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Comment by tenaciousDaniel | Hacker News Reader

There's another comment in this thread who attended a college talk by the authors of the article. They describe how the faculty attempted to direct the conversation towards discussing equity from the standpoint of redistribution, and the authors kept bringing the conversation back to the pragmatic points that were in the article.

So to me it seems we have a definitional issue with the word. Your interpretation of equity makes sense, and is not something I would be opposed to personally. But then there's the other interpretation (redistribution), which is shared by enough people that it's what I think of when I hear the term.

I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to "what equity means", and it's not a very interesting question anyways. What is interesting is how these two very different ideas became conflated, and how to move forward with the good idea and discard the bad idea.

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I think there are strong arguments to be made for redistribution, especially in order to enable equity, but I agree that redistribution and equity aren't the same thing.

I suspect they've become conflated in some circles because redistribution is seen as a real solution to lack of equity. Notably, this is literally baked into our system in terms of federal income tax, but many people argue that it doesn't go far enough. For example, redistribution of wealth could result in making childcare available to most people, eliminate childhood poverty, etc.

I don't think that in principal that 'redistribution' is controversial. Every contemporary society has some form of redistribution of wealth. However, many people see proposals around it as extreme. Though, whether the proposals are extreme may depend on one's knowledge of the consequences of action (and inaction), among other things.

This gets sticky, because a lot of social activists get hung up on this to the detriment of making real-progress on things that are not controversial when presented in the right way. I see a lot of calls for "ideological purity" and "absolute dedication to the cause". These calls, among activists, often become central to the conversation, as opposed to specific policy proposals that could make a real difference. Personally, I find it rather upsetting to see this happen, as I really do see the problems that are caused by lack of equity, structural racism, etc. But the way the dominant activist groups push for change seems to be too focused on ideology, as opposed to pragramatic solutions. I see the value in anger, which turns into dedication and motivation, I think that it sometimes goes way too far, and then becomes a form of unfortunate self-sabatoge. Anyways, I think I've digressed a bit.

If more activists took your approach, I'd be far less skeptical of them.

edit: I should add why I tend to be skeptical of them. It's not just about idealogical purity, it's that in order to truly make progress, you have to reduce the total number of problems in the world. It's very easy to spot a problem - anyone can do that. It's less easy, but still fairly easy, to recommend a fix for the problem. But what's very challenging is to find a fix that does not cause more problems than it solves. It's entirely possible to make things worse, and the best way to make sure that doesn't happen is to be dispassionate. But right now the trend is to lean into passion, and specifically, anger. As you said, anger can prompt action. But the problem with anger is that it's a fire that you can't control, especially when you're talking about millions of people.

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