the option of not having insurance, but they can still choose between many different insurance companies, and that provides a suitable amount of competition.
The main justification for requiring auto insurance is that because of bankruptcy laws and the expense of litigation, it can be difficult for a victim of a car accident to recover damages from the tortfeasor. These uncompensated losses are perfect examples of negative externalities.
I'm not going to suggest that generalizations are good, but you have to understand that insurance companies have to be able to produce a quote for you that matches what they think they may need to charge you. In order to do this, they have to take into account as much information as possible. Among these things include, age, driver records, whether or not you've been with said insurance provider before, the car you drive, and your gender.
Sound ridiculous? Well, Mr. Smarty pants, you tell me how you're going to quote someone who you don't know, and you have no idea how they're going to drive. It's not easy. Before you say that Geico is being sexist, think about how little information they can get that really shows them what kind of driver you are.
Most insurance companies, to counter their generalizations, usually lower your rate after the first year or two because you're actually a better driver than they had originally thought. They couldn't really make a good judgement, they just quoted you what they thought they may need to charge you.
As far as male Sexism goes, I agree it is there and rampant. Its in commercials, with women being the smart counterpart, and the male being the dumb husband / boyfriend that is irresponsible and fun-loving.
In high school, I remember filling out forms for college grants etc. and there were a lot more grants and loans available to the females (and minorities in general.) By filling out the form and just checking the female box, all of a sudden, you had 10x as many options.
But, all in all, you can't really complain about sexism or discrimination (or shouldn't as it is sometimes justifiable or impossible to really prove). BUT its hard not to when so many times minorities go to the discrimination card each time something isn't in their favor. Its a two way street, after all.
What is Sexism? "prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women" 1
That leads us to the question, what is prejudice?
"An adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge" 2
So based on this short excercise in semantics we can see that the prejudice part of sexism does not fit the bill. The reasons as to why men are treated differently are several, and have good empirical and statistical backing:
"According to TrafficSTATS, a risk analysis study by Carnegie Mellon for AAA in 2007, men have a 77% higher risk of dying in an accident compared to women. The study, using information from both the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the National Household Travel Survey estimated fatalities per 100 million trips to be 14.61 for men and 6.53 for women. The total number of fatalities between 1999 and 2005 were 175,094 for men and 82,371 women.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), 14,512 male drivers died in 2007 compared to 5,865 female drivers, and even though there tend to be more male drivers on the road than females, the numbers strongly support the TrafficSTATS report."[/b] 3
So we are left with the question whether men are being discriminated against. The answer here is obviously yes. Any act that makes a distinction between two groups in any way can be considered discrimination. 4 But is that really interesting? The discrimanition here stems from just reasoning and facts.
So where does this lead us? Yes men are treated differently than women, but for good reasons and so the differing treatment that stems from differing anticipations seems perfectly reasonable.
Bleh was going to write more with reasoning and stuff and numbers and quotes and sources, but then I realized that it is a 24 page thread filled with people who will not listen anyway. My personal opinion is that since ALL data the insurance company gets factors into their pricing. (Or at least it should) singling out gender as problematic is just tiresome and old fashioned. Why not make rants about ageism:
"All the evidence points to young males having riskier driving habits than young females. Men between the ages of 16 and 25 are much more likely to be involved in accidents, or be cited for traffic violations," explains Insurance.com VP, Sam Belden. "Insurance companies bear this kind of behavior in mind when quoting rates." 5
or a list of other things you can bitch about: What You've Done Age Had accidents Gender Gotten traffic tickets Marital status "B" average in school (for students) Zip code Taken a Defensive Driver course # of years licensed Let your policy lapse Credit history Filed bankruptcy Home ownership Filed lots of claims Occupation 7
It just feels so contrived to bitch about this....
If you think that a flat insurance rate no matter what would be better then you are probably wrong. There is alot of theoretical and empirical data that you would have to disprove at least. I wish you good luck in that endeavor. 8
What is Sexism? "prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women" 1
That leads us to the question, what is prejudice?
"An adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge" 2
So based on this short excercise in semantics we can see that the prejudice part of sexism does not fit the bill. The reasons as to why men are treated differently are several, and have good empirical and statistical backing:
"According to TrafficSTATS, a risk analysis study by Carnegie Mellon for AAA in 2007, men have a 77% higher risk of dying in an accident compared to women. The study, using information from both the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) and the National Household Travel Survey estimated fatalities per 100 million trips to be 14.61 for men and 6.53 for women. The total number of fatalities between 1999 and 2005 were 175,094 for men and 82,371 women.
According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), 14,512 male drivers died in 2007 compared to 5,865 female drivers, and even though there tend to be more male drivers on the road than females, the numbers strongly support the TrafficSTATS report."3
So we are left with the question whether men are being discriminated against. The answer here is obviously yes. Any act that makes a distinction between two groups in any way can be considered discrimination. 4 But is that really interesting? The discrimanition here stems from just reasoning and facts.
So where does this lead us? Yes men are treated differently than women, but for good reasons and so the differing treatment that stems from differing anticipations seems perfectly reasonable.
Bleh was going to write more with reasoning and stuff and numbers and quotes and sources, but then I realized that it is a 24 page thread filled with people who will not listen anyway. My personal opinion is that since ALL data the insurance company gets factors into their pricing. (Or at least it should) singling out gender as problematic is just tiresome and old fashioned. Why not make rants about ageism:
"All the evidence points to young males having riskier driving habits than young females. Men between the ages of 16 and 25 are much more likely to be involved in accidents, or be cited for traffic violations," explains Insurance.com VP, Sam Belden. "Insurance companies bear this kind of behavior in mind when quoting rates." 5
or a list of other things you can bitch about: What You've Done Age Had accidents Gender Gotten traffic tickets Marital status "B" average in school (for students) Zip code Taken a Defensive Driver course # of years licensed Let your policy lapse Credit history Filed bankruptcy Home ownership Filed lots of claims Occupation 7
It just feels so contrived to bitch about this....
If you think that a flat insurance rate no matter what would be better then you are probably wrong. There is alot of theoretical and empirical data that you would have to disprove at least. I wish you good luck in that endeavor. 8
I just want to point out that prejudice is also defined as "any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable" 1 or "preconceived judgment or opinion" 2. So I don't see how you can semantically argue that the prejudice part of sexism does not apply, whether the discrimination is warranted or not.
On November 23 2010 10:49 Vanished131 wrote: At least you understood my original premise. This is unjustified. Discriminating solely on the basis of sex is immoral and is protected in the United States of America, yet they get away with it due to statistics.
I think we should consider that each one of us is Vanished131, the most careful driver. Do you deserve to have your rates raised just because a select 1 or 2 percent of your gender thinks they are the most macho piece that ever walked the Earth?
The fact that this is discrimination, I don't believe, has yet to be defeated by anyone here. Citing news reports and wikipedia articles is a bad habit.
Err... I fail to see the problem with discriminating. We discriminate all the time. We discriminate between apple juice and orange juice, and pick one based on our preference and discrimination.
What is morally wrong, is discriminating on an irrational basis.
Do you have a problem that I'd rather hire men to work in a mine because I can fairly assume they'd be more productive in strenuous physical labour?
Let's assume you are the world's most careful driver. How would the insurance company know that? They judge you based on your attributes. Driving history, age, gender, et cetera. If they don't ask for your race, I think they certainly should. The more information, the easier it is to pinpoint the likely risk of insuring you. Should they instead simply trust your word that you're the world's most careful driver?
No, you're right. This is discrimination. The form of discrimination that is justified, that society cannot do without. And it's people like you, with all their cries of political correctness that renders society dishonest in their words and actions.
On November 24 2010 06:48 Krikkitone wrote: It would be great for business if Rest. A charges 10$ for a buffet Rest. B charges teens 12$, children+seniors 5$, and adults 7$, for the buffet.
Rest. B gets all the children/senior/adult business, Rest. A goes out of business because feeding the teens is costing more than it can make at only 10$
There is a reason why restaurants don't discriminate on teens and adults and usually give deep discounts for children. Families place a premium on eating together which means that children and teens can be loss leaders for the rest of the family. As long as the restaurant makes money on the whole check, the restaurant is happy. College-age males usually are the worst for buffets, but restaurants can recover a profit on serving alcohol.
If the restaurant is really focused on buffet, then they will cut costs to the point where serving everybody at the prevailing buffet price is profitable - even for the giant eaters.
There are other strategies to pricing than perfectly matching up your costs to the prices you charge.
You can have loss leaders only if items/individuals want to shop in groups. (families together or alcohol+buffet)
In a perfectly competitive market the only companies that survive are the one's that price the product Slightly above what it costs them to make the product. If the cost of the product varies based on the individual they provide it to, then the companies which best predict that cost will succeed the best.
(Buffets only work because restaurants aren't perfectly competitive, and/or you are selling 'the experience' with loss leaders)
Insurance is one of the few things where the cost definitely varies based on the individual it is sold to. Insurance is not part of an "experience" or something that gets packaged with something else often.
i think the key here is that discimination is defined by many as "treating things/people different based on X", instead of "treating ppl different based on X while it is not proven that X influences the variable we are measuring". i´d prefer the latter as the definition of discrimination.
for example, women are much more likely to suffer from breast cancer than men. if an insurance company lets this enter their calculations for the premiums of men and women, is this any unfair or morally questionable? no!
if someone says that men are better than women at managing a company, this is sexism. not because of the fact that it claims men and women to be different in a particular cause, but because this claim is not backed up by data. ceteris paribus, there is no evidence that men are better at managing a company than women, its just external factors which lead to women having less success in the higher levels of management.
so if for example someone says that women are worse than men at tennis or shotput, this is no sexism in my eyes because there is hard evidence that men and women, by their gender and its biological implications, possess very different preconditions for playing tennis or doing shotput. (shotputting?)
now the example with the higher crime rate among blacks: this is discimination because it fails to account for the proven confounders of this statistic: neighborhood, education and social status largely affect ones risk of committing a crime, and race is strongly correlated with these variables. if these confounders are accounted for, there remains no substantion influence of race on the crimerate.
so to finally address the original question: im no expert in this matter, but as far as i know, even if all known and measured confounders are taken out of the equation, there still remains an influence of gender on the risk of causing car accidents that justifies insurance companies charging men and women differently for their car insurance. the question whether this is discrimination/sexism or not is a difficult one because it is not certain if the correlation between gender and driving risk would disappear if additional potential explaining variables would be measured. for instance, it is not implausible that aggression is more prevalent in men than in women and this is the reason for the connection between gender and the car accident frequency.
so the question raised by the OP in my opinion comes down to the question if insurance companies are acting morally wrong if they only try to reduce the influence of spurios correlation on their calculations as much as its profitable, but not as much as it would be possible. huuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... *scratcheshischin*
On November 24 2010 09:36 Black Gun wrote: i think the key here is that discimination is defined by many as "treating things/people different based on X", instead of "treating ppl different based on X while it is not proven that X influences the variable we are measuring". i´d prefer the latter as the definition of discrimination.
for example, women are much more likely to suffer from breast cancer than men. if an insurance company lets this enter their calculations for the premiums of men and women, is this any unfair or morally questionable? no!
if someone says that men are better than women at managing a company, this is sexism. not because of the fact that it claims men and women to be different in a particular cause, but because this claim is not backed up by data. ceteris paribus, there is no evidence that men are better at managing a company than women, its just external factors which lead to women having less success in the higher levels of management.
so if for example someone says that women are worse than men at tennis or shotput, this is no sexism in my eyes because there is hard evidence that men and women, by their gender and its biological implications, possess very different preconditions for playing tennis or doing shotput. (shotputting?)
now the example with the higher crime rate among blacks: this is discimination because it fails to account for the proven confounders of this statistic: neighborhood, education and social status largely affect ones risk of committing a crime, and race is strongly correlated with these variables. if these confounders are accounted for, there remains no substantion influence of race on the crimerate.
so to finally address the original question: im no expert in this matter, but as far as i know, even if all known confounders are taken out of the equation, there still remains an influence of gender on the risk of causing car accidents that justifies insurance companies charging men and women differently for their car insurance. the question whether this is discrimination/sexism or not is a difficult one because it is not certain if the correlation between gender and driving risk would disappear if additional potential explaining variables would be measured. for instance, it is not implausible that aggression is more prevalent in men than in women and this is the reason for the connection between gender and the car accident frequency.
so the question raised by the OP in my opinion comes down to the question if insurance companies are acting morally wrong if they only try to reduce the influence of spurios correlation on their calculations as much as its profitable, but not as much as it would be possible. huuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm... *scratcheshischin*
profitable v. possible tend to approximate each other.
It might be possible to require everyone to submit to a 10-month detailed psychological+physical evalution consisting of grueling conditions and thousands of hours of driving, and a complete genetic sequence and bloodwork, before they are given auto insurance... "Possible" technically describes that but not really.
And to say that men are better than women at shotput is ignoring the confounding factor of genetic factors and hormone levels that Happen to be on the Y chromosome, but still vary from individual to individual (as a male I am sure there is a woman somewhere better at shotput than me).
Essentially, it is to the benefit of the insurance company to get more detailed models.. but only of factors they can reliably measure. Gender is fairly easily measurable and can stand in for a number of otherwise realistically unmeasurable factors (aggression).
This is same type of reasoning that makes 18 year olds adults, its flawed, but it would tie up the courts if everyone had to file for emancipation (or their parents had to file for the right to abandon them)
And to say that men are better than women at shotput is ignoring the confounding factor of genetic factors and hormone levels that Happen to be on the Y chromosome, but still vary from individual to individual (as a male I am sure there is a woman somewhere better at shotput than me).
ok, i should have made it clearer: my sports example ofc was referring to the professional top athletes. there is no chance at all for the best shotputter women to be better than the best shotputter men, just like the best female tennis player will always get roflstomped by the best male tennis player, at least until genetic engineering and/or mechanical implants are used.
there are biological differences between men and women that make men have a big, biologically given advantage in their potential at most sports. ofc this biological potential by far isnt used completely in most casual athletes or even couch potatoes, but its clearly showing on the level of professional athletes.
therefore, it is no sexism to say "female professional tennis players cant compete with male professional tennis players, at least not when comparing players with the same rank in the world rankings of their respective gender with each other."
First off, I noticed people commenting the fact that ”hero” firms wouldn't be able to compete with the regular ones and I doubt a lot of the people arguing against discrimination (for clarity and lack of a better word, although I really don't like the expression) are expecting companies to adjust their prices out of good will, which of course is unreasonable.
The notion that insurance-companies would be unable to profit if they were forced to remove sex as a factor in their price calculation models is ridiculous. There is a large variety of ways to design an insurance, perhaps a really cheap insurance but with a high co-insurance percentage will appeal to drivers who are confident in their capabilities, while the more expensive with a next to non-existent max payout might be of interest when you got yourself a brand new Porsche. Having a more volatile insurance where the cost will drop very quickly when you're nice while skyrocketing if you when you get a ticket might also be a way to target certain customers. While the change might make insurance a tad more expensive you might find that well tailored might be just as good as cheap. Point: there's plenty of room for competition, still.
Now why change the system? The most common answer appears to be”because discrimination is bad” which may be a sufficient reason to a moral absolutist, now I would argue that this is fairly irrelevant. How you arrive at the point where you go ”Ah, we should legislate against discrimination.” doesn't really matter, be it ”We'll go to hell if we don't!” or my personal favorite ”I've got a cock, no bitch should be getting better prices than me.” Consistency should be the main focus here. If denying a woman a job because she's a woman is illegal then naturally giving her a better price also is.
Lets put it this way, how come women are less wanted at many places, ”Well employers incorrectly believe to not perform as well as men.” is the answer you'd get. Now the assumption that women and men perform the exact same way is pretty laughable. I'm sure no one would contest the fact that we're different. Sure the net gain/loss for the employer might be diminishingly small when choosing a person of either sex, it might also be fairly significant. Our only reasonable conclusion is that we don't have the means of calculating this difference. What the employer will do is a rough estimation, he will choose the man (let's use the more common occurrence) because he thinks it will work out better for him in the end, there's really no way to discern this from the insurance firms discriminating men through pricing.
”Hey! The insurance dudes base their discrimination on statistics, that's science.” So the insurance dude just had a customer mail him some details and now he's at his desk with the info and some statistics. The box next to ”male” is crossed, ”Great, time to make some money!” the dude goes. However this decision must be considered to have been done on a base just as stable (or unstable, if you will) as the employers decision of denying that poor woman a job, they both used what little information they had and made the best of it. In this perspective even though the statistics based choice may be a slight bit more accurate, both of these sets of information tells ridiculously little about the individuals. Saying one is valid while the other isn't I think is strange when they're both just points on the same scale of accuracy, not to mention very far from the 100% mark.
As for which path to go down, looking at it as objectively as possible I would have to go for the no-legislation, I firmly believe that it's just a matter of time before women and other discr.. (I'm not even going to use it again, I'm not even sure i agree with this words existence, wp me using it loads of times in this post) thingied groups are going to end up where they should be, salary wise and insurance wise. Perhaps the most important reason I dislike laws like this is that you simply can't enforce them, and they're also fairly easy to abuse and we can't have that can we?
I'd probably vote for more equal insurance prices though, because I've got a cock and I like money. If you're not a hypocrite you're dumb.
However this decision must be considered to have been done on a base just as stable (or unstable, if you will) as the employers decision of denying that poor woman a job, they both used what little information they had and made the best of it.
Why would we think that? Insurance companies hire armies of actuaries to process all the data they have into actuarial tables, with proper controls and all that (because accurate actuarial tables are a competitive advantage in the insurance market). I very much doubt employers go through such a rigorous process to determine the probability of success in hiring a man over a woman.
However this decision must be considered to have been done on a base just as stable (or unstable, if you will) as the employers decision of denying that poor woman a job, they both used what little information they had and made the best of it.
Why would we think that? Insurance companies hire armies of actuaries to process all the data they have into actuarial tables, with proper controls and all that (because accurate actuarial tables are a competitive advantage in the insurance market). I very much doubt employers go through such a rigorous process to determine the probability of success in hiring a man over a woman.
Yeah, using "just as" was bad wording, please refer to my later point that while the statistics are a tad better they're a lot closer to each other than to the goal, when you look at the big picture. Drawing an arbitrary line saying one is sufficiently accurate because you chose to call one of them science is just a bad excuse in my book.
I agree the employers will generally just go for whatever feels right, probably deciding in a few seconds, but then again they have a lifetime of collecting data behind them. As long as it's not completely random I'd say my point still stands.
After speaking with a Geico representative, they told me that I am going to be refunded the difference between the quoted policies. Which happened to be about a 15% discount.
I must mention that the reason for the difference in the quoted policies, according to the nice lady on the phone, was not because I changed my gender--rather it was because they have a "new way" of calculating how much to charge a specific person for their policy. Either way, I now pay 15% less for standing up in what I believe in!
After speaking with a Geico representative, they told me that I am going to be refunded the difference between the quoted policies. Which happened to be about a 15% discount.
I must mention that the reason for the difference in the quoted policies, according to the nice lady on the phone, was not because I changed my gender--rather it was because they have a "new way" of calculating how much to charge a specific person for their policy. Either way, I now pay 15% less for standing up in what I believe in!
Take this bribe and gtfo.
I like that one, I'd say it's pretty old though.
I am glad they gave me the money... I really didn't feel like looking for another insurance company. I am happpppy!!! :D
After speaking with a Geico representative, they told me that I am going to be refunded the difference between the quoted policies. Which happened to be about a 15% discount.
I must mention that the reason for the difference in the quoted policies, according to the nice lady on the phone, was not because I changed my gender--rather it was because they have a "new way" of calculating how much to charge a specific person for their policy. Either way, I now pay 15% less for standing up in what I believe in!
Geico. 15 minutes of whining could save you 15% on car insurance.
After speaking with a Geico representative, they told me that I am going to be refunded the difference between the quoted policies. Which happened to be about a 15% discount.
I must mention that the reason for the difference in the quoted policies, according to the nice lady on the phone, was not because I changed my gender--rather it was because they have a "new way" of calculating how much to charge a specific person for their policy. Either way, I now pay 15% less for standing up in what I believe in!
Geico. 15 minutes of whining could save you 15% on car insurance.
On November 23 2010 11:05 smashczar wrote: This "sexism against men" thing is popping up more and more, it's really dangerous reactionary garbage considering women are the most oppressed and exploited group of people in world history. MY INSURANCE
"World" There's the problem. We can't do anything about women's rights in other countries unless we invade them all and impose our way of life on them.
On November 23 2010 11:05 smashczar wrote: This "sexism against men" thing is popping up more and more, it's really dangerous reactionary garbage considering women are the most oppressed and exploited group of people in world history. MY INSURANCE
"World" There's the problem. We can't do anything about women's rights in other countries unless we invade them all and impose our way of life on them.
And heaven knows the US would never do that.
Seriously though, I have to agree with Smashczar on this one. Even in the most women friendly countries on earth, men still occupy most of the positions of authority, make more money etc
On November 23 2010 11:05 smashczar wrote: This "sexism against men" thing is popping up more and more, it's really dangerous reactionary garbage considering women are the most oppressed and exploited group of people in world history. MY INSURANCE
"World" There's the problem. We can't do anything about women's rights in other countries unless we invade them all and impose our way of life on them.
And heaven knows the US would never do that.
Seriously though, I have to agree with Smashczar on this one. Even in the most women friendly countries on earth, men still occupy most of the positions of authority, make more money etc.
You do realize the two sides of sexism are not mutually exclusive? If you are really for gender equality, sexism against men is just as unacceptable as sexism against women.
Insurance itself is the problem. Its purpose is claimed to be for your own safety, yet it's forced upon you and prices vary. All insurance should be equally priced or voluntary. Also, the statistics argument doesn't work, you could come up with thousands of statistics to hike up insurance because something like "people with worse grades in school" get in more accidents can be proven "true" by some research when it doesn't really mean anything or is so arbitrary in terms of insurance that it is pointless.
Insurance is just a business, they'll use anything they can to take more money from you - that's good business, not discrimination.
Insurance itself is the problem. Its purpose is claimed to be for your own safety, yet it's forced upon you and prices vary. All insurance should be equally priced or voluntary.
That's not the purpose of insurance. The purpose of insurance is to insure you against risky, costly events. People buy it because they'd rather pay small regular payments than lose a big sum of money unexpectedly, even if it ends up being the same amount in both cases. In fact, insurance sometimes causes people to be less safe; this is called moral hazard.
If all insurance were equally priced, you would get adverse selection (as well as moral hazard). Please read wikipedia before further commenting.
In my opinion "sexism" tends to be used in a larger context than this situation (discrimination based on multiple skills), but this is just an argument over definitions. If you want to argue that men are worst drivers, it should be based direct comparisons between man and woman; avoiding secondary factors such as men drive more or men make more money (see early pages of this thread). There will be men who do not drive as much nor make as much money.
There have been studies on hormone differences between men and women that could cause women to have more mental flexibility.
Also we shouldn't ignore an important distraction that arises in the summertime for male drivers.
In all seriousness, I am not sure that insurance companies would change if there were more ethical ways to group drivers given that the current method is good for their business. It is good to question this because splitting people into groups based on gender while ignoring any confounding variables is discriminatory (although in this case somewhat acceptable).
On November 24 2010 14:37 quiet_storm wrote: In my opinion "sexism" tends to be used in a larger context than this situation (discrimination based on multiple skills), but this is just an argument over definitions. If you want to argue that men are worst drivers, it should be based direct comparisons between man and woman; avoiding secondary factors such as men drive more or men make more money (see early pages of this thread). There will be men who do not drive as much nor make as much money.
There have been studies on hormone differences between men and women that could cause women to have more mental flexibility.
