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The problem is using outcomes to describe equality. This in and of itself is controversial and not agreed upon (IMO). I suggest that most humans would agree st

• hemreldop 4y ago
• ethbr0 4y ago
  The issue is that outcomes are easier to measure, and so are. Consequently, the policy eventually targets the measured metric, and we get policies intended to increase opportunity that instead directly target outcomes. At which point, policy wonks pat themselves on the back for hitting their metrics.
  • eastbound 4y ago
    Can it happen that the two groups reach the same outcome, but one group able to achieve the same place without much work? Isn’t that what happens with women and causes misogyny?
    • thfuran 4y ago
      >Isn’t that what happens with women and causes misogyny? I'm not sure what you mean.
    • themacguffinman 4y ago
      Well yes, it can happen. I don't know if that "causes" misogyny, but is rather the result of it. It's paradoxically the case that societies with less gender equality tend to have greater STEM equality [1], and vice versa. Because women in these unequal societies have very little broad opportunity, they rush to one of the few opportunities that's even possible for them: STEM. They'll push themselves to do it even if they don't want to, because it's their only meal ticket out of their situation. Women in more equal societies presumably have more of a voluntary choice and tend to choose STEM less as a result. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797617741719 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/095679761774171...
  • troupe 4y ago
    Are they easier to measure or are they measured by people who are more concerned about equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity? Is it really significantly easier to measure the "diversity" of the incoming class of an Ivy League school than it is to determine whether the selection process between a set of individuals with the same qualifications will produce selections that are distributed in the same way as the applicants are distributed in that set?
• the8472 4y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2081_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2081_(film)
• fineIllregister 4y ago
  I'm not sure I understand this line of thinking. It seems to suggest that there is some semblance of equality of opportunity (or, put another way, that we should ignore the multitude of ways in which we can observe that opportunities are grossly unequal). It also seems to seems to suggest that if marginalized groups have drastically worse outcomes, it's because of some characteristic within those people. It seems a roundabout way of saying that all outcome disparities can be explained with, "Well, they're just lesser people in regards to intelligence/work ethic/whatever."
  • emerged 4y ago
    • CoastalCoder 4y ago
      I share your frustration, but I doubt this problem can be resolved by actual physical warfare.
      • overboard2 4y ago
        I'd assume the physical warfare would be a last resort.
    • turtledove 4y ago
      The system you describe isn't perfect, but almost certainly is a net increase in fairness. Is there a reason we can't solve the equality issue for historically marginalized groups, then fix the systems again to address the smaller set of folks who were disadvantaged by the changes? Basically, can we Zeno's paradox our way most of the way there, solving and disadvantaging smaller and smaller sets of people?
      • ghufran_syed 4y ago
        Why use historically marginalized groups - which almost always means racial groups as your target? If you want to put more money into educational support for children where neither parent went to college or makes more then $x - I'm all in favor. But when you can easily measure those things, why then conflate it with race? If certain racial groups fall into those disdavtaged categories, they will automatically benefit. But maybe poor hard working white, or indian, or Chinese parents are dubious about giving additional benefit to the middle class or rich people who happen to be of a certain race? To take a specific example, why should a university prefer to accept one of president Obama's kids ahead of the child of a Chinese butcher or shopworker, all other things being equal?
• deanCommie 4y ago
  There is a very famous image that illustrates very effectively why equal opportunity is often insufficient: https://www.diffen.com/difference/Image:Equality-equity-justice-lores.png https://www.diffen.com/difference/Image:Equality-equity-just... There is also the problem that different people hear different things when they think about equality of outcome. Equality of outcome for everyone to have a jetski and a ski chalet? No. Equality of outcome for everyone to have food clothing shelter and healthcare? Yes.
• teucris 4y ago
  > In todays world it seems equal opportunity, equity.. and equalized outcomes often conflated with one another. Spot on. Even the most hardcore progressive fanatics I’ve spoken to aren’t pushing for a totally equal experience across humanity. It’s about giving everyone a fair shot at a quality life. Some may have terrible ideas for how to achieve that, but they’re not trying to cut all flowers to the same height.
  • anthony_d 4y ago
    I have spoken with a few hardcore “progressive” fanatics arguing for absolute equality of outcome. It’s a good reminder that intelligence is used to achieve goals, it’s not used for setting goals. When someone’s values are so different it’s hard to have any sort of meaningful conversation.
    • TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      > intelligence is used to achieve goals I thought grit was more important than intelligence?
      • stretchwithme 4y ago
        Is that saying that grit is less important?
      • WalterBright 4y ago
        Intelligence is a tool. If it isn't actually used (i.e. applying grit), it is useless.
    • haswell 4y ago
      > When someone’s values are so different it’s hard to have any sort of meaningful conversation. This is something I spend a lot of time thinking/worrying about. I deeply believe that to make meaningful progress, we all need to start listening to each other. Not just what others are saying outwardly, but looking for the underlying reasons they’re saying it - their values. When someone’s position on policy is drastically different than my own, a conversation about values often reveals that we’re not so far off in terms of what we believe. They just got stuck on their particular implementation detail. But when values are worlds apart, what then? On the plus side, I’ve encountered far more people who fall into the former category - disagreement on policy - then I’ve encountered in the latter - a true chasm between our value systems. The frustrating part is that the same group of people in the policy disagreement category are quick to lump me in with the value extremists without stopping to make sure that’s what I really believe. And such is the state of modern political discourse, where championing equality is derided as a fanciful dream about equity, when nothing could be further from the truth.
• Buttons840 4y ago
  Outcome is opportunity. I'm having a hard time imagining a society with unequal outcomes but equal opportunity. (I am hesitant to argue outcome should always be equal, but it seems that's what I've done.)
  • femiagbabiaka 4y ago
    Exactly right — what an odd statement to make. It reads to me like: “Society should be equal but not measurably so.”
  • mulmen 4y ago
    Outcome is not opportunity. Those words are not synonyms. With equal opportunity people are free to make choices on how they live their lives. With equal outcomes nothing an individual does matters. Failure is as valuable to society as success. We learn what works and what doesn’t. What is important in a free society is that everyone has a chance to try and that we have adequate safety nets in place so failures aren’t ruinous.
    • Buttons840 4y ago
      Can you name one desirable outcome that is not also a desirable opportunity? If we draw a Venn diagram of desirable outcomes and desirable opportunities, and they exactly overlap, then what's the difference? I do agree with everything you said. I think I'm arguing philosophy and you're arguing more concrete economic policies. In realm of policy, I agree with you, in the realm of philosophy, I'm not sure I see a distinct difference between outcome and opportunity (see my first question).
      • ghufran_syed 4y ago
        Consider a multitude of people who are going to buy food at a fast food place, and they all have $10 to spend. They all have the same opportunity to buy food there, but the outcomes (the actual items they buy) will likely be very different. If we then decide that "salads are good, meat is bad", then we can start to talk about "inequality of outcomes" with respect to salad eating. But is this really a problem? I would argue it's only a problem if we don't want humans exercising free will, and want to impose our "enlightened" views on them.
• amelius 4y ago
  This is not the right take. People see equality as a threat because equality is never stable, and the odds might turn against you.
• fxtentacle 4y ago
  Also, if equality of outcomes is used as the measurement, then it definitely harms advantaged groups. Let's assume that all gender-unequal job distributions are due to discrimination (which is highly unlikely, btw), then by definition forcing equal outcomes (e.g. a 50% women quota) will harm the previously dominant group by reducing their share of the distribution. The discussion shouldn't be if equality might harm some groups (it definitely does), but instead which level of harm we're willing to accept for the greater good (of more equality).
  • rendall 4y ago
    I disagree with your take. Compare two worlds: in one, because of discrimination, there are fewer engineers, scientists, talented statesmen, teachers; in the other, without discrimination, there are more of these professions. The second world is more beneficial to everyone, even those of the advantaged groups of the first world. In the second world, people are more likely to discover beneficial technologies, economic approaches, medical breakthroughs, whatever.
    • fxtentacle 4y ago
      Your take assumes that highly paid highly respected jobs aren't a limited resource. In most universities there is a fixed number of PhD slots determined by the available budget. Then each person getting one of those jobs is blocking someone else from getting that job.
      • rendall 4y ago
        > Your take assumes that highly paid highly respected jobs aren't a limited resource. The economy expands to accommodate talent. Jobs are bounded by it. Magically double our collective intelligence, and what we understand as a "job" would cease to have meaning. Suddenly double the number of engineers, and our economy would boom.
