Hacker News Reader

Comment by karmelapple | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a few concrete examples of large groups strongly advocating for equality of outcomes?

I’ve had discussions about “equality” with folks aligned across the political spectrum, and most everyone agrees they want equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. I’m confused about who or what group is speaking about people desiring equality of outcome.

And discriminating against other people because of their views - what if their view is, “group A of people, who didn’t do anything to belong to group A, shouldn’t exist or have the same rights as group B?”

View on HN

Ibram X. Kendi: Any disparity in group outcomes is proof of a deeply flawed and malicious system. The darling of American academia and corporate. You can either have equality of opportunity and accept that the outcomes will be disparate, or have equality of (group) outcome. You can't have both. Your friends have not thought through the consequences of the current dominant ideology.

> 'When I See Racial Disparities, I See Racism.'

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/27/upshot/reader...

Ibram X. Kendi is one person. You can find individuals who espouse any view you want. The question is are there any large groups actually pushing for this. Though the parent didn't, I would s/large/mainstream/ because the internet makes it easy to find large groups of people talking about any old topic.

In other words, a subjective opinion is being asked that anyone can disagree with and similar to "cancel culture", we're just going to pretend this does not exist.

> Ibram X. Kendi is one person.

This is essentizlly false. Ibram X. Kendi is a Harvard professor, author, and widely published by the New York Times, the Atlantic, etc.

He is literally a leader of a large group of people pushing for exactly the views he espouses.

So what is the large group he leads? Or are you saying anyone that has listened to what he had to say, e.g. people who've read his columns or taken his classes or colleagues, are part of his "group"?

Your second statement does not follow from the first.

Yes it does. He is an academic leader, and he is widely considered to be a leader in antiracist thought.

You are free to claim that he isn’t, but there is a preponderance of evidence that he is.

“IBRAM X. KENDI is one of America’s foremost historians and leading antiracist scholars.”

But that's my point. Being a leading scholar and leading a large group of people toward some end are entirely different things.

Sure, in some abstract world, but to make that claim about Kendi, you have to ignore what he has written and said, and most of what has been written about him.

“Dr. Kendi strives to be a hardcore antiracist”

“In 2020, The Root 100 listed him as the seventh most influential African American between the ages of 25 and 45 and the most influential college professor.”

We know what his goals are, and we know that he is independently regarded as extremely influential. He is de facto leading people towards his goals.

What isn’t clear is why you’d try to claim otherwise. He certainly wouldn’t.

OP: 'How many divisions does Kendi have?'.

[Side conversation] As to the why question, consider:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-blame/201709/...

> Willful ignorance occurs when individuals realize at some level of consciousness that their beliefs are probably false, or when they refuse to attend to information that would establish their falsity.

> In contrast to this sort of willful ignorance, self-deception occurs when individuals believe false things with complete conviction.

We are all subject to these kinds of cognitive biases. The best we can hope is to learn some of our own and try to avoid them. Likely we will fail most of the time :(

It’s not always clear what is willful ignorance, and what is a rhetorical device.

This goes in both directions, though, and it's a problem with modern internet-fueled politics and discourse. No one truly speaks for a group in many cases, but nonetheless a group can be seen to have a certain character and set of values. Surely amorphous groups cannot be beyond criticism?

Arguing against disparity of group outcomes is not arguing for equality of outcome at the individual level.

It is arguing that there are no differences between groups that justifies disparities unless there are biases or oppression.

Even if he is wrong, this still does not become an argument for individual equality of outcome.

Can equality of opportunity at individual level coexist with equality or outcome at group level? This is indeed a reasonable question to ask. Upvoted.

We might imagine that humans are akin to gas molecules and human groups are ideal gases, thus an ideal gas law of sorts holds for humans, PV = nRT. There is brownian motion at individual level, but we expect that, statistically, all ideal gases / human groups to have the exact same macro properties. And perhaps if we hard subscribe to rational choice theory (a popular theory among American economists with deep roots in The Enlightenment) we might imagine that indeed humans are atomized undistinguishable gas molecules, pushed around randomly by the vagaries of fate and character.

Alas, there are other ways for matter to organize. Witness the bewildering diversity of minerals out there. 'The Smithsonian's mineral and gem collection [...] consists of approximately 350,000 mineral specimens and 10,000 gems'. As soon as we allow for some degree of matter / social cohesion, the ideal gas / human group law is blown to the smithereens.

I'll let you ponder whether hard atomized rational choice theory is a reasonable assumption when it comes to human groups. Or whether it is a reasonable goal to aspire to.

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

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

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

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/geogallery

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory#Critici....

