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toastus ,

Doesn’t the first panel also have equal tools and assistance?

Amilo159 OP ,
@Amilo159@lemmy.world avatar

No since the tree is leaning to one side, so more apples will fall that way.

Whirlwindwanderer ,

What stops the other person from choosing a different spot…

VikingHippie ,

Myriad factors, many of which are out of their control. The illustration could have added fences and other barriers, but that would have sacrificed clarity for unnecessary accuracy.

pjhenry1216 ,

I don't know. What stops you from living in any house you want?

Whirlwindwanderer ,

Nothing equivalent of that is depicted.

pjhenry1216 ,

Clearly they are restricted to their own property. It's unambiguously implied. So property ownership is at least somewhat depicted. Maybe they don't own the side of the tree, but clearly they aren't allowed on each others. Plus, there's the whole thing about how analogies work. They all break apart if you stretch them beyond their point. Might as well just ask why equality isn't just burning the tree down. It's as nonsensical as your question and just as valuable to discuss.

Surreal ,

The image needs better ideas. Maybe make the right kid has broken legs so that kid could not freely move to the correct spot

Amilo159 OP ,
@Amilo159@lemmy.world avatar

The tree is a metaphor. In reality it could be job market, one being man and other a woman applying for jobs that traditionally want/prefer men to work.

Or any number of things.

toastus ,

I didn’t think the tree was either a tool or assistance.
Especially since it is still the same in the second panel where tools or assistance are supposed to be equal.

But I am not good at those things. I just don’t seem to get it.

Amilo159 OP ,
@Amilo159@lemmy.world avatar

Tree is the situation, that is benefiting one person more than other.

Equality means you provide equal help to all and expect them to be equally benefitted. Sometimes that doesn’t work.

Perfect example would be a Spaniard and Frenchman learning a new language, say Italian. This would be easy for a Spanish person because Italian is similar to Spanish. Not so much for French. Providing them both with 10 hours of language classes will be equality but results won’t be equal.

toastus ,

Yeah thank you.

The part that I still don’t quite get is why giving both people 10 hours of classes is equality but giving both 0 hours of lessons isn’t.
(Or giving both kids 1 ladder vs. giving both kids 0 ladders.)

I get that the analogy to a real situation would be to just let inequality run its course and that is obviously not the same as giving everyone the same assistance. I still don’t think the picture makes this point very well.

whats_a_refoogee ,

You said the quiet part out loud. “Equally benefitted” is another way to describe equity.

Providing them both with 10 hours of language classes will be equality but results won’t be equal.

Again, you’re just arguing for equity and against equality. Equality and equity are fundamentally incompatible, since achieving equity requires unequal treatment. Presumably your example ends with the Italian person getting more than 10 hours of lessons because of his nationality. You seriously need to acknowledge that you’re advocating for one person to receive better treatment because of their nationality, and consider the consequences of that being an acceptable practice. You’re trying to reverse over a century of human civilisation’s progress.

VikingHippie ,

No. The system leaning in favor of one group is very much a type of assistance.

toastus ,

Wouldn’t then in the second panel still not be equal assistance?

VikingHippie ,

No. “Except for the basics of the system itself” is implied.

toastus ,

I really don’t mean to be contrarian but I simply don’t understand how a leaning tree can be assistance in panel 1 but not in panel 2.

VikingHippie ,

I really don’t mean to be a contrarian

I’m not sure I believe that, but I’m gonna continue to give you the benefit of doubt for a bit more.

The assistance being alluded to is assistance on top of the system to correct the negative effects of the system.

The vast majority of the reasons any group of people is marginalised at all are systemic and stem from powerful people in the past (and, to a much lesser but still abhorrent degree, the present) writing the rules to give themselves and other people like them advantageous conditions compared to others.

toastus ,

Thanks for the benefit of the doubt I guess.

I think I will stay at my own conclusion that this picture doesn’t do a good job of pointing out the differences between the panels.

They could just as easily have given the left child the ladder from panel 1 on. That would show that just equalizing the tools and assistance doesn’t create real justice in a flawed system.
I am not convinced that starting with no tools and assistance (aside from the tree that somehow is assistance in panel 1 and isn’t in panel 2) and then giving them both the same ladder makes that point very well.

But maybe I still just don’t quite get it.

Kecessa ,

The leaning tree represents things that are unintentional, the tree just grew like that, it wasn’t on purpose.

