4 ms·

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 o

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 8y 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 8y 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.
  - aninhumer 8y ago
    >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. It's easy to say their unequal outcomes are "not necessarily a bad thing" when you're a STEM graduate living in San Francisco on a $200k, not quite so reassuring when you're an English Lit graduate struggling to make a living as a barista. And when you look at that massive difference in outcomes and say "well you chose skills that aren't in demand" then what you are saying is "you made the wrong choice if you wanted a good life". EDIT: Or alternatively, to finish the analogy, you're saying "some people just inevitably want to study English Lit even though our society doesn't value it, guess it sucks to be them!".
    - CM30 8y ago
      So what's the alternative? The government sets wages across all industries to be exactly the same? That doesn't feel too meritocratic... But hey, if you need another few, what if: You have two jobs to choose from, both make you happy and both pay the same. The outcome won't be identical in both cases, since you'll meet different people, work in a different location and do different work. Or how about the obvious extreme between a job that pays well and nothing? Let's assume everything ends up on basic income and that works out. Fair enough. But now assume one of those people wants to become an entrepreneur and sets up a startup that ends up becoming a billion dollar corporation while the other one sits at home and watches Netflix all day. Their opportunities may be the same, but the outcomes won't be. Is that a bad thing? I doubt many people would say it is, especially given how both have enough to live on and both are enjoying their life doing what they want to do. Or heck, how about another example? Imagine two people are looking for a romantic partner at the same time. They may have the same opportunities (in terms of access to the other gender, wealth, location, etc) but simply by genetics (aka one potentially being more attractive than the other) or interests (more attractive people from one gender might have one interest and not another) they won't have equal outcomes. You will never get 'equality of outcome', simply because a system that aims for that would be ridiculously unfair, completely non market based and likely verging on a dystopia.
      - 8y ago
YorkshireSeason 8y 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/

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 8y 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 8y 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.
- aninhumer 8y ago
  >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. It's easy to say their unequal outcomes are "not necessarily a bad thing" when you're a STEM graduate living in San Francisco on a $200k, not quite so reassuring when you're an English Lit graduate struggling to make a living as a barista. And when you look at that massive difference in outcomes and say "well you chose skills that aren't in demand" then what you are saying is "you made the wrong choice if you wanted a good life". EDIT: Or alternatively, to finish the analogy, you're saying "some people just inevitably want to study English Lit even though our society doesn't value it, guess it sucks to be them!".
  - CM30 8y ago
    So what's the alternative? The government sets wages across all industries to be exactly the same? That doesn't feel too meritocratic... But hey, if you need another few, what if: You have two jobs to choose from, both make you happy and both pay the same. The outcome won't be identical in both cases, since you'll meet different people, work in a different location and do different work. Or how about the obvious extreme between a job that pays well and nothing? Let's assume everything ends up on basic income and that works out. Fair enough. But now assume one of those people wants to become an entrepreneur and sets up a startup that ends up becoming a billion dollar corporation while the other one sits at home and watches Netflix all day. Their opportunities may be the same, but the outcomes won't be. Is that a bad thing? I doubt many people would say it is, especially given how both have enough to live on and both are enjoying their life doing what they want to do. Or heck, how about another example? Imagine two people are looking for a romantic partner at the same time. They may have the same opportunities (in terms of access to the other gender, wealth, location, etc) but simply by genetics (aka one potentially being more attractive than the other) or interests (more attractive people from one gender might have one interest and not another) they won't have equal outcomes. You will never get 'equality of outcome', simply because a system that aims for that would be ridiculously unfair, completely non market based and likely verging on a dystopia.
    - 8y ago

YorkshireSeason 8y 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/