I am starting to wonder if equality may one day be mentioned in history books of the future right next to eugenics as discredited ideas that caused great harm. When most of the left talk about equality what they mean is equality of outcome. That requires discrimination against the meritorious. Even if you specify that equality of opportunity is your goal you are still operating in the delusion that people are equal. To use extreme examples: was Nelson Mandela equal to Adolf Hitler? Or are you equal to Charles Manson? Is someone with an IQ of 70 equal to Carl Sagan?
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Quote "I am starting to wonder if equality may one day be mentioned in history books of the future right next to eugenics as discredited ideas that caused great harm. When most of the left talk about equality what they mean is equality of outcome. That requires discrimination against the meritorious"
I agree
Quote "Even if you specify that equality of opportunity is your goal you are still operating in the delusion that people are equal. To use extreme examples: was Nelson Mandela equal to Adolf Hitler? Or are you equal to Charles Manson? Is someone with an IQ of 70 equal to Carl Sagan?" leftist thinking? letting everyone 
I think you have some muddled thinking here. What has the fact that people are not identical to do with "equality of opportunity" Should a person with an IQ of 70 not be allowed to compete against Carl Sagan?
It might be that the person with an IQ of 70 might be a fantastic potter and can produce almost impossible things on the potters wheel while Carl Sagan might be hopeless on the potter's wheel. However my money would be on Sagan, if they competed on giving a presentation of philosophical ideas, . It depends on what the opportunity is. In this case who would you choose to give the job as a potter?
Equality of Opportunity should be about preventing some individuals being privileged because of clacs, race, position, diversity, money or family connection etc.
Thasaidon
Level 7
June 17, 2020
2
rway:
The person with an IQ of 70 has every right to compete with Carl Sagan. What's "muddled"?
The point is that it would be ludicrous to expect equal outcomes, presumably in a scientific pursuit. If that person pursues pottery instead, and enjoys a greater chance of success, that is exactly the value of having had the "equal opportunity" to do so.
If you give Lance Armstrong and Stephen Hawking each a bicycle... you have not "leveled the playing field".
They each chose their own path, according to their own strengths, and both thrived as a result.
rway:
@AndrewG yes, every job has qualifying criteria. Well... most jobs. If you're hiring a brain surgeon, you only want to interview people who know how to do brain surgery.
Everybody on the planet should have the same opportunity to get an interview... that opportunity is:
"If you meet the criteria, you qualify."
Anybody who does not meet the criteria, can go out and get qualified and then come back.
That's why it's simply unjust to use immutable characteristics that are not relevant to the job, as qualification criteria; like some of those that Thasaidon listed above. Because that is not equal opportunity. But that's not an argument to use no discriminating criteria at all... that just wouldn't make any sense.
rway:
@Thasaidon oh... I inferred from that, that if you say the goal is "equality of opportunity", but what you're measuring is outcome... then your results are incorrect, you're doing it wrong; i.e., "operating in the delusion that people are equal." (meaning: same abilities, choices, priorities, preferences, ambitions, motivation/drive, ...and about a zillion random factors that happen throughout each of their lives.)
Equality is a word that means different things to different people but is touted as having intrinsic value.
Equality of opportunity is difficult if not impossible if you also want equality of outcome. The former is everyone having the same chance, the latter amounts to the ratio of success satisfying a predetermined requirement. For example if the required outcome is a particular racial mix (say 60% one race or colour, 40% another) then that cannot be guaranteed if selection is purely on merit. However positive discrimination where some candidates are selected because they are a certain race or colour is not equality of opportunity and Is discrimination. Discrimination to overcome discrimination is dubious at best. It is however what equality is currently interpreted as by many with complaints emanating from certain quarters when everything doesn’t reflect the racial or indeed gender mix in society. Add to this the range of potential mixes that could be demanded, race, colour, gender, sexual preference, age, political leaning ( the list could go on) there will always be scope for some group to complain.