        • ghufran_syed 4y ago
          Yes, if we use "intelligence" as our metric when hiring, rather than using race. So why would we promote the latter instead of the former?
• sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  Correct. When you treat equality as equality of outcome, you necessarily destroy: 1. Equality of effort. 2. Equality of opportunity. 3. Equality of personal freedom. 4. Equality of justice. All of these are the right ones to defend while accepting equality of outcome will necessarily force you to embrace behavioral engineering: the industrialization of being manipulative at scale. Basically the wet dream of every power grabbing seeker and wannabe authoritarians in disguise.
  • goodpoint 4y ago
    > the wet dream of every power grabbing seeker and wannabe authoritarians Not at all. By definition, power grabbing is the opposite of equality of outcome. History shown many times that past dictatorships made people in power very wealthy very quickly.
    • teakettle42 4y ago
      Why is that an impediment? You cannot expect consistency from an inconsistent ideology.
    • tromp 4y ago
      You misread the parent poster, who noted that power grabbers would also like to employ industrialized manipulation at scale, although obviously for purposes other than reaching equal outcomes.
    • NovemberWhiskey 4y ago
      >Not at all. By definition, power grabbing is the opposite of equality of outcome. Within this totalitarian framework, the power would be given to the state, acting on behalf of all the people. c.f. Stalinist/Maoist mode
      • vkou 4y ago
        Under our current framework, power consolidates in sometimes-feuding, often colluding oligarchs and large corporations. It is also, of course, all done in the name of the people.
• shadowgovt 4y ago
  It seems possible to put a floor on human suffering without risking other equalities. For example, we aren't risking the other equalities if we say "nobody in a civilized country should starve" or "nobody should go without basic healthcare."
• jollybean 4y ago
  100% the issue. That said - whenever you bring this up, probably worth mentioning the important caveat of 'historical injustice'. For example, some 'underperforming group' may technically have 'equal access' to education, but if their parents are absent, gangs everywhere, no role models, over policed, and become cynical and standoff / thuggish by age 15, and fallen so far behind there's 0% chance of them leveraging supposed educational opportunities ... well ... then is it really 'equal opportunity'? Definitely one could make economic and plausibly racial arguments. Second - there are issues of visible representation. Even if we took 'the most competent and qualified people' to be in US Congress, would it be good if they were 100% Black Women, or 100% Asian Men? Probably not. In some cases 'representation' is a form of 'qualification'. Similarly for TV readers, some high profile things. I don't think that it matters that much in private things and the issue is pushed too hard. ... So we should not be dismissive or lacking in intellectual rigour or even empathy with the issue. That said, yes, 'forcing equal outcomes' is going to be dystopian. Also, I fear that it's really easy to push the idea of 'equal outcomes' and it's as 'ugly populist' as 'ultra nationalism / my country first' etc..
• goodpoint 4y ago
  > many humans see equalized outcomes as more a dystopian nightmare That's not correct. First: even in conditions of equal opportunities, outcomes almost always include a percentage of randomness. Practically all developed societies understand that and employ forms of progressive taxation and wealth redistribution. This is widely supported by economists except few fringe libertarian extremists. Second: difference in outcomes are seen as justified only within reasonable ranges. Polls show that people find acceptable for top performers across various jobs to earn 2x, 3x, 10x the average income. Not 10000x.
  • inglor_cz 4y ago
    "Business" is not a job, though, and that is where the most brutal differences lie. If some business (say, SpaceX) is 10 000 times as big as another business (Joe's Plumbing Co.), why shouldn't the earning scale too?
    • horsestaple 4y ago
      Because it's not 10 000x harder to manage SpaceX than Joe's Plumbing. Sure the compensation should reflect in some way the effort and difficulty. But these earning ratios between the top and bottom or big and small are out of whack. Parent points out that they don't mesh with people's sense of 'right' either.
      • inglor_cz 4y ago
        What about responsibility? If Musk drives SpaceX into the ground, he will be hated universally and possibly jailed, given how much the U.S. now relies on his technology for access to space. If Joe drives his plumbing Co to the ground, he likely won't make it to the local evening news, much less be infamous forever, across the entire planet.
• LeftHandPath 4y ago
  This seems to be the issue every time people bring up equality. The truth is that we are doing a lot better in terms of equality of opportunity than we give ourselves credit for. And equality of opportunity often produces disparate, unequal results - like in countries with better gender equality, where we see more unequal distributions of workers in different fields [0]. The dishonest argument that equality = equality of outcomes will harm us in the long run and push us towards unhealthy and draconian social policies. [0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more...
