Comment by Iv | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Iv | Hacker News Reader

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I knew someone would mention equity. I must say that, for one, I feel the need to push back against this new trend of trying to obfuscate what equality is about. Equity = equality. People who fight these notions pretended to not understand what equality is and say that equality of opportunity is what it means.

No, to any sane, empathic, person, the meaning of equality is clear: you want similar outcomes for everybody. It sounds complicated only to the people who think that a flat tax is the only fair tax. Let's not indulge to their (often voluntarily) obtuseness. In 20 years, they will pretend that equity means something else and we will have to come up with another word to express the same old concept.

You know, it took me a while to understand how well balanced the french motto was: liberty, equality, fraternity. If you lack one of these, you will corrupt the two others. If you think about equality while also keeping fraternity in mind (as in, "what would I want for my loved ones?"), then it becomes obvious that we are not talking about crap like "equality of chances" but true equality.

True equality of outcome is where no one’s outsized effort can produce an outsized return.

This is not obvious to “any sane empathic person” in fact it seems quite controversial and would seem to involve a terrifying level of government control in each and everyone’s lives and livelihood.

The natural consequences of equality of outcome have already been nicely summed up in this piece of literature.

"the 211th, 212th, and 213th amendments to the Constitution dictate that all Americans are fully equal and not allowed to be smarter, better-looking, or more physically able than anyone else. The Handicapper General's agents enforce the equality laws, forcing citizens to wear "handicaps": masks for those who are too beautiful, loud radios that disrupt thoughts inside the ears of intelligent people, and heavy weights for the strong or athletic."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

Or, perhaps more viscerally, in this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago

My... The strawman escalated quickly.

From semantics to gulag in 2 messages.

One must really hate the idea of a fair society when one equates equality with the crippling of society.

And the natural consequences of freedom have been summed up by Sade who argued that without the freedom to kill someone else, freedom remains limited.

Hence the reason who no one makes one single idea the only absolute moral goal of a society.

I have yet to find someone who argues that therefore, we should consider freedom a dangerous ideal.

Not-so-child-nursery-rhyme from behind the Iron Curtain, in a world fraught with terrifying levels of government control. The translation loses the childish rhythm, for which I apologize:

    Those who are diligent and hardworking have everything they want,
    Those who are lazy and absent from work have it all the same.

Similar outcomes != true equality of outcome.

Before imagining some dystopia where government impose the same lunch menu to everybody, start by imagining a government that would fund healthcare enough so that life expectancy could be unrelated to parents' income. That would be a fucking good start.

Could you explain more why you think absolute equality of outcome should be a goal for humanity? I understand and support the argument that we should not penalise people for being unfortunate enough to be born in less advantaged circumstances, through nationality, parental resources or genetic abilities.

However it seems unreasonable for example to seek equal outcomes between person A who spends their time studying (deferring gratification) and person B who spends their time in leisure activities. Or person A who saves for retirement and person B who spends all the money.

This is not from a moral perspective, but just in terms of how we wish to incentivise behaviour.

Why do you read "absolute equality of outcome" when I write "similar outcomes"? That's called a strawman.

When in doubt, just wonder how to balance liberty, equality, fraternity. Do you want to reward kids who study well? I bet. Do you want adults dying on the street for their choices when they were 10 year old? Maybe not.

And this is exactly a moral perspective: you are deciding who deserves what. You may argue that from a practical perspective we can't give equal outcomes to everybody, and I agree with that. Which is why my first message emphasizes the fact that this is a goal, an objective to strive toward.

Inequalities and the desire to get more are what fuels our society today, so as long as we have the current organization, we will have some amount of that. The moral choices of making equality a worthwhile goal says that we still want to minimize inequalities as much as possible.

I'm well aware that in some cases, bigger/better outcomes accrue to particular people/groups in ways that are unfair, unjust or corrupt.

I'm completely in favour of efforts and systems that seek to overcome said unfairness/injustice/corruption.

At the same time, in a well-functioning economy, higher levels of responsibility, expectation and pressure will accrue to those with higher levels of capability in any given domain. E.g., the more capable and experienced the surgeon, the more difficult and risky the surgical operations that will be assigned to them.

With that increased level of responsibility, expectation and pressure, will come greater benefits - whether financial remuneration, social/political status/influence, resources to manage/invest/allocate, etc. Though that also carries with it even more responsibility, expectation and pressure.

Of course, plenty of people are content to live a modest life, with neither high levels of responsibility, expectation and pressure, nor high levels of financial remuneration, social/political status/influence etc.

That's a perfectly reasonable trade-off.

I'm interested in your take on how the reality should be any different to this.

That is, what's your suggestion for how an economy can function well, in which everyone ends up with the same level of remuneration, status and influence, whilst making vastly different contributions to society and living with vastly different levels of responsibility, expectation and pressure?

No, equity is about why positive discrimination in policies are required to develop an egalitarian society.

You should differentiate politics from society to understand what I mean, I'm sorry but you misunderstood my previous comment.

> No, to any sane, empathic, person, the meaning of equality is clear: you want similar outcomes for everybody.

Have you read Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron? Wanting similar outcomes for everybody is pretty much the diametric opposite of sane. It fails to acknowledge the statistical spread of abilities even within a protected category, let alone any that might exist between them.

Yes, as a kid. I found it an interesting caricature. I am now discovering in awe, as you are the second person mentioning that, that some people actually take it for a serious criticism of the very notion of equality.

That's not even an exaggeration of the position you are attacking, that's a wilful misrepresentation.

Fables often exaggerate in order to drive their moral lesson home, that's hardly a point against Harrison Bergeron. And to be precise, it's not a criticism of equality, it's a criticism of the "equal outcomes" school of thought.

Equality from Oxford dictionary: The state of being equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities.

Equality from Merriam-Webster dictionary: the quality or state of being equal; the quality or state of having the same rights, social status, etc.

French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen: Article I – Men are born and remain free and equal in rights (highlight mine). Social distinctions can be founded only on the common good.

BTW - I come from a country with a communist history and the result of enforcing equality of outcome is indeed equality as you understand it i.e. almost everyone was equally poor. Some people actually feel genuinely sentimental about it. For example, a bubble gum or coca cola bought from capitalist shop with hard to come by dollars had to feel special. My mother often tells my a story how she enjoyed coca cola when visiting West. In general, my parents were really appreciating being able to eat oranges or bananas basically once a year for Christmas. Now, in capitalism it's an everyday thing and doesn't feel special anymore.

You can't have equality of outcome without removing the ability of an individual's choices to influence their outcome, aka freedom. Therefore "equity" is a fundamentally anti-liberty concept.

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