Also we shouldn't ignore an important distraction that arises in the summertime for male drivers.
In all seriousness, I am not sure that insurance companies would change if there were more ethical ways to group drivers given that the current method is good for their business. It is good to question this because splitting people into groups based on gender while ignoring any confounding variables is discriminatory (although in this case somewhat acceptable).
Though it may sometimes seem like it, actuaries aren't magic genies who can take one look at your name and know all your statistics in and out. All they can do is guess based on the information given. And if their model says that men are more risky than women, the only thing they can do is to bend over sideways and give you your money back. Damn sexist pigs.
On November 24 2010 10:48 kidd wrote: Insurance itself is the problem. Its purpose is claimed to be for your own safety, yet it's forced upon you and prices vary. All insurance should be equally priced or voluntary.
Should you have to pay more for insuring a car that will be used in risky activities, such as motor races, versus a car that will be used for commuting to work daily? From the standpoint of the insurance company, the answer is clearly a yes. The insurance company is running a business and not a charity, they would rationally charge someone engaging in risky activities more premium.
Back on topic, I do believe that insurance is exempted from discrimination acts on the basis that they substantiate their discrimination with actual factual data. Thus even if the company was discriminating against the men, you have to accept that they probably have data to support their discrimination.
You should also note that while you are discriminated for motor insurance, women are discriminated for other insurance policies. I'm not saying it is a fair thing to do, but it is the more viable way of running a business that sells protection against risks.
On November 23 2010 22:05 kojinshugi wrote: If insurance is to be fair to every policy holder, it needs to operate by statistics and not political correctness.
You may be the safest driver in the world but if you're in a demographically more risky group it's only fair that you pay a higher premium.
KK, let's start racially profiling, then. As long as it's statistically backed up, it's cool, right?
Statistically it makes perfect sense, and logically we should do it. The reason racial profiling is undesirable is because it singles out an already victimized group. I'm sorry, but "male" is not a minority.
That's all well and good except it's illegal to drive without insurance, sooo...
Then don't drive. Using a vehicle on collectively owned property is a privilege, not a right. Make more money and hire a chauffeur, or live on your own private island and drive as much as you want.
Statistically it makes perfect sense, and logically we should do it. The reason racial profiling is undesirable is because it singles out an already victimized group. I'm sorry, but "male" is not a minority.
That's all well and good except it's illegal to drive without insurance, sooo...
Then don't drive. Using a vehicle on collectively owned property is a privilege, not a right. Make more money and hire a chauffeur, or live on your own private island and drive as much as you want.
Racial profiling no longer singles out a "minority." Better think of another excuse now.
Customer service does have a lot of discretion to waive/change prices and fees for customers in very competitive businesses (a year in a natural gas company's call center taught me that).
The golden rule is: "complain and threaten to remove your business, and the company will buckle just to not have to deal with you".
Remember, though, this is only for businesses that depend on customer loyalty. It doesn't work as well in retail situations, unless you have a meltdown or something.
The fact that man acts implies discrimination. The very fact that man prefers one thing to another implies discrimination as a necessary condition of human conduct
I guess the Geico representative was french too, lol.
Gratz on your refund but it's only because you complained, not because of sexism or anything of the sort. The moment you have an accident or get a ticket and your insurance rates go up you can bet they will tack on that additional 15%.
"for standing up for what I believe in", According to customer service thats exactly why they gave you a refund, but hey I'm not a customer service rep so this is just my meaningless opinion.
I guess we can all thank racism for giving discrimination such a negative connotation, it's not always a bad thing to do! When I use the bathroom I always make sure to discriminate between the toilet and the bath tub. Sure I could shit in either but I choose to discriminate because it MAKES SENSE!
I bet if we took a look at the statistics of problems after shitting in a tub or a toilet we would come to the conclusion we'd all rather shit in the toilet! According to those of you who agree with OP, I'm being totally shapist and thats just morally wrong and I should shit evenly....
Arguments like this is why millions of people have died from similarly pointless arguments.
Simple example: If a hair salon charges a woman more for her hair, even though she asks for a men's haircuit, obviously the salon is in the wrong. Just because she is likely to need a more complex cut does not mean she needs a more complex cut.
I would stop giving my business to such insurance companies, unfortunately, you probably don't have much of a choice.
The European Union has now banned the practice of using sex to determine insurance premiums for auto, life, and medical insurance. link
The ruling ordered changes effective Dec. 21, 2012, to auto insurance, life insurance, medical coverage and other plans, potentially affecting tens of millions of customers across the continent. For example, many women driver would see their car insurance costs rise even though they are considered safer on the road.
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said it was "now clear that an insurance company must not distinguish between women and men; all customers must be treated equally."
"This is a matter of respect for fundamental rights. It is now also becoming a matter of good business practices," Reding said.
given the statistical likeliness that a woman will get into an accident being much higher, wouldn't it be more logical to charge women higher, causing them to be more careful when they're driving?
Yeah, I'm ignorant when it comes to female drivers in other countries, but in Israel, whenever you see a woman behind the wheel, you should run, as far and as fast as you can...
And if you happen to be driving behind her, be prepared to hit the brakes at a second's notice...
For Britons the knock-on effect of this ruling is that men will no longer receive higher annuities than women. This piece of "discrimination" was based on the undeniable fact that women live longer, and thus providing them with an annuity is, on average, more expensive. The result will be a cut in income for many male employees who, as previous blogs have discussed, are increasingly reliant on DC pensions and who in Britain have not much choice about buying an annuity. (The answer will be for married men to opt for joint life annuities where there should be no change in rate. But that won't help single men or widowers.)
Ignoring the facts of demography is a very strange approach. Does the court have a secret plan to reduce female life expectancy? Ah yes, by increasing the cost of car insurance for women, they will force them into being passengers in cars driven by testosterone-fuelled young men. See, it's joined-up thinking, after all.
On March 02 2011 09:21 WyghtWolf wrote: given the statistical likeliness that a woman will get into an accident being much higher, wouldn't it be more logical to charge women higher, causing them to be more careful when they're driving?
Yeah, I'm ignorant when it comes to female drivers in other countries, but in Israel, whenever you see a woman behind the wheel, you should run, as far and as fast as you can...
And if you happen to be driving behind her, be prepared to hit the brakes at a second's notice...
In the US (and it sounds like, in the EU) women are safer drivers. Men are charged more not to cause them to be more careful, but simply as a form of risk management for the insurance company.
On March 02 2011 09:21 WyghtWolf wrote: given the statistical likeliness that a woman will get into an accident being much higher, wouldn't it be more logical to charge women higher, causing them to be more careful when they're driving?
Yeah, I'm ignorant when it comes to female drivers in other countries, but in Israel, whenever you see a woman behind the wheel, you should run, as far and as fast as you can...
And if you happen to be driving behind her, be prepared to hit the brakes at a second's notice...
In the US (and it sounds like, in the EU) women are safer drivers. Men are charged more not to cause them to be more careful, but simply as a form of risk management for the insurance company.
Here we just get screwed over...
Women get charged less, but also total more cars =/
And surprisingly, they aren't even drunk when that happens. at least when men crash a car here, they have the decency to at least go without sleep for a few days first, or getting hammered to a point where their liver screams: "Oh god! please stop! don't drink anymore! I'm going to blow up now!"
Women? They just go around "Weee!!!!" and wrap the car around a tree, or run over a biker =/
Guess that's what you get when 99% of testers are horny heterosexual males with a sucky marriage...
Ya Its very annoying that I pay more based on what other people in the past have done. When I turned 17 and had my license, I paid huge amounts of money for minimum coverage.
Edit: After fully reading OP post, are there people on this thread that are actually supporting the "statistic" of the reasoning behind the "discrimination" ruling?
The problem is that this logic doesn't apply anywhere else, if you charge a certain minority higher rates because of statistics, it'd be considered discrimination. The only reason this is allowed is because it's discriminating against men.
Lololol all that change by the EU means is that men will get a 7.5% reduction and women will get a 7.5% increase in their premiums. It's not like there will be less accidents because of this change and the insurance companies certainly aren't going to sacrifice profits.
On March 02 2011 09:49 Gobe wrote: The problem is that this logic doesn't apply anywhere else, if you charge a certain minority higher rates because of statistics, it'd be considered discrimination. The only reason this is allowed is because it's discriminating against men.
Eh, women in the US pay more for health insurance (until age 45ish).
The EU ruling bans the practice entirely, including in the auto insurance market where the actuarial evidence shows men being a higher risk. I dunno that I agree with their ruling or not - it's a gray area since the statistics are valid but the principle is generally frowned upon. However I do applaud the court for being logically consistent in applying it to all insurance premiums, not just the areas where gender pricing is beneficial to men.
I'm sure this has already been mentioned. But tons of clubs do this all the time. A bar/club in Copenhagen is infamous for entry and free drinks for women costing only 60dkk (around 8€, I guess it's around 11$) and the same to men is 360dkk (around 42€ and guess around 66$). It's pretty smart. Alot of girls will ofc enter, since they can have a cheap night out. And the guys will pay just to get a chance to get with all the girls. The bar has been pulled to court several times, and have been forced to pay a fine of only a few thousand dkk (800-1200€ - 1100-1600$). That's less than they will make in a single evening just by pulling this off. The danish system clearly states that sexual harrassment can lead to (up to) 25.000dkk fines (8000€ - 11000$) fines and/or employees to get fired. But since no staff is feeling harrassed they can only fine. And since no "real" sexual "damage" has been done (ppl aren't exactly walking away crying) they can in no way pull off the big fees.
Now, the manager of the place has publicly admitted to do this (to get girls in cheap, so the guys will pay the party), since that's how nature work. You couldn't do it the other way around. And if everyone were to pay 220dkk (20€+ - 28$+) there would be enough girls - end as a result - not enough guys. And besides, guys are more likely to actually benefit from the free drinks.
On March 02 2011 09:48 heroyi wrote: Edit: After fully reading OP post, are there people on this thread that are actually supporting the "statistic" of the reasoning behind the "discrimination" ruling?
Yes, there are.
Insurance is, by definition, a business that works by prejudging people and discriminating against them according to shared traits. People who don't claim pay the people who do, and to make sure there is enough being paid in you need to know statistically who claims more. In the case of auto insurance, men do.
On March 02 2011 09:48 heroyi wrote: Edit: After fully reading OP post, are there people on this thread that are actually supporting the "statistic" of the reasoning behind the "discrimination" ruling?
Yes, there are.
Insurance is, by definition, a business that works by prejudging people and discriminating against them according to shared traits. People who don't claim pay the people who do, and to make sure there is enough being paid in you need to know statistically who claims more. In the case of auto insurance, men do.
You know, I've always known how to system works, but I've never managed to find a word to describe it...
A few minutes ago, my sister was watching a documentry or something, and I heard the name "Madoff" mentioned. I remembered it from somewhere, but couldn't place it. Looked it up, and found that he ran the highest ponzi scheme in history.
In a way, you could say that the insurance companies are sort of running ponzi schemes of their own, since they can only pay to clients with other clients' money, but they don't promise and outragous revenue.
In this case, I think the only ones who benefit from it are the employees of the company themselves, since, not only do they generate profit from the people who buy policies, but also(in the case of large insurance companies like AIG), they get people to invest money in their company, earning them even more.
I don't think you realize how extensively these insurance companies research their shit before giving out a quote. Every time anybody buys an insurance plan, they get as much data as they can from that person: race, gender, age, education level, car color, car model, car year, and so much more stuff. They compile ALL of this information, and every time anybody gets in an accident and makes an insurance claim, they see what categories they fit under. Then they do crazy calculations (they hire people to do nothing but this) to see what premium they should charge you given your specific attributes. For any given demographic, they can say "x% of this type of person has made an insurance claim for an average of y amount, with such and such standard deviation" and so and so.
They want to charge you just enough based on your demographic for them to make the maximum profit. If they charge too much, people will stop buying insurance policies because they no longer think it's worth it. If they don't charge enough, people of whatever demographic will get in as many crashes as expected, and the company won't have earned enough money to pay out.
Why would they charge men and women the same if they have factual evidence that men and women don't get in accidents at the same rate? Now if you want to question their data, you can do that, but assuming that their data and analysis is accurate, this practice of giving out different quotes is perfectly logical.
Bars and clubs are not exactly the same. I'm pretty sure it's cheaper for women everywhere. Bars know that women attract men, so if there are more women there, more men will come and pay to get in. And it's just a cover fee, anyway. It's not like the women are coming in for free, and get a free open bar, and never pay anything the entire night. Anyways, these bars and clubs don't do the extensive amount of number-crunching to figure out a profit-maximizing price for men and women, respectively. And why should they? It's extremely complicated mathematical work, and they don't have anywhere near the same sample size that insurance companies do.
as a person who is studying to work in the field of insurance, this argument seems really silly, and I believe that if men are statistically more accident-expensive, then they should shoulder higher premiums. Insurance companies look for ways to discern the risk level of crashing..risk is not sexist..
On March 02 2011 09:48 heroyi wrote: Edit: After fully reading OP post, are there people on this thread that are actually supporting the "statistic" of the reasoning behind the "discrimination" ruling?
Yes, there are.
Insurance is, by definition, a business that works by prejudging people and discriminating against them according to shared traits. People who don't claim pay the people who do, and to make sure there is enough being paid in you need to know statistically who claims more. In the case of auto insurance, men do.
I am well aware of how the system works. What I don't agree is on how the company works, although they can be a life saver if you have the right plans and get in the right accidents.
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, Young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
The same way,statistically, females are more likely to perform worse at certain jobs yet you can be sued if you hire a male over a female or pay males more.
I've ALWAYS agreed that this was a bullshit move to make more money for nothing from the eyes of the insurance companies, and why I'm glad a couple places are saying "The longer you are with us without a claim, the less you pay". For me, I've only had two speeding tickets since I started driving (Both in the first couple years of driving...) and being twenty five, I am still paying WAY more than a woman driving the same car as me.
If more places offered more aggressive "No Claim, less pay" system, I'd be happy.
It's pretty shitty that this sorta stuff still happens. But meh? what can you do?
It does make sense though from a business perspective. Statistically speaking I would think men are more likely to have car accidents, etc, because we are more inclined to do silly things behind the wheel.
On March 02 2011 10:49 Craton wrote: All the statistic sites only seem to have fatal accidents and not accidents in general. I hate arguments like this without actual numbers to look at.
Well if you're looking for accidents a year that number is 5-7 times higher then the 33k avg in the USA, you can look at claims data but not all accidents are reported and it depends what you count, i'm pretty sure all fatal accidents are.
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, Young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
The same way,statistically, females are more likely to perform worse at certain jobs yet you can be sued if you hire a male over a female or pay males more.
Not if the company is privately held, that's also only turning them down because they are a woman, car insurance takes in many factors just because sex and age group are only some of them doesn't make it inherently sexiest or ageist, they have solid stats backing up their decision. Just like the factor in your income, your car, how many miles you drive etc.
On March 02 2011 10:49 Craton wrote: All the statistic sites only seem to have fatal accidents and not accidents in general. I hate arguments like this without actual numbers to look at.
Yeah, unfortunately, it's in the interest of insurance companies to not let the data go completely public. When accidents get reported, they get reported to the companies, but the companies don't want to release any information.
Otherwise, someone reasonably skilled at math could do some quick calculations of their own, and suddenly realize, "Hey, I'm getting ripped off like mad..." The companies basically have to take advantage of the disparity in knowledge between them and the general public.
And for the job-related argument a couple posts up, can you give some examples of jobs where women are proven to be worse workers? You don't need to rigorously cite anything, but it should definitely be objective. For accident rates, you have nothing but numbers, so there's no room for qualitative bias. When you're analyzing ability at a job, though, most of the time it is evaluated qualitatively.
On March 02 2011 10:05 Mentalizor wrote: I'm sure this has already been mentioned. But tons of clubs do this all the time. A bar/club in Copenhagen is infamous for entry and free drinks for women costing only 60dkk (around 8€, I guess it's around 11$) and the same to men is 360dkk (around 42€ and guess around 66$). It's pretty smart. Alot of girls will ofc enter, since they can have a cheap night out. And the guys will pay just to get a chance to get with all the girls. The bar has been pulled to court several times, and have been forced to pay a fine of only a few thousand dkk (800-1200€ - 1100-1600$). That's less than they will make in a single evening just by pulling this off. The danish system clearly states that sexual harrassment can lead to (up to) 25.000dkk fines (8000€ - 11000$) fines and/or employees to get fired. But since no staff is feeling harrassed they can only fine. And since no "real" sexual "damage" has been done (ppl aren't exactly walking away crying) they can in no way pull off the big fees.
Now, the manager of the place has publicly admitted to do this (to get girls in cheap, so the guys will pay the party), since that's how nature work. You couldn't do it the other way around. And if everyone were to pay 220dkk (20€+ - 28$+) there would be enough girls - end as a result - not enough guys. And besides, guys are more likely to actually benefit from the free drinks.
Thoughts on this?
Who is dumb enough to go to such a place? And who spends 42 euros on a drink? You can invite a friend or two and go out eating in a restaurant for that kind of money. Well if he does that too often doesn't the place get shut down?
Even though its based on statistics why should it still be allowed? What if they found for example Japanese drivers crashed more often than American drivers. Would a company discriminate of race even if it was statistically proven? No way. Why allow it for gender?
On March 02 2011 10:49 Craton wrote: All the statistic sites only seem to have fatal accidents and not accidents in general. I hate arguments like this without actual numbers to look at.
Yeah, unfortunately, it's in the interest of insurance companies to not let the data go completely public. When accidents get reported, they get reported to the companies, but the companies don't want to release any information.
Otherwise, someone reasonably skilled at math could do some quick calculations of their own, and suddenly realize, "Hey, I'm getting ripped off like mad..." The companies basically have to take advantage of the disparity in knowledge between them and the general public.
And for the job-related argument a couple posts up, can you give some examples of jobs where women are proven to be worse workers? You don't need to rigorously cite anything, but it should definitely be objective. For accident rates, you have nothing but numbers, so there's no room for qualitative bias. When you're analyzing ability at a job, though, most of the time it is evaluated qualitatively.
Women off leave to have children and take long, paid maternity leave. Making them far less efficient to employ cost-wise.
Men have also been show to be better at certain things like abstract thinking (according to a psychologist house mate), so for certain jobs shouldn't men be favoured? (And for other jobs women are more suited due to them being better at certain other tasks).
No, because we shouldn't discriminate like that. Even if being male makes you more likely to crash, it's still discriminatory. We don't discriminate against disabled people because it might cost us more to install some ramps or something. Its the principle.
It's doesn't help equality of the sexes either in my opinion by giving one side special treatment.
On March 02 2011 10:05 Mentalizor wrote: I'm sure this has already been mentioned. But tons of clubs do this all the time. A bar/club in Copenhagen is infamous for entry and free drinks for women costing only 60dkk (around 8€, I guess it's around 11$) and the same to men is 360dkk (around 42€ and guess around 66$). It's pretty smart. Alot of girls will ofc enter, since they can have a cheap night out. And the guys will pay just to get a chance to get with all the girls. The bar has been pulled to court several times, and have been forced to pay a fine of only a few thousand dkk (800-1200€ - 1100-1600$). That's less than they will make in a single evening just by pulling this off. The danish system clearly states that sexual harrassment can lead to (up to) 25.000dkk fines (8000€ - 11000$) fines and/or employees to get fired. But since no staff is feeling harrassed they can only fine. And since no "real" sexual "damage" has been done (ppl aren't exactly walking away crying) they can in no way pull off the big fees.
Now, the manager of the place has publicly admitted to do this (to get girls in cheap, so the guys will pay the party), since that's how nature work. You couldn't do it the other way around. And if everyone were to pay 220dkk (20€+ - 28$+) there would be enough girls - end as a result - not enough guys. And besides, guys are more likely to actually benefit from the free drinks.
Thoughts on this?
Who is dumb enough to go to such a place? And who spends 42 euros on a drink? You can invite a friend or two and go out eating in a restaurant for that kind of money. Well if he does that too often doesn't the place get shut down?
3 things...
1: It's not for A drink. It's for free drinks all night.
2: The price level in Denmark is through the roof -.-
3: Well the authorities can't shut down the place, since it's only doing minor legal fractions. Like a restaurant being busted in not cleaning the plates or something. I guess it's just using a glitch in the danish legalsystem.
...Oh... And I've actually never been to this place. A bunch of my friends were though. They say there's so many ppl in there - and such bad service - that there's NO way you can actually get drinks for anywhere near what you paid to enter - if you're a guy
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
If you look at it that way you could probably find different accident/speeding rates between different races also, but it doesnt mean they should be charged separately. It pisses me off when I havent had an accident ever and no tickets in about 7-8 years but I still have to pay more than a couple female friends who have been shittier drivers than me.
On March 02 2011 10:05 Mentalizor wrote: I'm sure this has already been mentioned. But tons of clubs do this all the time. A bar/club in Copenhagen is infamous for entry and free drinks for women costing only 60dkk (around 8€, I guess it's around 11$) and the same to men is 360dkk (around 42€ and guess around 66$). It's pretty smart. Alot of girls will ofc enter, since they can have a cheap night out. And the guys will pay just to get a chance to get with all the girls. The bar has been pulled to court several times, and have been forced to pay a fine of only a few thousand dkk (800-1200€ - 1100-1600$). That's less than they will make in a single evening just by pulling this off. The danish system clearly states that sexual harrassment can lead to (up to) 25.000dkk fines (8000€ - 11000$) fines and/or employees to get fired. But since no staff is feeling harrassed they can only fine. And since no "real" sexual "damage" has been done (ppl aren't exactly walking away crying) they can in no way pull off the big fees.
Now, the manager of the place has publicly admitted to do this (to get girls in cheap, so the guys will pay the party), since that's how nature work. You couldn't do it the other way around. And if everyone were to pay 220dkk (20€+ - 28$+) there would be enough girls - end as a result - not enough guys. And besides, guys are more likely to actually benefit from the free drinks.
Thoughts on this?
Who is dumb enough to go to such a place? And who spends 42 euros on a drink? You can invite a friend or two and go out eating in a restaurant for that kind of money. Well if he does that too often doesn't the place get shut down?
Is this real? 42 for a drink?!?! My local is £0.50 - £1 per pint.
i drive a sports car. i've never had an accident, i'm experienced in track racing and auto x. i've had many close encounters on the freeway and were able to avoid it thanks to my experience in driving and lack of trust of other drivers (ie. i suspect all cars around me as potential car changing lane without looking). my insurance is high because of other idiots driving the same car as me get into accidents.
On March 02 2011 10:33 Lamphead wrote: as a person who is studying to work in the field of insurance, this argument seems really silly, and I believe that if men are statistically more accident-expensive, then they should shoulder higher premiums. Insurance companies look for ways to discern the risk level of crashing..risk is not sexist..
The issue is about what is allowable as a deciding factor.
If you look at it simply, you have lots of variables:
Age of driver. Race of driver. Sex of driver. Location of car. Length of license. Car.
etc etc.
All of these could be used as risk factors. Not all of them are (race being excluded). The issue isn't "does this impact accident risk?" the issue is "while this is a variable, are we going to let it be used for discrimination?" and the answer is no. Equally there would be the potential to say that giving different premiums based on age is a bad thing, since that's age discrimination, but it has been decided that age discrimination is acceptable, and while sex discrimination used to be acceptable, it no longer is. Simple as.
Whether women do or do not have less accidents doesn't matter, the simple fact is that they have decided it's unacceptable to decide your insurance risk level based on your sex, just like you can't judge it based on race. You can still continue to discriminate based on other things though, such as age.
