Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms advantaged groups

Re:Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms ... by mcv on Monday May 09, 2022 @03:31PM (#31318660)

That is not the definition of dystopia at all. But it's also not what I'm proposing: I'm not suggesting we block opportunities, I'm proposing we make sure everybody has access to them, and we put extra effort in ensuring disadvantaged groups get better access to them.

I'm at a complete loss why you think r/K selection has any relevance to issues like freedom, opportunity and politics.

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Re:Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms ... by lazide on Monday May 09, 2022 @03:48PM (#31318861)

It totally is the definition of dystopia:

‘an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic’

You could not block the parents who wish from expending outsized effort to improve their children’s life or opportunities without pretty significant authoritarianism.

At large scale, organizations go off coarse metrics. Even the US Department of Labor won their settlement against Google because Google didn’t have the exact percentage of representation based on the course DOL racial selectors.

The easiest and most common way any large organization would comply with such a mandate is not by attempted to educate or lift up the poor, but by crushing any notable examples of people going above the mean anywhere. I can point you to numerous examples of this if you want.

Removing the ability for people who want to make things better to do so, if they were able to do so better than anyone else will result in massive suffering. All in the pursuit of equality.

And it’s fertile ground for growing totalitarian dictatorships because the goal sounds good but is impossible, but no one is able to say why without being the enemy.

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Re:Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms ... by mcv on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @03:57AM (#31324619)

You are not reading what I'm writing, and instead projecting your own rather scary ideas onto the discussion. I'm arguing to lift people up, to create more opportunities, and to make those opportunities accessible to more people, instead of less.

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Re:Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms ... by aeternum on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @02:28AM (#31324103)

The biggest issue with this idea that we can achieve universal access is that we are notoriously bad at predicting the future.

Would you know to ensure every HS student needs access to a computer and programming classes in the 90s?

Would you make sure every student takes a course on blockchains and NFTs today? Does each student need to know ML? Should each kid get Oculus hardware and learn 3d modeling so they can design for the metaverse?

Should we have a class on how to make TikTok videos? If you take the number of newly minted millionaires from the youngest generation, this is probably the one to pick but most people considered social media a scourge and the antithesis of what you should teach in order to provide equality.

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Re:Equality is prevented by the misperception that it harms ... by mcv on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @03:52AM (#31324600)

I felt back in the 1980s that highschool students should have access to programming classes, and I'm appalled that this is still not universal.

However, that is beside the point: everybody should have access to quality education. There is nothing new or revolutionary about that concept. Education has consistently been proven to have massive benefits for both the recipients and the society they live in. (Except maybe the expensive for-profit education that sends people deep into debt while cutting costs on quality teachers.)

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