The second panel represents intentional assistance, it was given to them on purpose.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

It is assistance in both, but the point is that "equal" assistance in an unequal world (the tree still leaning one way) doesn't actually provide justice, since those the tree is leaning towards still benefit more, even when the others have "extra" assistance.

SaakoPaahtaa ,

The kid can literally walk 3 meters to the other side doe

VikingHippie ,

Do you know what an analogy is?

SaakoPaahtaa ,

Yes and I can even see if theyre any good or not. This one is pretty weak analogy since the kid can walk to the other side. Its not the trees fault its a bit askew

VikingHippie ,

As I explained in another reply, the illustration could have added fences and other barriers, but that would have sacrificed clarity for a degree of accuracy only necessary for pedants like yourself.

And yes, it ABSOLUTELY is the fault of the system and those in charge of shaping it if it’s crooked and nothing is done to straighten it out or at the very least compensate for the disparity.

I’m not sure if you’re being disingenuous or just genuinely obtuse, but I’m leaning more and more towards believing the former.

SaakoPaahtaa ,

Having barriers would be unequal, sure. But my brother, trees just grow last time I asked they said they dont really give a shit what a couple of hungry kids think of it.

VikingHippie ,

OK, definitely either the former or both so I’m gonna stop trying to explain the obvious to you. Have the day you deserve.

SaakoPaahtaa ,

Thanks boi having a pumper day currently😎

whats_a_refoogee ,

No, it would have added clarity because it would show that the kid on the right is prevented from going to the left side, which is a necessary assumption for the given metaphor to work.

However, that would make it obvious what the real problem and the solution is. Which would be detrimental to the political message the comic is trying to push, because then instead of giving assistance (putting up boards to move the tree), the obvious solution would be removing something (the literal and metaphorical barrier). The author clearly intended to show that providing assistance is justice, not removing barriers.

It’s a disingenuous comic, because equity and “justice”, while appearing differently in the comic, in practice would be exactly the same thing.

Besides, anyone portraying their position as “justice” is a massive red flag.

VikingHippie ,

There are myriad rules and individuals keeping that tree crooked while erecting barriers both visible and invisible. Removing official barriers doesn’t remove the unofficial ones. The only way that those can can be overcome without infringing on anyone’s rights is by empowering the disempowered to be able to scale them.

Also, maybe not the best idea to bring up red flags when your username heavily implies xenophobia and a complete lack of respect for international law…

Kecessa ,

It represents unintentional assistance though, not a bias that exists on purpose. Ex: old building entrance is higher than sidewalk, there’s stairs to go up, it wasn’t the intention to cut access to the disabled, it’s a consequence of the default choice.

VikingHippie ,

Some of it IS intentional, though, or (as in your own example) lack of intentionality from another time with a lot less attention being paid to equal access for people outside of the “standard human” powerful people had in mind when building structures both physical and societal.

There being a default at all is a form of discrimination and harm against the people that it disadvantages, whether or not it’s intentional.

Kecessa , (edited )

The inequality wasn’t intentional, people didn’t put stairs so disabled wouldn’t have access, they put stairs because that’s what you do when you want people to go up and it had that unintended effect.

The tree didn’t grow leaning on one side so the kid on the wrong side wouldn’t get apples, it grew like that because nature made it.

Giving them ladders was intentional, building a ramp too narrow for wheelchairs that’s intentional… And that’s the difference between panel 1 and 2, they don’t have tools that are supposed to help them at first, then they are given a tool and they’re inappropriate for one of them.

uniqueid198x ,

Even if the inequality is completely accidental, shouldn’t we do something about it? Like, we don’t have to make everyone millionares, but if the system accidently makes some people suffer, shouldn’t we try to change that?

Kecessa ,

Never said nothing should be done about it, just pointing out that there’s in fact a difference between panel 1 and panel 2 contrary to what people are arguing.

fiat_lux ,

Only if you consider no tools or assistance to qualify as "having tools or assistance". So no, because while you're correct that 0 == 0, you need values of greater than 0 to have something.

toastus ,

I did consider no tools on both sides to be equal tools.

Can you maybe eli5 why there is a need to have something in this example?
I just don’t get any real difference from the first two panels.

The exact same circumstances that punish the one kid in the first panel still punish them in the second. If anything they are worse off in comparison since the additional provided tools don’t serve any purpose for them but do help the other kid.