On March 02 2011 11:16 Mitchlew wrote: Even though its based on statistics why should it still be allowed? What if they found for example Japanese drivers crashed more often than American drivers. Would a company discriminate of race even if it was statistically proven? No way. Why allow it for gender?
The problem is that the motor insurance industry, particularly in Europe, is currently not profitable due to Bodily Injury Claims Inflation and Insurance Fraud. Another dimension to the problem is that comparison websites allow people to quickly and easily compare prices and can 'tweak' data for their insurance quotes by seeing what combination of personal details lower prices on these quote websites. For instance, first time drivers may use details such as their parent's home address to achieve reduced premiums. These issues force down the profitability margins for insurance companies while driving up their reserve ratios.
Because of this, insurers have to use any and all available data that they can get in order to model risk liability. Anything that shows a demonstrable link to risk will be priced in accordingly if the insurance company can do so. It wouldn't matter if the factor was gender, age, postcode, type of car, etc.; if the insurer can price this issue into their model they will.
It's a pretty topical issue. If you're interested in this, I'd recommend reading research in this area. A few good papers would be those written by The Actuarial Profession Working Party, Deloitte and Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
On March 02 2011 10:05 Mentalizor wrote: I'm sure this has already been mentioned. But tons of clubs do this all the time. A bar/club in Copenhagen is infamous for entry and free drinks for women costing only 60dkk (around 8€, I guess it's around 11$) and the same to men is 360dkk (around 42€ and guess around 66$). It's pretty smart. Alot of girls will ofc enter, since they can have a cheap night out. And the guys will pay just to get a chance to get with all the girls. The bar has been pulled to court several times, and have been forced to pay a fine of only a few thousand dkk (800-1200€ - 1100-1600$). That's less than they will make in a single evening just by pulling this off. The danish system clearly states that sexual harrassment can lead to (up to) 25.000dkk fines (8000€ - 11000$) fines and/or employees to get fired. But since no staff is feeling harrassed they can only fine. And since no "real" sexual "damage" has been done (ppl aren't exactly walking away crying) they can in no way pull off the big fees.
Now, the manager of the place has publicly admitted to do this (to get girls in cheap, so the guys will pay the party), since that's how nature work. You couldn't do it the other way around. And if everyone were to pay 220dkk (20€+ - 28$+) there would be enough girls - end as a result - not enough guys. And besides, guys are more likely to actually benefit from the free drinks.
Thoughts on this?
Who is dumb enough to go to such a place? And who spends 42 euros on a drink? You can invite a friend or two and go out eating in a restaurant for that kind of money. Well if he does that too often doesn't the place get shut down?
Is this real? 42 for a drink?!?! My local is £0.50 - £1 per pint.
Wow seriously? On the local bar (that's really bad and for drunks) the cheapest beer I can get is 26dkk (around 3,50€) for half a liter... In regular bars it's more like 40-50dkk (6-7€)
Fact: Women live longer then men. Thus, if they buy a life insurance, you would expect them to pay less premiums because they live longer. How is pricing from a fact discriminating. You have proven statistics behind this.
Same with auto insurance. Severity for an accident tends to be higher if the driver was male. Hence, they should pay more.
The sad part, is say, you do like Europe and prevent insurers from pricing using gender. Then sad part is everybody will end up paying more. Yes, men may pay slightly less, but in aggregate, premiums should be higher because the uncertainty is greater.
On March 02 2011 10:05 Mentalizor wrote: I'm sure this has already been mentioned. But tons of clubs do this all the time. A bar/club in Copenhagen is infamous for entry and free drinks for women costing only 60dkk (around 8€, I guess it's around 11$) and the same to men is 360dkk (around 42€ and guess around 66$). It's pretty smart. Alot of girls will ofc enter, since they can have a cheap night out. And the guys will pay just to get a chance to get with all the girls. The bar has been pulled to court several times, and have been forced to pay a fine of only a few thousand dkk (800-1200€ - 1100-1600$). That's less than they will make in a single evening just by pulling this off. The danish system clearly states that sexual harrassment can lead to (up to) 25.000dkk fines (8000€ - 11000$) fines and/or employees to get fired. But since no staff is feeling harrassed they can only fine. And since no "real" sexual "damage" has been done (ppl aren't exactly walking away crying) they can in no way pull off the big fees.
Now, the manager of the place has publicly admitted to do this (to get girls in cheap, so the guys will pay the party), since that's how nature work. You couldn't do it the other way around. And if everyone were to pay 220dkk (20€+ - 28$+) there would be enough girls - end as a result - not enough guys. And besides, guys are more likely to actually benefit from the free drinks.
Thoughts on this?
Who is dumb enough to go to such a place? And who spends 42 euros on a drink? You can invite a friend or two and go out eating in a restaurant for that kind of money. Well if he does that too often doesn't the place get shut down?
Men penis females
Enough reasoning and excuse for some guys.
Seriously though, 42 for guys...that better be one hell of a club and it better have some fine people
Those who get into accidents are already charged more so why would you want to charge every member of a certain gender more simply based on their gender, whether or not they have accidents?
sources: women get paid less relevant discussion: quit acting like an entitled baby because they pay 10 bucks a month less on car insurance
Childish argument. Women who work the same hours, have the same experience and the same education get paid the same. Those have less of the above get paid less.
If you think insurance costs should be based on income then why not just base it off income instead off of gender?
Bleh...there is a lot of sexism against women on the internet. It is like racism in 18th century France.
But sexism against men is going to rise without a doubt. Now, women are going to college in larger numbers and there are more work at home dads which makes women the bread winners of the family.
Stuff like this is going to happen more and more as time goes on.
On March 02 2011 10:49 Craton wrote: All the statistic sites only seem to have fatal accidents and not accidents in general. I hate arguments like this without actual numbers to look at.
This paper describes risk of both fatal and nonfatal accidents by age/sex/blood alcohol content. The discussion of rates when BAC = 0 would give a fair baseline on male vs female by age group when alcohol is not a factor.
On March 02 2011 12:11 Jones993 wrote: Those who get into accidents are already charged more so why would you want to charge every member of a certain gender more simply based on their gender, whether or not they have accidents?
sources: women get paid less relevant discussion: quit acting like an entitled baby because they pay 10 bucks a month less on car insurance
Childish argument. Women who work the same hours, have the same experience and the same education get paid the same. Those have less of the above get paid less.
If you think insurance costs should be based on income then why not just base it off income instead off of gender?
I agree with your opinion on insurance contribution rates, but you are wrong about wages. Women with the same experience and education actually get paid less (on average). The reasoning in media coverage about that seemed to be that women get off worse in negotiations with superiors about salaries.
I don't agree. Once you have an accident you pay more because you are a greater risk to the company. Someone who has had an accident is more likely to have an accident then someone who has not.
students with a 3.0 or higher , a female gets 50 dollars a month, while a male is 120 all because they say "men are more than likely to get into races" what they are doing is and discriminating due to "statistics" any one can make up statistics to go into their favor, they do not ask all people in the united states they talk to select few that they choose.What they should do is instead of blaming it due to a generalised statement"stereotype"they should create rates due to an individual not their gender
On March 02 2011 12:11 Jones993 wrote: Those who get into accidents are already charged more so why would you want to charge every member of a certain gender more simply based on their gender, whether or not they have accidents?
sources: women get paid less relevant discussion: quit acting like an entitled baby because they pay 10 bucks a month less on car insurance
Childish argument. Women who work the same hours, have the same experience and the same education get paid the same. Those have less of the above get paid less.
If you think insurance costs should be based on income then why not just base it off income instead off of gender?
I agree with your opinion on insurance contribution rates, but you are wrong about wages. Women with the same experience and education actually get paid less (on average). The reasoning in media coverage about that seemed to be that women get off worse in negotiations with superiors about salaries.
it's become women are more likely to accept lower pay then a man for alot of positions, also younger women who come up though university actually get payed equal to above what most men would be payed older women though still fall into that category of what 80 cents on the dollar compared to a man. Anyways sexism implies intent of wrongful discrimination, if you dress like a pot dealer and are a pot dealer it is not discrimination if someone points out that you're a pot dealer. Statistics that the companies gathered show why women are age groups get different rates.
On March 02 2011 14:54 Mcbeastly wrote: students with a 3.0 or higher , a female gets 50 dollars a month, while a male is 120 all because they say "men are more than likely to get into races" what they are doing is and discriminating due to "statistics" any one can make up statistics to go into their favor, they do not ask all people in the united states they talk to select few that they choose.What they should do is instead of blaming it due to a generalised statement"stereotype"they should create rates due to an individual not their gender
yup the government data on fatal car accidents is clearly made up data. A family with 3 children one of those children is 7 times more likely to make less then their parents did then if it was just a family of two children. Individuals are different but that's what auto history is for =p . Just becuase it's not causation ie being male = more car accidents doesn't mean the data isn't valid for risk assessment.
Im a 23 year old male that had to shop around for insurance because Allstate initially wanted to charge me 367 dollars a month to insure my car. FOR BASIC LIABILITY>
Geico gave me full coverage for 220. That will be cut in half when I get married in 3 months.
For some reason when I get married I become less of a risk?
I've also taken defensive driving, two professional driving courses, and drive over 60 hours a week because of my job.
I've had one accident. My tire exploded in the rain and caused me to hit the guard rail....FOUR YEARS AGO.
My fiancee? Never had to pay more than 100...ever. Sounds fair.
On March 02 2011 16:45 Jayme wrote: Im a 23 year old male that had to shop around for insurance because Allstate initially wanted to charge me 367 dollars a month to insure my car. FOR BASIC LIABILITY>
Geico gave me full coverage for 220. That will be cut in half when I get married in 3 months.
For some reason when I get married I become less of a risk?
I've also taken defensive driving, two professional driving courses, and drive over 60 hours a week because of my job.
I've had one accident. My tire exploded in the rain and caused me to hit the guard rail....FOUR YEARS AGO.
My fiancee? Never had to pay more than 100...ever. Sounds fair.
Well, the fact that you drive 60 hours a week can't really help your case (though it makes sense that it will help you driving, to someone in an office chair its just more time on the road you are vulnerable to an accident).
Simply put, these people just play by the statistics. It isn't really sexism, per se, it's just looking at things objectively. If you think these statistics are wrong, they wouldn't be doing these sort of price discrimination - after all, they are looking to maximize profits, not "stick it to the x-group"
Edit: I'm using "you" as a general term, not as you specifically Jayme
On March 02 2011 16:45 Jayme wrote: Im a 23 year old male that had to shop around for insurance because Allstate initially wanted to charge me 367 dollars a month to insure my car. FOR BASIC LIABILITY>
Geico gave me full coverage for 220. That will be cut in half when I get married in 3 months.
For some reason when I get married I become less of a risk?
I've also taken defensive driving, two professional driving courses, and drive over 60 hours a week because of my job.
I've had one accident. My tire exploded in the rain and caused me to hit the guard rail....FOUR YEARS AGO.
My fiancee? Never had to pay more than 100...ever. Sounds fair.
Well, the fact that you drive 60 hours a week can't really help your case (though it makes sense that it will help you driving, to someone in an office chair its just more time on the road you are vulnerable to an accident).
Simply put, these people just play by the statistics. It isn't really sexism, per se, it's just looking at things objectively. If you think these statistics are wrong, they wouldn't be doing these sort of price discrimination - after all, they are looking to maximize profits, not "stick it to the x-group"
Edit: I'm using "you" as a general term, not as you specifically Jayme
Okay I should have explained that better.
Of those 60 hours 50 of that is driving in a police car. That obviously doesn't count toward my insurance premium(at least it better not). So really 50 hours can be seen as me just practicing if you want.
I understand they play the statistics but I believe that gender has a bigger impact on premiums than it should.
I have 1 accident on my record and no tickets. I am 23. My car was worth about 29k new. My fiancee has 1 accident on her record and 1 ticket. She is 22. Her car was worth about 26k new.
I pay 220 a month for insurance. She pays 90.
She has never taken a driving course in her life. I have taken 1 defensive driving and 2 professional courses as stated earlier.
Can you explain to me that 130 dollar difference? The argument that it's because my car is worth 3k more doesn't fly because her coverage goes up by like 5 dollars under my car so that obviously isn't it.
She has 1 driving ticket over me, and three classes less...and yet I pay 130 dollars more a month.
Why?
Because I'm a male under 25 years old. I don't find it fair. There are times when statistics are wonderful and all but I don't think this is worth it. To make it even worse my insurance literally gets cut in half ( i've been told my coverage goes down to 110) the moment I get married. What? WHY?
i am a hiring manager. i have two candidates, each equally skilled, same credentials, etc. one is white, one is nonwhite.
i hire the white guy and i tell the nonwhite guy that he was not hired because "statistically, more nonwhites steal from their employers than whites, so even though you may not, you bear the burden."
i just committed several crimes and violated several labor regulations.
On March 02 2011 12:11 Jones993 wrote: Those who get into accidents are already charged more so why would you want to charge every member of a certain gender more simply based on their gender, whether or not they have accidents?
sources: women get paid less relevant discussion: quit acting like an entitled baby because they pay 10 bucks a month less on car insurance
Childish argument. Women who work the same hours, have the same experience and the same education get paid the same. Those have less of the above get paid less.
If you think insurance costs should be based on income then why not just base it off income instead off of gender?
As for your criteria, it sounds good on paper,but it still comes down to statistical analysis and economic maximization calculations. It's likely that they do discriminate with regards to gender because even if they discriminated only using income, paying car insurance would still compose a larger fraction of a woman's income than that of a male's.
But that sound's crazy, you might say, because it's based off of income alone. Well can you think of the number of things women have to buy that aren't normalized with respect to income? Many, many things. One important idea that people are missing, by focusing on the idea that the insurance companies have a vendetta against men, is the fact that insurance companies are out to maximize their profit, and if statistics didn't hold up in practice, they wouldn't use them.
On March 02 2011 17:45 annul wrote: extend this argument to the employment world:
i am a hiring manager. i have two candidates, each equally skilled, same credentials, etc. one is white, one is nonwhite.
i hire the white guy and i tell the nonwhite guy that he was not hired because "statistically, more nonwhites steal from their employers than whites, so even though you may not, you bear the burden."
i just committed several crimes and violated several labor regulations.
why can insurance companies do this?
Because the business model for insurance companies is specifically built around charging people based on risk factors. The sex of the aplicant is a risk factor. All other things being equal, a female driver is less likely to make a claim than a male driver, so it is entirely appropriate for insurance companies to charge a different price for women.
On March 02 2011 17:45 annul wrote: extend this argument to the employment world:
i am a hiring manager. i have two candidates, each equally skilled, same credentials, etc. one is white, one is nonwhite.
i hire the white guy and i tell the nonwhite guy that he was not hired because "statistically, more nonwhites steal from their employers than whites, so even though you may not, you bear the burden."
i just committed several crimes and violated several labor regulations.
why can insurance companies do this?
But you can just not employ the nonwhite guy and give some other reason. The law doesn't stop that. I personaly don't agree with any of this legislation, including the employers legislation. And this insurance change is just the EU doing something pointless yet again.
Where do you stop? Next you wont be able to discriminate on age. So 7 years olds will be allowed to take their driving tests etc.. etc...
On November 23 2010 10:54 MutatedMiracle wrote: I'm pretty sure this is based on scientific research though (ie. males are proven more likely to get into car crashes than females.) Is that really sexism? Otherwise, the different female and male leagues in sports would be sexist too.
...But don't mind me, I'm the lurker with the low post count lol
So why not add in ethnicity would you like that? If your asian your rates are higher as your more likley to be a bad driver?
Not to be racist. but every accident i have ever seen that was more then a fender bender included a asian ethnicity.
On March 02 2011 17:45 annul wrote: extend this argument to the employment world:
i am a hiring manager. i have two candidates, each equally skilled, same credentials, etc. one is white, one is nonwhite.
i hire the white guy and i tell the nonwhite guy that he was not hired because "statistically, more nonwhites steal from their employers than whites, so even though you may not, you bear the burden."
i just committed several crimes and violated several labor regulations.
why can insurance companies do this?
Racism of that type isn't allowed because of the acknowledgment by many people including the Supreme Court of the existence of structural racism that inherently predisposes certain racial groups to be less successful, to tend towards criminality, and to be suspicious of authority. It also places an undue burden on members of those races that are trying to curtail this unfortunate trend. This isn't even mentioning the very weak ties that race has in terms of job efficiency, most of it coming from word of mouth or popular belief (both of which are for the most part wrong.)
It's because of these societal imbalances that probably has prevented any serious lawsuit to affect insurance premiums for women in the same way. They're absolutely paid less, so prices can be discriminated in such a fashion without much fear of legal consequences. Supreme Court has stated that proven existing discrimination can be used to justify unequal treatment (especially with the intent of remedying past and current discrimination [although that's very much debatable as the reasoning of an insurance company.])
Well I have to disagree with people saying men are more dangerous drivers without any back up cus if we just gonna make statements without back up we mine as well get sexist and say women are bad drivers. Any who statistcally 90 percent of statistics are made up, including that one.
I say way to go on calling Geico on thier bs. All sorts of profiling are bad. is bad? w/e
On March 02 2011 18:30 shane_danger16 wrote: Well I have to disagree with people saying men are more dangerous drivers without any back up cus if we just gonna make statements without back up we mine as well get sexist and say women are bad drivers. Any who statistcally 90 percent of statistics are made up, including that one.
I say way to go on calling Geico on thier bs. All sorts of profiling are bad. is bad? w/e
Are you a white male? Then I would believe your belief that profiling is bad, just not as bad as you think.
One way to think about it is whether or not you're negatively affected by handicapped people having the nearest parking spots reserved for them. It's an illusion that you're harmed because they're open half the time, but if they weren't handicapped spots to begin with, the spot wouldn't be open because people got there before you did. You would still make basically the same walk to wherever you were driving to. You can't deny the fact that handicapped people are very much benefited by having parking spots so close to where they need to go more so than you are.
This is only an allegory to the whole notion that affirmative action or profiling benefiting any particular group has to inherently cause equivalent harm to others not benefited. Can we really argue that? Are you really benefited by those extra parking spaces being available to everyone?
If you know what Bakke vs UC Davis Medical School is, the Supreme Court decided that quotas were illegal. Bakke was admitted because the Supreme Court demanded it but an important note was left out in this: With affirmative action in place, Bakke had a 95-97% chance of being rejected from UC Davis. With it taken out of place, his true chances of getting in were 91-93%. Why is this possible? Because the vast applicant pool is not composed of those individuals that are benefiting from affirmative action/profiling/discrimination/what have you. The idea of extensive harm from the sort of profiling we're talking about is vastly overrated.
As for racial profiling in terms of police officers stopping certain minorities incessantly, that's another issue altogether.
Edit: Those statistics were taken from my class on African American Legal History that I'm currently taking. No, I did not make them up, and if you want a source I can dig it up with some book reference if you're that determined.
i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
No, he feels used by the insurance industry. they are the ones that make a profit
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
No, he feels used by the insurance industry. they are the ones that make a profit
i know that, you know that, but he denied it at first so i rephrase it just so he could see that we were talking about the same thing in different 'coating'.
In Denmark, it's pretty normal that women are given way more favorable offers in big coorporations. As the goverment has issued that Denmark needs more women on the top level of danish business.
These offers are usualy women only courses and trainee positions that men can't apply for.. If there would be men only positions or internships, the left wings would gnaw off their own legs and club the people doing it with them..
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
The European... whatever it is, just forbade health insurances in europe to charge according to gender.
On November 23 2010 10:54 Fa1nT wrote: They do the same with age, problem? Statistically, male and females, young and old, have different rates of accidents, and thus should be charged separately.
The European... whatever it is, just forbade health insurances in europe to charge according to gender.
I believe it was the European Court, and they outlawed sexual discrimination on insurance of all kinds.
The insurance industry in Europe just got quite a large shakeup, even though it doesn't come into effect until the end of 2012.
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
You can't manufacture statistics in an (ideal) competetive environment. If it was indeed economical to charge men less for car insurance, someone would do it and reap the benefits of a huge and loyal client base (getting a giant boost because it's a "discrimination" issue, not just a price issue). With all the sexism talks and men being pissed about being charged twice the money, only a fool wouldn't charge the "true price" and get all those clients if it was possible.
But alas, insurance makes money from statistics, they don't have anything else. Arguing that at least requires a strong background, not just "I feel it ain't no fair" talks.
To be honest, all those discrimination talks from americans are borderline retarded. I can't even imagine how a society built upon a dangerously false implication that all people are somehow equal could function.
The reasons behind women getting paid less at least in Russia are very trivial. It's not that a woman could not do a job as well as a man. No, just as an employer, you would never give a job that requires responsibility (and therefore, has good salaries) to a person who might go MIA for a year without warning and is government-protected in that situation. Women are completely disabled during and after pregnancy and culture prohibits any enforcements on birth control, so they are just not reliable enough for key positions. Better hire her as a secretary that you can easily replace when needed. There are women with careers in Russia as well as in the other countries, but they have to build abit more reputation before being accepted at the top level, for the very same reasons. Unfair? Well, maybe, unfair for those seeking great job options. But had it been regulated at the stage of application (like if you could actually go to court after not being accepted for the job you formally qualified for), it would be unfair to employers, because they would be forced to hire inferior (pure statistic, nothing personal) employees. With business already being hard to establish here, I can see perfectly why such "discrimination" is a good thing.
so if u bother to look up men have higher rates of automobile accidents then women. *simple google search isn't that hard kids* obviously the insurance will follow suit after reading the thread, it seems people actually know this and still don't understand, in which case i can't help you, you are beyond hope. ( although the post above mine is pretty good)
On March 02 2011 20:12 HeavOnEarth wrote: so if u bother to look up men have higher rates of automobile accidents then women. *simple google search isn't that hard kids* obviously the insurance will follow suit after reading the thread, it seems people actually know this and still don't understand, in which case i can't help you, you are beyond hope. ( although the post above mine is pretty good)
So if blacks statistically happened to have more automobile accidents than whites, would you expect insurance companies to charge all blacks more too? Or what about if gays had more accidents, should they be charged more as well for being gay?
On March 02 2011 20:12 HeavOnEarth wrote: so if u bother to look up men have higher rates of automobile accidents then women. *simple google search isn't that hard kids* obviously the insurance will follow suit after reading the thread, it seems people actually know this and still don't understand, in which case i can't help you, you are beyond hope. ( although the post above mine is pretty good)
So if blacks statistically happened to have more automobile accidents than whites, would you expect insurance companies to charge all blacks more too? Or what about if gays had more accidents, should they be charged more as well for being gay?
Yup. Although obviously the latter would be hard to implement, and doesn't really make sense. If black male teens are high at risk, then obviously their demographic should be charged more . Otherwise you get the other option- charge people who are doing better the difference, the insurance doesn't magically have money coming out a tree, you see.
On March 02 2011 20:12 HeavOnEarth wrote: so if u bother to look up men have higher rates of automobile accidents then women. *simple google search isn't that hard kids* obviously the insurance will follow suit after reading the thread, it seems people actually know this and still don't understand, in which case i can't help you, you are beyond hope. ( although the post above mine is pretty good)
So if blacks statistically happened to have more automobile accidents than whites, would you expect insurance companies to charge all blacks more too? Or what about if gays had more accidents, should they be charged more as well for being gay?
Yup. Although obviously the latter would be hard to implement, and doesn't really make sense. If black male teens are high at risk, then obviously their demographic should be charged more . Otherwise you get the other option- charge people who are doing better the difference, the insurance doesn't magically have money coming out a tree, you see.
Do you know how much of an outrage there would be if that were to happen? Any insurance company that did that would probably lose close to all of their business for racial or sexual discrimination, or there would be so much of an outcry that the government would have to step in and make it illegal to discriminate in that way.
