Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think you're absolutely right. It's closely related to Scott's example of a law banning childcare employers from asking prospective employees about their criminal record (or lack thereof), under the assumption that this would improve diversity metrics in the industry. Instead, the opposite happened, for perfectly understandable reasons: employers don't want ex-cons working in their daycares, they're forbidden from asking interviewees if they have a criminal record, but they know that a given black interviewee is 7 times more likely to have a criminal record than a given white interviewee, so they make an educated guess.
I'm wondering if these are both examples of some kind of general trend:
A related example I thought of was various kinds of rent controls, rent freezes and protections for tenants (such as those which make it extremely difficult to evict a tenant). In principle these are designed to protect tenants, especially people who might be especially vulnerable to eviction (say, because they're recent immigrants to the country, with no family or friends to fall back on in the event that they get evicted). In practice, they make renting to a complete stranger such a risky proposition that landlords would much rather rent properties to people they know via the "old boys' network", which makes it even more difficult for newly arrived immigrants to secure accommodation than it would have been otherwise.
More options
Context Copy link