The conflation is a very recent intellectual phenomena.

I think it is part of an intentional replacement, the conflation is only temporary in order to muddy the waters and diminish opposition.

Why intellectual? It seems more political to me (both in the sense of wanting to change policy and wanting to acquire power)

Certainly true - but the advocacy of the philosophical distinction and its promotion originates from various intellectuals. I wish it would go back to where it came from, but I see that we may be stuck with it for quite a while.

> Conservatives, except the far-right nut-cases and wackos are more likely to support equality of opportunity

I have yet to hear any conservative advocate for more balanced education funding between school districts, more unified national standards for education, lowering tuition costs for public colleges or any other policy that suggests an "equality of opportunity" with regard to education.

Instead, I tend to hear policies that advocate inequality of opportunity, such as favoring parents who want to and can afford the time to homeschool.

Maybe I'm missing some, so please correct me.

> consider outcomes largely depend on the individual, their motivation, and luck.

Thanks for acknowledging "luck". Too many people refuse to.

Late reply here. Can you elaborate on "more balanced education funding between school districts"?

My experience as a Maryland taxpayer is Baltimore City spends far more tax dollars per student than any school district in the state. And has for many years. They also have more documented, charged, corruption than any school district in the state. And regarding standardized testing...

"BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore City Public Schools is among the highest funded large school districts in the country. On average, it receives nearly $16,000 per student, per year. Yet, it’s also one of the lowest-performing. Compared to similarly-sized urban school systems, Baltimore places near the bottom for student proficiencies in math and reading.

[...]

One of the most alarming findings came in January, when a Baltimore City teacher came forward with information, showing more than 75% of students tested at one high school are reading and doing math at an elementary school level."

The thing those conservatives don't seem to get is you can't know if you have equality of opportunity without monitoring and responding to equality of outcomes.

For example, say you implement a literacy test for voting. Everyone has the opportunity to learn how to read, but as we all know those that grade the literacy tests can fail people for arbitrary (or rather intrinsic) reasons. You'd catch this by measuring the outcomes, not just blindly assuming that the opportunities are enough.

And conservatives are flat-out wrong, as usual, because they're arguing against strawmen they've invented. No one is talking about individuals. The discussion is about group statistics. Individuals are irrelevant to the discussion.

If there is a statistical difference in outcomes, why? Is one group inherently inferior? Or is there maybe not the equality of opportunity that they claim?

"Is one group inherently inferior?"

It's reasonable to think that there is (A) some correlation between parental income and intelligence. Also, it's reasonable to think there is (B) correlation between parental intelligence and their children's intelligence, which in turn (C) correlate with school performance.

Source on B: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

Sources on A and C: https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/ses/2007-strenze.pdf

So yes, maybe people in the low income group are "inferior" in the sense that they'll have a harder time in school, because they are (on average) less bright. Everyone knows that some kids have an easy time in school because they are quick-witted, and others will have a harder time.

That's not saying we shouldn't try to help them, we certainly should! But I think we'll make less progress on that goal if we cannot admit that some kids will have a more difficult time than others.

They are talking about individuals because that is what they value. That's not wrong, you just don't see the value in it.

They don't see the value in hyping up ethnic/racial identifies. It's a difference of values / philosophy.

And inferior is loaded language. Success in something does not mean those that aren't are inferior.

.. groups might differ in how they set goals and what they consider valuable

> No one is talking about individuals. The discussion is about group statistics.

Sweeping group level decisions ultimately affect individuals.

> If there is a statistical difference in outcomes, why? Is one group inherently inferior?

Why not?

Progress isn't exclusive to the left, and people offering progress often destroy rather than improve. Progress doesn't necessarily require sacrificing meritocratic ideals to satisfy some sludge of totally-not-marxist, totally-not-postmodern, totally-not-intersectional, totally-not-critical-theory thought. We can make everyone's life better through other methods. I'm happy to see the zeitgeist finally getting over this fixation that politics is described by "The Good Guys vs the right wing".

My idea:

Judge people on their individual merits and whatever happens is fair game. Implement a social safety net to prevent people from suffering. Reparate historical violations of the first tenet. Aggressively target monopolies. Increase environmental protections. Increase transparency in business and government. Increase education about our financial system, personal finance, and contemporary topics.

These ideas can be easily composed onto the ideas we already have, will result in benefit for everyone, and the political distance between them and the common man is much less than it is between all the woke stuff.