> I'm having a hard time imagining a society with unequal outcomes but equal opportunity

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'm saying, as another commenter put it, "equality is unstable". Equal opportunity leads to unequal outcomes, unequal outcomes leads to unequal opportunity.

I'm having a hard time understanding what you are trying to say here.

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.

I agree. I never argue that equal outcomes is possible (the words "equal outcome" never appear in my comment). I argue that even if we have equal opportunities, then we will still get unequal outcomes. I believe we are in agreement on every point.

Statistics exists? Claiming that literally anyone wants every outcome to be equal seems like a strawman. But we should strive for fairly statistically equivalent outcomes, and we aren’t close, even along gender lines.

> But we should strive for fairly statistically equivalent outcomes, and we aren’t close, even along gender lines.

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.

To avoid further use of strawmen, let’s just get very concrete. If a man and a woman voluntarily join the same occupation, and they are in the same percentile when it comes to performance, then they should be paid the same. That is not the case today, even in an industry like tech where genetic differences in strength have no bearing on performance. There are of course many other cromulent examples of gender imbalances in society, and there are other legitimate imbalances related to race, age, class, sexuality, and other factors as well. The reasons for the various imbalances in our society are myriad, but blaming them on some permutation of “the women don’t want to do those jobs” is a little too lazy of a hypothesis for me. I would love to understand how pay equality limits the individual.

> That is not the case today, even in an industry like tech where genetic differences in strength have no bearing on performance.

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.

Women are a nuisance, with long absences for child-bearing and time off to take care of needy children and harassment suits and distracting the male employees.

(I don’t feel that way, but we’re not far removed from that being a common sentiment.)

Well certainly EVERYONE doesn't feel the way you have described.

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?

> Are there companies out there

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.

They have diversity programs, they aren't trying to hire exclusively women because they are cheaper. Those are two different things.

Also, nobody promotes diversity because diversity it reduces payroll costs. They do it because it allegedly produces better results.

> they have diversity programs

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.

You have not argued for why we should strive for this, only exhorted us to do so.

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.

I suddenly feel like I’m back in my freshman Philosophy of Ethics class. You’re right, I don’t think more conversation would be very fruitful.

For example, men live on average 5 years less than women. How should we fix this? Massive government expenditure into men's health research and men's occupational safety?

Would that be a bad thing? There are a lot of other negative mortality outcomes linked to demographics so maybe we take a look at those as well. The link between abortion bans and mortality rates for women seems pretty germane in the US at the moment…

Maybe, but if the goal is shrinking the gender lifespan gap, reducing women's mortality would actually make the gap worse. You should focus on reducing men's mortality first, until the gap disappears or reverses, at which point you can start considering women's mortality again.

I am confused what you're saying.

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?

> Most people would say if both person A and person B had the same opportunity to practice Chess that's sufficient.

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.

How do you suggest removing the barriers you describe? It's sensible and easy to remove barriers to trying out for the chess team, but removing all differences in time, energy and socioeconomic status seems much harder, and much easier to veer into a society that is overly prescriptive at nearly even level of humanity.

I hit on that with the last sentence. It's hard, and it's easy to create unfairness the other way. It's also easy to create perceptions that student B only got on the team because they are female, black, poor, or whatever.

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.

I don't think they should both be allowed to join the team, but if our goal is equal opportunity, then going forward person A is going to have more opportunity and thus we will not achieve our goal of equal opportunity.

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.)

> 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.

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.

Outcome is not opportunity. Those words are not synonyms.

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.

Can you name one desirable outcome that is not also a desirable opportunity? If we draw a Venn diagram of desirable outcomes and desirable opportunities, and they exactly overlap, then what's the difference?

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).

Consider a multitude of people who are going to buy food at a fast food place, and they all have $10 to spend. They all have the same opportunity to buy food there, but the outcomes (the actual items they buy) will likely be very different. If we then decide that "salads are good, meat is bad", then we can start to talk about "inequality of outcomes" with respect to salad eating. But is this really a problem? I would argue it's only a problem if we don't want humans exercising free will, and want to impose our "enlightened" views on them.

I was thinking of "outcomes" in a broader, more meaningful sense. Yes, if one person orders a red bracelet, and another orders a blue bracelet, they both had the opportunity but got different color bracelets. Is that a different "outcome"? I guess so, but it's not quite what I was referring to in my 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.

So on the one hand we have diversity which is touted as a strength because people of different backgrounds bring a wider range of experiences to produce the best results.

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?

> I'm having a hard time imagining a society with unequal outcomes but equal opportunity.

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?

This is only true if preferences are equal as well.

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.

I think outcome is more like opportunity + luck. Identical twins are a great example, plenty of pairs grow up in nearly exactly equivalent environments but still have radically different outcomes in life. Like a Galton Board ('Plinko')[1], seemingly identical balls (people) can start from exactly the same position, but the indiscernible differences in their makeup combined with the exponential chaos of the branching pegs (life) mean they often end up in completely different places.

That's how I see it at least :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galton_board

Opportunity + luck + preferences (I.e. someone values flexibility over compensation, or video games over homework)

Take the gender pay gap for uber drivers, unassailable equality of opportunity, yet there’s a gender pay gap, oh yeah, people/groups have preferences…

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/what-can-uber-teach-us-abou...

I haven't looked at the article yet. I'm guessing: Men are paid more, because they work in more dangerous areas, work longer hours, and are less often primarily responsible for caregiving.

---

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.

This is my point - here is a clear example where equality of opportunity not resulting in equality of outcome, which should imply that inequality of outcome does not necessarily mean unequal opportunity.

Outcome is at least the combination of opportunity and desire.

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.

I think that's an interesting point.

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?

Which is why there is a visceral pushback - if a parents struggles in providing a better life for their children don’t actually inure to the children, what’s the point (I.e. if I scrimp and save to send my kid to test prep-training to get her into a better high school, and only to have her be handicapped because of her advantage (my sacrifice) won’t that drive resentment, nihilism etc?)

Exactly right — what an odd statement to make. It reads to me like: “Society should be equal but not measurably so.”

Many colleges put courses up online for free. There is a huge opportunity for people who want to put the time in to get a very high quality education (not degree, but an education) by using these resources. Same thing with the knowledge available in libraries. Some people take advantage of these resources in incredible ways. You'll find people who taught themselves to be a software engineer using only free online sources, etc. However there are many people who are not successful software engineers despite having equal opportunity though access to all the same resources.

I think when the distinction is made it's because people are imagining that those who work harder will have better outcomes than those who don't, even when given equal opportunity.

Working hard isn't sufficient, you also have to work smart and invest in your future. If you spend 80 hours a week mowing grass, or raking leaves, or shoveling snow (season dependent), then you are working very hard. But if that's all you do you will not amount to very much relative to a more lucrative occupation.

> Working hard isn't sufficient, you also have to work smart and invest in your future.

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.

You operate on the assumption that the choice is between "work 80 hours per week" or "starve and be homeless." You have painted a false dichotomy and that destructive mindset is _exactly why_ people get stuck in shitty situations.

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.

A lottery could be considered to have an equal opportunity, but an unequal outcome.