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
No, he feels used by the insurance industry. they are the ones that make a profit
My brother and sister were talking about this yesterday, and he told me that apparently all the top insurance companies have made a loss for the last 10 years. No source for this, so don't take it as gospel, but it's interesting if true.
Talking as someone who knows some of the models being used by insurance companies I can tell you the following. The more the insurance companies differentiate between different groups of people the more money they make. Afterall anyone pretty much pays what they do anyway (mayby they give a very small discount), and then they let the bad risks in their portfolio pay substantially more.
My criticism on this is that if you were to apply this indefinately you would simply end up in the situation where everyone is paying for his own damages, thus destroying the entire idea behind insurance. Which is you trow everything on a big heap and whomever is unfortunate enough to need it gets some of the money from that heap. And thats IMHO how it should be. This differentiation / discrimination is ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if people with glasses would cause more accidents as well, should we charge them more? Should we ask more money for health insurance of people who had the unfortune of being born with a chronic disease?
Plus there already exist models to reward people who drive safely, i.e. based on their actions not for what they are, such as the bonus-malus system.
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
No, he feels used by the insurance industry. they are the ones that make a profit
My brother and sister were talking about this yesterday, and he told me that apparently all the top insurance companies have made a loss for the last 10 years. No source for this, so don't take it as gospel, but it's interesting if true.
Well the automobile industry is not really profitable as a whole. Most P&C insurers subsidize their automobile block of business with housing insurance.
Anyway, drop in profits really have to do with the decline in the yield curve. Profits for automobile industry is mostly driven by investment income. Also, given the large amount of competition, they usually offer competitive prices by assuming a certain return on their assets. Take this into consideration and the fact that the yield curve has hit historic lows in the past few years, the bottom line impact is that this line of business has been not that great for the industry as a whole.
It's pretty ridiculous that insurance companies aren't going to be allowed to do proper risk assessment in the EU any more. Women on average cost them less so they charge women less in order to attract more women. It makes complete sense. If someone wanted to do that for any group that generally makes less claims (whether that's based on race, age, sex, number of pets owned or whatever) then that's absolutely fine. The whole point of insurance is that you make a risk assessment and then charge to take on that risk. Why screw over insurance companies so much in this way?
I say this as a 21 year old male who has to pay roughly double for car insurance compared to what he would as a woman, by the way. It sucks that I have to pay for some idiot males' mistakes but it's those idiots' faults, not insurers. I mean, sure, it's nice that my premium should go down a bit now, but it's a very stupid ruling that will likely have further implications of removing the idea that men and women are different on average and thus as a group can be treated differently by private companies in a way that is non-discriminatory but simply accurate assessment and common sense.
I dint think OP's example is valid, but there are things like this. For example, there are a lot of research going on about breast cancer than prostate and testicular cancer
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
You can't manufacture statistics in an (ideal) competetive environment. If it was indeed economical to charge men less for car insurance, someone would do it and reap the benefits of a huge and loyal client base (getting a giant boost because it's a "discrimination" issue, not just a price issue). With all the sexism talks and men being pissed about being charged twice the money, only a fool wouldn't charge the "true price" and get all those clients if it was possible.
But alas, insurance makes money from statistics, they don't have anything else. Arguing that at least requires a strong background, not just "I feel it ain't no fair" talks.
To be honest, all those discrimination talks from americans are borderline retarded. I can't even imagine how a society built upon a dangerously false implication that all people are somehow equal could function.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980516133725data_trunc_sys.shtml "The investigators discovered that teenage boys start recklessly, with about 20 per cent more crashes per mile driven than teenage girls. Males and females between the ages of 20 and 35 run almost identical risks. Females over the age of 35, however, are significantly more likely to crash than their male counterparts."
you can fake any statistic by not taking into accounts all the facts or by 'leading' the result into the desired direction.
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
You can't manufacture statistics in an (ideal) competetive environment. If it was indeed economical to charge men less for car insurance, someone would do it and reap the benefits of a huge and loyal client base (getting a giant boost because it's a "discrimination" issue, not just a price issue). With all the sexism talks and men being pissed about being charged twice the money, only a fool wouldn't charge the "true price" and get all those clients if it was possible.
But alas, insurance makes money from statistics, they don't have anything else. Arguing that at least requires a strong background, not just "I feel it ain't no fair" talks.
To be honest, all those discrimination talks from americans are borderline retarded. I can't even imagine how a society built upon a dangerously false implication that all people are somehow equal could function.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980516133725data_trunc_sys.shtml "The investigators discovered that teenage boys start recklessly, with about 20 per cent more crashes per mile driven than teenage girls. Males and females between the ages of 20 and 35 run almost identical risks. Females over the age of 35, however, are significantly more likely to crash than their male counterparts."
you can fake any statistic by not taking into accounts all the facts or by 'leading' the result into the desired direction.
bro thats a 1998 article on a sketchy site with no crenditals(aka sources) GOOD TRY THO hi5
This ruling kinda has me confused. I think what insurance companies do isn't discrimination, it's stereotyping (that doesn't make it right or any less annoying though). If "John Smith" applies for insurance, the company looks at their record, say "hmm, men cost us more in the past, we'll assume this man will too". I understand it's not fair but I'm not sure how insurance companies can operate otherwise.
Some companies do discriminate though - they completely refuse to offer insurance to men or to drivers below the age of 50. I wonder if this will be allowed to continue.
And if car insurance companies could no longer set premiums based on age, what about health insurance companies? Why should someone in their 60's pay more for health insurance or life insurance than someone in their 20's? It's seems pretty obvious to everyone why they do this, but how is this "discrimination" any worse than that covered by the recent EU ruling?
And what about disability? Why should someone with a disability, (e.g. asthma or diabetes) pay more for insurance?
And why should charges for anything discriminate on age? Why should someone aged under 18 pay less for a cinema ticket when they take up a seat and use all the same facilities?
I just really don't get how this ruling can be enforced because it opens up the possibility to so many things being called discrimination. But then I'm not a legal expert.
On November 23 2010 10:58 Kwidowmaker wrote: I don't consider this to be a substantial complaint. Insurance companies determine rates based on statistics and males are statistically worse drivers. Should women pay more because men drive worse?
There could be a real discussion about sexism against men. How courts deal with divorce and custody cases would be a good topic, how domestic violence against men isn't taken seriously would be a good topic, male body image would be a good topic, insurance rates are not. Perfectly good young drivers pay huge rates because their demographic is statistically much worse at driving.
But that's like saying "the darker your skin is, the more should you pay in taxes cause tecnically, black people commit more crimes, why should white people pay for black peoples crimes?". What's the diffrence? "herp derp thats racist" it's just as racist as what you're saying is sexist. There is men who does perfectly well driving and who's accidents are unrelated to bad driving, just like there's women who drives bad. Just like there's black people who doesnt do crimes and there's white people who does crimes. (sry for bad english)
"The investigators discovered that teenage boys start recklessly, with about 20 per cent more crashes per mile driven than teenage girls. Males and females between the ages of 20 and 35 run almost identical risks. Females over the age of 35, however, are significantly more likely to crash than their male counterparts."
you can fake any statistic by not taking into accounts all the facts or by 'leading' the result into the desired direction.
The "discrimination" that car insurance companies make is nothing to do with this.
They know that women have more accidents than men, but men have much more serious accidents than women (on average - yes we're stereotyping, but that's what this is all about)
A quote from the BBC article on this story yesterday: "The British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) said currently the cost of the average car claim by an 18-year old man was £4,400, while that for an 18-year old woman was £2,700."
Women are more likely to bump into a car in a car park and cause a small dent. Men are more likely to have a massive crash and destroy their car.
The statistics are not lying - it's just that the statistic you're quoting isn't the one that effects insurance companies the most and that's not what the higher premiums for men is based on. We all know that women have more accidents, but that doesn't change the fact that men are more expensive to insure. There's no conspiracy or fake statistics here.
I was thinking this was going to be one of those chivalry-when-they-want-it sexism-when-they-don't threads, but this is simply statistics. It's an (apparently not) well known fact that car insurance costs more for males because males, as a demographic, cost more to the insurance company to cover. Good ol' profit and loss.
On March 02 2011 20:32 DisneylandSC wrote: Talking as someone who knows some of the models being used by insurance companies I can tell you the following. The more the insurance companies differentiate between different groups of people the more money they make. Afterall anyone pretty much pays what they do anyway (mayby they give a very small discount), and then they let the bad risks in their portfolio pay substantially more.
My criticism on this is that if you were to apply this indefinately you would simply end up in the situation where everyone is paying for his own damages, thus destroying the entire idea behind insurance. Which is you trow everything on a big heap and whomever is unfortunate enough to need it gets some of the money from that heap.And thats IMHO how it should be. This differentiation / discrimination is ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if people with glasses would cause more accidents as well, should we charge them more? Should we ask more money for health insurance of people who had the unfortune of being born with a chronic disease?
Plus there already exist models to reward people who drive safely, i.e. based on their actions not for what they are, such as the bonus-malus system.
Can't you see how stupid that would be? You've just completely removed responsibility and common sense from the system.
You have to be able to discriminate against people more likely to crash. Starting with people who have crashed before, people with drink-driving convictions, speeding fines and ending with age, gender.
Otherwise you have a ridiculous system where you can crash into a wall and face no consequences.
Responsibility also means collective responsibility. In society everyone loses when they allow others to act stupidly. Almost every guy at some point has done something reckless and stupid, or egged someone on to do something stupid. We are collectively responsible for why our premiums are high, whether you like it or not.
The higher premiums has created an awareness that young men are reckless. This stereotype is something a lot of young men want to fight against and so already it's made a difference. The collective responsibility filters down and helps to solve the route of the problem (that young men are more reckless). It certainly made me especially careful when I was younger.
That's why a system based on responsibility is far better than one based on completely no responsbility.
On March 02 2011 19:12 xM(Z wrote: i think the real problem here is not that youre discriminated against, but that youre discriminated against ... for profit. men dont like to 'feel' used.
It's not about feeling used.
For me it's being charged because machismo assholes drive like idiots and wreck all the time and not on the merits of my pretty damn clean driving record. I've been annoyed at the insurance industry for awhile though so I should really...ignore it.
your argument is based on a statistic. people agreed that statistics are 'manufactured' to serve a purpose and you fell for it. but nvm that, what you said only proves my point. you feel used by the "machismo assholes" that "drive like idiots".
You can't manufacture statistics in an (ideal) competetive environment. If it was indeed economical to charge men less for car insurance, someone would do it and reap the benefits of a huge and loyal client base (getting a giant boost because it's a "discrimination" issue, not just a price issue). With all the sexism talks and men being pissed about being charged twice the money, only a fool wouldn't charge the "true price" and get all those clients if it was possible.
But alas, insurance makes money from statistics, they don't have anything else. Arguing that at least requires a strong background, not just "I feel it ain't no fair" talks.
To be honest, all those discrimination talks from americans are borderline retarded. I can't even imagine how a society built upon a dangerously false implication that all people are somehow equal could function.
http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980516133725data_trunc_sys.shtml "The investigators discovered that teenage boys start recklessly, with about 20 per cent more crashes per mile driven than teenage girls. Males and females between the ages of 20 and 35 run almost identical risks. Females over the age of 35, however, are significantly more likely to crash than their male counterparts."
you can fake any statistic by not taking into accounts all the facts or by 'leading' the result into the desired direction.
bro thats a 1998 article on a sketchy site with no crenditals(aka sources) GOOD TRY THO hi5
i wasnt quoting that for truth BRO. i dont care if its true or not. what that quote was supposed to do is show that statistics can fail.
read Flew posts for 'facts': -"They know that women have more accidents than men". -"Women are more likely to bump into a car in a car park and cause a small dent". see what i did there?. the only conclusion from that is : women suck as drivers
from the 'right' perspective any statistic can fail
Edit:@ Flew
A quote from the BBC article on this story yesterday: "The British Insurance Brokers' Association (BIBA) said currently the cost of the average car claim by an 18-year old man was £4,400, while that for an 18-year old woman was £2,700."
see, statistic valid for 18year olds but the insurance company charges 40yr olds the same. isnt it more 'fair' that if any discrimination is required, to be made based on age?
It's not the job of insurance companies to take an equal amount of money from everyone and redistribute it according to need. That's the job of government. If insurance companies can't properly conduct actuarial risk analysis, insurance might as well be public.
private insurance companies shouldve never existed. all insurances should be managed by the state and the contributions to insurance percieved as taxes.
On March 02 2011 23:17 xM(Z wrote: private insurance companies shouldve never existed. all insurances should be managed by the state and the contributions to insurance percieved as taxes.
Thanks for backing that up with a reasoned argument
On March 02 2011 23:17 xM(Z wrote: private insurance companies shouldve never existed. all insurances should be managed by the state and the contributions to insurance percieved as taxes.
Thanks for backing that up with a reasoned argument
People by nature are very prejudiced and biased. Every person is judged by an outside source based on their country of origin, their ethnicity, their economic status, and physical features. Sex is no different. Men are arguably more 'reckless' than women, and apparently get into more accidents (god women drive slow...). The insurance prices reflect this, at least there is a logical reason for this prejudice, and it's probably not just as simple as "men get into more accidents" or "women cant drive", You dont see reasoning this logical in other areas people are prejudiced.
A TF2 Proteam recently managed to get a sponsor - it's a kinda odd one, but they've sponsored a CS team before.... Fleshlight. Yes, the company making the (in)famous Fleshlights.
Now a feminist blog went all apeshit insane because of "Dildos are tools but these things are EWWWWWW" and thus ranted like crazy about it.
On November 23 2010 10:58 Kwidowmaker wrote: I don't consider this to be a substantial complaint. Insurance companies determine rates based on statistics and males are statistically worse drivers. Should women pay more because men drive worse?
There could be a real discussion about sexism against men. How courts deal with divorce and custody cases would be a good topic, how domestic violence against men isn't taken seriously would be a good topic, male body image would be a good topic, insurance rates are not. Perfectly good young drivers pay huge rates because their demographic is statistically much worse at driving.
But that's like saying "the darker your skin is, the more should you pay in taxes cause tecnically, black people commit more crimes, why should white people pay for black peoples crimes?". What's the diffrence? "herp derp thats racist" it's just as racist as what you're saying is sexist. There is men who does perfectly well driving and who's accidents are unrelated to bad driving, just like there's women who drives bad. Just like there's black people who doesnt do crimes and there's white people who does crimes. (sry for bad english)
No, it's not like that. Because taxes are not insurance. It's not like you're "insuring" against crimes. Insurance is entirely based on cost-benefit analysis. Insurance companies are taking a financial risk if they take you as a client. There's no other way to do it.
Insurance companies make rates based on statistics of their cost-benefit analysis. They have always done this and they always will. Would you prefer if their rates were completely arbitrary?
On March 02 2011 20:05 BluzMan wrote: The reasons behind women getting paid less at least in Russia are very trivial. It's not that a woman could not do a job as well as a man. No, just as an employer, you would never give a job that requires responsibility (and therefore, has good salaries) to a person who might go MIA for a year without warning and is government-protected in that situation. Women are completely disabled during and after pregnancy and culture prohibits any enforcements on birth control, so they are just not reliable enough for key positions. Better hire her as a secretary that you can easily replace when needed. There are women with careers in Russia as well as in the other countries, but they have to build abit more reputation before being accepted at the top level, for the very same reasons. Unfair? Well, maybe, unfair for those seeking great job options. But had it been regulated at the stage of application (like if you could actually go to court after not being accepted for the job you formally qualified for), it would be unfair to employers, because they would be forced to hire inferior (pure statistic, nothing personal) employees. With business already being hard to establish here, I can see perfectly why such "discrimination" is a good thing.
On March 02 2011 23:42 twiitar wrote: Okay, you wanna hear about sexism against men?
A TF2 Proteam recently managed to get a sponsor - it's a kinda odd one, but they've sponsored a CS team before.... Fleshlight. Yes, the company making the (in)famous Fleshlights.
Now a feminist blog went all apeshit insane because of "Dildos are tools but these things are EWWWWWW" and thus ranted like crazy about it.
so it seems like the EU decided that any of this statistical sexism is no longer ok. Byebye cheaper healthcare for men. And if you're girl going yeehaw, I think it's unlikely that this money is somehow going to end up in your pockets :> And you're gonna have to pay higher life insurance as well. All seems kinda meeh to me.
My mom has been with Allstate for 10 years. Up to those 10 years, she has had a clean record. No accidents, tickets, etc...
except one day...
She was trying to go groccery shopping, or something, and while she was traveling down this non-busy road, she was coming to an stoplight intersection. The intersection comprises the road running north and south, that leads to a busy road/intersection, and it intersects a road that connects directly from the apartment and goes down to another neighborhood. Obviously since it is considered a residential area the speed limit is about 25mph, like a school zone.
Anyway, as she was traveling down the road she slowed down since the light was red, but soon the light changed and started going, she was the second car in the lane, but this woman thought she could make it past her red light thus she accelerated.
Well what do you know, she hit about 40-50mph, slammed into my mom's passenger side door and pretty much made her do a 360 almost across the intersection into the incoming lane...The lady, who crashed my mom, was a tard and also didn't have her seat belt thus she apparently hit her head pretty hard on the steering wheel cutting her head, luckily for my mom she had her belt on because she described how the belt kept her body in place while her limbs flayed like a ragdoll.
Long story short, the damage came about 12G, btw wear your seat belts cause in accidents like these your company may pay you for defensive driving like my mom, but after calculating medical examinations and what not, her neck was fucked up a little, it came out into 5 figure bill for the company. My mom, who had full coverage, essentially got all her money back and then some.
The company, obviously, was NOT happy since they couldn't sue the lady cause she was dirt poor and threatened to drop my mother...who again had a clean substantial record with them.She threatened back saying she will sue them and ended up dropping their policy for liberty mutual, who are nice cheaper people. They wanted to drop her, despite her good record, because they lost money. And that is how insurance companies work. They try to get all the "good drivers" and hope that they don't get into accidents while they still dish out the rates. Get enough safe clients, and try to weed out the "bad" clients, cause you are trying to reduce liabilities that will make you lose money, and that means more money.Thus they are getting "free" money.
In the end she essentially circumvented the system and is considered the "outlier." Although technically they gave her the money since they fucked up on the car review and gave her a brand new engine when it wasn't needed but HEY we are not complaining :D
Yeah yesterday BBC news was talking about car insurance and how it will be equalised between the sexes because of the EU judgement. I find it hilarious personally. Not because I think it's a good idea to equalise like this (all it's going to do is give companies an excuse to charge more when it's all averaged out), but because it might make people finally realise that equality at all costs isn't necessarily a good thing. There are actually legitimate reasons for some forms of discrimination (ie young males get into more driving accidents than females, different genders/races are at different genetic levels of risk for certain diseases, maternity leave being a good thing but not for the company that now has to find a replacement, etc).
People complain about things when they feel hard-done by. You won't find feminists actively campaigning for father's rights to see their children, and you won't get fathers4justice speaking out about lower pay for women being unjust. This is not to say people from either of those groups might not feel that way about those issues, but they will concentrate on improving things for one group above all others - themselves. It's how human nature works. People need to stop, sit down, and think about whether things are actually 'injust' or if some things are imbalanced for a reason.
On March 03 2011 00:18 Hexaflex wrote: People need to stop, sit down, and think about whether things are actually 'injust' or if some things are imbalanced for a reason.
So? I have to pay more too because I'm only have my drivers license for a couple of years. It's not unusual you have to pay more because you fit into some kind of category. This isn't sexism nor is it discrimination.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
and what would be said if they charged different prices for different races because of 'statistics'
Insurance companies actually pushed to be able to do this but it was denied. I agree with your point though. Either discriminate based on stats or don't.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
It doesn't have to be one or the other. I'll just quote myself from the original discussion earlier in the thread:
On November 23 2010 22:15 bonifaceviii wrote: An interesting recent example from Canada is that it's recently come to light that a person's credit score affects their home insurance rates. Using credit score to determine someone's car insurance has been illegal for 5 years, but there is no similar policy for home insurance. There are calls to change the law.
I'm sure there is definitely a correlation between bad credit and home insurance claims, but the government decided to draw an arguably arbitrary line beyond which insurance companies could not extend their actuarial calculations.
Again, anyone who doesn't think insurance companies are limited enough in their ability to discriminate should write their local representative and express their concern. Government regulates business, and you have to let the government know how much regulation you want.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can bring, despite their sick days!
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can break, despite their sick days!
Your starting salary is set before you start working, there's no way to determine whether the person you hired is efficient or not. All you have are preexisting generalizations, just like with insurance rates. If women on average worked less and less efficiently, it is justified to pay them less, just like how men have to pay more insurance. Sure, the company can fire you if you aren't contributing, but the insurance company can drop you if you get into too many costly accidents.
I'm not saying that statistically, women take more sick days, since I have no sources. I'm assuming theoretically, that if they do take more sick days on average, women should be paid less. Also, where did I claim I wasn't sexist?
EDIT: how is an employer who pays an employee based on how many sick days were taken any different than the insurance company charging based on gender or age?
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can break, despite their sick days!
Your starting salary is set before you start working, there's no way to determine whether the person you hired is efficient or not. All you have are preexisting generalizations, just like with insurance rates. If women on average worked less and less efficiently, it is justified to pay them less, just like how men have to pay more insurance. Sure, the company can fire you if you aren't contributing, but the insurance company can drop you if you get into too many costly accidents.
I'm not saying that statistically, women take more sick days, since I have no sources. I'm assuming theoretically, that if they do take more sick days on average, women should be paid less. Also, where did I claim I wasn't sexist?
EDIT: how is an employer who pays an employee based on how many sick days were taken any different than the insurance company charging based on gender or age?
Of course that means Salary... like insurance rates should adjust based on performance (ie if you take more sick days your employer should pay you less... if you get into accidents your insurance rates go up)
Some people don't get the point. Gender is uncontrollable. You can not improve or prevent your gender. When insurance agencies consider your income, school grades, or past driving violations, those do reflect on you entirely, unlike gender.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can break, despite their sick days!
Your starting salary is set before you start working, there's no way to determine whether the person you hired is efficient or not. All you have are preexisting generalizations, just like with insurance rates. If women on average worked less and less efficiently, it is justified to pay them less, just like how men have to pay more insurance. Sure, the company can fire you if you aren't contributing, but the insurance company can drop you if you get into too many costly accidents.
I'm not saying that statistically, women take more sick days, since I have no sources. I'm assuming theoretically, that if they do take more sick days on average, women should be paid less. Also, where did I claim I wasn't sexist?
EDIT: how is an employer who pays an employee based on how many sick days were taken any different than the insurance company charging based on gender or age?
Of course that means Salary... like insurance rates should adjust based on performance (ie if you take more sick days your employer should pay you less... if you get into accidents your insurance rates go up)
Ideally, that would be the case, and insurance rates do go up if you get into accidents. It's just the base rates that people complain about.
Also, I don't understand what you're getting at...?
On March 03 2011 03:51 holynorth wrote: Some people don't get the point. Gender is uncontrollable. You can not improve or prevent your gender. When insurance agencies consider your income, school grades, or past driving violations, those do reflect on you entirely, unlike gender.
Actually you CAN change your gender under European law so your argument is invalid.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can break, despite their sick days!
Your starting salary is set before you start working, there's no way to determine whether the person you hired is efficient or not. All you have are preexisting generalizations, just like with insurance rates. If women on average worked less and less efficiently, it is justified to pay them less, just like how men have to pay more insurance. Sure, the company can fire you if you aren't contributing, but the insurance company can drop you if you get into too many costly accidents.
I'm not saying that statistically, women take more sick days, since I have no sources. I'm assuming theoretically, that if they do take more sick days on average, women should be paid less. Also, where did I claim I wasn't sexist?
