Finding root causes of injustice: How to parse causation from correlation?

In order to address social problems, with or without tech, it is important to determine root causes. However, this is notoriously difficult to do, even for very analytical people, when faced with complex, multivariate social problems that occur at multiple levels of social abstraction. In this meeting let's start to discuss analytical methods for determining root causes in complex problems.

This is not academic exercise but grounded in pragmatics: we will be more effective if we don't waste time addressing factors that are only weakly causal or merely correlated with social injustices. It is unlikely this one conversation will result in concrete solutions but will hopefully provide a scaffolding for more thoughtful planning when we choose projects to take on.

I will send out some papers to people who RSVP a week in advance and please send suggestions for speakers or literature if you know of any.