DessertStorms , (edited )
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

I did consider no tools on both sides to be equal tools.

only if both people have the same starting point, but they don't (in the illustration they don't because the tree gives more fruit on one side, in reality this translates in to privilege, or lack thereof - a white person has more "fruit" and "tools" available to them than a Black person. An abled person has more "fruit" and "tools" available to them than a disabled person, and so on).

The exact same circumstances that punish the one kid in the first panel still punish them in the second. If anything they are worse off in comparison since the additional provided tools don’t serve any purpose for them but do help the other kid.

That's the point - merely providing superficial assistance or tools or whatever, without changing the core of the problem (here - the fact that the tree leans only to one side) doesn't solve anything.

So providing a ramp to a building might help wheelchair users (but probably not a Blind or Deaf person for example) very superficially to access that one building, but it doesn't change all the other inaccessible buildings, or the accessibility issues faced by the Blind or Deaf person (or whatever other disability that doesn't require the use of a wheelchair), nor the system that sees disabled people as reasonable to exclude because we take "too much" work to cater to (which is a core and very real example of systemic ableism).

Edit just to add: the one main flaw I find with this illustration vs the one with the boxes (here is my personal favourite example), where the obstacle is man made, is that the tree, ie the system, is made to look natural, when in reality it is anything but.
Capitalism (the core system that is the tree, and it's branches are racism, sexism, ableism, queerphobias and so on) has done a fantastic job convincing society of the lie that humans are naturally greedy and selfish, and of "social Darwinism" and all that eugenicist crap, when in reality humans are hardwired to work together.

fiat_lux , (edited )

Yep, so the point (I think) is to get you to contrast equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome. It's not hugely clear in the images, there are a few things that need to be assumed to make it clearer.

Firstly the goal is not 1 fruit, the goal is to have a many fruit as you need. For some reason these 2 kids both need a lot of fruit. Maybe they have huge seeds and 1 won't sustain a small child, I don't know.

Secondly, the tree in the first panel has fewer fruit to drop on one side, and it leans towards one person only. This is trying to communicate that they don't have equality of opportunity on a systemic level. Both children have 1 significant barrier (height), but 1 child has an additional barrier of fewer fruit possible, and their height barrier is twice as tall. There is also an invisible forcefield preventing movement of children from one side of the tree to the other.

So in the first panel, yes it is unequal because one kid gets nothing and the other gets something, which is an inequality of outcome. The difference in tree lean and number of fruit provides an inequality of opportunity - which is often harder to see in real life too.

The second panel asks the question "what if we gave them equal assistance?" by providing equal ladders. Which is great, but if the assistance provided is only enough to help one child overcome the problem they both face while ignoring the other 2 problems the other child faces, you won't have equality of outcome. And it can even cause greater inequality of outcome, because the left kid can reach a dozen fruit but the right kid can still only reach a few. For magic forcefield reasons.

The third panel is different to the second, because they're no longer only being provided equal assistance. They're both being provided assistance equal to their needs, but the kid on the right still has fewer opportunities because there are fewer fruit. They have more equal possible outcomes, but it's still unlikely to be an equal outcome even though you're (sort of) helping one kid twice as much.

And in the last panel, for some reason trees that are straight provide equal quantities of fruit on both sides? Whatever, the point us that the underlying systemic inequity has been addressed and you have proper equality of opportunity and potential for equality of outcome.

Sorry about length, I hope that reply doesn't cause more confusion.

toastus ,

Thank you for taking the time.

I think I get now what panel 2 wants to tell me.
I still think it would make the same point (or a similar one) more clearly if the left child had a ladder from start on.

Then you could see that just equalizing the tools is not enough.
Here I think it looks as if giving tools is worthless to even harmful, which I don’t agree with.

But again thank you for writing it up, it was well written and very good to understand for me as a non native speaker.

fiat_lux ,

Glad to be of use! It's a pretty nuanced area of English, so I can understand how being a non-native speaker would make it even more difficult.

I think the reason they decided on the tree lean/fruit quantity was to try to contrast inequality stemming from historical reasons with inequality stemming from no assistance being provided in that moment. Actively withholding needed resources can have the same effect as a system providing unequal resources over time, even if the historical reasons for that inequality weren't decisions anybody alive today is responsible for.

mex ,

Equality is letting anyone gather apples on any side of the tree.