Not true. You have lots of other methods to judge someones sick days on than their gender (like references). But if that was the ONLY thing that affected their ability to work, it would of course be justifiable to pay them less. Your argument doesn't make any sense though because as I said there's a million reasons to employ a woman over a man also.
EDIT: how is an employer who pays an employee based on how many sick days were taken any different than the insurance company charging based on gender or age?
On March 03 2011 03:51 holynorth wrote: Some people don't get the point. Gender is uncontrollable. You can not improve or prevent your gender. When insurance agencies consider your income, school grades, or past driving violations, those do reflect on you entirely, unlike gender.
On March 03 2011 03:51 holynorth wrote: Some people don't get the point. Gender is uncontrollable. You can not improve or prevent your gender. When insurance agencies consider your income, school grades, or past driving violations, those do reflect on you entirely, unlike gender.
Insurance companies could, as an alternative, act like credit rating agencies. Charge every new customer similar premiums to the an aggressive 75-year-old driver with bad eyes, dementia and 3 DUIs (since no driving history, like no credit history, would be worse than a bad driving history), slowly reducing them as the driver moves to more favourable parts of town, buys white Lincoln town cars and goes longer and longer without an accident.
I don't think that would be a particularly popular change, though.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can break, despite their sick days!
Your starting salary is set before you start working, there's no way to determine whether the person you hired is efficient or not. All you have are preexisting generalizations, just like with insurance rates. If women on average worked less and less efficiently, it is justified to pay them less, just like how men have to pay more insurance. Sure, the company can fire you if you aren't contributing, but the insurance company can drop you if you get into too many costly accidents.
I'm not saying that statistically, women take more sick days, since I have no sources. I'm assuming theoretically, that if they do take more sick days on average, women should be paid less. Also, where did I claim I wasn't sexist?
Not true. You have lots of other methods to judge someones sick days on than their gender (like references). But if that was the ONLY thing that affected their ability to work, it would of course be justifiable to pay them less. Your argument doesn't make any sense though because as I said there's a million reasons to employ a woman over a man also.
Yeah, but there are also many other indicators of one's driving ability, like age, income, education, race, physical ability (eyesight, any illnesses), etc... Why should gender be the dominant factor?
EDIT: how is an employer who pays an employee based on how many sick days were taken any different than the insurance company charging based on gender or age?
It's not. And they are both fine.
Glad we're on the same page.
I'm not for or against equality, I just want consistency, non of the double standards "I want all the advantages but non of the disadvantages" nonsense.
EDIT: If health insurance isn't allowed to discriminate against gender, then auto insurance shouldn't be allowed either.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can break, despite their sick days!
Your starting salary is set before you start working, there's no way to determine whether the person you hired is efficient or not. All you have are preexisting generalizations, just like with insurance rates. If women on average worked less and less efficiently, it is justified to pay them less, just like how men have to pay more insurance. Sure, the company can fire you if you aren't contributing, but the insurance company can drop you if you get into too many costly accidents.
I'm not saying that statistically, women take more sick days, since I have no sources. I'm assuming theoretically, that if they do take more sick days on average, women should be paid less. Also, where did I claim I wasn't sexist?
EDIT: how is an employer who pays an employee based on how many sick days were taken any different than the insurance company charging based on gender or age?
Or you could just go the Japan route and set ridiculously low salaries, but pay out extremely high bonuses which are dependent upon your performance.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
I think there's a greater social value in raising children than in crashing cars.
That's not the point... It doesn't matter what the social value is, statistics says women will take more sick leave and should be paid less, thus it isn't sexism according to that post. Either let statistics dictate the rule, or completely disregard statistics in favor of equality, don't put in double standards.
Imagine if you paid staff purely by how many sick days they took. You'd be the worst employer ever.
For someone who claims not to be sexist you've done a great job of ignoring all the qualities a woman can break, despite their sick days!
Your starting salary is set before you start working, there's no way to determine whether the person you hired is efficient or not. All you have are preexisting generalizations, just like with insurance rates. If women on average worked less and less efficiently, it is justified to pay them less, just like how men have to pay more insurance. Sure, the company can fire you if you aren't contributing, but the insurance company can drop you if you get into too many costly accidents.
I'm not saying that statistically, women take more sick days, since I have no sources. I'm assuming theoretically, that if they do take more sick days on average, women should be paid less. Also, where did I claim I wasn't sexist?
EDIT: how is an employer who pays an employee based on how many sick days were taken any different than the insurance company charging based on gender or age?
Or you could just go the Japan route and set ridiculously low salaries, but pay out extremely high bonuses which are dependent upon your performance.
I don't think wage disparities are too popular here :/
hmm my guess is it is because women tend to drive less, at least in my experience. it's not sexism. just like when they charge a 18year old more than they charge a 40 year old is not ageism.
On March 03 2011 04:17 buhhy wrote: Yeah, but there are also many other indicators of one's driving ability, like age, income, education, race, physical ability (eyesight, any illnesses), etc... Why should gender be the dominant factor?
Why should it not be a factor, is the debate. Once you've decided it's a factor, if it happens to have a large impact on the statistics (which it does) then that's why it's quite a dominant factor.
As I've said I believe a society that tries to remove responsibility will ultimately fail. Actions have consequences and people must face up to those consequences or else change their behaviour.
The same applies to collective responsibility. We are collectively responsible for the fact that we are more likely to have a serious accident. We have to face the consequences of that because the consequences feed back so that we can learn to drive more safely and not be so reckless.
When you fill out your insurance form and see how much more you have to pay. You think; dam I better be careful because I'm a high risk group. If there's no consequence then there's no reason to change and that helps no-one.
The problem isn't insurance companies charging more. The problem is that young men are comparatively reckless.
Yeah, but there are also many other indicators of one's driving ability, like age, income, education, race, physical ability (eyesight, any illnesses), etc... Why should gender be the dominant factor?
Age is also a huge factor for insurance rates. Gender is not dominant over age.
Eyesight/Ability just seems odd because it's illegal to drive if any of those is lacking. I think the main reason these other possibilities aren't used is simply because their wishy-washy. "Race" is really poorly defined. I mean come on, Barack Obama is as much white as he is black... And with others they would again have to make arbitrary cutoff points which don't make much statistical sense.
Gender is something that is quite crisply defined. It's overwhelmingly binary.
If health insurance isn't allowed to discriminate against gender, then auto insurance shouldn't be allowed either.
What makes you say they can't do that? Back that kind of statement up sir. Even if health insurance doesn't discriminate based on gender doesn't mean they can't. They probably just don't have statistics to back anything up.
This whole shenanigan has recently been in the news.
I kinda do agree that men of a younger age should probably pay more than women of the same age just because men do tend to be the more aggressive gender.
However, it has been ruled by a European court that they are no longer allowed to charge different for each gender starting 21 December 2012 (Isn't that the day the world is supposed to end?)
On March 03 2011 04:17 buhhy wrote: Yeah, but there are also many other indicators of one's driving ability, like age, income, education, race, physical ability (eyesight, any illnesses), etc... Why should gender be the dominant factor?
Why should it not be a factor, is the debate. Once you've decided it's a factor, if it happens to have a large impact on the statistics (which it does) then that's why it's quite a dominant factor.
As I've said I believe a society that tries to remove responsibility will ultimately fail. Actions have consequences and people must face up to those consequences or else change their behaviour.
The same applies to collective responsibility. We are collectively responsible for the fact that we are more likely to have a serious accident. We have to face the consequences of that because the consequences feed back so that we can learn to drive more safely and not be so reckless.
When you fill out your insurance form and see how much more you have to pay. You think; dam I better be careful because I'm a high risk group. If there's no consequence then there's no reason to change and that helps no-one.
The problem isn't insurance companies charging more. The problem is that young men are comparatively reckless.
Lol, I think I was being ambiguous with my argument.
I'm not arguing against sexism in this context, I'm arguing against the sexism double standard. It's frankly quite annoying to see feminists gaining support for "equality" in wages and healthcare insurance, and in turn, seeing men trying to push the same "equality" in auto insurance and being dismissed.
Personally, I support sexism when there are significant relevant differences between the sexes. Men do drive more aggressive and get into less frequent but more fatal and expensive accidents. Having an individualized plan would be great though.
If health insurance isn't allowed to discriminate against gender, then auto insurance shouldn't be allowed either.
What makes you say they can't do that? Back that kind of statement up sir. Even if health insurance doesn't discriminate based on gender doesn't mean they can't. They probably just don't have statistics to back anything up.
Someone mentioned this a couple pages back but I don't remember the exact page. I did search google, and there are news about feminists pushing a bill that disallows healthcare insurance discrimination in the US.
On March 02 2011 20:32 DisneylandSC wrote: Talking as someone who knows some of the models being used by insurance companies I can tell you the following. The more the insurance companies differentiate between different groups of people the more money they make. Afterall anyone pretty much pays what they do anyway (mayby they give a very small discount), and then they let the bad risks in their portfolio pay substantially more.
My criticism on this is that if you were to apply this indefinately you would simply end up in the situation where everyone is paying for his own damages, thus destroying the entire idea behind insurance. Which is you trow everything on a big heap and whomever is unfortunate enough to need it gets some of the money from that heap.And thats IMHO how it should be. This differentiation / discrimination is ridiculous. I wouldn't be surprised if people with glasses would cause more accidents as well, should we charge them more? Should we ask more money for health insurance of people who had the unfortune of being born with a chronic disease?
Plus there already exist models to reward people who drive safely, i.e. based on their actions not for what they are, such as the bonus-malus system.
Can't you see how stupid that would be? You've just completely removed responsibility and common sense from the system.
You have to be able to discriminate against people more likely to crash. Starting with people who have crashed before, people with drink-driving convictions, speeding fines and ending with age, gender.
Otherwise you have a ridiculous system where you can crash into a wall and face no consequences.
Responsibility also means collective responsibility. In society everyone loses when they allow others to act stupidly. Almost every guy at some point has done something reckless and stupid, or egged someone on to do something stupid. We are collectively responsible for why our premiums are high, whether you like it or not.
The higher premiums has created an awareness that young men are reckless. This stereotype is something a lot of young men want to fight against and so already it's made a difference. The collective responsibility filters down and helps to solve the route of the problem (that young men are more reckless). It certainly made me especially careful when I was younger.
That's why a system based on responsibility is far better than one based on completely no responsbility.
Dude I already adressed personal responsibility in my post. Try reading all of it. A bonus malus system does exactly that. In that it awards people with very few to no claims and makes people who behave badly pay more. The thing I am protesting against is that people are forced to pay higher insurance rates, NOT based on their actions, but instead based on who or what they are, i.e. factors which are completely out of their control.
Also the idea of collective responsibility is against any modern principle on justice and freedom.
got to page 5 of this so sorry if this has been mentioned.... in europe, im interested how long this can stay legal. the EU law has a number of 'protected characteristics' of which sex is one of them. And its illegal to discriminate on the grounds of protected characteristics, yet in the UK we even have female only insurers (sheilas wheels)
On March 03 2011 04:44 buhhy wrote: It's frankly quite annoying to see feminists gaining support for "equality" in wages and healthcare insurance, and in turn, seeing men trying to push the same "equality" in auto insurance and being dismissed.
its quite different that men, who statistically cause more crashes than women, pay more for insurance while women, doing same hours and job, get paid less than their male equivilents. insurance works by statistics not by a person by person basis. if it did that would be excellent but it doesnt. i do agree that there shouldnt be the discrimination but to compare it to women asking for equal rights in employment is just a bit silly.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
It is quite possible to pull out bullshit statistics to rationalize racism and segregation as well (scientific racism anyone?). Does that make it okay? Just because it is not a stereotypical example of discrimination, it does not mean it is not discrimination.
On March 03 2011 02:33 Nytefish wrote: But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
Never quite understood why employers should bear the cost of the women's choice to reproduce. And they are not paid less, they simply work less. They are paid the same per hour.
On November 23 2010 10:55 NathanSC wrote: They base their rates entirely on risk assessment, which is just statistical analysis. I'm sorry, but it's not sexism.
That "risk assessment" doesn't constitute sexism is a dubious premise. It's discrimination based on gender. Yes, it is statistical, but racial profiling is considered illegal despite it also being based on the same premise. Same thing for not accepting women in certain positions because they are statistically more likely to perform at a lower level than men (e.g. as soldiers, firefighters, police officers, or anything where physical strength is often used).
I suspect the reason that insurance companies aren't forced to disregard gender when giving rates is because of money: it's an established practice that would cost insurance companies large losses if it were to be outlawed, and there isn't a sufficient equality push from outside to overcome the money that these companies are feeding politicians and lobbyists to keep it legal.
Money isn't really an issue if companies couldn't give different rates, they would just make a flat rate between men and women to stay cost neutral. Women would pay more than they do now and men less than they do now.
I do not agree with your analogy which brings racial profiling into this argument. The key difference is that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty. It doesn't matter if my race performs more crimes per capita, until I'm found guilty by a jury of my peers I'm innocent and deserve no more suspicion than anyone else. I do not believe you could extend an innocent until proven guilty concept over to driving.
On March 03 2011 06:29 revy wrote:I do not believe you could extend an innocent until proven guilty concept over to driving.
Then why not charge racial minorities that are more likely to get into car accidents more then racial minorities that are less likely to get into car accidents? I'm sure that some statistical differentiation between the two exists.
On March 03 2011 06:29 revy wrote:I do not believe you could extend an innocent until proven guilty concept over to driving.
Then why not charge racial minorities that are more likely to get into car accidents more then racial minorities that are less likely to get into car accidents? I'm sure that some statistical differentiation between the two exists.
That should absolutely be done. In fact they should be able to charge you a different fee for dumb things like the coffee machine being broken, it being a rainy day or because they just feel like it.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
It is quite possible to pull out bullshit statistics to rationalize racism and segregation as well (scientific racism anyone?). Does that make it okay? Just because it is not a stereotypical example of discrimination, it does not mean it is not discrimination.
On March 03 2011 02:33 Nytefish wrote: But a women is statistically more likely to go on paid leave (due to pregnancy) so surely it's only fair to pay women less than a man in the exact same job.
Never quite understood why employers should bear the cost of the women's choice to reproduce. And they are not paid less, they simply work less. They are paid the same per hour.
Because it's only fair that way. Otherwise they would either choose to "work more" and the society would cease to exist or they would have to accept being at the disadvantage when it comes to reproduction (it's not like men don't choose to reproduce - they just don't suffer from such negative consequences).
John lives in a town of 100,000 people and makes the first car insurance company. He knows that people have a 1% chance of having an accident in a year and that it will cost them $1000 to get their car fixed. He charges everyone $11pa. After collecting his $1,100,000 sure eneough 1000 people claim $1000 which costs him a total of $1,000,000. He gets a profit of $100,000. Fantastic.
Bob sees John and his car ensurance buisness and wants to get in on the action. Bob noticed that 90% of people that claimed their $1000 from John had their eyes more than 5.6cm apart. 5% of the population had their eyes too far apart and Bob came up with a new payment plan. He would charge normal people $10pa and people-with-their-eyes-too-far-apart $20pa.
Obviously, all the normal people instantly switched to Bob's company and none of the people-with-their-eyes-too-far-apart did. Bob collected $950,000 and only 100 of his customers claimed. Bob payed them a total of $95,000 and made a profit of a whopping $855,000. Get in!
John didn't fair very well this year. He was left with the people-with-their-eyes-too-far-apart, 5000 of them. He collected $55,000 but 900 people claimed, he had to pay them $900,000. John made a loss that year of $845,000. Disheartened, John closed his car insurance buisness.
Next Bob got everyone buying insurance from him. He collected $950,000 from the normal people and $100,000 ($1,100,000 total). 1000 people claim and he pays out $1,000,000. Bob gets a profit of $100,000 in his second year of buisness.
Bob didn't raise his prices because he had anything against people-with-their-eyes-too-far-apart; instead he lowered the price for everyone else so he would get more custom. Bob doesn't hate people-with-their-eyes-too-far-apart; he is just a smart buisnessman.
TL;DR: Insurance companies don't charge you more for having a dick. They charge women less for driving sensibly and not like a mong with their eyes too far apart.
If instead of calling it statistical discrimination, and we instead call it systematic discrimination, what kind of thoughts does that arouse?
The real interesting things to talk about would be how this actually affects our society on a large scale. Does it discourage males from driving? Would that make males less able to do some jobs than others? Well, the answer to both those questions is that it is probably just not significant enough of an impact on one's expenses to really discourage them from driving, but these are the only things worth talking about regarding this subject. Right now all I can see from reading this thread is really vague moral arguments. It is right. It isn't right. But we do this too. But we don't do that. You have to answer the why to those questions if you want to learn anything.
It's a fact that insurance companies depend on statistics to be able to maintain themselves, but there must be a point where we say 'that's wrong' and the government has to step in to run things at a deficit in order to stimulate social change. However, I think between men and women, our society isn't really crumbling because men have to pay a bit more than women. There's no real reason for the government to step in. On the other hand, regarding race, poor communities which have a disproportionate amount of one race over another will definitely be held back by increased insurance. Long term, that is not really good for a country, so it's reasonable to tell insurance companies 'stop screwing with the social hierarchy.'
If you're a male and you're reading this, you're more likely to be dead by the age of 80 compared to an equally aged female. Feel discriminated against? Too bad, it's a fact.
the difference between men and women can be seen throughout our society, as mentioned previous by other posters. however race does not behave the same way. when you say "black people cause more crime than white people" it has more to do with the environment that person is in. the upbringing of the person determines the person's mindset towards driving. race has nothing to do with how a person drives unlike the difference between women and men.
most men loves cars, most women does not care. races? there's no difference between them all. it just matters on their age/location tbh.
people who bring up black vs white crime, why dont you factor in their income, location(environment) and age then see if the color of their skin matters.
if they charge less for men the fact is they would have to start charging more for women. same goes for any demographic that they charge more or less for
On March 03 2011 09:31 jinorazi wrote: racism does not work like sexism, imo.
the difference between men and women can be seen throughout our society, as mentioned previous by other posters. however race does not behave the same way. when you say "black people cause more crime than white people" it has more to do with the environment that person is in. the upbringing of the person determines the person's mindset towards driving. race has nothing to do with how a person drives unlike the difference between women and men.
most men loves cars, most women does not care. races? there's no difference between them all. it just matters on their age/location tbh.
people who bring up black vs white crime, why dont you factor in their income, location(environment) and age then see if the color of their skin matters.
You don't think that the fact that we paint baby girls' rooms pink, make them play with Barbies and socially pressure them to be prissy and « feminine » might have something to do with it? I mean, you're talking about upbringing and it seems to me these are all the factors that make it so that women in general end up uninterested in cars.
I highly doubt young girls in the caveman era had pink loincloths and played with rock Barbies. I also highly doubt young boys in the same era behaved the opposite way. Were there gender roles? Most likely. But if you take a look at a lot of non-Western societies before they were westernized (Aboriginal people of the Americas for example) women held as much power as men did. Did they stay at home, make clothes, cook and raise children? In a lot of cases yes. But they were also respected because of this. When making clothes allows you to survive winter, and only women know how to do it, their opinion suddenly matters a lot more.
What I'm trying to say is that sex (or race for that matter) itself is not the reason specific groups of people might drive differently. However, the way society treats these people is. In other words, if I'm a guy who was well brought up not to race my car, I'm still getting royally fucked in the ass because everyone else thinks I did. Somehow, the moronic blonde in my class, who's always trying to the males that she's better than they are does decide to drive 140kph in an 80kph zone, and not only does she not pay anywhere near as much insurance as me, but when she does get pulled over, she just plays the crying card and gets off practically free.
Yeah, I don't know how it is anywhere else, but I'll give you my personal example:
I drive a 2002 Honda Accord, 4-door, grandpa dark green with grandpa beige interior. 2.3L 4-cyl motor. I still live with my parents, and in order to save money, I go through their insurance plan to drive the car I paid for. It costs me roughly 3500$ CAD a year, or almost 300$ monthly to be insured. I'm 20, took the accredited driving school test (which has reduced my insurance by about 300$ a month my insurance company told me) and have had my full licence (''G'') for 2 years (as long as I've been eligible basically), which also reduces insurance costs, but I've been driving since May 2006.
My girlfriend drives a 2002 Chrysler Sebring 4-door. I'm not sure about the engine displacement size, but I know that it's bigger than my 2.3L and that it's a V6. It's shiny silver, and overall is a much sportier car than what I drive. Like me, she still lives with her parents and does the same thing I do for insurance. The difference is, she pays something like 900$ to be insured. She got her full ''G'' licence after I did (something like 6 months).
How is this seriously supposed to be fair? We're both university students. I don't about you guys, but 2500$ difference is equal to half a year's tuition around here. Over the course of my 4-year B.A. it'll have cost me 10 000$ more than her just to get to school. (The busride to school is literally 2 hours long from my home, though it's only like 15km away... hence why I chose to drive and just work more. I did the math, I end up saving money driving and working the difference in transit time).
On March 03 2011 09:31 jinorazi wrote: racism does not work like sexism, imo.
the difference between men and women can be seen throughout our society, as mentioned previous by other posters. however race does not behave the same way. when you say "black people cause more crime than white people" it has more to do with the environment that person is in. the upbringing of the person determines the person's mindset towards driving. race has nothing to do with how a person drives unlike the difference between women and men.
most men loves cars, most women does not care. races? there's no difference between them all. it just matters on their age/location tbh.
people who bring up black vs white crime, why dont you factor in their income, location(environment) and age then see if the color of their skin matters.
I think you're confusing sex with gender. Sex is purely biological, gender has a lot more to do with the environment that person is in.
on a related Canadian note, how about those new under 21 driving laws in Ontario? the justification is basically "statistically, most alcohol-related accidents are caused by those 21 and under... so let's increase the alcohol restrictions against those people." It's really quite a weak argument, and doesn't acknowledge any other potential factors to the stats such as the amount of years you've had a license or the fact that you don't have kids. Furthermore drawing the line is rather arbitrary... To shed some more light... hypothetically let's say in texas or some state where guns are legal... that statistically the majority of shooting crimes were performed by single black people aged 25-30. Should we increase the gun restrictions upon that group?
On March 03 2011 09:31 jinorazi wrote: racism does not work like sexism, imo.
the difference between men and women can be seen throughout our society, as mentioned previous by other posters. however race does not behave the same way. when you say "black people cause more crime than white people" it has more to do with the environment that person is in. the upbringing of the person determines the person's mindset towards driving. race has nothing to do with how a person drives unlike the difference between women and men.
most men loves cars, most women does not care. races? there's no difference between them all. it just matters on their age/location tbh.
people who bring up black vs white crime, why dont you factor in their income, location(environment) and age then see if the color of their skin matters.
You don't think that the fact that we paint baby girls' rooms pink, make them play with Barbies and socially pressure them to be prissy and « feminine » might have something to do with it? I mean, you're talking about upbringing and it seems to me these are all the factors that make it so that women in general end up uninterested in cars.
I highly doubt young girls in the caveman era had pink loincloths and played with rock Barbies. I also highly doubt young boys in the same era behaved the opposite way. Were there gender roles? Most likely. But if you take a look at a lot of non-Western societies before they were westernized (Aboriginal people of the Americas for example) women held as much power as men did. Did they stay at home, make clothes, cook and raise children? In a lot of cases yes. But they were also respected because of this. When making clothes allows you to survive winter, and only women know how to do it, their opinion suddenly matters a lot more.