  • aiisjustanif 4y ago
    > The truth is that we are doing a lot better in terms of equality of opportunity than we give ourselves credit for. Who is “we”?
    • ghufran_syed 4y ago
      Humans
      • GauntletWizard 4y ago
        A category that seems to be smaller every day.
    • Gwarzo 4y ago
      The subjects of the equality in discussion - i.e human beings or, "we"
    • kjeetgill 4y ago
      Sorry you're bing downvoted, I also didn't know if the author meant Humans or we here in the US .... a common internet default.
  • magicalist 4y ago
    > like in countries with better gender equality, where we see more unequal distributions of workers in different fields [0]. I wish the correlation/causation and replication crisis crowd would update their priors on that paper. They published a correction (notably after all the press coverage) because they weren't measuring what they said they were measuring, but it was still a pretty lousy study, and of course demonstrates nothing about causation. [1] has a commentary, but maybe other people have better coverage. [1] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/srichard/files/richardson_et_al_gender_equality_paradox.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/srichard/files/richardson_...
• gaze 4y ago
  it's largely because when people claim the opportunities are the same even though the outcomes are different, they're lying. So, you just cut to the chase and try to improve the outcomes.
• eqNotEq 4y ago
  Disagree and we can do better than traditional vague tribal gossip with data. Polls tell us clearly the public would prefer equality of condition with regard to health, education, and access to food of nutritional substance, by their support for policy that enables agency to those ends. What they don’t care about is policy providing everyone TVs and McMansions. We can be a bit more specific than the hand wavy, traditional narratives. How much less duplication of effort is there if stability and a casual life is available to the masses keeping truly useful work moving along and not mired down in administrative matters because people need to compete for jobs? We don’t know because we can’t try. Tacitly making our system unfalsifiable. When asked privately, opinions diverge wildly from public consensus. No one wants to publicly be the person who blinks.
• chmod600 4y ago
  "Equality" of opportunity itself is a little weird. If one family emphasizes reading and math and another family emphasizes dance and music, they will provide different (non-equal) opportunities to their children, but one is not necessarily "better".
• unclebucknasty 4y ago
  >In todays world it seems equal opportunity, equity.. and equalized outcomes often conflated with one another Two ways to look at this statement. One, that those who advocate for pro-equity policies are doing the conflation. The other is that those who make that assertion are doing the conflation. In general, I'd say it's more of the latter. That is, because the measures must necessarily be remunerative, it can give the sense of advantaging the historically disenfranchised at the expense of others. The conclusion is then drawn that this is overly corrective (i.e. inequitable in the other direction), thus equality of outcomes must be the goal. It's easy to fall victim to this conclusion if you believe that finally implementing equitable rules after, say, 400 years of one group's disenfranchisement truly represents equal opportunity for that group.
• scarface74 4y ago
  You give way too much credit to most humans. Politicians have played to groups in the majority thinking that no matter how bad off they were that by giving “them” equal access and rights that they would be worse off The ruling class never wants equal rights as a group.
• rayiner 4y ago
  I think there's a simpler explanation--one completely overlooked by the authors. Many people are skeptical that the intended effects of government programs seeking to produce equality will be the actual effects. Is racially gerrymandering college admissions or small business loans or vaccine distribution going to produce non-zero sum gains that accrue to everyone? Who knows. The results in the study can be explained by: 1) Nearly everyone, whether in the minority or the majority, believing that the majority will be harmed; and 2) People in the majority rationally opposing those policies based on that premise and people in the minority rationally supporting those policies based on that premise.
• itronitron 4y ago
  Equalized outcomes are a pipe dream. The more equal the outcome, the more bickering there will be over perceived slights from minor differences.
• syndacks 4y ago
  Thank you Dr. Peterson
• assttoasstmgr 4y ago
  Anyone else notice the whole 's/equality/equity/' change that was broadly yet quietly slipped into mainstream society a couple years ago thinking that no one would notice? We somehow memory holed equality of opportunity and replaced it with equality of outcomes (equity) nearly overnight, with all media and corporate communications switching over their newspeak lexicon in unison. What's most interesting about the whole "equity" argument is the groupthink around the official list of who is and isn't marginalized, because my wholly unscientific observation is there is quite an understated effort to exclude East Asians and Indians from the equity club. My guess is their cultures have been deemed "too successful" or exhibiting characteristics (such as emphasis on education and family) contrary to the goals of this social engineering. Stuff like this is what stokes division in society and unfortunately I don't see this ending well.