Amilo159 OP ,
@Amilo159@lemmy.world avatar

Yet sometimes you can’t choose where you come from or where you stand. Even if you let people stand where they want, some have larger hands or are taller and stronger so can gather more apples.

whats_a_refoogee ,

I don’t see a fence…

Maybe the real point of the comic is that the girl on the right is really stupid, so we should tilt the tree instead of having her lazy ass move the ladder.

SoNick ,

I like the boxes and fence one more, this just feels super-contrived

HonoraryMancunian ,

But that one always brings out the smug responses about how they shouldn’t be watching the game for free, totally (and purposefully) missing the point

nxfsi ,

My favorite is the meme edit where they just chop off everyone’s legs so that they end up at the same height below the fence.

Klear ,

Fatality!

Decoy321 ,

True justice would be them watering the tree or something. That dude has been giving to these little shits the whole time. Let it be The Getting Tree for once.

upforitbutnotdownforit ,
@upforitbutnotdownforit@kbin.social avatar

I like owning a home because I finally got some equality.

MeatsOfRage ,

The girl could literally just walk to the other side of the tree, there’s no actual barrier. This one is super ham-fisted because it can spark the wrong side of the debate.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

it can spark the wrong side of the debate.

any discussion of the topic would though, because those who oppose the basic idea of equality, let alone equity or justice, know only how to derail and/or project, they are not interested in having a sincere discussion, because they whole heartedly believe that some people are worth less than others, and they will justify that in whatever way makes sense to them because in their mind, they're all that matters.

smeg ,

Every time I see this quaint but misleading image reposted it’s necessary to make the same comment: the words attached to each image are do not exclusively represent those images. “Equality” could apply to all but the first; nobody uses “equity” this way; and most people use “justice” to refer to criminal justice and punishment.

crazycanadianloon ,

It’s an infographic for children…? I think it’s meant to be simple.

I’m sure 18+ people should already have a more nuanced view of what those words mean. And if they don’t I’m sure there are other materials they can peruse to help them understand.

phillaholic ,

Apparently not simply enough for people to understand it’s point here.

whats_a_refoogee ,

The OP comment did not criticize the comic for being too simple. He called it misleading. You’re both arguing with a strawman.

Someone disagreeing with something doesn’t mean they didn’t understand it. It’s a really poisonous mindset that hampers intellectual discourse and development.

phillaholic ,

It’s not misleading. If you can explain it better in an easier way by all means…

uniqueid198x ,

How would you label the different concepts?

Bartsbigbugbag ,

Plenty of people use equity this way. Maybe not in your circles, but it’s not a new definition, it’s been around for decades. Millions of people in the US alone do not equate the criminal Justice system with the concept of Justice. Perhaps you should recognize that your perceptions are not able to be applied to the entire population. If you ever find yourself using “nobody” or “everybody” and you have no definitive data backing that up, I would recommend re-examining your biases, because what you appear to be doing is attempting to normalize your beliefs while otherizing the beliefs of others who do not share your view.

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

I wonder if it was written by a non native speaker or a non American because the literal translation in French sounds right.

nxfsi ,

Capitalism: hire an apple picking expert to pick the apples and sell them at exorbitant prices because there is a monopoly on apples.

Communism: send the apple picking expert to work in the steel factory and get a random university professor to pick them instead

Hamartiogonic , (edited )
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

Feudalism: A lord owns the land and the trees growing in it. He has a bunch of peasants who will pick the apples for him. The lord gets all the apples and the peasants are allowed to live on his lands another day. Later that night, they go work on their own farms that hopefully give them enough food to keep going. In the long term they’ll probably starve to death or get kicked out of the house they themselves built. I guess living as s hunter-gatherer in the forest isn’t that bad compared to the other alternatives.

nxfsi ,

return to monke

Amilo159 OP ,
@Amilo159@lemmy.world avatar

Nailed the feudalism.

Akagigahara ,

Missed where they had to tithe their crops to the Lord, besidey that, was very good

hellishharlot ,

Communism: send the apple picking expert to work in the steel factory and get a random university professor to pick them instead

Why? He’s an expert in that, if we don’t have steel mill experts we can train willing participants. Experts should always flow to their field of expertise

nxfsi ,

The steel mill experts were purged for saying that sending literally everyone to work on smelting steel is unsustainable.