What I'm trying to say is that sex (or race for that matter) itself is not the reason specific groups of people might drive differently. However, the way society treats these people is. In other words, if I'm a guy who was well brought up not to race my car, I'm still getting royally fucked in the ass because everyone else thinks I did. Somehow, the moronic blonde in my class, who's always trying to the males that she's better than they are does decide to drive 140kph in an 80kph zone, and not only does she not pay anywhere near as much insurance as me, but when she does get pulled over, she just plays the crying card and gets off practically free.
Yeah, I don't know how it is anywhere else, but I'll give you my personal example:
I drive a 2002 Honda Accord, 4-door, grandpa dark green with grandpa beige interior. 2.3L 4-cyl motor. I still live with my parents, and in order to save money, I go through their insurance plan to drive the car I paid for. It costs me roughly 3500$ CAD a year, or almost 300$ monthly to be insured. I'm 20, took the accredited driving school test (which has reduced my insurance by about 300$ a month my insurance company told me) and have had my full licence (''G'') for 2 years (as long as I've been eligible basically), which also reduces insurance costs, but I've been driving since May 2006.
My girlfriend drives a 2002 Chrysler Sebring 4-door. I'm not sure about the engine displacement size, but I know that it's bigger than my 2.3L and that it's a V6. It's shiny silver, and overall is a much sportier car than what I drive. Like me, she still lives with her parents and does the same thing I do for insurance. The difference is, she pays something like 900$ to be insured. She got her full ''G'' licence after I did (something like 6 months).
How is this seriously supposed to be fair? We're both university students. I don't about you guys, but 2500$ difference is equal to half a year's tuition around here. Over the course of my 4-year B.A. it'll have cost me 10 000$ more than her just to get to school. (The busride to school is literally 2 hours long from my home, though it's only like 15km away... hence why I chose to drive and just work more. I did the math, I end up saving money driving and working the difference in transit time).
of course the upbringing has so many factors. i wanted to add some of the possibilities but it would have made the post too long so i left them out. i was purely generalizing when i said girls vs boys when it came to cars but it stands true for most, at least in my experience.
i was merely trying to point out racism does not play a factor when comparing assessment of race vs gender. typical upbringing of a girl/boy plays a role whereas race does not.
i'm all for individualized assessment. driving record (tickets, accidents, etc), experience in driving, driving education, etc. should play a bigger role than gender, job, location, age, etc.
i for one pay ~$150/m(US) for a subaru impreza sti, which isn't much to be honest(i'm 26) but its more than what i'd pay for bmw m3, mercedes, audi equivalents thanks to people who drive recklessly. $150 was the cheapest i can find, esurance.com. rest of the companies like AAA, Geico, Allstate etc quoted me 2500 to 3000 a year, ~200 to 250/m for same coverage.
On March 03 2011 10:15 shinosai wrote:
I think you're confusing sex with gender. Sex is purely biological, gender has a lot more to do with the environment that person is in.
i still dont know what you mean. english isn't my first language, care to explain?
i still dont know what you mean. english isn't my first language, care to explain?
Sure. What I'm trying to say here is that your distinction between sexism and racism doesn't make any sense. You argue that the differences between men and women can be seen throughout society (it's "biological"), however, the differences between white people and black people are purely based on different factors (it's "environmental").
While sex differences are in fact purely biological, in the sense that men have dicks and women don't, gender differences are the ones we are talking about here. Environmental stuff. The reason women don't get in serious accidents could have a lot to do with their age, upbringing, and so on. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their estrogen levels. If we raise women to be the "fairer" sex, to like pink and fluffy things, and to be cautious because of the importance of their reputation... well, how is that any less environmental than the differences between whites and blacks?
most men loves cars, most women does not care. races? there's no difference between them all. it just matters on their age/location tbh.
But men loving cars and women not is purely an environmental cause. Estrogen doesn't cause women to think cars are lame. Society teaches women to value other things in our particular culture. So is crime. Being black doesn't cause black people to think crime is cool. Your argument is faulty.
Also, I'm pretty damn sure there are discrepancies between races in car accident statistics. We can't use these because racial profiling is illegal.
i still dont know what you mean. english isn't my first language, care to explain?
Sure. What I'm trying to say here is that your distinction between sexism and racism doesn't make any sense. You argue that the differences between men and women can be seen throughout society (it's "biological"), however, the differences between white people and black people are purely based on different factors (it's "environmental").
While sex differences are in fact purely biological, in the sense that men have dicks and women don't, gender differences are the ones we are talking about here. Environmental stuff. The reason women don't get in serious accidents could have a lot to do with their age, upbringing, and so on. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their estrogen levels. If we raise women to be the "fairer" sex, to like pink and fluffy things, and to be cautious because of the importance of their reputation... well, how is that any less environmental than the differences between whites and blacks?
most men loves cars, most women does not care. races? there's no difference between them all. it just matters on their age/location tbh.
But men loving cars and women not is purely an environmental cause. Estrogen doesn't cause women to think cars are lame. Society teaches women to value other things in our particular culture. So is crime. Being black doesn't cause black people to think crime is cool. Your argument is faulty.
Also, I'm pretty damn sure there are discrepancies between races in car accident statistics. We can't use these because racial profiling is illegal.
:/ i thought thats the message i was trying to portray to those who claimed if sex is assessed, race should too. i guess my english is pretty bad >_<
i was trying to say comparing sex/gender and race doesn't work.
@jinorazi Sorry if I misunderstood you then! Just trying to demonstrate the same as you! English isn't my first language either, so I know how it can feel writing something, only to have someone tell you your argument is flawed haha.
Also, sex is tied directly to what's in between your pants. You have a penis, you are male and it ends there. You can't refute it. Gender however is more loosely defined. Generally males identify as men and females identify as women, but this isn't always the case. Some tend to cross over to the other side, mix both up, or even chose no gender whatsoever.
i still dont know what you mean. english isn't my first language, care to explain?
Sure. What I'm trying to say here is that your distinction between sexism and racism doesn't make any sense. You argue that the differences between men and women can be seen throughout society (it's "biological"), however, the differences between white people and black people are purely based on different factors (it's "environmental").
While sex differences are in fact purely biological, in the sense that men have dicks and women don't, gender differences are the ones we are talking about here. Environmental stuff. The reason women don't get in serious accidents could have a lot to do with their age, upbringing, and so on. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their estrogen levels. If we raise women to be the "fairer" sex, to like pink and fluffy things, and to be cautious because of the importance of their reputation... well, how is that any less environmental than the differences between whites and blacks?
most men loves cars, most women does not care. races? there's no difference between them all. it just matters on their age/location tbh.
But men loving cars and women not is purely an environmental cause. Estrogen doesn't cause women to think cars are lame. Society teaches women to value other things in our particular culture. So is crime. Being black doesn't cause black people to think crime is cool. Your argument is faulty.
Also, I'm pretty damn sure there are discrepancies between races in car accident statistics. We can't use these because racial profiling is illegal.
Pretty sure gender profiling is too though. I know at least here it is.
On March 03 2011 10:24 Gak2 wrote: on a related Canadian note, how about those new under 21 driving laws in Ontario? the justification is basically "statistically, most alcohol-related accidents are caused by those 21 and under... so let's increase the alcohol restrictions against those people." It's really quite a weak argument, and doesn't acknowledge any other potential factors to the stats such as the amount of years you've had a license or the fact that you don't have kids. Furthermore drawing the line is rather arbitrary... To shed some more light... hypothetically let's say in texas or some state where guns are legal... that statistically the majority of shooting crimes were performed by single black people aged 25-30. Should we increase the gun restrictions upon that group?
Tell me about it. I finally turn 19 in 2009, and I can finally have a SINGLE drink with my girlfriend when I take her out for supper. A few months later the Ontario government goes all trollface on my ass and I'm back to ordering water when we go out. Meanwhile, the town drunk gets to stay slightly under his legal limit, swirving all over the road. Logic at its best.
I don't know, it seems to me that the legal drinking age being 19 should regulate everything else. It's not like being 22 suddenly means you stop drinking and driving. If you already were, it won't change anything.
On March 03 2011 10:24 Gak2 wrote: on a related Canadian note, how about those new under 21 driving laws in Ontario? the justification is basically "statistically, most alcohol-related accidents are caused by those 21 and under... so let's increase the alcohol restrictions against those people." It's really quite a weak argument, and doesn't acknowledge any other potential factors to the stats such as the amount of years you've had a license or the fact that you don't have kids. Furthermore drawing the line is rather arbitrary... To shed some more light... hypothetically let's say in texas or some state where guns are legal... that statistically the majority of shooting crimes were performed by single black people aged 25-30. Should we increase the gun restrictions upon that group?
Honestly, I'm in favour of more restrictive drinking and driving laws, period. There have been studies that show any form of distraction increases the likelihood of crashing a motor-vehicle, so it makes sense to prevent people from drinking. Otherwise you get the idiots who say "but one drink makes me a better driver" just before they kill someone.
On a personal note, I am within those age limits, so its not like I'm speaking harshly, knowing I have an immunity to the repercussions. However, I wouldn't trust any of my friends to have any liquor before driving, no matter how well they hold it.
On March 03 2011 10:24 Gak2 wrote: on a related Canadian note, how about those new under 21 driving laws in Ontario? the justification is basically "statistically, most alcohol-related accidents are caused by those 21 and under... so let's increase the alcohol restrictions against those people." It's really quite a weak argument, and doesn't acknowledge any other potential factors to the stats such as the amount of years you've had a license or the fact that you don't have kids. Furthermore drawing the line is rather arbitrary... To shed some more light... hypothetically let's say in texas or some state where guns are legal... that statistically the majority of shooting crimes were performed by single black people aged 25-30. Should we increase the gun restrictions upon that group?
Honestly, I'm in favour of more restrictive drinking and driving laws, period. There have been studies that show any form of distraction increases the likelihood of crashing a motor-vehicle, so it makes sense to prevent people from drinking. Otherwise you get the idiots who say "but one drink makes me a better driver" just before they kill someone.
On a personal note, I am within those age limits, so its not like I'm speaking harshly, knowing I have an immunity to the repercussions. However, I wouldn't trust any of my friends to have any liquor before driving, no matter how well they hold it.
You know, you probably have a point. The fact remains that if this was really the problem, why wasn't the law applied to the entire population instead of only those who are 21 and below?
On March 03 2011 11:47 TwoPac wrote: Sexism against men is best displayed in divorce courts. This is not sexism.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it isn't sexism, though you do have a point in saying that it's probably a lot worse in divorce courts. I never understood why a mother would automatically have rights to a child despite being a less fit parent. I've seen a few cases of this in just people I know... I mean of course I don't know all the details about these cases; I'm not an insider or anything... the fact remains that often proof that the mother is also unfit surfaces.
And yeah, there probably is a larger tendency of men that abuse their children than women... still it seems to me that cases should be based individually...
There's a difference between gender roles and gender identity. Gender roles are the stereotypes or "accepted social norms" for a particular gender. These include females not being mathematically inclined, not being interested in cars, teachers are more likely female, doctors are more often male, counselors are more likely female, etc. Gender identity are the traits that are more common shown in one gender than the other. The biggest one is the motherly instinct for women. All women have it, but not all use it nor do they need to unless they want to be a mother. Women as a whole are more in touch with their emotions and nurturing. This genetic disposition is reinforced by the toys, games, and play that society teaches little girls.
As a former actuary from a healthcare consulting company, one thing I want to stress is that the "statistics" behind pricing policies are subject to an unbelievable level of mathematical scrutiny and precision. Insurance companies have claims databases that are that large - millions or billions of claims - with sometimes thousands of variables all accounted for. (though more often it is less than a hundred) When they determine that one sex is healthier than the other, or that it will cost less to insure a member of that sex as a driver, that policy has gone through a rigorous testing process. If insurer X had a bad model, insurer Y can easily steal a huge chunk of their customers by using a more accurate model. Y will maximize their profits, X will not (or might turn a loss even), and we know where it goes from there.
The same level of scrutiny does not exist in employee salaries. In most situations, an employer has to guess what an employee's value to the company is. Claims like "men are more productive workers than women" are largely anecdotal. Your typical employer doesn't have access to literally billions of data points that allow him to filter out the effects of all known confounding variables and make a meaningful comparison of one sex (or race/etc) versus another.
For the purposes of making this particular distinction, I'm not saying that employers are guaranteed to be incorrect in believing that a man is more valuable to the company than a women when other variables are equal. I'm stating that there isn't the same level of mathematical rigor going into that decision. The two practices aren't really comparable. Furthermore, history shows that in the past (at the very least) such salary decisions have typically been made out of biased and irrational behavior. Computerized insurance models are incapable of irrational bias.
Similarly, I'm not aware of any studies comparing levels of violence between different races when age, income, occupation, education level, location, homeowner status, family size/marital status, etc etc etc are all taken into account. And even if there were, there is no way for a police officer to know all of that when he sees a random person on the street. He cannot profile people in such a precise manner; an insurance company can.
There is also a structural difference between racial profiling and insurance premiums. With insurance, you pay an amount that covers your expected costs. If you don't have an accident, it isn't considered an injustice that you paid money for services not received; conversely, if you end up totaling your car, we don't look at it as if you ripped off the insurance company by getting them to pay an amount higher than your premium. Contrast this to the legal system - if you go to prison and didn't do anything illegal, we consider this a social injustice. If you don't go to prison despite committing a crime, then the legal system may be failing to protect other innocent people from you. Insurance is about averages and expected values, law enforcement/justice is about trying to be right every time and treating people fairly.
The number of mathematical models and variables is irrelevant.
You could make similar models for cities where races that are 5% of the population are somehow responsible for 70% of the crime.
Yet we have decided that discriminating against someone for something they have no control over is not fair, and that just because someone of a certain race is statistically more likely to commit a crime, it is unfair to assume they will, that they deserve a fair chance.
People who have more accidents already pay more for insurance, there is no reason to charge a certain gender more than another simply because of their gender. They should be judged on their record.
You could easily make similar statistical links between race and accidents, one race has to have more accidents than another! However this would not be accepted by the courts or by the population, no matter how many mathematical models you have.
On March 03 2011 13:08 Jones993 wrote: You could make similar models for cities where races that are 5% of the population are somehow responsible for 70% of the crime.
I think you're confusing sex with gender. Sex is purely biological, gender has a lot more to do with the environment that person is in.
i still dont know what you mean. english isn't my first language, care to explain?
Don't worry too much about the sex/gender distinction.
The use of gender in a manner interchangeable with sex is older by hundreds of years than the use of gender to mean the social and cultural aspects of sex rather than the biological ones. That more recent use, which the Oxford English Dictionary accurately calls a "euphemism for sex" originated in feminist theory and is an example of trying to win an argument by manipulating the definitions behind the scenes.
At best, calling someone out on "confusing" sex and gender is an honest mistake. Maybe the caller-outer has been taught that there is a hard and fast difference and is trying to share the enlightenment. It could just as easily be garden variety pedantry, though, and, at worst, it's a passive-aggressive move to rig the terms of the debate in one's own favor.
I didn't read the 33 pages of posts...just the original one.
I just wanted to share my thoughts on this, since I'm a group insurance Underwriter. Keep in mind, I live in Canada so it might be different for me.
It might look like they are descriminating against you due to your sex but if an insurance company has statistics that prove one gender is more of a risk to insure than another, they can rate genders differently.
On March 03 2011 13:20 RedMorning wrote: I didn't read the 33 pages of posts...just the original one.
I just wanted to share my thoughts on this, since I'm a group insurance Underwriter. Keep in mind, I live in Canada so it might be different for me.
It might look like they are descriminating against you due to your sex but if an insurance company has statistics that prove one gender is more of a risk to insure than another, they can rate genders differently.
On March 03 2011 13:20 RedMorning wrote: I didn't read the 33 pages of posts...just the original one.
I just wanted to share my thoughts on this, since I'm a group insurance Underwriter. Keep in mind, I live in Canada so it might be different for me.
It might look like they are descriminating against you due to your sex but if an insurance company has statistics that prove one gender is more of a risk to insure than another, they can rate genders differently.
Can they do this with race too?
Just curious because I also live in Canada.
For Canada group insurance, I only know of first nations getting rated differently but that's because they have a few government programs that pay benefits first (the insurer is basically a "top off") and usually have a different claiming trend.
Back on the topic of gender...
If you get a life insurance policy, a female non-smoker will have a different rate compared to a male non-smoker. Insurance companies think of basically everything lol
but if an insurance company has statistics that prove one gender is more of a risk to insure than another
I would also like to know how such a link is proven.
If a woman has a gender change and becomes a man, will s/he be more likely to be in an accident simple because she changed gender? If you believe such a link exists, then your answer must be yes. Yet such an answer doesn't make much sense as nobody drives with their sex organs.
Do such studies take into account brain chemistry, personality type, etc? Or do they simply say men 55% accidents -> women 45% accidents, thus - > men's price should be > women's price?
Let's say a certain personality type was more likely to have accidents, and males were more likely to have such a personality, does that mean all males are more likely to have an accident? no.
It would be quite easy however, to simply blame gender instead of the personality type, for example.
On March 03 2011 02:13 Keitzer wrote: it's not sexism... it's statistics
... i said that because the insurance companies see that the amount of males (eg. age 25 and lower) that get into accidents compared to females of the same age group is a lot higher per male... thus they start their rate off higher since remember: IT'S A BUSINESS! They're out to make money....
supply and demand... the "demand" of male incidents per "supply" of males (ratio) is higher than the female demand/supply ratio
so no.. it's not sexism, it's statistics
edit: if companies do this with race... that's also statistics... bitch all you want, they're out to make max cash (while keeping you safe)
nay this is all based on stereotypes. all know that girls are weaker, smaller and less "important" than males, thus they get less payed and so forth. some ppl are just to stupid.
I can say for one that me mum prolly got better job than any of your dads lol, no offense intended though,but what im saying is, this is oldpasta. its only a few retards that still do this kind of things.
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
Them being a business is also not an excuse for discrimination.
You can also address the points I brought up in the above post.
edit: if companies do this with race... that's also statistics
It's also illegal.
it's not discrimination...
they're not blindly charging more for males/blacks(?)/etc....
edit: to clarify... discrimination = unfair treatment of a person or group on the basis of prejudice and it's not unfair based on prejudice... it's facts that they will (not every person, but the ratio is higher) will get into more incidents than the others
they're basing it off facts they (and other companies) have collected over the years, PROVING that it's more likely to happen with X and not Y (Y being females / non-blacks (again, ?) / etc)
and how is it illegal if it's across all sex/gender/race?
but if an insurance company has statistics that prove one gender is more of a risk to insure than another
I would also like to know how such a link is proven.
If a woman has a gender change and becomes a man, will s/he be more likely to be in an accident simple because she changed gender? If you believe such a link exists, then your answer must be yes. Yet such an answer doesn't make much sense as nobody drives with their sex organs.
Do such studies take into account brain chemistry, personality type, etc? Or do they simply say men 55% accidents -> women 45% accidents, thus - > men's price should be > women's price?
Let's say a certain personality type was more likely to have accidents, and males were more likely to have such a personality, does that mean all males are more likely to have an accident? no.
It would be quite easy however, to simply blame gender instead of the personality type, for example.
If you get a gender change, I don't think the government would consider you a female (if you were "formally" a male). With that being the case, insurance companies would still look at you as a male.
Insurance isn't based on your personality. Hence why a 65 year old nice funny guy wouldn't get the same rate as a 18 year old nice funny guy.
I work with Life/Health insurance so I'll explain how those rates are determined (it's the same for all types of insurance). Insurance is all about probability. What are the odds of this event happening to this group of people. To determine this, we look at historical claiming trends.
**The numbers I use are just for examples** Lets say out of 100 women, 70 of them will claim dental in one year. Out of a 100 men, 60 of them will claim dental in one year. Obviously this is a very small sample but we can use this example to extrapolate the general "rule of thumb". From our stats, we know that women are more likely to claim dental compared to men. If we insure a company consisting of 90% women, we can expect more claims to be incurred according to our statistics which is why we can charge higher premium rates for some groups.
"What if they don't claim lots? Not everyone is the same!"
For group insurance, depending on the funding method of the plan, the low utilization will allow for lower rates when you have to renew your insurance. Again, this depends on the funding method and many other factors (Fully pooled, experience rated with pooling, fully experience rated, refund, non-refund, etc).
To sum everything up and to make things simple, the general idea is to pool all the premium together so it will pay all the claims if you were to pool those together (and pay admin feels...and PROFIT!! :D). Thats why if you don't ever claim anything, you still have to pay for insurnace. That money has to come from someone to pay that million dollar life claim! : )
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
Them being a business is also not an excuse for discrimination.
You can also address the points I brought up in the above post.
edit: if companies do this with race... that's also statistics
It's also illegal.
I'm not trying to come off rude, but saying "It's also illegal" on a topic you don't know much about isn't the best thing to do. If you're a lawyer, then I retract my statement.
I'm no lawyer myself, but if the statistics prove that a group of people have a significant claim trend difference than the standard claiming trend...the insurer is allowed to rate them differently. Insurance companies can also deny insurance to anyone if they can prove they would be insuring unfavorable risk.
Lets say we both apply for insurance. I'm a bad risk, you aren't. Will they charge us the same rate? Nope! Why? I'm a higher risk which means more unfavorable claims will be incurred resulting in more money spent by the insurance company. If claims are higher than the premium intake, premiums go up for everyone.
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
No it's not. You look at a sample and see that a certain portion of the sample has a higher accident rate than another portion. You notice: The dangerous portion are women (or men).
But, at the same time, the dangerous portion could also identify itself by characteristics such as "below 25 years old" or "older than 60 years".
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence (for example statistics) to back certain assumptions up, e.g. saying that women, in general, are not as intelligent as men. And this practice is certainly not used in insurance companies.
An analogy: For whatever reason your company sells German language courses. You take a bunch of people in the US and take data on them. You notice that most white people have a higher probability of having German parents than the black people in that sample, and therefor decide to distribute more ads ( flyers ) in African American neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods.
OK, that example is pretty stupid and not realistic at all, but I can't think of a better one right now.
Is that racism? No it's not. You just determine a couple of facts. To make it racism you would have to add a couple of unfounded assumptions and assign them to the respective groups, for example saying that Germans are in general smarter than all other people in that sample and on that basis decide to distribute more flyers in African American neighborhoods. That would be racism.
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
No it's not. You look at a sample and see that a certain portion of the sample has a higher accident rate than another portion. You notice: The dangerous portion are women (or men).
But, at the same time, the dangerous portion could also identify itself by characteristics such as "below 25 years old" or "older than 60 years".
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence (for example statistics) to back certain assumptions up, e.g. saying that women, in general, are not as intelligent as men. And this practice is certainly not used in insurance companies.
An analogy: For whatever reason your company sells German language courses. You take a bunch of people in the US and take data on them. You notice that most white people have a higher probability of having German parents than the black people in that sample, and therefor decide to distribute more ads ( flyers ) in African American neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods.
OK, that example is pretty stupid and not realistic at all, but I can't think of a better one right now.
Is that racism? No it's not. You just determine a couple of facts. To make it racism you would have to add a couple of unfounded assumptions and assign them to the respective groups, for example saying that Germans are in general smarter than all other people in that sample and on that basis decide to distribute more flyers in African American neighborhoods. That would be racism.
On March 03 2011 14:09 rezzan wrote: nay this is all based on stereotypes. all know that girls are weaker, smaller and less "important" than males, thus they get less payed and so forth. some ppl are just to stupid.
I can say for one that me mum prolly got better job than any of your dads lol, no offense intended though,but what im saying is, this is oldpasta. its only a few retards that still do this kind of things.
Wait, what?
No seriously what? I have read through your post about your mum prolly like ten times by now, but I still don't understand what you're trying to communicate. I feel like I'm going deeper down the rabbit hole with each successive reading.
