Social Inequity Is the Natural Thing

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i think there's kind of an idea, like, we'll keep trying to fix it, and then we'll get to a point where it's fixed. And i think this analysis says that's not really the right way to think about it. The basic forces having to do with learning and strategic interactions are going to push us towards inequitable patterns almost on their own. So it's going to be the kind of thing that you'll want to always be thinking about... If you don't want to have high levels of social inequity.

You can’t always get what you want, as a wise person once said. But we do try, even when someone else wants the same thing. Our lives as people, and the evolution of other animals over time, are shaped by competition for scarce resources of various kinds. Game theory provides a natural framework for understanding strategies and behaviors in these competitive settings, and thus provides a lens with which to analyze evolution and human behavior, up to and including why racial or gender groups are consistently discriminated against in society. Cailin O’Connor is the author or two recent books on these issues: Games in the Philosophy of Biology and The Origins of Unfairness: Social Categories and Cultural Evolution.

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Cailin O’Connor received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of California, Irvine. She is currently Associate Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science and a member of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science at UCI. Her works involves questions in the philosophy of biology and behavioral science, game theory, agent-based modeling, social epistemology, decision theory, rational choice, and the spread of misinformation.

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