DarthBueller ,

I love that the commies on here ignore the fact that every communist government to date had to rely on mass purges and persecution to rule and STILL became utterly corrupt and generated an elite ruling class. I’m not saying capitalism is the way, truth, and light, but holy fuck for as smart as the fediverse commies think they are, they are woefully blind to history. At this point, even western european-style socialism is a reach for the US but these guys want a commie revolution? These idiots want blood on the walls and meanwhile I just want my four year old to have a decent future.

Jaderick ,

There’s an argument to be made that some people need a guiding hand when it comes to caring for others or to act in ways that are beneficial for others and themselves, but it seemed like most tankies on Reddit at least were anti-west contrarians. Nominally they were anti-imperialist but always ignored non-western imperialism.

intensely_human ,

Which people need a guiding hand?

Jaderick ,

Sociopaths and the extremely greedy are two groups off the top of my head.

Rom ,

You have no fucking clue what communism is and it shows. Just stop talking.

DarthBueller , (edited )

Instead of being a fucking asshole, why don’t you educate me? Can you point me to a real life example of a vibrant communist state that didn’t need to metaphorically or literally crush people to further the communist purpose? I’m well aware of the ideals of Marxism, the history of workers movements, and the historical reality of Stalin, Mao, the Khmer, etc. So please tell me what I know nothing about.

Rom ,

Why is that my job? You have access to the internet, fucking do it yourself.

whats_a_refoogee ,

Communism is a paradise where everyone gets along and nothing goes wrong. Anything else is not true communism. I just don’t get why that’s so hard to understand.

Rom ,

Obviously communism is when blatant red scare propaganda.

Jaderick ,

Communism, as an American, is everything I don’t like or understand

JohnDClay ,

I think he’s referring to Soviet Russia specifically, where farmers were sent to factories or turned into impromptu pig iron producers because of misguided heavy handed top down policies.

intensely_human ,

Experts should always flow to their area of expertise

That state of affairs is called “free market”.

Amilo159 OP ,
@Amilo159@lemmy.world avatar

No mate, communism is having state managed Apple pickers that pick apples and give them to manager. Management keeps 40% apples for themselves and then divide rest between the whole town, so that everyone in town gets one tiny piece of apple, whether they like apples or not.

Silviecat44 ,

Ew

mathemachristian ,

Why do we need a different word for equal access to resources? There are different types of equalities, equity in my mind is the difference between what’s owned minus what’s owed.

lowleveldata ,

Key takeaway: Always blame the system

darcy ,
@darcy@sh.itjust.works avatar

anarcho primitavism: climb tree oo oo aa aa

5in1k ,

Putting supports on trees weakens them. The swaying makes them stronger.

Ricaz ,
@Ricaz@lemmy.world avatar

Handicapped people might disagree

5in1k ,

Trees aren’t handicapped people. They’re trees.

Cjwii ,

Holy in shit, I better… I just need to go. Now. Unrelated…

Ricaz ,
@Ricaz@lemmy.world avatar

I rest my case

FinnFooted ,

you know this infographic isn’t literally talking about trees, right?

Denvil ,

It’s talking about children robbing a disabled person for their apples?

Ricaz ,
@Ricaz@lemmy.world avatar

That must be it

5in1k ,

I do but the last one says it’s fixing the system when it’s propping up the tree and making it weak. Bad metaphor.

GBU_28 ,

Big, if true

echodot ,

What do you mean?

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

They mean they benefit from the way things currently work, so the mere suggestion that the system needs to change in order for others to benefit too makes them so anxious they need to do a bunch of mental gymnastics to justify to themsleves why the idea is "no good"

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

I get you're coming from a good place, but we're disabled, not handicapped

Ricaz ,
@Ricaz@lemmy.world avatar

Just a language thing, sorry. In my country this word does not have any negative connotation.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

I think it's much more likely that it does have negative connotations (especially since the etymology of the word itself is negative, there is no way around that. Never mind the stigma it carries), but no one has pointed it out to you until this point.

But now you know, and since language matters, please just say the word and in future call us what we are - disabled people.

