> I think what is reasonable to say is that while we are all created equal in the sense that we are human, that's far as as natural equality extends. Some of us are taller, shorter, we have different interests, etc.

Your observation that "humans aren't all the same" is orthogonal to the ideal that humans should be treated equally despite their physical characteristics which are outside of their control. I cannot control what gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity I'm born as, and you should not assume anything about my abilities based on those characteristics.

Good and bad are things we decide together because we're stuck living together; that's what society is. Equality is something a lot of us decide is good. It's not "natural" but that doesn't make it bad. I think it's good to aspire for a more equitable society.

Racism is bad exactly because it assumes things about people based on a physical characteristic outside of their control (skin color). That concept is general.

> > Or should government (a set of formalized rules and people who enforce them) attempt to equalize the playing field, and thus treat us all unequally?

Equalizing the playing field does not "treat us all unequally." That's the point of equalizing. A government trying to equalize the playing field is a government that acknowledges the playing field is already unfair. If you're born rich you are already advantaged. If you're born white you're already advantaged. Government is within its rights to say "oh shit 1% of the citizens who participate in this system have disproportionate power compared to the vast majority; we should equalize it so everyone can have a better life." << This is what a progressive income tax is for.

> In your own example, by ensuring in your model safety for women, we must treat men differently from women, and therefore ensure that for women to be safer, men must be less free.

Wrong. By ensuring model safety for women, we must hold them to the same standards that we hold women to. Both women and men who harass people should be ostracized. Historically only women had to bear the burden of "how do I come across" because of men. Today men should equally bear the same burden and be responsible for how their words and actions make others feel.

Men aren't "less free" in this model, they just have to be "more responsible." A level of responsibility women have already been forced to have. E.g why is it that women have to watch what they wear? Feminists aspire to a world where men should not assault or harass women, regardless of what they wear. We should all be equally responsible for our own behavior.

> government is at least in theory a set of formalized rules intended to reflect what the informal rules of society are

Agreed, this is a fact. Which is exactly why people who seek equality lobby government to update laws, to reflect our evolved societal norms. Laws should protect LGBTQ from discimination in the workplace for example, and help bridge the pay gap for women in the workplace. Laws were responsible for first freeing slaves in the US and then ensuring equal rights.

>"Your observation that "humans aren't all the same" is orthogonal to the ideal that humans should be treated equally despite their physical characteristics which are outside of their control. I cannot control what gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity I'm born as, and you should not assume anything about my abilities based on those characteristics."

Maybe you misunderstand my point. I mean that humans are all the same in the way that there is a Platonic form "human", which manifests itself in different ways. So one could say that they are all the same in that they share in humanity, and differ in application. I'm far more interested in a system that focuses on the common humanity than whether someone is tall or short.

>"Equalizing the playing field does not "treat us all unequally." That's the point of equalizing. A government trying to equalize the playing field is a government that acknowledges the playing field is already unfair. If you're born rich you are already advantaged. If you're born white you're already advantaged. Government is within its rights to say "oh shit 1% of the citizens who participate in this system have disproportionate power compared to the vast majority; we should equalize it so everyone can have a better life." << This is what a progressive income tax is for."

I very strongly disagree with this. I believe a government should equalize the playing field by focusing exclusively on the platonic form "human" rather than whether someone is tall or short. I think it is reasonable to say that someone's background might play a role in how they wind up, but it is by no means conclusive. I'm all about creating opportunities for people who work hard, such as scholarships for people who meet all standards for school except financial, but all those opportunities require someone to voluntarily choose that path.

These points, as well as the progressive income tax, ultimately lead to the tax dodges and loopholes that rich people slip into the system to get around them. They punish people who honestly work hard and reward the crooked.

>"Wrong. By ensuring model safety for women, we must hold them to the same standards that we hold women to. Both women and men who harass people should be ostracized. Historically only women had to bear the burden of "how do I come across" because of men. Today men should equally bear the same burden and be responsible for how their words and actions make others feel."

And how precisely can you ensure their "safety"? I'm a huge fan of individual empowerment, but not of infantilization. I'm not in favor of protecting anyone but myself unless the other people ask for it. It begins a slippery slope that leads to a boy in the bubble effect, which the helicopter parents of the 90s/00s, tried, which IMHO is one of the major factors that has lead to the mess of "safe space" nonsense on college campuses to begin with.

I have more opinions on this topic, but I defer to Camille Paglia, who is far more eloquent than me.

>"Agreed, this is a fact. Which is exactly why people who seek equality lobby government to update laws, to reflect our evolved societal norms. Laws should protect LGBTQ from discimination in the workplace for example, and help bridge the pay gap for women in the workplace. Laws were responsible for first freeing slaves in the US and then ensuring equal rights."

This sounds like a reasoning that we need more laws to fix injustices, which implies that laws are reactions to said injustices. Shouldn't laws be elaborations of first principles upon which a society has agreed? Otherwise we get a long list of laws that become out of date, and a government which no longer reflects the society it is supposed to represent.

> they share in humanity, and differ in application

You think women have one "application" and men have another. I disagree. We have what application we choose, that's real freedom.

