8 ms·

More to the point, “procedural fairness” or “equality of opportunity” (if I understand it correctly) is directly opposed to “representative fairness” or “equali

• 50656E6973 8y ago
  Equality of outcome seems like a mechanistic concept of the industrial age of standardized mass production. Equality of opportunity seems much more organic/humanistic because it allows for the natural variation in people's values and personality
  • SolaceQuantum 8y ago
    I am also interested in equality of opportunity- but how do I measure that everyone has an equal opportunity to achieve something? How do I measure the opportunity to consume nutritious food? The opportunity for access to the same healthcare?
    • yourbandsucks 8y ago
      It goes deeper than that if you go into cultural biases prevalent in poor (regardless of race) communities. Cigarettes, scratch-offs, crappy food.. what counts as opportunity? Is being raised a certain way tantamount to having 'less opportunity' to make better micro-decisions?
  • rtkwe 8y ago
    The problem is equality of opportunity is it's invariably applied in a way that ignores some very racist and uneven starting conditions and the effects of the past. Consider as a small example how schools are funded in the US, which is largely by local property taxes, so poorer places have poorer schools. These areas are heavily skewed towards minority populations because of some extremely racist issues in our past like redlining which kept blacks and other minorities out of the housing boom which drove a lot of middle class wealth growth through the 60s to 00s. So we build on this cycle generation after generation where kids in poor areas go to poorly funded schools and experience poor educational outcomes. Even if we solve the funding problem it's still not actually equal opportunity because the poorer kids don't get the same support outside of school due to parents working longer hours at lower paying jobs because they got a bad education or living in a crummy house with lead paint (because that's all your parents could afford) or living in a town with contaminated water (Flint is just the one to grab headlines cities all over the country have abysmally high lead levels). Even if you want to blame community culture for some of these issues the question becomes where do you think that culture comes from, perhaps just maybe it comes from decades of lack of opportunity and systemic abuse? How do you possibly hope to close the gap in our system where wealth almost invariably builds on wealth? tl;dr: Equality of outcome doesn't mean everyone has to have the exact same exact life, it's just acknowledging our opportunities are directly tied to the outcomes of the generation before us.
    • tomp 8y ago
      By changing the way schools are funded, and helping poor students. No racial discrimination necessary.
      • rtkwe 8y ago
        My point was principally about the issues with 'equality of opportunity' in the US because of the massive inequality already present. On your note though yes with unlimited money we could do that, given limited budget though targeting the assistance to those most affected makes sense. Also a program like that also does little to nothing for people who aren't very young when it's started. Also ultimately that's an equality of outcome style solution because it's giving additional resources to some. (this is more about things like the Harvard affirmative action program) I think there's also a meaningful distinction to draw between inclusive discrimination like affirmative action and exclusive discrimination of groups. I know it's an extremely tough line to define at a government level but they feel like very distinct categories of activities.
        • tomp 8y ago
          > meaningful distinction to draw between inclusive discrimination like affirmative action and exclusive discrimination of groups. The only distinction I see is in the rethorical spin that people make. A preferential treatment of a set of people is exactly equal to a discriminatory treatment of the complement of that set of people (e.g. positive discrimination of black people equals negative discrimination of non-black people).
    • 50656E6973 8y ago
      >our opportunities are directly tied to the outcomes of the generation before us They are related, but "directly tied to" seems hyperbolic and deterministic. Frederick Douglass is an obvious exceptional example of a human being transcending the outcomes of previous generations.
      • rtkwe 8y ago
• yourbandsucks 8y ago
  Take heart, you're in the silent majority. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo...
• malcolmgreaves 8y ago
  In order to create a situation where people have equality of opportunity, it's often necessary to ensure that the individual had an equal outcome that creates the necessary starting state.
  • ralusek 8y ago
    Conflating those two inherently different concepts for the sake of convenience will not net good systems. Equality of outcome is NOT a substitute for equality of opportunity. Even if attempting to create as equal as possible of a starting state has some surface similarities with equality of outcome, it's important to maintain the distinction.
  • tomp 8y ago
    In theory I agree but in practice that often leads to racism. For example, some people support discrimination for blacks (& against whites) at e.g. college admissions, purportedly to offset their (statistically) worse family background (in terms of education and wealth). Clearly, that's a terrible and racist solution, with the better and obviously correct solution being... to support people from worse family backgrounds! Instead of targeting the proxy for the problem, you solve the problem itself.
    • fzeroracer 8y ago
      The flaw with this argument is that if you recognize that for example, black people are generally worse off in family background than white people, then you end up back at the point where you on average offer more aid for black families than white ones which by your argument would be racist. You're not solving the problem at all by attempting to sweep racism under the rug; quite the opposite in fact because it fails to address how race affects family background and discrimination in the first place.