There are also other problems with reflecting racial etc mix in a society, eg the mix will not be the same everywhere. Reflecting a mix in London will not reflect the mix in the UK as a whole and in a country as diverse as the US a mix in one area will be entirely different to another. Also the smaller the group that needs to reflect a racial etc mix the more difficult it is to achieve it eg if a mix is 30% to 70% what do you do if you have 4 or 5 people (small organisations, Tv programmes, adverts etc). This issue has certainly shown up in the UK where advertisers and programme makers rushing to include a racial and even sexual orientation mix in virtually every production has led to a huge over representation of minority groups on TV.
So once you step away from equality of opportunity and discriminate in favour of certain groups in order to satisfy predetermined quota systems you can create as many problems as you solve and that is what is currently happening. In addition, if the quota systems result from riots or intimidation and simply lead to discrimination towards different group(s) then resentment doesn’t go away it is simply transferred to the new group(s) being discriminated against.
Kravman2
Level 6
June 17, 2020
4
Equality (of opportunity) and Equity (of outcome) are two different things.
They are mutually exclusive; you gotta pick one...
In the U.S., we picked Equality. But we've been trying to get the wanna-be tyrants on board ever since.
Manipulating outcomes in a "free" society, requires the (illegitimate) Power to do so...
The pretend-goal of "equity" is just the excuse for that power. Equity itself is literally mathematically and logically intractable; as such... it's the perfect inexhaustible excuse for ever-increasing tyranny.
Equality (of opportunity) is the exact opposite. That requires that the power of self-determination remain exactly where it belongs, with the individual "self". It is the very expression of Individual Sovereignty.
Power mongering control freaks hate that idea, as do their minions who are afraid of their own freedom; and even more afraid of yours.
rway
Level 7
June 17, 2020
4
why you think the Library of Alexandria was destroyed...same reason Natives depended on handing down their knowledge simply by word of mouth, and kept it within the tribe..may have been easier to prevent their community from being corrupted by an outside source
DesireNoDesires
Level 7
June 17, 2020
0
It sounds like you have learned what "most leftists" supposedly think equality means from right-wing echo chambers.
Crikey
Level 7
June 17, 2020
0
@AndrewG From Wikipedia: "The vast majority of socialists view an ideal economy as one where remuneration is at least somewhat proportional to the degree of effort and personal sacrifice expended by individuals in the productive process."
I don't doubt that there are a tiny number leftists who believe in complete equality of outcome regardless of individual effort or talent. I have never encountered one, neither online nor in real life, except maybe one crazy old Stalinist I knew about 30 years ago.
But what most rightists are basing their arguments on is a kind of strawman argument that claims that all leftists want everyone to have exactly the same. Or a false dichotomy that the choice is between an authoritarian socialist hellhole where everyone has exactly the same of everything, and a free market system where your ability to feed, clothe, house, and educate yourself and your family, and your access to healthcare, is determined wholly and solely by market (and if you work for someone, that generally involves your employer paying you the minimum that the market will bear).
Most leftists are concerned about gross inequality and lack of access to the necessities of life such as housing, food, health care and so on. It's not saying that I deserve a porsche and a harbourfront mansion because the guy who owns the company I work for has those things. But maybe if I'm renting a house with a hole in the roof and walking to work and hoping I never get sick because I can't afford treatment, while my boss pockets $50M per year, there might need to be some kind of adjustment.
rway:
@AndrewG @Crikey
I think what "most Leftists" and "most Rightists" want are remarkably similar. But they differ dramatically on the most effective means to get there, at what acceptable cost to other priorities like Liberty, and on the relevant metrics that would indicate successful progress.
e.g., Measuring "outcomes" tells you nothing about how just your society is. In fact, a low variance in outcome is a pretty reliable indicator that somebody's getting screwed.
People vary naturally in a gazillion ways, equity implies that some external force has been applied to constrain them and skew the outcome.
When your actions are constrained, or the results pillaged, at somebody else's discretion; then you're not free.
That is an act of tyranny, pretty-much by definition.
rway:
@AndrewG I think all he wants is the control... "equal outcome" is just the excuse.
In Communist China Dishwashers were put into Doctors positions and Doctors as Dishwashers until the whole sordid mess collapsed all in the name of equality. We then bailed them out buying their cheap Made in China goods. You don't have to go that far back to see the folly of so - called equality which never has and never will exist.
johnlondon
Level 8
June 17, 2020
2
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