Ricaz ,
@Ricaz@lemmy.world avatar

I genuinely have multiple friends who use that word about themselves. It isn’t negative unless people perceive so.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

First of all, thanks for proving you've not bothered reading any of the information I linked, because it clearly states otherwise:

So King Henry VII passed some landmark legislation. He proclaimed that begging in the streets be legal for people with disabilities. So into the streets, with their “cap in hand”, went King Henry’s disabled veterans, to beg for money”. So with cap in hand referred to beggars, or people of no value in society.
The term is also used in horseracing and wagering. It measures the superiority of one contestant over another. This is the belief that one participant is stronger or better than another. The word “handicap” is rating one thing better or worse than another.
It appears that “handicapped” seems to have begun to describe a wide range of disadvantages, including social, economic and even moral standards. The website by Arika Okrent (2015) reports: “Handicap began to be applied to physical and mental differences in the early 1900s, when the new fields of sociology and social work started looking at people in terms of their place in society as a whole”. The term was used to describe people viewed as physically or mentally flawed.

Second of all, disabled people reclaiming a word for themselves, no matter how friendly you are with them, still doesn't give you the right to use it to describe the rest of us (or at all except for if your friends specifically asked you to, and I'd honestly consider whether they actually want to be called that, or that they know that you would react as badly as you are here, so don't bother to correct you because they have better things to spend their energy on than educating a "friend" who would use them as debate tools to prove how not ableist you are. Hint: doing that is ableist), just like you don't go around using the N word or the F and T slurs, all of which have been reclaimed by their own community but are still derogatory when used by outsiders.

So like I told that other person:
you can choose to be respectful and make the tiniest adjustment to your vocabulary, or you can choose to continue to use a harmful term despite now knowing full well that it is harmful, proving to me and others just how little of a shit you give about disabled people.

I've done my part, the choice is yours, and you're clearly choosing to prioritise your own ego over respecting disabled people on the most basic level.

Which I guess only leaves me feeling sorry for your "friends" (or should I say tokens?)

Ricaz ,
@Ricaz@lemmy.world avatar

My point is that words are part of languages which change very fluidly, and you could make the same argument for hundreds of other words.

If the word isn’t considered bad by anyone hearing it or anyone it describes, nothing is wrong with it. Many meanings are different between your language and mine, even though they sound alike or share some etymology.

whats_a_refoogee ,

You can’t criticize people for using the word handicapped after it has been pushed as the politically correct word for decades.

It’s still the mainstream politically correct word in the English speaking West. Using disabled can land you in hot water in a professional or political environment.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

That's a pile of bullshit so big it could only come from an abled person who hasn't spent a second of their life listening to actual disabled people.

So I can, and I will.

And people can then choose to be respectful and make the tiniest adjustment to their vocabulary, or they can choose to continue to use a harmful term despite now knowing full well that it is harmful, proving to others just how little of a shit they give about disabled people.

The choice is yours.

MedicPigBabySaver ,

Ha, I didn’t even notice those. So many memes straight up are shitty for one reason or other.

Hazdaz ,

Putting supports on trees weakens them.

Just like giving free hand-outs to people.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

GIviNG FoOD to HUnGry pEople Makes thEm weakeR

Hazdaz ,

Give a man to fish feed him for a day… teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.

People like you want to keep a group of people endlessly indebted, while the rest of us want that group to stand on their own.

FinnFooted ,

The people in the infographic are literally working for their own food.

redballooon ,

Infographic is a strong word for this meme

FinnFooted ,

Semantics.

imPastaSyndrome ,

Stand on your own, they say to the starving person, put some effort into your appearance they say to the homeless person, just stop being so miserable they say to the depressed person

Hazdaz ,

And those people who get themselves out of poverty almost universally state that building a work ethic and an ability to stand on their own is how they got to where they were, not through endless hand-outs and being coddled. Dependency is just like any other addiction and some people rather see these people endlessly fail than actually try to help them move up in the world and make it on their own.

You are an enabler, plain and simple.

Rom ,

Okay cool, so let’s raise wages so everyone can afford to buy their own food.

Hazdaz ,

Let’s just give everyone a million dollars because money is clearly an infinite resource!1!!! Brilliant! /s

MajorHavoc ,

The apples in the picture are jobs that pay enough for food and a house within a daily commute of that job.

Not everyone has access to that. That access is necessary before the Teaching aspect can be effective. Teaching only works if the lesson is usable with the resources available.

The ladders are teaching programs tailored to the resources available in that community.

The adjusted tree is updated communities with better resources - better transit, better grocery availability, better childcare options, better school options, better medical options.

This has been “Children’s books explained in painful detail.” Tune in next time for Goodnight Moon. I’m joking. I don’t know that the heck goodnight moon is about.