On March 03 2011 13:14 Jones993 wrote: Demanding outragous things is not a valid debate strategy.
Do you seriously think a model linking crime to race could not be made?
Create a simple neural network > feed it examples of crime taking into account race, etc. -> check the weighting given to race at the end.
I'm pointing out the difference between fact and speculation. You're saying somebody "could" make a rigorous model predicting crime that use race as an explanatory variable. I'm saying insurance companies HAVE rigorous models predicting claims that involve age and sex as explanatory variables. No could/would/should about it. It's been done.
I also pointed out the practical difference between giving someone a different insurance premium versus giving someone different legal treatment. Furthermore, I mentioned that when an insurance company gives someone a rate, they're able to sit at their desk and say "okay, you're a white female age 29 working as a banker, living in Indianapolis, homeowner, one car accident three years ago" etc. When a law enforcement officer sees somebody, they have no idea about that person's past or anything else.
More analogous in terms of consequence is unequal pay. Now, if a business group made a model of employee performance that showed that, all else equal, men produce more value in the workplace than women, then the pay difference would have the same level of justification. As it stands right now, while the insurance practice is very loosely analogous to certain pay practices, the difference is that one has been rigorously proven and the other has not.
I've worked on insurance models; I have some idea what I'm talking about. That is all I was responding to was the amount of speculation in this thread, which shows a completely understandable level of ignorance about the rigor of actuarial modeling versus something arbitrary like choosing to pay your male manager $150k while paying your female manager $90k. If you reread my post, you'll see I'm not even making an argument that insurance companies should be allowed to do this (in fact a few pages ago, I state that I have mixed feelings about the practice). The only purpose of that post was to discuss the extreme difference that goes into an insurance company making a predictive model that includes age and sex as a factor, versus something non-rigorous like saying "X% of blacks go to jail, while only Y% of whites go to jail, therefore whites are inherently less violent than blacks."
Because my experience is with health care, I'll give some examples that show why you can't just get rid of sex using other explanatory variables and medical history.
A woman has a certain percent chance of getting pregnant that can be modeled using her age, marital status, whether she is already a mother, etc. A man will never get pregnant under any circumstances. Women do not get prostate cancer. Women have an extremely higher risk of breast cancer than men. The list goes on...
There will never be a way, without using sex, to accurately explain the difference between the incidence of certain medical claims for men and women. Men and women have genetic differences that directly affect their health outcomes. You could feed an unlimited number of possible variables into the model, and sex will still come out as significant.
Age works similarly. As people age, their immune system becomes weaker due to the aging process. Their bones become less dense and more fragile. The odds of their DNA becoming damaged increases and their telomeres become shorter. Differences in lifestyle, environment, medical history, etc cannot explain this difference. Old people are simply more likely to get sick as a direct consequence of their age.
Whereas with crime and race... well, do you think it's genetic? Because if it isn't, then your hypothetical neural network model would be able to flesh that out if you gave it all of the necessary explanatory variables along with prior criminal record. And if that is the case, then the two are not comparable because race would only be correlated with crime, while age and sex actually cause differences in health.
On March 03 2011 14:09 rezzan wrote: nay this is all based on stereotypes. all know that girls are weaker, smaller and less "important" than males, thus they get less payed and so forth. some ppl are just to stupid.
I can say for one that me mum prolly got better job than any of your dads lol, no offense intended though,but what im saying is, this is oldpasta. its only a few retards that still do this kind of things.
Wait, what?
No seriously what? I have read through your post about your mum prolly like ten times by now, but I still don't understand what you're trying to communicate. I feel like I'm going deeper down the rabbit hole with each successive reading.
On March 03 2011 14:09 rezzan wrote: nay this is all based on stereotypes. all know that girls are weaker, smaller and less "important" than males, thus they get less payed and so forth. some ppl are just to stupid.
I can say for one that me mum prolly got better job than any of your dads lol, no offense intended though,but what im saying is, this is oldpasta. its only a few retards that still do this kind of things.
Wait, what?
No seriously what? I have read through your post about your mum prolly like ten times by now, but I still don't understand what you're trying to communicate. I feel like I'm going deeper down the rabbit hole with each successive reading.
"we have to go deeper"
How about you go on in and wire me back a report on what you find. I'm scared to go.
On March 03 2011 13:14 Jones993 wrote: Demanding outragous things is not a valid debate strategy.
Do you seriously think a model linking crime to race could not be made?
Create a simple neural network > feed it examples of crime taking into account race, etc. -> check the weighting given to race at the end.
I'm pointing out the difference between fact and speculation. You're saying somebody "could" make a rigorous model predicting crime that use race as an explanatory variable. I'm saying insurance companies HAVE rigorous models predicting claims that involve age and sex as explanatory variables. No could/would/should about it. It's been done.
I also pointed out the practical difference between giving someone a different insurance premium versus giving someone different legal treatment. Furthermore, I mentioned that when an insurance company gives someone a rate, they're able to sit at their desk and say "okay, you're a white female age 29 working as a banker, living in Indianapolis, homeowner, one car accident three years ago" etc. When a law enforcement officer sees somebody, they have no idea about that person's past or anything else.
More analogous in terms of consequence is unequal pay. Now, if a business group made a model of employee performance that showed that, all else equal, men produce more value in the workplace than women, then the pay difference would have the same level of justification. As it stands right now, while the insurance practice is very loosely analogous to certain pay practices, the difference is that one has been rigorously proven and the other has not.
I've worked on insurance models; I have some idea what I'm talking about. That is all I was responding to was the amount of speculation in this thread, which shows a completely understandable level of ignorance about the rigor of actuarial modeling versus something arbitrary like choosing to pay your male manager $150k while paying your female manager $90k. If you reread my post, you'll see I'm not even making an argument that insurance companies should be allowed to do this (in fact a few pages ago, I state that I have mixed feelings about the practice). The only purpose of that post was to discuss the extreme difference that goes into an insurance company making a predictive model that includes age and sex as a factor, versus something non-rigorous like saying "X% of blacks go to jail, while only Y% of whites go to jail, therefore whites are inherently less violent than blacks."
Because my experience is with health care, I'll give some examples that show why you can't just get rid of sex using other explanatory variables and medical history.
A woman has a certain percent chance of getting pregnant that can be modeled using her age, marital status, whether she is already a mother, etc. A man will never get pregnant under any circumstances. Women do not get prostate cancer. Women have an extremely higher risk of breast cancer than men. The list goes on...
There will never be a way, without using sex, to accurately explain the difference between the incidence of certain medical claims for men and women. Men and women have genetic differences that directly affect their health outcomes. You could feed an unlimited number of possible variables into the model, and sex will still come out as significant.
Age works similarly. As people age, their immune system becomes weaker due to the aging process. Their bones become less dense and more fragile. The odds of their DNA becoming damaged increases and their telomeres become shorter. Differences in lifestyle, environment, medical history, etc cannot explain this difference. Old people are simply more likely to get sick as a direct consequence of their age.
Whereas with crime and race... well, do you think it's genetic? Because if it isn't, then your hypothetical neural network model would be able to flesh that out if you gave it all of the necessary explanatory variables along with prior criminal record. And if that is the case, then the two are not comparable because race would only be correlated with crime, while age and sex actually cause differences in health.
I like the health outcome analogy. I also like the line:
Whereas with crime and race... well, do you think it's genetic?
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
No it's not. You look at a sample and see that a certain portion of the sample has a higher accident rate than another portion. You notice: The dangerous portion are women (or men).
But, at the same time, the dangerous portion could also identify itself by characteristics such as "below 25 years old" or "older than 60 years".
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence (for example statistics) to back certain assumptions up, e.g. saying that women, in general, are not as intelligent as men. And this practice is certainly not used in insurance companies.
Very well explained! : )
What very well explained? He is being illiterate.
Specifically here
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence
His argument is this "discrimination is being negative towards people without evidence". He does not know what discrimination means. Whether or not it is based on evidence is irrelevant.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
Clearly it is discrimination as it is making a distinction against someone based on category instead of on individual merit.
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
No it's not. You look at a sample and see that a certain portion of the sample has a higher accident rate than another portion. You notice: The dangerous portion are women (or men).
But, at the same time, the dangerous portion could also identify itself by characteristics such as "below 25 years old" or "older than 60 years".
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence (for example statistics) to back certain assumptions up, e.g. saying that women, in general, are not as intelligent as men. And this practice is certainly not used in insurance companies.
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence
His argument is this "discrimination is being negative towards people without evidence". He does not know what discrimination means. Whether or not it is based on evidence is irrelevant.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
Clearly it is discrimination as it is making a distinction against someone based on category instead of on individual merit.
You keep repeating the same argument which has been proven invalid. I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm pretty sure I have a more acceptable answer than you do. As an Underwriter (google it if you don't know what it is) of group insurance, I understand the risks associated with different groups of people. I've discussed this with senior underwriters, actuaries (google that if you don't know it), and lawyers...they all give me the same responses. I'm going to take their word for it (seeing as it's their JOB) over yours.
If you can't provide an adequate argument besides a definition of discrimination, please don't waste everyones time. If you truely think that insurance companies discriminate against groups of people, file a lawsuit and try to make some cash out of it. Good luck with that.
It has not been proven invalid. You continually refuse to address the points I have made
[If you can't provide an adequate argument besides a definition of discrimination, please don't waste everyones time
I have, you just refuse to address them. You can also stop pretending words don't mean what they mean when a dictionary is just a click away. Kindly concede on the point on what discrimination is or stop using the word
There will never be a way, without using sex, to accurately explain the difference between the incidence of certain medical claims for men and women. Men and women have genetic differences that directly affect their health outcomes. You could feed an unlimited number of possible variables into the model, and sex will still come out as significant.
There is no link between medical claims and driving. You are using a strawman by bringing up specific gender medical problems and pretending they somehow transfer over to driving.
Insurance isn't based on your personality. Hence why a 65 year old nice funny guy wouldn't get the same rate as a 18 year old nice funny guy.
You completely missunderstood the point I made. I never claimed insurance is based on personality.
they're basing it off facts they (and other companies) have collected over the years, PROVING that it's more likely to happen with X and not Y (Y being females / non-blacks (again, ?) / etc)
Basing a decision off of facts does not mean the decision is being made in a scientific way. Facts can be misused, and you are indeed misusing them.
Let's say a certain personality type was more likely to have accidents, and males were more likely to have such a personality, does that mean all males are more likely to have an accident? no. Would they all be charged more anyway? Yes. This is not fair, and is discrimination based on category instead of on individual merit. It would be quite easy however, to simply blame gender instead of the personality type, for example. It doesn't have to be personality type, that was an example.
I'm not trying to come off rude, but saying "It's also illegal" on a topic you don't know much about isn't the best thing to do. If you're a lawyer, then I retract my statement.
You don't need to be a lawyer to know racial profiling is illegal.
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement (e.g. make a traffic stop or arrest). The practice is controversial and widely considered inappropriate and illegal.
There will never be a way, without using sex, to accurately explain the difference between the incidence of certain medical claims for men and women. Men and women have genetic differences that directly affect their health outcomes. You could feed an unlimited number of possible variables into the model, and sex will still come out as significant.
There is no link between medical claims and driving. You are using a strawman by bringing up specific gender medical problems and pretending they somehow transfer over to driving.
Uh... no, not at all. Either you have terrible reading comprehension or you are just being combative at this point. The example I gave was for health insurance, not auto insurance.
This entire time I've been talking about the health, auto, and life insurance industries. The link I posted when I bumped this thread applies to all three of those industries. The quote of mine that you originally responded to mentioned both health and auto insurance.
Also please use better formatting in your posts. You quoted one of my lines along with RedMorning's without referencing who was saying what.
Let's say a certain personality type was more likely to have accidents, and males were more likely to have such a personality, does that mean all males are more likely to have an accident? no. Would they all be charged more anyway? Yes. This is not fair, and is discrimination based on category instead of on individual merit. It would be quite easy however, to simply blame gender instead of the personality type, for example. It doesn't have to be personality type, that was an example.
Simply put, you are avoiding the primary issue regarding this. You are simply trying to attribute some sort of personality type associated with sex regarding accidental probability and fairness.
The big bullet point you seem to be avoiding is this: Young men are more likely to get into accidents then young women. It might be a culmination of different personality types and traits that EVENTUALLY lead to this conclusion. Is it fair if YOU are not likely to get into an accident? Sure, it's not fair, but they are simply playing by the numbers. Because you might happen to be thrown into this group, they will charge you more. It's not discrimination, it's price discrimination. These car insurance companies are looking to cover their costs and maximize profits, and deal with risk where risk is highest. Numbers show men are higher risk drivers. Unfortunately, you have to deal with this facet of being grouped in as a man.
However, with numerous statistics and problems with being a woman (particularly in the workplace), you might have the longer end of the stick overall.
Let's say a certain personality type was more likely to have accidents, and males were more likely to have such a personality, does that mean all males are more likely to have an accident? no. Would they all be charged more anyway? Yes. This is not fair, and is discrimination based on category instead of on individual merit. It would be quite easy however, to simply blame gender instead of the personality type, for example. It doesn't have to be personality type, that was an example.
Simply put, you are avoiding the primary issue regarding this. You are simply trying to attribute some sort of personality type associated with sex regarding accidental probability and fairness.
The big bullet point you seem to be avoiding is this: Young men are more likely to get into accidents then young women. It might be a culmination of different personality types and traits that EVENTUALLY lead to this conclusion. Is it fair if YOU are not likely to get into an accident? Sure, it's not fair, but they are simply playing by the numbers. Because you might happen to be thrown into this group, they will charge you more. It's not discrimination, it's price discrimination. These car insurance companies are looking to cover their costs and maximize profits, and deal with risk where risk is highest. Numbers show men are higher risk drivers. Unfortunately, you have to deal with this facet of being grouped in as a man.
However, with numerous statistics and problems with being a woman (particularly in the workplace), you might have the longer end of the stick overall.
Going along this line, another important question to ask would be whether that trait (say, personality type) is caused by sex or correlated with sex.
For example, if brain structure or biochemistry helps determine personality type, then you could have a situation where sex -> neurology -> personality -> risk
I don't think anybody believes that the Y chromosome literally directly causes someone to be more aggressive. Of course it's phenotypical.
And actually, auto insurance tries to give you as much of an individual rate as they can. If you have a good record, your rates drop. If you get into a lot of accidents or get tickets, your rate rises. There are direct financial consequences for being wrong about someone's expected claims in the insurance industry. If you undercharge somebody, you lose money on them. If you overcharge somebody in a way that your competitors do not, they switch companies.
But when you're young, you don't have much of a driving record. It's tough to know which high school/college kid is going to be a safe driver. Age/sex/location/car type is about all they have to go on until you've racked up several years of driving history. This is the real "problem" with trying to rate a 16 year old boy vs a 16 year old girl in terms of risk.
Uh... no, not at all. Either you have terrible reading comprehension or you are just being combative at this point. The example I gave was for health insurance, not auto insurance.
False. You are being in irrelevant scenarios and pretending those scenarios debunk my argument - a strawman. Also, you have still refused to concede on discrimination, even with a dictionary definition under your very nose. I will just assume you don't wish to debate and just want to be combative at this point.
The big bullet point you seem to be avoiding is this: Young men are more likely to get into accidents then young women. It might be a culmination of different personality types and traits that EVENTUALLY lead to this conclusion. Is it fair if YOU are not likely to get into an accident? Sure, it's not fair, but they are simply playing by the numbers
False. I am not avoiding this at all. I am simply stating that not every single man is a higher risk, thus gender alone is not the cause of the higher accidents and cannot be used alone to charge an entire gender more.
The point you refuse to address is the following: Instead of finding the cause, which may be linked to gender, but is certainly not present in everyone of that gender, you wish to charge everyone of that gender higher prices instead of just those who have whatever attribute causes the accident, whatever they may be. Not understanding the reason well enough is not a good enough reason to discriminate against an entire gender.
Uh... no, not at all. Either you have terrible reading comprehension or you are just being combative at this point. The example I gave was for health insurance, not auto insurance.
False. You are being in irrelevant scenarios and pretending those scenarios debunk my argument - a strawman.
How is the prevalence of medical conditions possibly irrelevant to the fact that women are charged more for health insurance than men?
Also, you have still refused to concede on discrimination, even with a dictionary definition under your very nose. I will just assume you don't wish to debate and just want to be combative at this point.
You haven't addressed me on this point. Again, you're mixed up between myself and RedMorning, which is the user you provided that definition to as well.
You might want to properly use the "QUOTE" function to help yourself as well as make your posts more readable for others
Im sure the parents where i live would quit insuring their daughters if they had to pay the same as their sons. I only heard of 1 male getting in a car accident while I went to school and heard about so many females wrecking and totaling their cars. Its fine though they pay like 50% less and can afford to wreck daddys car over and over.
Anecdotal evidence is just that. Charging less money to people who are higher risk is a great way to go bankrupt.
edit: bah, I don't mean to sound harsh. But seriously, your personal experience is unique to you. Insurance companies are setting rates based on large claims databases, not what happened in somebody's homeroom class last semester. Unless you live in an extremely small town, I doubt you actually know all of the people who have been in an accident in the last year. And if your town is that small, you're probably being rated across a larger region. (it would be extremely costly to develop a separate model for each town in this country with, say, over 1000 people in it. Not to mention that this would be difficult to do with the small sample sizes)
I'm not trying to come off rude, but saying "It's also illegal" on a topic you don't know much about isn't the best thing to do. If you're a lawyer, then I retract my statement.
You don't need to be a lawyer to know racial profiling is illegal.
Racial profiling refers to the use of an individual’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement personnel as a key factor in deciding whether to engage in enforcement (e.g. make a traffic stop or arrest). The practice is controversial and widely considered inappropriate and illegal.
Considered illegal, but it isn't. Even the quote that you made refutes your own statement ("considered" does not mean "is.") The Supreme Court even stated in U.S. v. Weaver that police officers are allowed to racially profile if there is a distinct link between race and criminality ie suspicion that a black male in Los Angeles is a crip or a blood.
Another Supreme Court example is Korematsu v. US where it was determined that racially profiling the entire Japanese race was okay as long as the least restrictive means are used and used for a reasonable purpose. Too bad nothing happened to stop them after putting every Japanese American into internment camps for suspecting even 4 year olds of blowing up the west coast.
Racial profiling can be good, but it's highly controversial because of it's high potentiality to detract from equal protection under the law. Still, it's far from illegal. Please do more research before you make bold claims.
And to go back to that initial statement that you made: yeah, you actually kind of need to be a lawyer to know whether racial profiling is actually illegal (or at least very well versed in the legal nuances of the subject.)
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
No it's not. You look at a sample and see that a certain portion of the sample has a higher accident rate than another portion. You notice: The dangerous portion are women (or men).
But, at the same time, the dangerous portion could also identify itself by characteristics such as "below 25 years old" or "older than 60 years".
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence (for example statistics) to back certain assumptions up, e.g. saying that women, in general, are not as intelligent as men. And this practice is certainly not used in insurance companies.
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence
His argument is this "discrimination is being negative towards people without evidence". He does not know what discrimination means. Whether or not it is based on evidence is irrelevant.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
Clearly it is discrimination as it is making a distinction against someone based on category instead of on individual merit.
Precisely. Whether they have the stats to back it up or not, it's still discrimination. They might call it individualized rates, I call it discrimination.
I'll come back to my initial argument: If you were to take all the rates, take the average of them, and then offer that same rate to everyone, you'd still make the same amount of money as you are actually. Spread the wealth!
Of course, once someone starts getting tickets, making claims, or getting into accidents, then it's understandable and legitimate that your rate go up. Doing this before you do any of the above however, isn't.
On March 03 2011 14:03 Jones993 wrote: Discriminating against someone just because of their gender is indeed sexism, even if it is based off statistics..
No it's not. You look at a sample and see that a certain portion of the sample has a higher accident rate than another portion. You notice: The dangerous portion are women (or men).
But, at the same time, the dangerous portion could also identify itself by characteristics such as "below 25 years old" or "older than 60 years".
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence (for example statistics) to back certain assumptions up, e.g. saying that women, in general, are not as intelligent as men. And this practice is certainly not used in insurance companies.
Very well explained! : )
What very well explained? He is being illiterate.
Specifically here
It's not discrimination because you don't specifically look at the weakness of a certain gender, instead you're generally looking for certain characteristics which provide a higher accident rate.
Discrimination would also include unfounded negativity towards a certain gender without evidence
His argument is this "discrimination is being negative towards people without evidence". He does not know what discrimination means. Whether or not it is based on evidence is irrelevant.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
Clearly it is discrimination as it is making a distinction against someone based on category instead of on individual merit.
Precisely. Whether they have the stats to back it up or not, it's still discrimination. They might call it individualized rates, I call it discrimination.
I'll come back to my initial argument: If you were to take all the rates, take the average of them, and then offer that same rate to everyone, you'd still make the same amount of money as you are actually. Spread the wealth!
Of course, once someone starts getting tickets, making claims, or getting into accidents, then it's understandable and legitimate that your rate go up. Doing this before you do any of the above however, isn't.
That wouldn't work at all. You'd only get the highest risk customers. If you forced companies to offer one rate they'd target low risk and not insure anyone else.
You'd have to have public insurance. It would be a disaster.
Ok I've been reading this thread for a while and there's been so much misinformation about statistics flying around that it's built up and I just can't live with myself not stepping in and making a post lol.
So before I start I want to let you guys know I'm not here to argue against any of you or say you are wrong and stupid - what I am going to do, however, is give you a good idea of how statistics are being used in this context.
I also want you to know that I was one of the top 10 mathematics students of my state cohort in year 12, out of about 10,000+. I am also at university, on a scholarship, studying a Bachelor of Science - doing a major in Statistics and Stochastic Processes (but the first half of that major is the one I want you to know ), so when it comes to statistics I know what I'm talking about.
Ok, now I'll start. We see the word "discrimination" flying around a lot in this thread - and yes, insurance companies do attempt to 'discriminate' between groups of society. This is actually how they deliver a more 'tailored' product. Now, some of you have the experience of not having a tailored product at all, hence the reason for the original poster starting the thread. And these are completely valid! However, despite some of you getting that feeling, overall more people are delivered a tailored product by this model, hence its use.
To understand this, you have to look at the actual crash statistics (and not any of this first-hand experience about men and women drivers). Overall men cause more road accident damage than females, and hence they are more of a risk. It makes complete sense to charge men more than women.
Let us say that if a female or male driver is a dangerous driver then they are satisfied with a higher premium cost. If a female or male driver is a safe driver then they are satisfied with a standard premium cost.
For the higher cost, some men will think they are paying too much. Some will think they are paying a proper amount (I will not say if either group is of greater size, as I don't know and it doesn't matter).
If both male and female drivers were charged the same premium (we're only looking at gender here, we'll disregard other risk factors at the moment), this means that the current male premiums would fall in price and the current female premiums would increase in price.
For a safeand male driver this is a warranted change. For an unsafe and male driver this is an unwarranted change. For a safe and female driver this is an unwarranted change. For an unsafe and female driver this is a warranted change.
Now, let's say we should make male and female premiums the same if it would result in more warranted changes than unwarranted changes. So we look at the probabilities as this is the only way to actually discern this (save for sampling the entire population... basically however many drivers there are in whichever country you're in, which is extremely expensive and is never done by a private company) is by probabilities.
Pr(safe and female) > Pr(safe and male) Pr(unsafe and male) > Pr(unsafe and female)
Therefore we will have more unwarranted changes than warranted changes, and so we should differentiate between the two groups when it comes to pricing the premiums so that the most people as possible are kept satisfied with their policies.
Now, you may be able to tell from this example or thinking that you've done that the more you differentiate between groups, you will increase the maximum number of customers you can have satisfied with their policies.
