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>The law doesn't see "all comers" as equal; specifically, there are what's called "protected classes" in United States civil rights law. This is the real false

>The law doesn't see "all comers" as equal; specifically, there are what's called "protected classes" in United States civil rights law. This is the real false dichotomy, and why civil rights law as written is total garbage. Creating "protected groups", which by definition are artificially defined and socially polarizing gives certain people more rights than others. This is incredibly counterproductive and entirely wrongheaded. Those who argue that the existance of "protected classes" in law are a rationale for discrimination, rather than defending the logic and morality of "protected classes" themselves are missing the point. Virtually all reasonable, fair-minded people want a society where everyone is equal and everyone enjoys the same civil liberties. Its irrelevant that various Civil Rights Acts were intended to protect "vulnerable" groups - intentions never matter. What matters are the actual, tangible results of the law. Ignoring this fact and pretending that intentions are what matters is what leads us to where we are today. The truth is that it wouldn't be difficult to word a Civil Rights Act that used neutral language to prevent the violation of anyone's civil rights, by any party, for any reason. This has already been done, most recently in Iceland. The people of Iceland were concerned about the continuing wage gap between men and woman, and so they passed a law that mandated equal pay for all people working the same jobs. They didn't slice and dice the population into artificially created catagories, or specify anything about men, women, "theys", or 25 different genders and races. They simply said that a company has to pay the same salary for the same job, no matter who the person was. At the end of the day, we need to move to a place where we all view each other as equals (though not the same). Laws that artificially divide us and codify those divisions into law will just continue to ensure that we never move toward a society where this is the case.

FundThrowaway 9y ago
I believe a lot of this disconnect is between people who view equality as equality of opportunity and those who believe that equality is actually the equality of outcome.
- aninhumer 9y ago
  This dichotomy gets brought up a lot, but if you start thinking about the details here, the distinction isn't as clear as people make out. If everyone were given equal opportunity to achieve good outcomes for themselves, the only way we could end up with inequality of outcomes is if people choose to have worse outcomes than others. But why would anyone ever choose bad outcomes? People try to explain this by saying some people are "lazy" or "impulsive" and thus make suboptimal choices, but does this really make sense? If a significant portion of society is consistently making suboptimal choices, are there societal changes we could make to convince more people to make better choices? If we think there are societal changes we could make that lead more people to make better choices, then can we really say those people had "equal opportunity" to make those choices before the change? And if we think there aren't any societal changes we could make that lead people to better choices, then what we are saying is that there is inevitably some portion of people who will not achieve good outcomes within our system. And if that's true, is it really a good system for humanity as it exists?
  - CM30 9y ago
    > But why would anyone ever choose bad outcomes? Because what they want doesn't correlate with what's in demand at that point in time? I mean, someone might want to study English Literature at degree level, then find a job based on those skills. However, if those skills weren't in demand at that point (because everyone wanted people with STEM degrees or programmers or what not), then their outcome would likely be worse than someone who studied computer science. Did both of these people have equal opportunities? Sure, they could have both gone into one field or another (assuming a theoretical situation where their intelligence was roughly equal and the degrees cost about the same). But they didn't, and their outcomes weren't equal. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and one choice wasn't necessarily 'suboptimal' either. And how about a few others? Someone going to one city over another is a choice, and the consequences could be very different based on that choice. That doesn't mean there necesarily wasn't equality of opportunity. Same for things like what job you choose (assuming they're 'equal' on a technical level), who your friends are, what hobbies you have, etc. You can probably think of thousands of examples where people are making choices that lead to inequal outcomes, simply because either the market demand is different, attitudes are different or random factors in the world are different between them. Choices don't necessarily have to be 'suboptimal' to have different outcomes.
- YorkshireSeason 9y ago
  I stronly recommend the article Equality [1] in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It's a great overview article that maps out the different approaches to equality, how they are incompatible with each other, and gives great links for further reading. It's not long, maybe 15 minutes, and worth pondering deeply, and repeatedly. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/
YorkshireSeason 9y ago
Virtually all reasonable, fair-minded people want a society where everyone is equal I have never met a reasonable, fair-minded person who wanted a society where everyone is equal. Let me quote [1]: "[W]ith the possible exception of Barbeuf (1796), no prominent author or movement has demanded strict equality. Since egalitarianism has come to be widely associated with the demand for economic equality, and this in turn with communistic or socialistic ideas, it is important to stress that neither communism nor socialism [...] calls for absolute economic equality." The most famous 20th century defender of equality has been Pol Pot who justified his crimes by his wish to create the "perfectly equal state". I refer once again to the article [1] for an overview of the problems with making the concept of equality precise, beyond populism. I suggest reading equality of a narrative device, intended for drastic simplification that appeals to the masses. Comparable narrative simplifications are for example concepts like god, last judgement, Karma etc in the religions. They are extreme simplifications of complex social processes. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- StanislavPetrov 8y ago
  Equal in the eyes of the law - possessing the same legal rights and civil liberties. This is literally the opposite of a state seeking "equal outcomes".

