The best non controversial example is height. As we all know, men are on average taller than women. As we also know, that doesn't mean every man is taller than every woman. If you're a man, there is almost certainly a taller woman out there, if you're a woman, there is surely a shorter man.

So if there is a job where height is an advantage, there are two stupid ways to approach this. (A) Since men are taller, only men should be allowed to do the job, (B) Since any gender can have any height, gender distribution in this job must be 50/50.

I claim the right answer is (C), let everyone who is qualified (by height) do the job, and don't be surprised or offended when there is a 80/20 distribution in that work force.

'Blank slate theory' simply isn't what feminists are arguing; they are arguing that our society has a woefully poor record of hastily ascribing traits to a kind of biological determinism, and further claims of that type should be heavily scrutinised.

The physical differences exist today and are exhibited based on biological genders. That does not preclude that these differences are unduly influenced by environmental issues (including socialization). However denying that they exist (which is what Cahill is objecting to here) on the basis that the cause might be environmental and not "innate" just means that the ability to understand and treat neurological disorders in females decreases.

The reality is that there are differences. The cause of that reality can be complicated and nuanced and not inescapable. but as the change in societal standards is quite slow all that's happening is a disservice to an entire half of the population.

They're denying science for ideological ends. It's pretty much the same thing as conservatives with climate change. They don't like what science has to say, so they're trying to shut it down.

I'm generally pro-feminism, but no 'side' has a monopoly on bad opinions.

The money quote. The situation in neuroscience is pretty much the same as if in Machine Learning people would say ”You must use just white males in face recognition training”.

Just one example. This issue in ML has been on the surface for few years now.

> And, as The Atlantic story points out, other groups have found in the past that facial recognition algorithms developed in Asia were more likely to accurately identify Asian people than white people; while algorithms developed in parts of Europe and the US were able to identify white faces better.

Maybe Wakanda can share their facial recognition tech and we can combine them all into a fair model? (Joking about the first part, obviously, and about the second part, e.g. Aboriginal Australians, Maori, etc that don't neatly fit into those three categories.)

It is because there are inequalities naturally, either innate or acquired, that it is necessary to state equality as a goal.

This is the old is/ought dichotomy.

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.

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 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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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?

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

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.

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

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.

If two things are different, and they are a large number of functions. Chances are that they will be functions where thing A is better than thing B, and many where thing B is better than A.

... does not propose [that] men are better suited to X activity or job.

If two things are different (any things not just brains), surely there will be some cases when one works better than another?

So ignoring all of those factors and just focusing on gender is illogical. Especially given that men/women are not all uniform and exhibit wildly different personality and behavioural traits.