> It is arguing that there are no differences between groups that justifies disparities unless there are biases or oppression.

So would you say that men having shorter lifespans than women is due to bias or oppression against men?

Should we reallocate public health spending from women to men until lifespans are equal?

Or that black domination in sports is due to bias against whites and black people should be limited in sports so white people can have a fair chance? It seems even woke people recognize that this difference is probably not just cultural bias?

I was explaining the views presented, not expressing my views on them, so you're directing your questions at the wrong person.

Any outcome that diverges from the percent population means the institution is racist. This is literally the foundation of woke culture

1) More blacks are incarcerated than their representation in the population. Therefore the justice/police system is racist and must be abolished (BLM)

2) Minorities cant get loans in proportion to their representation in the population therefore the financial system is racist and must be abolished. Banking must be taken over by the govt

https://www.sierraclub.org/articles/2020/12/follow-money-how...

3) Minorities cannot achieve the same scores in math and science, therefore math and science are racist and must be abolished.

https://money.cnn.com/2016/09/06/technology/weapons-of-math-... etc etc. This goes for any disparity of outcome by race.

>3) Minorities cannot achieve the same scores in math and science

No.

Nice try but I don't buy it. I'll entertain the idea, "if you ruin early education along racial lines you produce disparity of outcomes and this is racist", but I'm not going to sit still for "minorities cannot achieve the same scores in math and science", and especially not for framing it like that's the fundamental issue and what to DO about it is the only concern. That axiom is busted, fake, made up by self-justifying racists… and racist, yes.

Charitably: 3) (Some) minorities are not achieving the same scores in math and science, therefore math and science are racist and must be abolished.

Something to consider: as the 'abolish math and science' movement grows in influence, especially in public schools, students of lower means are likely to fall further behind their more affluent peers, whose parents afford private schooling and tutoring.

It is in the strategic interest of this country, both from an internal cohesion POV and from an international competitiveness POV, to encourage excellence in STEM, across race and class lines. Consider that the voices ready to raise 'racism' at every slight opportunity are actually making it harder to achieve this goal.

The word being used nowadays is "equity", and it's everywhere. Almost every large institution is pushing this. It explicitly means equal outcomes, not equal opportunities.

Equity absolutely does not means equal outcomes. According to Merriam Webster it means "fairness or justice in the way people are treated".

Seems more like you have conflated its meaning in reaction to a movement you don't like.

It does mean equality of outcomes among the people who use the word:

"Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome. Nov 5, 2020"

what are you quoting here? this is the exact opposite of how I have always seen the two terms defined.

https://onlinepublichealth.gwu.edu/resources/equity-vs-equal...

Where is that quote from?

I think people generally know enough to argue/speak in favor of equality of opportunity, but many of the actions appear to be “of outcome”.

In many cases, you can take a view (and craft an argument) that a particular action is one or the other, depending on whether or not you agree with it.

Take admission standards for colleges. Some colleges (at least as I understand it) are requiring higher SAT scores for Asians than other groups to consider students to be equally likely to be admitted. If you agree that’s good policy, you’re likely to argue that this represents increasing access to higher education for underrepresented non-Asian groups and therefore is an equality of opportunity measure. If you oppose it, you argue that those SAT scores represent a measure of the students’ demonstrated scholastic ability (an outcome at that point in time) and that perturbing those results is being done in an attempt to equalize these outcomes. (The truth is that it’s almost surely a mix of both.)

I do not think it is a mix of both. It is an equality of outcome pushed because the solution to equality of opportunity is considered too expensive (massive wealth transfers that may or may not be able to fix broken homes/families/communities).

Opportunities compound, so they will lead to wide gaps in outcomes, so I do not see any solution other than to reduce the income/wealth gap to reduce that inevitable gap in opportunity of outcome.

Aren't many groups advocating for quotas? In France, it's a thing now to try to always have as much women as men in groups, especially those with high prestige (government, board of directors, etc). I don't know if it's precisely a few groups advocating for it, but it's now a thing most people expect. That's for me an example of equality of outcomes and not of oppurtunity.

A friend of mine applied to VMWare a year or two ago. They were asking him all sorts of questions about various disabilities; are you deaf? Do you use a wheelchair, etc..

The recruiter told him directly that they were looking for people with disabilities to fill their quota of people with disabilities, necessary because it was a government position. So we're definitely out of the game of recruiting based on merit in at least some government spots, and instead focused on unrelated favoritism.

There is this in France too. Over a certain size, a company has to have a quota of people with disabilities, or pay a tax.

