Comment by anon84873628
1 day ago
Do you disagree that some critics of AA are committing that fallacy?
AA is being used as an example of the failure mode where:
"The failure of a single component does not mean the program is fatally flawed; rather, it highlights the need for a comprehensive, coordinated approach"
Indeed, I'm sure the author would agree that part of the comprehensive solution is to increase the amount of university admission slots.
Even if some critics of AA are committing that fallacy, debunking a weaker argument when a stronger argument exists is ineffective.
The implicit argument is that AA's largest challenge is a coordination problem. It's not. It's a clash in values and a fight over zero-sum rewards.
The argument is that critics of AA are committing the Fallacy of Composition. Specifically when saying that since giving out scholarships doesn't result in equal educational outcomes, then we should stop giving out scholarships.
I am with the author on this one. Creating better educational outcomes (for all students) is a coordination problem.
Critics are typically saying that giving out scholarships limited by race is racially discriminatory.
1 reply →
> Do you disagree that some critics of AA are committing that fallacy?
This is is such a weird non-argument dressed as some gotcha. "Some critics of x are committing y fallacy" is probably universally correct statement. It is so devoid of any meaning that this particular type of discourse has not only a name, but a mascot too.
The point of the text was to give an example of a coordination problem, not conclusively prove AA or something. For me the example works.
If that was the supposed point of the excerpt then the article falls flat on this purpose. The supposed fallacy arises when AA is defined as a coordination problem axiomatically. This is "one more subsidy, bro" false cause tautology in itself. The only argument made is a reference to an article which more confirms the critique than opposes, yet no other parts of the supposed coordination puzzle are even as much as speculated.
This is evident in later paragraphs:
> Often it won't be obvious what issues need to be addressed in a coordination problem, which means despite our best attempts to find points of weaknesses while researching and designing a plan, the nature of a coordination problem is that missing one element can lead to failure. If we eliminate individual failed solutions as options it becomes impossible to find the successful coordinated solution.
A statement is made here that a failing individual solution can still be a part of a working coordinated solution, which is not inherently wrong in itself. However, another point raised in this paragraph is that it is supposedly impossible to evaluate suitability of an approach without finding a successful coordinated solution. This marks every failing policy as potentially part of a working coordinated solution and therefore a claim that a policy is part of such a solution inherently unfalsifiable.
> Coordination problems are a particular type of non-zero-sum game, and they are all around us. Until they are solved, they are very much a negative-sum game. The key to solving coordination problems, including affirmative action, is understanding all variables, designing a system-wide approach, and not letting a failure in one area doom the enterprise.
Here affirmative action is defined to be a coordination problem precisely over failure of existing, supposedly uncoordinated, approaches.
That feels more like a cop-out than a legitimate criticism of a fallacy.
If the author could propose an affirmative action program that didn’t have that “single component” at the core of how it operates then I’d be more interested in the argument, but as-is it just feels like an attempt to forcefully ignore valid criticisms.
The "single component" in this example is scholarships. The goal is successful education outcomes for minorities. The other measures required for success are to fix the things the article mentions about why the students are still dropping out, besides tuition. I.e. the program would be comprehensive beyond just admissions slots.
If what skibidithink says is true, doesn't it mean that it's not a fallacy at all? And that the failure he identifies does undermine the entire thing?
Either way, seems like a very narrow distinction you are drawing when he is making the meatier claim that affirmative action is fundamentally flawed.
They are in fact committing the exact fallacy by focusing solely on competition for admission slots instead of how we comprehensively improve educational outcomes for underprivileged kids.
Admittedly, the article does a bad job framing that as the real goal while AA is a specific component. It makes it sound like AA in admissions is the goal itself.
There is a lot more work to do to prove that "investing in education for historically disadvantaged groups" doesn't improve society at large.
>Indeed, I'm sure the author would agree that part of the comprehensive solution is to increase the amount of university admission slots.
A large part of the value of elite education is its scarcity, and adding more slots dilutes that value.
> A large part of the value of elite education is its scarcity,
That's a stupid thing to value. Nothing worthwhile is gained by limiting education to a select few. The value of an elite education should be the actual education. Plenty of very wealthy idiots get a golden ticket to an "elite education" and are still uneducated idiots afterwards. If a large part of the value is nothing more than giving others the perception of having a lot of money or connections we should probably come up with other ways to signal that.
I agree it's incredibly stupid. Just saying that our current society's valuation of scarcity makes access to an elite education very much a zero-sum game.
I certainly claim that almost nobody "commits" that "fallacy" and that it is not a remotely notable viewpoint in the civic discourse of any country I know about.
No doubt in a world of 8 billion people, there exists someone, somewhere, who has for some reason voiced the belief described - i.e. that if institutions really heavily based their selection of applicants on skin color rather than merit, that would be good, but that because in reality institutions have only been convinced to somewhat compromise on merit-based selection in favour of skin-color-based selection, it's bad, and should thus be abandoned completely in favour of total meritocracy. But that belief would really be rather odd, and I have never seen it expressed even once in my entire life.
Nor am I convinced, despite its oddness, that it is properly considered to contain a fallacy! After all, sometimes it really is the case, for various reasons, that some endeavour is only worth doing if total success can be achieved, and not worth the downsides if you can only succeed partially. No doubt if someone really held the allegedly fallacious view described, they would believe affirmative action is exactly such an endeavour and be able to explain why!
You haven't remotely described the alleged critics' belief. Which is that since scholarship recipients still drop out at a higher rate, the scholarships don't work.
How many people actually hold such beliefs is a debate between you and the author.