  • solenoidalslide 4y ago
    If you are referring to the US, it's more because of the proportional treatment of indigenous, Hispanic, and black people by the government, historically speaking. Not because a particular group is too successful. For example, if you read about the history of the Trail of Tears and slavery, those were long-term instances of oppression to specific groups. Not that Indians or East Asians haven't had periods of poor treatment, but the government had a hand in making it almost impossible for the aforementioned groups to accumulate wealth or property in America over the centuries. If you look at the reason why Title IX exists, it is not because "men are too successful", if that makes sense.
  • klipt 4y ago
    > replaced it with equality of outcomes Not consistently. If you point out there are outcomes where "minorities" do better, e.g. women living longer than men on average, and suggest we fix this by e.g. spending more government funding on men's health research, suddenly the "pro-equality" people try to change the topic, or claim that the difference is "biological" and therefore shouldn't be meddled with (an attitude they would of course call sexist if the advantage were in the other direction).
  • unclebucknasty 4y ago
• imtringued 4y ago
  Humans don't strive for equal opportunity at all. They constantly pull the ladders up that helped them get where they are now and they often ban people from building their own ladders using their own effort.
• SimonPStevens 4y ago
  I'm not sure I fully agree here. I think for me some level of equality of outcome is what I think would be best. Not complete equality perhaps, but a tolerance band of maximum acceptable inequality of outcome perhaps. Let me elaborate. I think there should be a minimum level of outcome that every single person in the world should be able to attain with minimal or even zero individual effort. This level should cover basic human rights, plus the ability to live a safe healthy life. For example, the ability to afford food, water, shelter, full quality medical care, clothing, heating, safety, education, childcare, local transport, and having some money left over for entertainment, etc, perhaps some other basics I've forgotten. I would be happy to live in a society that had these things definied as clearly basic minimum requirements and no matter how badly any individual messed up their choices, or even just felt particularly lazy and just decided to stay in bed all day the society would always provide this base minimum level that everyone had available to them, guaranteed. It should be enough to provide for a safe and mostly worry free life. But not so high as to discourage most people from wanting to put in greater effort for greater rewards. On the other end of the scale, I would be equally happy if there was some maximum level of wealth, beyond which no matter the effort put in no further personal gains could be made. I wouldn't like to guess what level that would be to make sense, although I'm reasonable sure that the existence of billionaires is pretty unnecessary. A progressive tax that at some point around a billon pounds just reaches 100% marginal taxation rate. If you earn further wealth beyond that you are just required to give it all to society. Let's just say for the sake of argument that my described minimum level was assessed to cost £50k per person per year, and at the top end we were to decide to cap total personal wealth at £1b. What we've done there is introduce a maximum permitted inequality of outcome of 20000x. That is, the poorest person in our society can at the most extreme be at most 20000 times poorer than the wealthiest. This isn't total equality of outcome, we aren't saying everyone has to have exactly equal wealth, just that no matter the difference in opportunity or effort, there is a proscribed limit on the level of inequality. I think this society would be a much better one to live in. Everyone would be happier knowing that even if things didn't go their way, there are some basics they would never need to worry about. Equally, once you pass a billion pound wealth, are you really motivated by making more £££ anyway, I don't think it should be an issue for society to pressure those wealthiest individuals to seek other motivation rather than just continuing to generate personal wealth. (Just to note, I fully understand the difficulty of actually implementing a wealth tax that works like the one I described, I know that taxing income and wealth are different and it would be nigh on impossible to do what I'm suggesting. I'm merely using this extreme example as a way to discuss the idea that some level of equality of outcome is good in my view)
• jdkee 4y ago
  "THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General." See http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
• fallingfrog 4y ago
  Well, equality of opportunity would sure be a nice start, wouldn’t it? For real though, “equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity” is a classic example of a false dichotomy. Today’s outcome is tomorrow’s opportunity. And besides, the whole question is premised on a defective understanding of “fairness”. Justice is not about everyone having an equal amount of stuff, it’s about power.
• deleted 4y ago
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