4 ms·

Equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity... Many things have been said by other, better informed and more eloquent people than me. I noticed this however:

Equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity... Many things have been said by other, better informed and more eloquent people than me. I noticed this however: “At least ten more years” And that makes me wonder if and when this will turn into something akin the "Communism / Captialism / Whatever concept has never been tried/implemented _properly_" Personally, I don't think striving for equality of outcome will do society any good.

robert_foss 9y ago
> Personally, I don't think striving for equality of outcome will do society any good. I presume many slave owners had the same point of view.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  In what sense is this a productive contribution to the conversation?
- treerock 9y ago
  You think slaves had equal opportunities to others, but still ended up/choosing to be slaves?
- sctb 9y ago
  This kind of flamebait isn't how we converse on Hacker News, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
abusoufiyan 9y ago
>Personally, I don't think striving for equality of outcome will do society any good. Well, isn't it just convenient that if we don't strive for equality of outcome then life will just have to remain tilted in favor of white/asian men
- cabraca 9y ago
  to strive for equality of outcome just means eliminating peoples choice. we had that in the past. a few million people died ...
  - abusoufiyan 9y ago
    A few million people died in Iraq as well under the super-egalitarian, meritocratic, no equality of outcomes democracy of the USofA, so why does choice matter so much?
- ramblerman 9y ago
  Does the fact that asian men are included not rule out racism and open the door to examine the issue further?
  - aninhumer 9y ago
    Uh, no not really? That biases about race might be changing form doesn't "rule out" the idea of racism. You might as well say the increased inclusion of Irish people in the last few decades rules out racism in that period.
- pitkali 9y ago
  Why? Status quo is not the only alternative to equality of outcome.
matt4077 9y ago
The idea of diversity on corporate boards isn't to mandate equal outcomes, it's that a more diverse board may be more inclined to provide equality of opportunity to the next generation. That's why it's not a requirement for diversity in CXO positions. The board is a rather hands-off institution in most companies. They hire the CEO, on mostly just hold them accountable afterwards.
badosu 9y ago
> And that makes me wonder if and when this will turn into something akin the "Communism / Captialism / Whatever concept has never been tried/implemented _properly_" I see this as the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy of ideologies > The essayist Spengler compared distinguishing between "mature" democracies, which never start wars, and "emerging democracies", which may start them, with the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. Spengler alleges that "political scientists" have attempted to save the "US academic dogma" that democracies never start wars from counterexamples by declaring any democracy which does indeed start a war to be flawed, thus maintaining that no true democracy starts a war. [0] 0 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
b6 9y ago
This is what bothers me the most. The thinking seems to be that by deliberately employing "positive" discrimination, someday we'll detect that bias has been eliminated, and then the government will instruct all institutions throughout the country to dismantle their discriminatory policies. Having deliberately practiced discrimination for 10, or 20, or 30, or however many years, someday we'll see it isn't needed anymore, and stop. To me, that's absurd. For one, I doubt we'll ever detect that bias has been eliminated. Secondly, even if we did, we'll never dismantle the institutional policies of discrimination, because at that point, far too many people would be benefiting from them. We seem to be deliberately implementing institutional discrimination on the assumption that differences of outcome necessarily represent oppression.
- ghthor 9y ago
  Exactly. While there absolutely is discrimination due to systemic and personal bias, reaching for equality of outcome is much to heavy handed. The result is many innocent people being hurt at best, at worst istitutional tyranny.
- Chris2048 9y ago
  If unions are anything to go by, in those 10/20/30 years powerful institutions will arise ensuring bias will always be detected, either by technical/political interference with the means of measurement, or altering the scope of what constitutes "bias".

robert_foss 9y ago

> Personally, I don't think striving for equality of outcome will do society any good. I presume many slave owners had the same point of view.

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
In what sense is this a productive contribution to the conversation?
treerock 9y ago
You think slaves had equal opportunities to others, but still ended up/choosing to be slaves?
sctb 9y ago
This kind of flamebait isn't how we converse on Hacker News, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

abusoufiyan 9y ago

>Personally, I don't think striving for equality of outcome will do society any good. Well, isn't it just convenient that if we don't strive for equality of outcome then life will just have to remain tilted in favor of white/asian men

cabraca 9y ago
to strive for equality of outcome just means eliminating peoples choice. we had that in the past. a few million people died ...
- abusoufiyan 9y ago
  A few million people died in Iraq as well under the super-egalitarian, meritocratic, no equality of outcomes democracy of the USofA, so why does choice matter so much?
ramblerman 9y ago
Does the fact that asian men are included not rule out racism and open the door to examine the issue further?
- aninhumer 9y ago
  Uh, no not really? That biases about race might be changing form doesn't "rule out" the idea of racism. You might as well say the increased inclusion of Irish people in the last few decades rules out racism in that period.
pitkali 9y ago
Why? Status quo is not the only alternative to equality of outcome.

matt4077 9y ago

The idea of diversity on corporate boards isn't to mandate equal outcomes, it's that a more diverse board may be more inclined to provide equality of opportunity to the next generation. That's why it's not a requirement for diversity in CXO positions. The board is a rather hands-off institution in most companies. They hire the CEO, on mostly just hold them accountable afterwards.

badosu 9y ago

> And that makes me wonder if and when this will turn into something akin the "Communism / Captialism / Whatever concept has never been tried/implemented _properly_" I see this as the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy of ideologies > The essayist Spengler compared distinguishing between "mature" democracies, which never start wars, and "emerging democracies", which may start them, with the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. Spengler alleges that "political scientists" have attempted to save the "US academic dogma" that democracies never start wars from counterexamples by declaring any democracy which does indeed start a war to be flawed, thus maintaining that no true democracy starts a war. [0] 0 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

b6 9y ago

This is what bothers me the most. The thinking seems to be that by deliberately employing "positive" discrimination, someday we'll detect that bias has been eliminated, and then the government will instruct all institutions throughout the country to dismantle their discriminatory policies. Having deliberately practiced discrimination for 10, or 20, or 30, or however many years, someday we'll see it isn't needed anymore, and stop. To me, that's absurd. For one, I doubt we'll ever detect that bias has been eliminated. Secondly, even if we did, we'll never dismantle the institutional policies of discrimination, because at that point, far too many people would be benefiting from them. We seem to be deliberately implementing institutional discrimination on the assumption that differences of outcome necessarily represent oppression.

ghthor 9y ago
Exactly. While there absolutely is discrimination due to systemic and personal bias, reaching for equality of outcome is much to heavy handed. The result is many innocent people being hurt at best, at worst istitutional tyranny.
Chris2048 9y ago
If unions are anything to go by, in those 10/20/30 years powerful institutions will arise ensuring bias will always be detected, either by technical/political interference with the means of measurement, or altering the scope of what constitutes "bias".