FundThrowaway 9y ago

I believe a lot of this disconnect is between people who view equality as equality of opportunity and those who believe that equality is actually the equality of outcome.

aninhumer 9y ago
This dichotomy gets brought up a lot, but if you start thinking about the details here, the distinction isn't as clear as people make out. If everyone were given equal opportunity to achieve good outcomes for themselves, the only way we could end up with inequality of outcomes is if people choose to have worse outcomes than others. But why would anyone ever choose bad outcomes? People try to explain this by saying some people are "lazy" or "impulsive" and thus make suboptimal choices, but does this really make sense? If a significant portion of society is consistently making suboptimal choices, are there societal changes we could make to convince more people to make better choices? If we think there are societal changes we could make that lead more people to make better choices, then can we really say those people had "equal opportunity" to make those choices before the change? And if we think there aren't any societal changes we could make that lead people to better choices, then what we are saying is that there is inevitably some portion of people who will not achieve good outcomes within our system. And if that's true, is it really a good system for humanity as it exists?
- CM30 9y ago
  > But why would anyone ever choose bad outcomes? Because what they want doesn't correlate with what's in demand at that point in time? I mean, someone might want to study English Literature at degree level, then find a job based on those skills. However, if those skills weren't in demand at that point (because everyone wanted people with STEM degrees or programmers or what not), then their outcome would likely be worse than someone who studied computer science. Did both of these people have equal opportunities? Sure, they could have both gone into one field or another (assuming a theoretical situation where their intelligence was roughly equal and the degrees cost about the same). But they didn't, and their outcomes weren't equal. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and one choice wasn't necessarily 'suboptimal' either. And how about a few others? Someone going to one city over another is a choice, and the consequences could be very different based on that choice. That doesn't mean there necesarily wasn't equality of opportunity. Same for things like what job you choose (assuming they're 'equal' on a technical level), who your friends are, what hobbies you have, etc. You can probably think of thousands of examples where people are making choices that lead to inequal outcomes, simply because either the market demand is different, attitudes are different or random factors in the world are different between them. Choices don't necessarily have to be 'suboptimal' to have different outcomes.
YorkshireSeason 9y ago
I stronly recommend the article Equality [1] in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. It's a great overview article that maps out the different approaches to equality, how they are incompatible with each other, and gives great links for further reading. It's not long, maybe 15 minutes, and worth pondering deeply, and repeatedly. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/

YorkshireSeason 9y ago

Virtually all reasonable, fair-minded people want a society where everyone is equal I have never met a reasonable, fair-minded person who wanted a society where everyone is equal. Let me quote [1]: "[W]ith the possible exception of Barbeuf (1796), no prominent author or movement has demanded strict equality. Since egalitarianism has come to be widely associated with the demand for economic equality, and this in turn with communistic or socialistic ideas, it is important to stress that neither communism nor socialism [...] calls for absolute economic equality." The most famous 20th century defender of equality has been Pol Pot who justified his crimes by his wish to create the "perfectly equal state". I refer once again to the article [1] for an overview of the problems with making the concept of equality precise, beyond populism. I suggest reading equality of a narrative device, intended for drastic simplification that appeals to the masses. Comparable narrative simplifications are for example concepts like god, last judgement, Karma etc in the religions. They are extreme simplifications of complex social processes. [1] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
StanislavPetrov 8y ago
Equal in the eyes of the law - possessing the same legal rights and civil liberties. This is literally the opposite of a state seeking "equal outcomes".