Outcome is opportunity. I'm having a hard time imagining a society with unequal outcomes but equal opportunity.
(I am hesitant to argue outcome should always be equal, but it seems that's what I've done.)
(I am hesitant to argue outcome should always be equal, but it seems that's what I've done.)
That is only confusing if you also assume that all people have equal skills, desires, preferences, physical characteristics and so on. They don't and so there is no reason to think that equal opportunities presented to a collection of unique individuals will result in equal outcomes. Instead there will be a unique outcomes based on what the individuals bring to the opportunities.
I would assert though that in a world of unique individuals there won't ever be "equal outcomes" regardless of the distribution and nature of opportunities, which is not a statement about how to improve or maximize opportunities.
I would also assert that there is no agreement that "equal outcomes" is a desirable goal nor is it even a well-defined goal.
Why do you think this? Why do you think that genders have equal preferences, for example? What about different age groups? The age distribution of various groups is quite different and so that alone will result in different outcomes without any unfair limitations being involved.
What do you propose to do about gender differences in mining, logging, car mechanics, etc.? Are you going to force women to enter those occupations? Why do you think the gender imbalance is evidence of unfairness that needs to be remedied? How much power would you have to give to government in order to achieve "fairly statistically equivalent outcomes" in these cases?
This focus on group "equality" can seemingly only come at the expense of limiting individuals. IMHO we should focus on maximizing individual liberty and not focus on statistical outcomes for groups.
That's a big claim to make without a citation. And it really doesn't even make a ton of sense given the other factors at play in a modern workforce.
I posit that the majority of employers out there are trying to pay as little to their employees as they can possibly get away with. If women do the same work and I can get away with paying them less, wouldn't the prudent business decision be to hire tons of women and build a culture that women find appealing? And yet somehow most workplaces are male-dominated.
(I don’t feel that way, but we’re not far removed from that being a common sentiment.)
Are there companies out there who are hiring a bunch of women and kicking ass because of it? And if so, why hasn't that success story been told and started propagating in business circles?
There are absolutely lots of companies that have diversity and inclusion programs, and spend lots of money on these issues.
If your metric of success is "What are the successful companies doing" then you have to admit that basically every major corperate environment these days, has diversity programs, so by your own definition, they are important.
Also, nobody promotes diversity because diversity it reduces payroll costs. They do it because it allegedly produces better results.
Ok great. Then you agree that diversity programs are good and competitive.
That is good enough of a concession to satisfy most people on this topic, no matter how you got to it!
So that's the success story. You demanded a success story, and at the very least, this shows that diversity programs are good and do produce better results, because basically every successful company does then.
I presume you think striving for statistically equivalent outcomes is good; I think it's pernicious nonsense. Since you haven't bothered making your case, I won't either.
Let person A practice Chess 2 hours a day. Let person B practice Chess 2 hours a week.
Person A makes the cut to join the high school Chess team, while Person B doesn't.
Most people would say if both person A and person B had the same opportunity to practice Chess that's sufficient. It seems like you are saying they should both be allowed to join the team. Regardless of the effort they expended.
Am I misunderstanding your point?
I guess I'm saying that unequal outcomes lead to unequal opportunities. "Equal opportunity, not equal outcomes" sounds nice, but it's inherently unstable, because the unequal outcomes will result in unequal opportunities.
I think:
1. It's an impossible ideal, but that's ok. It's not the only impossible ideal.
2. Sometimes, we should just focus on concrete ways we can help equalize opportunities.
3. Sometimes, we can talk about the difficult philosophy behind it all, and probably wont come up with concrete solutions in the process, but it might be a worth while thought exercise.
(I'm doing 3 right now.)
The term you're looking for here is Free Will or Determinism, in respect to the State. Different folks have different views on these. Your views seem to place a large weight on Determinism. I personally think Determinism in the State is a philosophical dead end based on the evidence of the last century.
