Why YSK: because what seems like equal situation from surface isn't always equal opportunity for all. And even when equal measure of help is provided, it might not be equally useful.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Equality should be in protection of rights. People are not equal, and never will be. They should have equal rights, though.
Steve Vai is a better guitarist than I am. He shouldn't have his fingers broken so that we both have equal ability to play the guitar.
Trying to make people equal in every way is evil. It only brings the best in every field down to the level of the worst, since there's no way to bring everyone up to the level of the best in every field.
That's not the point of equity. The point is to compensate for disadvantages people couldn't prevent and can't fix on their own. Stairs are equal. They work the same way for everyone. But someone in a wheelchair can't climb stairs.
But you can reframe it. People don't have equal mobility but everyone has an equal right to access a place, so you have stairs and ramps. You can't make everything a ramp or stair to create equality.
That's not how equity works in practice. It doesn't examine anyone's actual capabilities or disadvantages. They bucket large groups of people into categories they deem worthy to receive resources, despite their actual need. Every person has their individual story, challenges, and priveleges yet equity assumes otherwise, that you deserve compensation based on the group you were assigned to, not what you actually need.
That’s just not true. That’s how a person would feel if equity didn’t specifically help them.
It may work like that in practice in fields where it is extremely difficult to design solutions that are adapted to each person. Imagine you have to tailor laws and their application specifically to many millions of individuals, how do you do that without creating more manageable categories?
In practice that's equity programs work by hurtingsomeone. Some California schools cut advanced math classes because they weren't diverse enough, or it was contributing to an educational gap, or some bullshit. Equity requires adding burden to someone, it may be in an attempt at fairness, but that doesn't make it right.
[citation needed]
Equality people: "Let's fund these people who are objectively poor, they are disadvantaged and need it.".
Equity people: "let's fund people part of this group I can clearly identify by looking at them. They are likely to be disadvantaged."
Not sure why everyone is downvoting any opinion that isn't "give minorities all the available resources!".
It should not be: you need x% of your classroom seats to go to minorities. That's silly because talented and driven people will be sent away to make space. It should be more like: "you must provide an avenue to help those who can prove disadvantaged status to take extra classes and then reapply to your program." These classes could be online or whatever to make it as easy as possible for someone with less means but still driven to succeed have a way to better themselves.
Uh... they don't identify by looking at them you braindead fool. They do means testing. As in - actually seeing if they need it.
Firstly, be respectful.
There is a huge range of equity implementations in the US. My company, for example, has not done any "means testing" when recruiting for racial equity. Nor when it donates to blanket racial programs. There was no means testing when internships were offered to high school students of particular demographics.
When you’re so used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.
Lmaooo the only people who use that California talking point are people who have never been inside of a school in California. They aren’t cutting math classes they are offering alternatives to high level math courses like calculus, stats, and data science. Explain to me how that’s burdening anyone??
Nobody is advocating for breaking fingers. Following the example set by the image, if someone were to have, for example, issues with their hands, then they should be provided tools to help them play the guitar. Do you think someone with a disability shouldn't be allowed to do things even though tools to let them do those things exist? Keeping up such barriers is how we miss out on amazing talents hampered by obstacles that could be overcome provided adequate access.
I think what he was saying, but slightly missed, was, if both people needed guitar classes, we should not give the guy with the hand issues the only available seat.
Really though, if we just spend a bit more on education, there could be seats for everyone! So maybe the last picture could be fertilizing the tree to make it bigger or something.
What he said is something closer to "We should not tax the rich to level the playing field" and that is a very bad take.
There is no taking away. Someone will have access to guitars that wouldn’t otherwise. Someone somewhere let a great player hear a guitar, see how it’s played, maybe even gave them their first guitar. it’s about giving not taking away.
This image isn’t about making people equal, it’s about making systems equal…
I think your problem is that you think that something will be taken away. Try to think in terms of the giving. Steve is not going to have anything taken away. Someone will have access to guitars that wouldn’t otherwise. Steve will be fine.
What if resources are limited? There is only one guitar but 3 people want one.
Then instead of letting the super advantaged, super rich take all the resources we should work on getting and producing more. Which probably starts with taking from the people who are hoarding them all.
According to the picture, increase the supply of guitars.
At birth there are situations that give people advantages that have nothing to do with ability. These advantages are systemic, where certain people will have better access to opportunity (apples) than others. The goal should be that the opportunities are equal so no one has a head start. The best apple picker will pick more apples instead of the person born with an orchard and apple picking machinery who very well may be a shit apple picker.
For your example, we'd end up with the best musicians becoming popular, not the ones where their parent could afford to give them private lessons since childhood and had industry connections to make them big where they wouldn't otherwise.
It's not about equality of outcomes, it's about equality of opportunity. No one should start a race with a head start because then you don't know who the best runner is. Everyone should start equally and everyone should have equal access to the same shoes, equipment, and practice opportunity, otherwise we can't see who's actually best without an advantage.