> I think it is reasonable to say that someone's background might play a role in how they wind up, but it is by no means conclusive

What is the purpose of that kind of speculation? All it does is cast doubt on other members of that group. "Oh that's an Asian who's bad at math." "Oh that black guy is surprisingly successful." "Oh this woman is surprisingly unemotional." << These kinds of things perpetuate harmful stereotypes. These are not helpful in society. It's not reasonable to assume / "say" anything about a person based on their physical characteristics. They don't capture nuances like: black people make up of less of our GDP because, I dunno, the _legacy of slavery_? Women have less scientific achievements than men in history because, I dunno, _society didn't give them career opportunities and forced other responsibilities on them_?

Instead of giving people the freedom to define themselves, you do the injustice of pre-defining them.

> These points, as well as the progressive income tax, ultimately lead to the tax dodges and loopholes that rich people slip into the system to get around them. They punish people who honestly work hard and reward the crooked.

You think progressive income tax leads to tax dodges that rich people slip into? Think again. It's the fact that rich people earn lots of money from capital gains and capital gains isn't progressive. Progressive income tax as an algorithm does not cause inequity.

> And how precisely can you ensure their "safety"? I'm a huge fan of individual empowerment, but not of infantilization.

You ensure the safety of members in your society by making it socially unacceptable to harass and assault people, and punishing people who violate these basic requirements. You hold individuals responsible for individual behavior. For example, allowing men to get away with harassment is the real infantalization; "boys will be boys" takes responsibility away from them and puts it on the people they hurt.

> IMHO is one of the major factors that has lead to the mess of "safe space" nonsense on college campuses to begin with.

Crash course on safe spaces: speech is free so we can say stuff. But society is free and we can organize into groups and run those groups. For educated society there is a wide consensus that intolerant speech has chilling effects and silences others, and is ultimately at odds with free exchange of ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

So the rational response is: create safe spaces. Reject intolerance. Those voices have been heard enough, they have other platforms and groups, they have no place on college campuses which need to allow free exchange of ideas.

> I have more opinions on this topic, but I defer to Camille Paglia, who is far more eloquent than me.

Thanks for citing this woman. I disagree with her views and web comments are probably not going to solve our disagreements here.

> This sounds like a reasoning that we need more laws to fix injustices, which implies that laws are reactions to said injustices. Shouldn't laws be elaborations of first principles upon which a society has agreed?

American society originally agreed that slaves were not human. And then 3/5 human. You said it yourself; laws are loose reflection of societal norms, but norms change and laws need to be pushed. Therefore yes, laws ARE reactions to injustices, because injustices are addressed by changing norms, and then laws.

> You think women have one "application" and men have another. I disagree. We have what application we choose, that's real freedom.

I wasn't actually referring to sex here, I was using this to explain why everyone is different. Some are tall, some are short, etc.

> What is the purpose of that kind of speculation? All it does is cast doubt on other members of that group. "Oh that's an Asian who's bad at math." "Oh that black guy is surprisingly successful." "Oh this woman is surprisingly unemotional." << These kinds of things perpetuate harmful stereotypes. These are not helpful in society. It's not reasonable to assume / "say" anything about a person based on their physical characteristics. They don't capture nuances like: black people make up of less of our GDP because, I dunno, the _legacy of slavery_? Women have less scientific achievements than men in history because, I dunno, _society didn't give them career opportunities and forced other responsibilities on them_?

I focus on individuals and individual circumstances rather than groups and group identities. Identity is complex and multifacted, and while we are indeed influenced by our upbringing, I also believe that individuals with drive to succeed can surpass things that might hold other back. Thomas Sowell is probably my favorite example of this, but there are many others.

> Crash course on safe spaces: speech is free so we can say stuff. But society is free and we can organize into groups and run those groups. For educated society there is a wide consensus that intolerant speech has chilling effects and silences others, and is ultimately at odds with free exchange of ideas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

I generally answer this reference (and have elsewhere on this page) with that of "On Liberty" from John Stuart Mill. This goes back to one of my original questions which I don't think you answered, which was about arbitration. If you consider limits of tolerance, who do we trust to judge where those limits are, and why do we trust them with this?

> So the rational response is: create safe spaces. Reject intolerance. Those voices have been heard enough, they have other platforms and groups, they have no place on college campuses which need to allow free exchange of ideas.

This is actually not true for publicly funded universities, which is one of the reasons the deplatforming that UC Berkley did has drawn so much ire. I'm still impressed that they managed to get both Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders defending Ann Coulter.

> Thanks for citing this woman. I disagree with her views and web comments are probably not going to solve our disagreements here.

Yep, we can agree to disagree. But thankfully we're able to do so with civility, through our use of free speech. It's a pity there aren't more such discussions these days, so thank you!

> American society originally agreed that slaves were not human. And then 3/5 human. You said it yourself; laws are loose reflection of societal norms, but norms change and laws need to be pushed. Therefore yes, laws ARE reactions to injustices, because injustices are addressed by changing norms, and then laws.

Which is why I push back and suggest that the laws need to also be based on first principles of some sort. One of the reasons the 1957 Civil Rights Act was passed is because the only thing it actually did was reaffirm the right for blacks to vote, which was a first principle the South couldn't argue against.

On a side note, it sounds like you believe the purpose of laws is to enable freedoms, something with which I could not disagree more. I argue the purpose of laws is to restrain government from infringing on our freedoms. Notice how in the US Bill of Rights, the statements are all "Congress shall make no law..."