This is what insurance companies do by compiling as much data as possible and acting on this data to price their premiums! You may say, well why is doing this with gender ok and not with race? The reason is only the culture of the world these days where there is a stigma attached to doing this. However, it actually makes perfect sense to tailor insurance policies by race, so if you are saying this should happen then I actually agree with you! In general, it makes perfect sense to tailor insurance policies to any risk factor. It is only political correctness and a gut reaction to any sort of differentiation based on race as discrimination that prevents insurance companies from doing this.
So really what you are dealing with is a system that is actually appeasing the most number of people possible. On average men are actually getting a good deal. What I would be angry with is how society has some 'sacred cows' that we don't touch (like the one I've talked about here - differentiating based on race for a perfectly legitimate reason), rather than the companies that are doing the best in the face of that.
A by-product of this legislation means that retiring men will get less from their pensions. Since one cannot discriminate based on gender for a pension you have to assume that the.. client for want of a better word, could be either.
This means that men are going to end up having less from the pension, since they are assumed to potentially live longer, hence their pension will pay out over a longer period of time (some of which they may well be dead for)
So massive thumbs up for this. As a man who intends to live a long time, I'm all in favour of being worse off when I'm old.
Correlation vs causation is something worth talking about. It may surprise some to learn that actuaries and professional statisticians are actually familiar with the terms you'd come across in a standard high school statistics class, and in general have equal or greater knowledge of statistical methodology compared to members of an internet gaming forum
Several decades ago, correlation vs causation was the central issue of a major health debate: does smoking cause cancer? Tobacco companies defended their product by arguing that smoking was merely correlated with cancer - that, since doctors had never split people into controlled groups where one was forced to smoke and the other was forced to not smoke, there was no way to tell if cigarettes were actually causing increased cancer rates or if there was another underlying variable. After all, cigarette users had a different age distribution, income distribution, different rates of alcoholism, etc versus non-smokers. How do you tell what variables are important in the underlying relationship and which are extraneous?
The answer, which was accepted by the FDA and most governments, is that if you gather enough data and factor in all of the reasonable competing variables, if the correlation still remains then it is reasonable to assume that there is a causal relationship. From a college philosophy perspective, it would still be correct to say that it is not certain that smoking causes increased cancer risk. In the real world, we're willing to live with the remote chance that we're wrong on this one, because of the overwhelming evidence that we're right.
At this point, insurance companies have collected so much data and considered so many other variables that could potentially confound with sex and insurance claims, but even when it is all factored in, age and sex are still important in assessing risk for health claims, auto claims, and life expectancy. Thus, while I wouldn't say that it is 100% guaranteed that being male causes one to be a riskier driver (or that being female causes one to have greater healthcare costs, or to live longer), I would say that the competing variables have been largely exhausted, and that therefore using age and sex as explanatory variables in an insurance model are the most sound way to estimate risk.
And again, there is the practical problem that at the age of 16, an insurance company has no way of knowing any of the additional variables (such as how often you are going to drive, whether you have a history of accidents, etc) so therefore at a young age your sex is given greater weight.
Back to the causation/correlation, it's equally true that no experiment has ever shown that getting into an accident in the past causes you to be more likely to get into an accident in the future. If we really take causation/correlation to its logical end, you'd have to charge everyone the same rate regardless of age/sex/history/etc.
Again, this is not to say that the EU ruling is wrong or that insurance companies should be using these variables from a moral perspective. I'm only pointing out that price discrimination based on age and sex in insurance is based on sound reasoning and hard evidence in a way that hiring discrimination or the biases of some police officers or judges are not.
Consider a country in which insurance companies were not allowed to discriminate based on sex. This would cause premiums for males on car insurance to decrease, and premiums for females to increase. This means that absent other factors, insurance companies with more female clients would be more profitable, and it would be beneficial to run a smaller company that markets to females and attempts to dissuade males from purchasing insurance. I might do this by offering benefits with car insurance that only really apply to females or that seem insulting to males. That way, we could afford to charge a lower "effective" price and make more money per car insured, on a macroscopic level. So if you want them to stop discriminating by sex, that means higher profit margins on females, meaning you would also probably have to legislate them to have quotas on male customers because no one would want them, and chances are that business-to-business ventures would have separate prices for male and female, even if publicly they can't charge the customers anything different.
Essentially, no amount of "rights" talk can make a true statement false, pretending that it is doesn't serve anyone.
Anyways, this doesn't just apply to insurance. What about other questions? Should clubs be allowed to charge women a lower cover or refuse admittance to people in order to get a better ratio? Should an all-you-can-eat burger joint charge more for men than for women, given that doing otherwise is costing them business? Should gyms have women-only areas but not men-only ones?
Many people say that is is unfair that women are treated diffrently that men, however it is hard to treat woman and men the same because they are diffrent. Yes, without a good reson for a woman being treated diffrently than a man that is unfair, however there are lots of exarmples when it is simply because of the diffrent charatistics of woman and men.
E.G: woman can get pregnet and men cannot, pregnancy is incomvenant for an employer because that have to give sick leave e.t.c, therfore they are more lickly to hire a man. OR: woman are less lickly to crash a car because they drink less and dont have peer pressure (when younger) to drive faster, so thier insurence is cheaper.
Its just like how woman are more lickly to live older than men, it is because of the diffrences between the mind and body and males and females. Its just life, mabye its unfair on you but its not really discremination becaue ther is noramlly a valid reson to treat men and women diffrently.
On March 04 2011 03:53 SharkSpider wrote: Consider a country in which insurance companies were not allowed to discriminate based on sex. This would cause premiums for males on car insurance to decrease, and premiums for females to increase. This means that absent other factors, insurance companies with more female clients would be more profitable, and it would be beneficial to run a smaller company that markets to females and attempts to dissuade males from purchasing insurance. I might do this by offering benefits with car insurance that only really apply to females or that seem insulting to males. That way, we could afford to charge a lower "effective" price and make more money per car insured, on a macroscopic level. So if you want them to stop discriminating by sex, that means higher profit margins on females, meaning you would also probably have to legislate them to have quotas on male customers because no one would want them, and chances are that business-to-business ventures would have separate prices for male and female, even if publicly they can't charge the customers anything different.
Essentially, no amount of "rights" talk can make a true statement false, pretending that it is doesn't serve anyone.
Anyways, this doesn't just apply to insurance. What about other questions? Should clubs be allowed to charge women a lower cover or refuse admittance to people in order to get a better ratio? Should an all-you-can-eat burger joint charge more for men than for women, given that doing otherwise is costing them business? Should gyms have women-only areas but not men-only ones?
On March 04 2011 03:53 SharkSpider wrote: Consider a country in which insurance companies were not allowed to discriminate based on sex. This would cause premiums for males on car insurance to decrease, and premiums for females to increase. This means that absent other factors, insurance companies with more female clients would be more profitable, and it would be beneficial to run a smaller company that markets to females and attempts to dissuade males from purchasing insurance. I might do this by offering benefits with car insurance that only really apply to females or that seem insulting to males. That way, we could afford to charge a lower "effective" price and make more money per car insured, on a macroscopic level. So if you want them to stop discriminating by sex, that means higher profit margins on females, meaning you would also probably have to legislate them to have quotas on male customers because no one would want them, and chances are that business-to-business ventures would have separate prices for male and female, even if publicly they can't charge the customers anything different.
Essentially, no amount of "rights" talk can make a true statement false, pretending that it is doesn't serve anyone.
Anyways, this doesn't just apply to insurance. What about other questions? Should clubs be allowed to charge women a lower cover or refuse admittance to people in order to get a better ratio? Should an all-you-can-eat burger joint charge more for men than for women, given that doing otherwise is costing them business? Should gyms have women-only areas but not men-only ones?
And can someone supply accident rates for different (ethnic) races? Should spice up this discussion a bit.
i can supply them for alcohol related driving deaths in the US but i couldn't find one for just total deaths, anyways the numbers just pointed that all races were pretty even in that regard, except native americans were a bit high and asians where a bit lower then the rest. Not exactly as evident as the number of male drivers in fatal accidents a year is double that of the number of female drivers, while considering that the split for male and female in the US in number of drivers is about even.
Just because there appears to be a link between gender and accidents does not mean there actually is one
First off, you didn't address any of the support I added to my argument which clearly shows that racial profiling is legal and that correlation can be used as justification for racial profiling. Disclaimer: THIS IS NOT MY INTERPRETATION. Look at the case that I presented, and see for yourself that the supreme court is okay with the simple correlation that blacks are more likely to commit crimes in these neighborhoods and can detained on the basis of race. Racial profiling was deemed okay for the intents and purposes of the LAPD.
I'm not interpreting anything. If you really wanted to have an honest debate you would have read what I had to say. The Supreme Court is interpreting it that way however, so you can argue against them about the legal merits of using statistics in civil rights cases.
Second I believe that you're misinterpreting the sentence by reading it as:
"The practice is controversial, inappropriate, and illegal" when a number of facts actually point out in the article that the case is not so. The sentence is missing some clarifying words and has this meaning with further inspection of all the facts: The practice is controversial and considered by many BUT NOT ALL to be illegal.
I see that arguing with you is a complete waste of time because of your self righteous attitude towards the validity of other viewpoints without honestly considering them. If you want to remain isolated with your own beliefs then please go ahead with bold claims with no actual backing.
And xmz, if it helps you sleep at night knowing that I was "owned," please continue to think so. If you really want to get an understanding of this issue however, educate yourself before you post.
No, the theorem is actually named the law of larger numbers. But yeah, I agree with you that it is a bitch that when statistics identify something about you.
Anyway, to spin the question another way. We are bitching that it's not fair that women pay less premiums then men. but on the flip side, would it be fair that women pay more premiums because of men?
Just because there appears to be a link between gender and accidents does not mean there actually is one
First off, you didn't address any of the support I added to my argument which clearly shows that racial profiling is legal and that correlation can be used as justification for racial profiling. Disclaimer: THIS IS NOT MY INTERPRETATION. Look at the case that I presented, and see for yourself that the supreme court is okay with the simple correlation that blacks are more likely to commit crimes in these neighborhoods and can detained on the basis of race. Racial profiling was deemed okay for the intents and purposes of the LAPD.
I'm not interpreting anything. If you really wanted to have an honest debate you would have read what I had to say. The Supreme Court is interpreting it that way however, so you can argue against them about the legal merits of using statistics in civil rights cases.
Second I believe that you're misinterpreting the sentence by reading it as:
"The practice is controversial, inappropriate, and illegal" when a number of facts actually point out in the article that the case is not so. The sentence is missing some clarifying words and has this meaning with further inspection of all the facts: The practice is controversial and considered by many BUT NOT ALL to be illegal.
I see that arguing with you is a complete waste of time because of your self righteous attitude towards the validity of other viewpoints without honestly considering them. If you want to remain isolated with your own beliefs then please go ahead with bold claims with no actual backing.
And xmz, if it helps you sleep at night knowing that I was "owned," please continue to think so. If you really want to get an understanding of this issue however, educate yourself before you post.
you dont have to be educated to figure out that your logic backfired and now youre just nitpicking. also, note that i didnt said you were wrong.
there are 2 sides here. if youre a 'people person' this is wrong and if youre a 'money person' this is right. -being a money person makes you a capitalist, a wannabe rich (or already rich), thus people hate you by default. (by the latest trends not because you are rich but because you became rich on the expense of others). -by being a people person you reject from the start any form of discrimination against another human being. each side has its own arguments and logic but what it all comes down to is: people vs money. (women just got caught in crossfire here)
Just because there appears to be a link between gender and accidents does not mean there actually is one
So you've shown that you do not understand correlation/causation, that doesn't prove your point.
The fact is that porportionally, males cause more accidents than females, as determined by whichever roadway laws and policies are used to determine fault in a car accident. Nothing you can do or say will make this untrue, so the question is of interpretation. We have two properties, gender and accidents, that are correlated mathematically. That means one of three things:
1. More car accidents cause you to have a higher chance of being male. 2. Being male causes you to have a higher chance of getting in to accidents. 3. A third factor, when present, causes a higher likelihood of both being male and getting in to accidents.
I think what you really meant to say was that there is margin of error in statistics, but the data pool is too large for that to be a valid complaint.
nature is discriminating against women and men. fewer girls are born, and more boys die in their adolesence. Why should we try to act better than mother nature. (I'm not claiming we should be animals :D). Men paying more for insurances at certain ages is only logical. Calling it sexism is like calling out chocolate icecream for being racist.
If insurances should not distinguish between any age or gender, there would be no statistics involved and so there can be no insurance. The only option is to increase the female and old ppl fee to match the fee of any 23 yr old male. Maybe this idiotic solution will let you sleep better at night
Anyway, to spin the question another way. We are bitching that it's not fair that women pay less premiums then men. but on the flip side, would it be fair that women pay more premiums because of men?
The number of people actually in car accidents is a small percentage of the population. This means that there are far more "good" drivers than "bad" drivers. Using statistics vs one another but not vs the actual number of people driving, in order to discriminate an entire gender is pure profiteering. Can nobody else see that?
To put this in perspective, say 3% of drivers get involved in accidents (yes, im making this up, but hear me out). 1% are female, 2% are male. Say the population split in driving is 50/50. The insurance companies can use these stats as an excuse to say, well, male drivers are DOUBLE the risk of female drivers therefore we shall charge them double (as is in the UK).
This means that the 48% remaining male population is paying far more (increasingly so the younger they get) even though they are "good" drivers who dont get into accidents. Given that this is hypothetical, as far as im aware the number of male drivers in accidents compared to women is around that much more. Even if the numbers were a wider gap, you wont see more male drivers getting into accidents than male drivers who dont, but you'll still see the majority of decent drivers getting whacked with double the cost. And that isn't fair.
The insurance companies are MINTING it. They're the enemy, they need to be properly regulated, they need to properly penalise bad drivers (while most importantly- properly rewarding good drivers) and not tar half of our species with the same brush.
Just because there appears to be a link between gender and accidents does not mean there actually is one
First off, you didn't address any of the support I added to my argument which clearly shows that racial profiling is legal and that correlation can be used as justification for racial profiling. Disclaimer: THIS IS NOT MY INTERPRETATION. Look at the case that I presented, and see for yourself that the supreme court is okay with the simple correlation that blacks are more likely to commit crimes in these neighborhoods and can detained on the basis of race. Racial profiling was deemed okay for the intents and purposes of the LAPD.
I'm not interpreting anything. If you really wanted to have an honest debate you would have read what I had to say. The Supreme Court is interpreting it that way however, so you can argue against them about the legal merits of using statistics in civil rights cases.
Second I believe that you're misinterpreting the sentence by reading it as:
"The practice is controversial, inappropriate, and illegal" when a number of facts actually point out in the article that the case is not so. The sentence is missing some clarifying words and has this meaning with further inspection of all the facts: The practice is controversial and considered by many BUT NOT ALL to be illegal.
I see that arguing with you is a complete waste of time because of your self righteous attitude towards the validity of other viewpoints without honestly considering them. If you want to remain isolated with your own beliefs then please go ahead with bold claims with no actual backing.
And xmz, if it helps you sleep at night knowing that I was "owned," please continue to think so. If you really want to get an understanding of this issue however, educate yourself before you post.
you dont have to be educated to figure out that your logic backfired and now youre just nitpicking. also, note that i didnt said you were wrong.
there are 2 sides here. if youre a 'people person' this is wrong and if youre a 'money person' this is right. -being a money person makes you a capitalist, a wannabe rich (or already rich), thus people hate you by default. (by the latest trends not because you are rich but because you became rich on the expense of others). -by being a people person you reject from the start any form of discrimination against another human being. each side has its own arguments and logic but what it all comes down to is: people vs money. (women just got caught in crossfire here)
You didn't read my argument which showed that he wasn't nearly "nitpicky" enough with his argument, so obviously you didn't understand my logic. Actually reading the article that is cited, reading the proof that I laid out, and learning about racial profiling would go a long way towards that.
That is a highly simplistic interpretation of the arguments presented. If we're talking about the lives of people, do you want to address why women on average make less money than male counterparts with similar training, experience, and history with the same employer? Can you explain why statistically blacks are given the death sentence more 10 times more frequently for murdering a white individual who committed murder against a black?
These inequalities aren't defended because of notions about money. These inequalities exist because we don't live in an ideal society where everything is actually equal. When women are treated equally in terms of income, then it would be fair to charge them more. Forcing them to pay more is causing them immensely more harm by sapping a much larger portion of their income than a male counterpart. This hurts them by preventing them from enjoying the same quality of life as men. Does that sound like a "I LOVE MONEY AS A CAPITALIST AND WANT TO BE RICH" answer? Sometimes capitalism or the "money person" interpretation aligns with the "people person" interpretation of life that you support.
How is this possible? Because like any company with competition, they'll sell car insurance at a price that people will be willing to reasonably pay with the money that they have. Women have less money to spend with altogether because of structural sexism end up paying less for car insurance for this reason as well. Does that make sense? If you take into account everything else that they have to pay for at equal pricing to males (basically everything else) with a smaller income, this seems like a fair break for women in a society that is realistically unequal to the detriment of women.
Look at how the law has treated unequal parties by demanding equality in the past of the United States. The Civil Rights Cases of 1876, Plessy v. Ferguson, etc. You can legislate equality all you want, but if you ignore real inequalities, you're screwing people over to a significant degree because you end up promoting inequality in doing so. Is this the solution that a "people person" would support?
Supporting equal insurance prices for men is also based on money if you think about it. The only reason men are complaining is not because of some notion of what should be just but realistically their wallets or some notion that the system is keeping them back from being rich.
So here's how it actually is: If you're a people person, this is right. If you're a money person this is right. If you're pulling a NEXLiveForever and following your heart, you're probably wrong. Social issues can hardly be summed up in the way that you put it.
Anyway, to spin the question another way. We are bitching that it's not fair that women pay less premiums then men. but on the flip side, would it be fair that women pay more premiums because of men?
The number of people actually in car accidents is a small percentage of the population. This means that there are far more "good" drivers than "bad" drivers. Using statistics vs one another but not vs the actual number of people driving, in order to discriminate an entire gender is pure profiteering. Can nobody else see that?
To put this in perspective, say 3% of drivers get involved in accidents (yes, im making this up, but hear me out). 1% are female, 2% are male. Say the population split in driving is 50/50. The insurance companies can use these stats as an excuse to say, well, male drivers are DOUBLE the risk of female drivers therefore we shall charge them double (as is in the UK).
This means that the 48% remaining male population is paying far more (increasingly so the younger they get) even though they are "good" drivers who dont get into accidents. Given that this is hypothetical, as far as im aware the number of male drivers in accidents compared to women is around that much more. Even if the numbers were a wider gap, you wont see more male drivers getting into accidents than male drivers who dont, but you'll still see the majority of decent drivers getting whacked with double the cost. And that isn't fair.
The insurance companies are MINTING it. They're the enemy, they need to be properly regulated, they need to properly penalise bad drivers (while most importantly- properly rewarding good drivers) and not tar half of our species with the same brush.
Sorry for double post, but my last post is already an essay.
You're correct in your assumption that good drivers predominate. There's no argument over that. My problem is with your assumption that insurance companies are colluding to an immense degree. You extend that assumption that line of thought by saying insurance companies are profiteering by charging men more. This is fairly baseless in reality because of the existence of active competition. A company loses customers AND revenue if it arbitrarily raises its prices in an economic system.
The more likely scenario is that women are being charged less because of data that pointed towards profit maximization (taking customers from competing businesses as well as interesting previously uninterested buyers) by lowering its prices for women to one that more are willing to pay for. These price wars would also explain why insurance businesses are running deficits. It's the loss of these female customers who are uninterested in purchasing car insurance at higher prices that these companies don't want to lose as losing them implies running even higher deficits than they have already.
So just to sum all of that up, if the companies would maximize profit by not charging women less, there would be no reason for them so do so. This does not necessarily mean that they charge men more which would be entirely counterintuitive if competing insurance companies are not changing or are reducing prices. But what if they are colluding as you suggest?
In the case that insurance companies are colluding, there is a different problem altogether, but this is absurd as they're all losing money competing amongst themselves as is. And just to be clear, I'm assuming that the insurance companies aren't completely retarded.
Your argument about the majority of drivers being hit with higher costs doesn't really prove anything as that's just how insurance works. The entire basis of the insurance industry is the hope that people are more cautious than retarded in all things house, car, and life related. You pay insurance on the bet that you will get into an accident and will need money. It's really all a gamble, and the house (insurance industry) equalizes it with different prices dependent on different factors. Sounds sketchy, but competition itself is a powerful regulatory mechanism that will even logically lead them all into giving the edge to the buyers against their best interests.
Just because there appears to be a link between gender and accidents does not mean there actually is one
I hate when people pull this out, without actually knowing what it signifies. Poor Hume is probably turning in his grave...
Assuming causation if an event is close to 100% correlated to another is a useful heuristic we use every day. To be a true skeptic of this, you would have to check your watch every time you see the sun come up whether it is actually 6 am.
In science, a huge part of a theories worth is it's predictions of the future. If you affirm that if event A happens, B happens, that is all you need to say. You don't even need to state what way the causation is or whether both are caused by a third (I'm excluding chance here, because if you have a large enough series of data points, the chance of the correlation actually being chance is going towards 0).
How is this relevant? Law enforcement has collected data that predicts that X% of population Y will commit a crime. They therefore increase scrutiny of that population. Same with insurance companies. Funny thing is, most people that are offended by profiling profile themselves: If you were to work at an airport and you had the capacity to check 2 out of 100 people. Now as your check-in is for flights to Atlanta, you usually have 98 retirees and 2 people that look like middle eastern decent. Who would you check?
tl;dr: Even if correlation does not prove causation, neither does correlation disprove causation. Also, we all benefit from profiling.
Just because there appears to be a link between gender and accidents does not mean there actually is one
I hate when people pull this out, without actually knowing what it signifies. Poor Hume is probably turning in his grave...
Assuming causation if an event is close to 100% correlated to another is a useful heuristic we use every day. To be a true skeptic of this, you would have to check your watch every time you see the sun come up whether it is actually 6 am.
In science, a huge part of a theories worth is it's predictions of the future. If you affirm that if event A happens, B happens, that is all you need to say. You don't even need to state what way the causation is or whether both are caused by a third (I'm excluding chance here, because if you have a large enough series of data points, the chance of the correlation actually being chance is going towards 0).
How is this relevant? Law enforcement has collected data that predicts that X% of population Y will commit a crime. They therefore increase scrutiny of that population. Same with insurance companies. Funny thing is, most people that are offended by profiling profile themselves: If you were to work at an airport and you had the capacity to check 2 out of 100 people. Now as your check-in is for flights to Atlanta, you usually have 98 retirees and 2 people that look like middle eastern decent. Who would you check?
tl;dr: Even if correlation does not prove causation, neither does correlation disprove causation. Also, we all benefit from profiling.
Well said I was about to add something but realized that it was already among your points!
EPT![[image loading]](http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/3342/10155986.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/bUhva.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/bUhva)
![[image loading]](http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/3332/urgip.jpg)
) . Neither of us have been in any accidents. We're both 20 and have both completed driver training (which lowers insurance costs). Her insurance policy has been lowering her costs since she got her licence, while mine have actually been rising. What's up with that?
I'm just pointing out that it's hard to design a self-balancing system just by fixing prices. It's a subject that many people smarter than me have failed to come to a good solution for.
Rinse and repeat and you'll get it.
![[image loading]](http://www.insurance.com/auto-insurance/saving-money/~/media/Images/articles/premium-increase-chart.ashx?w=444&h=254&as=1)
![[image loading]](http://static.black-frames.net/images/brazil.jpg)
