3 ms·
equality of outcome is unnecessary, only equality of opportunity is required.
by chii 5mo ago
equality of outcome is unnecessary, only equality of opportunity is required.
- oblio 5mo agoSo if the apples are in a 3.5m high tree and you're 2m tall and I'm 1.5m tall, it's fair if we both get 1m ladders?
- chii 5mo agowhy isnt it fair? Someone taller has a better chance at becoming a pro basketball player. Shorter people are not given more leeway. But both tall and short people have the chance to try out (at least on paper).
- yifanl 5mo agoBecause the equivalence between being signed for the NBA and having apples to eat is nonsensical. We accept some things being unfair, not everything being unfair.
- anon291 5mo agoStrawman.... No one is dying for lack of apples in America
- tristor 5mo ago> We accept some things being unfair, not everything being unfair. Life is fundamentally unfair. Anything that tips the balance in the other direction is due to specific, continuous human effort. It's a good thing when we can make things more fair, but the inherent unfairness of life is not a cosmic injustice.
- linkregister 5mo agoFixating on apples is key to the metaphor. The shorter person has other opportunities to collect food that they are better suited for, e.g. picking strawberries.
- anon291 5mo agoYes? Maybe the 1.5 m tall guy should find another line of work where he has a natural advantage that could be turned into profit. People are not the same. The market is the best way to allocate resources fairly to people of different ability
- oblio 5mo agoUnfettered markets are how we get burning rivers. I know we're on the bastion of libertarianism, but even though I work in tech, I don't feel that tech (hardware/software) is tackling the truly big problems of humanity, just the ones that bring the most money. We should at least acknowledge that and mitigate it.
- anon291 5mo agoTech and the market are orthogonal issues. Burning rivers? No failure to protect the environment is a failure of property rights enforcement. If your stuff is leaking off your property you should be forced to pay for it. That's just basic property rights. You don't have the right to put your stuff on others property
- chii 5mo agoExactly! The "unfettered" free market examples are all externalities, which is unfortunately unavoidable. Therefore, the role of gov't is to remove by regulation and force, all externalities (and the best way, perhaps, is to fine/charge/tax those externalities such that the effect becomes neutralized). This would work for carbon emissions, as an example.
- oblio 5mo agoTurns out, some people are taller and if we don't aim for equality of outcomes, they eat all the apples and shit on our short head. Every HN poster should be forced to read the chapters in the Black Swan where Taleb describes Extremistan and Mediocristan. With scalable tech almost everything becomes winners take most. Equality of opportunity leads to many people starving.
- HDThoreaun 5mo agoThe shorter person should pick root vegetables where they have an advantage over the tall person. Not all people are equally suited for all tasks