Imagine if I asked you and a few friends to design a society from the ground up.

How would we ensure that you build a society that’s fair to everyone in it?

1/5

I could tell you that after you design this new society, you would be randomly spawned in it.

Randomly spawned? Yes.

2/5

The point is simple.

You won’t know if you’ll be the same sex, the same person, with the same demographic features etc etc.

You don’t know what your background will be as you have no way of knowing that.

3/5

Due to this “veil of ignorance,” it’s logically in your best interest to design a fair society.

John Rawls first proposed this idea in his work A Theory of Justice.

4/5

The tweet that sparked this thread: https://twitter.com/eashankotha/status/1280748267223912450