Why is important to see who is "best"? That's only important in sports, those which are not actually important.
The comment above was about having the best guitarists. Regardless, why wouldn't it be important to see who's best? Why is it better to see who has the most advantages that weren't earned? The argument for capitalism is that whoever can do the best gets rewarded the most. It's fundamentally flawed because capitalism promotes creating barriers and ensuring the playing field isn't even though.
No matter what the situation, having the best people doing the jobs will create the best outcomes for the most people. In what way is this not desirable?
You entirely missed the point of this picture.
This picture isn't about breaking Steve's fingers so you can both play shitty guitar. It's about making sure you can both access a guitar and lessons to learn.
The equality picture would be shoving a guitar in each of your hands and a coupon for lessons, while failing to address that you live 2 hours away from the teacher while he lives next door.
Eta: equity would be providing you with a free buss ride to the teachers house 2 hours away. This gives you all the tools to get guitar lessons, but, you might not be able to take advantage of this because a 5 hour commitment isn't the same as a 1 hour 5 minute commitment and you lose out on opportunity cost. You get free guitar lessons and a ride, but the system is broken. Justice is fixing the system so that there's enough guitar teachers within a reasonable distance. Like say, making sure that no one is more than 20 minutes from a guitar teacher.
We are already trying to do that. It's called equality. Also known as equality of opportunity, where everyone has access to acquire a guitar and guitar lessons. How does "justice" augment this?
You failed at reading the rest of the comment.
The picture misses the millions of people who are too poor to afford a ladder and don't belong to one of the groups targeted by the equity crowd.
The equity crowd should want the poor people to afford a ladder, I do not understand your point.
Then they would put resources to poor people of any demographic.
You're totally right, ideally yes.
Unfortunately, resources are limited and starting from somewhere is better than not starting at all.
This is where justice would come in. Fixing the system so that resources are distributed automatically to provide everyone with equitable access to the tools
That's actually where justice comes in.
Fixing the system so all people have equal access automatically under the system
While your statement is true, the result is Steve Vai not having a motivation or reason to become the top apple picker. If his extreme efforts to become the best in a given field are nullified by a system that will give extra to someone who isn't as good at it so that they can be as good as Steve, why bother with putting in that effort?
So yes, Steve is harmed by stealing his motivation and (potential) recognition by making the system anti-meritocracy and more about everyone being the same.
The equation changes when we live in a post scarcity society, but we didn't live in one. Therefore we have motivational pressure to find a niche we are good at and exploit it to survive. Taking away that niche you might be talented at while others aren't as talented, harm those people who now don't have that niche to exploit.
Even in a post-scarcity world, where we have unlimited access to energy (and thus can create anything we need), the motivation for social recognition through innate talent and ability is going to drive the human race forward. Taking that away kills the human spirit and possibly the human race.
I bet you are against designer babies/gene editing to give a child a huge advantage over it's peers, right? Because that is the logical conclusion of this metaphor and "justice." Genetically engineering every baby to have equal access to abilities and talent.
Meritocracy is a myth though, perpetuated by those lucky enough to benefit from existing systems.
It's completely circular. I'm on top and the people who are on top are the best so because I'm on top I'm the best.
It never accounts for all the myriad non-merit related ways folks get on top in the first place.
The problem isn't even meritocracy or equality as goals, we just straight up haven't achieved them yet.
I posted this to a comment further down, but thought I should post it up here:
At birth there are situations that give people advantages that have nothing to do with ability. These advantages are systemic, where certain people will have better access to opportunity (apples) than others. The goal should be that the opportunities are equal so no one has a head start. The best apple picker will pick more apples instead of the person born with an orchard and apple picking machinery who very well may be a shit apple picker.
For your example, we'd end up with the best musicians becoming popular, not the ones where their parent could afford to give them private lessons since childhood and had industry connections to make them big where they wouldn't otherwise.
It's not about equality of outcomes, it's about equality of opportunity. No one should start a race with a head start because then you don't know who the best runner is. Everyone should start equally and everyone should have equal access to the same shoes, equipment, and practice opportunity, otherwise we can't see who's actually best without an advantage.
What you mean is something close to "We should not tax the rich to level the playing field" and that is a very bad take.
No one wants to bring everyone up to the level of the best in every field. What people want is for the baseline conditions to be good enough so everyone has the opportunity of having a decent life.
It is such a large difference.
Why are you arguing against something literally no one said? How is this graphic trying to ‘make everyone equal in every way’? How is the person on the left of the graphic disadvantaged in any way? (That last one answers your idiotic ‘breaking fingers’ point)
"Hmmm, he's in a wheelchair so we'll make things equal by chopping off your legs."
You make it seem like correcting the tree in the last panel hurts the advantaged girl on the left. It does not.