      • gdy 8y ago
        Why on Earth supporting poor people regardless of their race would be racist by anyone's criteria? It would seem you are the racist here thinking a person needs support because he is black, not because he is poor.
• hoaw 8y ago
  Contrary to what you read online, very few people should discuss those concepts in contrast with each other. Almost all of the public debate is contained in the former. Therefor being for the former doesn't really say much, at all, and any encyclopedia will tell you why. Edit: I will make it easier for you. If you do not understand most of this page[0] you are ignorant of one of the most fundamental debates in society. If you do you would understand my position. The wikipedia version might do as well [1]. It is ironic how people who don't "believe in outcome" are often ignorant. [0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_opportunity#Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_opportunity#Theory
• mehrdadn 8y ago
  Do you believe getting rid of accessible parking spots makes things more fair...?
  • gdy 8y ago
    Are you saying that black people are disabled in a way just because they are black?
    • mehrdadn 8y ago
      ...what? No. I'm asking about the equality of opportunity vs. outcome. Parent said he's for equality of opportunity rather than which accessible parking is most definitely not. I'm suggesting we need more nuance than just categorizing one as desirable and one as undesirable.
      • tomp 8y ago
        I mostly disagree with what “gdy” said but he might have a kind of a point. We, the society, choose to unfairly advantage disabled people, recognising that even with all their advantages, their lives are still pretty shitty. On the other hand, there’s plenty of black people who can, and do, raise to the top of whatever success hierarchy you want, so they don’t need to be treated better; they just need fo be treated the same. (As a thought experiment, would you rather be black like Obama or Kanye, or some disabled guy like Hawking or Roosevelt?)
        • mehrdadn 8y ago
          I don't think this contradicts what I wrote. Like I wrote in the previous comment, all I'm saying we need more nuance on whether equal opportunity or equal outcome is better, because it's situation-dependent, and often some combination of both. On this point you guys are agreeing and then analyzing the situation which is... exactly what I've been saying.
        • gdy 8y ago
          You got my point correctly and I'm interested to know what you disagree with.
• ForrestN 8y ago
  I think the most useful way to think about this is that unequal outcomes almost always lead us to unequal opportunity upstream. If, for example, you made admission to elite colleges(which is a whole other can of worms) ignore ethnic backgrounds, you'd get a result where far fewer applicants of certain ethnicities would be accepted. In an arbitrary sense, this could represent "equal opportunity" if you believed that these people materialized from the ether the day they submit their application. But if you take into account their lives leading up to submitting their application, "equal opportunity" requires counteracting powerful structural factors that make it harder for people of some backgrounds to get into college. The reason Harvard admission of Asian students is cited to such a tiresome degree is that it's a rare case where there isn't a clear upstream justification. That's why there's a big lawsuit and Harvard is getting tons of awful press about it. But it also lines up with the fundamental problem we're trying to fix with affirmative action. Harvard and its admissions systems were invented by white people, and they have proven to relentlessly favor white people, who then have easier lives and more money they can use to pay SAT tutors to help the next generation of white kids get into Harvard. It's not surprising that Harvard would warp the affirmative action system away from its original purpose, to correct for historical oppression, in order to... help white people get into Harvard. The fact that Harvard is discriminating against Asians is not a reason to implement a fake-fair system that has the end result of discriminating against all other non-white people. It's theoretically possible that there are some other cases somewhere that show large inequality of outcome but have no unfairness upstream. But I'd rather have the task of discovering and fixing those rare cases than the present system, in which being born with a certain background gives you radical advantages or disadvantages on the basis of, basically, ancestral violence.
  • tomp 8y ago
    Can you please explain how Obama’s daughters are disadvantaged based on ancestral violence? The point is, racist discrimination, even if “positive”, produces unfair outcomes. Obama’s daughter don’t need even more advantages. If you want to help kids from disadvantaged backgrounds (and I think that’s a worthy cause, even if you ignore “fairness”, simply because it increases the odds of finding the next Ramanujan and improves the well-being of the society), you should help people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Admitting them to degrees they don’t deserve isn’t actually helping them - it’s mainly just fixing superficial statistics and perpetuating harmful stereotypes (e.g. people not wanting black doctors because they suspect they’re worse because they weren’t subject to as strict standards as white, let alone Asian, doctors). To ensure actual equality of opportunity, you need to help them when they’re young, improve their school system, help their families, etc. Everything else is just a bandaid, at best masking rhe underlying problem.