I find that very difficult to believe, as it’s very illegal to ask about disabilities during hiring. VMware as a large company with many lawyers and hr people would of course know the rules so I’d be shocked if this story is true.

Laws are not the same everywhere in the world. In France we have disabilities quotas, so it makes sense to ask about them during hiring. I also think suing someone because they didn't hire you is less of a thing.

You generally don't have to ask a person if they're deaf. Unless you mean it was part of the application/submission process? It sounds like a greatly exaggerated version of the truth, which is this:

The actual requirement for government contractors is that they cannot require someone to disclose disability information, but they must give the applicant the opportunity to do so.

Because roughly 10% of the workforce has a disability, and it was found that government contractors appeared to discriminate against people with disabilities that were otherwise qualified for the work. So, large contractors became obligated to have a less-than-representative 7% of their workforce pulled from a pool of candidates with disabilities.

I'm not sure quota systems like this are the best way to handle the problem. However, this approach is hardly the death knell for merit-based hiring.

In France, there is a national gender equality rule (enacted in 2013) that states that no more than 60% of new appointments to management positions in public service should go to one sex.

Though bringing more female representation and thereby creating gender parity in employment served as the impetus, this rule was broken in Paris in 2018 when 69% of jobs went to women under the mayor's (Anne Hidalgo) purview. This led to a fine of €90,000 against the Paris government.

Both the mayor and deputy mayor (Audrey Pulvar) publicly expressed happiness, pride, and a sense of honor at having been fined for breaking the rule. In 2019, the fine was subsequently dropped.

So here we have an interesting example of aiming for equality of outcome. What makes it interesting is that when the results led to inequality in favor of one particular side, it was actually championed and seen as progress.

Sources:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55330297

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-55339750

Thanks, I didn't know about what happened in Paris.

Until 1945 (later?) women didn't have the vote in France, so I think a situation where one local government has 69% women is very clearly progress. I seriously doubt that women make a majority of civil servants in general.

When women are overrepresented in every prestigious sector, I think it'll be worth having a rethink about policies like this. Until then, it seems a bit ridiculous - and I say this as a man. If you're a man, and you're not an idiot, you've doubtless noticed a ton of incidents where your gender has helped you advance socially or professionally. You can't just overnight shuck of centuries of history. Quotas are a simple way of trying to push back on that.

62% of civil servants are women in France. Civil servants are 20% of the employed people in France. Civil servants used to have lots of advantages over people working in the private sectors. These days these advantages are being slowly eroded, but some are still here. Stability is a big one. So that 69% is not progress at all, it's just the usual. The goal of these policies is already to get more men in the sector. Especially for civil servants, you should try to have a workforce that's representative of the population. Source of my statistics: https://www.fonction-publique.gouv.fr/legalite-professionnel....

> If you're a man, and you're not an idiot, you've doubtless noticed a ton of incidents where your gender has helped you advance socially or professionally.

I don't think that's the case for everyone. Maybe that's because I'm young? But I haven't noticed much if any discrimination against women firsthand. Even around me, it's very rare to hear stories like that.

> You can't just overnight shuck of centuries of history.

I think you can. Culture erodes very fast when the people that enforced it are no longer around. We had two world war with Germany, and I don't know anyone that has any ressentment against the Germans. I think part of it is because most of the people from that time period are not around anymore, or are now very old. If someone said that he dislikes Germans because of the world wars, everyone would think that person is very weird. As another example, rights of LGBT have been moving very fast these last ~10 years.

I think it's very important to recognize that even if we are far from perfect, lots of improvements have already been and continue to be made. We should use this as an inspiration to know that what we're doing isn't useless or for the future generation, and that we can improve the life of people right now.

From I first encountered rules surrounding this, it has always been seen as a workaround to create the incentives to change sexism elsewhere.

E.g if boards are required to put women in place, it creates an organizational incentive to improve the conditions so more women gets the training and promotions and mentoring that makes then suitable for those board positions, and also takes away an ability to avoid hiring qualified women.

I don't know if anyone that see those rules as desirable in and of themselves.

how do you equalize opportunity of, say, getting accepted to medical school without a previous equalization in the outcome of passing the MCAT, or attaining the competitive GPA required for a qualified (or is that now equal-ified?) applicant?

It does seem that the "equality of outcome" criticism mostly is coming from spaces inhabited and informed by people like Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager. From what I have seen it is mostly used as a strawman because, as you mentioned, I too have not really seen anyone seriously arguing for equality of outcomes (if anyone has examples, please share).

Aren't college admissions policies in the US a widespread, institutional example of "equality of outcomes" thinking?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com