What if person A and person B had, in theory, equal opportunity to practice chess, but person B has a whole lot of other things demanding his time and energy due to lower socioeconomic status? Or, what if person B never really considered trying out for the chess team a viable thing, because "people like him" don't become serious chess players?
That's the thing that gets tricky here. Equality of opportunity is a nebulous concept. And to the extent that it's tilted towards some, it tends to stay that way in subsequent years and in subsequent generations.
But putting our finger on the scale to favor those who we are guessing had less opportunity to try and even it out screws up in lots of ways, too.
At the same time, when student B shows up, and is nearly as good as A despite almost certainly having less chance to practice... maybe B is actually a better talent and will be better overall.
Making qualitative decisions sucks. But sometimes a holistic, qualitative decision captures better what is going on than the strict quantitative "fair" measure. It's all fuzzy and difficult.
I will say, especially with youth: my "fair" measures have been rubbish at predicting performance. Some of the strongest students on my robotics teams and in challenging classes have been the ones that did not look like it on my first measures.
With equal opportunity people are free to make choices on how they live their lives. With equal outcomes nothing an individual does matters. Failure is as valuable to society as success. We learn what works and what doesn’t.
What is important in a free society is that everyone has a chance to try and that we have adequate safety nets in place so failures aren’t ruinous.
I do agree with everything you said. I think I'm arguing philosophy and you're arguing more concrete economic policies. In realm of policy, I agree with you, in the realm of philosophy, I'm not sure I see a distinct difference between outcome and opportunity (see my first question).
To continue your example, I think the outcome of the people's meals would be how the meal makes them feel. This is a real outcome rather than the illustrative "salad good, meat bad" dimension you propose. The people who ordered healthy food feel more energetic, and thus they have more opportunities for several hours, because they have energy while their colleagues are bloated and lethargic. Their equal opportunity resulted in unequal outcomes, which resulted in unequal opportunity.
So, I'm still seeking a desirable outcome (beyond red bracelet / blue bracelet, and "salad good, meat bad") which does not also increase opportunity. My original question remains.
But also...
Somehow those otherwise impactful differences have ZERO bearing on someone's interest in (or even aptitude for) specific career paths?
How do you explain that?
You ever been to a gym or a basketball court? Plenty of equal opportunity vastly unequal outcomes. How big of a society are you talking about?
Say group X prefers job 1 to job 2 by a 3:2 ratio, and group Y prefers job 2 to job 1 by a 3:2 ratio. Assume that equality of opportunity exists, and equal numbers and qualifications of both groups X and Y.
The expected outcome is that the X:Y ratios would be 3:2 in job 1 and 2:3 in job 2.
If job 1 pays more than job 2, then the "equality of pay" outcome is not achieved. Group X is paid more than group Y.
That's how I see it at least :)
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/what-can-uber-teach-us-abou...
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Ok, I read it, and pretty much nailed it, but the other factor is that men tend to drive faster, and so simply complete more rides in the same amount of time.
None of the factors explaining the 7% pay gap seem to have anything to do with (a) Uber or (b) Customers. It's all seems to be based on choices by the driver.
The fact that i graduated as a software engineer says nothing about my other opportunities that i _chose_ not to persue. At scale i can see those effects averaging out somewhat, but i see no evidence that a a fully egalitarian society would produce entirely representative outcomes across all subgroups/occupations.
But I wonder just how much equalization of "opportunity" would be needed to reach an acceptable equality of outcome.
As an extreme example, could it go so far as to prevent some parents from passing on their values to their children?
E.g. if being of a certain religious viewpoint was negatively correlated with whatever measure of "outcome" was currently in vogue, would equality of opportunity mean barring its adherents from having or adopting kids?
What does "invest in your future" mean? I think a good definition would be "increasing your future opportunities". Given that definition, what you're saying is that a good outcome also requires having opportunities. Another example of how outcome and opportunity are deeply intertwined.
There is more than enough opportunity in the USA for someone to be born with relatively little and work their way up to a middle-class lifestyle EASILY. Many people do.