Asafum ,

Give me a break. There are no solutions put forward by people that argue against welfare other than “bootstraps.” Or even worse “let the weak die.” It has nothing to do with helping people grow. Hell even when solutions focused on growth are put forward to help growth in new environments (training coal miners to do different work for example) the arguments become something about heritage or family history in mining. It always seems like it’s opposition for the sake of opposition.

The main argument against welfare always seems to stem from a desire to have less taxation as they believe welfare support is stealing from them. A.k.a being selfish. There is never any thought about what to do to help those in need.

Gxost ,

The Justice pic: a man yells at the kids stealing apples from his garden, while the kids are running away, loosing all the apples.

Thorny_Thicket ,

Life is and will always be unfair

FinnFooted ,

What a great way to justify never improving things.

SomeAmateur ,

It’s not so much NEVER improving things so much as not letting the quest for perfection get in the way of steps in the right direction.

If a fictional city went from a mediocre tuition based college to a fantastic one that was free to students that live in the city, previous students might wish their schooling was free when they were there. It isn’t fair. But it’s also a big improvement for the future and worth doing.

Jaderick ,

This is more nuanced response to the “Life in unfair” retort that the people who often use that phrase do not mean lol.

E.g. the people suing the Biden administration for student loan forgiveness

Thorny_Thicket ,

Didn’t say that

hikaru755 ,

So what? This is not about creating an absolutely fair world, it’s about improving heavily unfair systems.

JohnDClay ,

So let’s make it less so?

vzq ,

Says the guy hoarding all the apples.

Thorny_Thicket ,

I work at a construction

vzq ,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figurative_analogy

ssboomman ,

And so we should never try to address any inequalities ever. Case closed!

Fucking moron.

Thorny_Thicket ,

You said that.

dhork ,

This is one of my least favorite Rush songs…

Hazdaz ,

How is giving college scholarships or preferential admissions to one and only one specific group anything but inequality?

FinnFooted ,

Its the equity stage. Certain socioeconomic groups have fewer educational opportunities earlier in life. We should really move on to justice and fix that. But first, we need equity to help people now and make up for that.

Hazdaz , (edited )

That’s horseshit. Some poor person living right next door to some other poor person has access to X scholarship but the neighbor doesn’t. They went to the same schools growing up. Their parents make comparable money, but magically only one of them could get a free ride scholarship or gets easier access to school.

That’s not going to breed resentment. Nooo. Not at all.

APassenger ,

Meanwhile a neighborhood over, the kids don’t need scholarships.

Both scenarios breed resentment.

We need better answers, like… free public education, better schools, tutoring supplements for those who ask (including high acheivers), and it needs to go through uni and trades.

We can’t keep having people left behind because of structural issues. Poor decisions happen and it’s nice to soften blows where we can. But if a person commits no errors and ends up paycheck to paycheck for the rest of their life… that’s a failed society.

We need to transcend the “they get x and we don’t” part of this and get onto the real thing.

Reliant1087 ,

You’re missing the larger point. It isn’t about individuals.

If your parents and grandparents were from an ethnic/social/other group that did not have access to resources, then there’s less chance that you grow up in a household that values education or have resources like food, time with parents and caring adults, emotional support and, financial security and so on. These affect your academic success irrespective of how talented or smart you might be.

Providing better access to higher education for people from such groups is a way to make sure that their children don’t grow up in the same environment and the problem is solved over generations.

Such measures of equity are always stop gap measures to address problems until you find grass root level solutions. Right now say protected groups might be first Nations or African Americans. In the future that might change to immigrants from Ukraine or Honduras.

Hazdaz ,

It IS about the individual and claiming otherwise completely misses the damn point.

No one from a similar economic level living in a similar area has more advantages than anyone else. To claim otherwise is both racist and simply wrong and speaks to the tone-deaf nation of certain groups in this country.

Continuing down that erroneous path only breeds contempt for those who get preferential treatment because of something totally outside of their control.

If you think Beyonce’s kids (she’s worth $1/2 BILLION) are somehow downtrodden and being discriminated against more than some poor Asian family who just came to the US and are barely scraping by, then you are part of the problem as to why racism in this country seems to never go away. You are blindly focusing in on something as pointless as skin color instead of moving passed that to a post-racism world.

You based things like scholarships on need and merit. Some $30k/year family is no better off than some other $30k/year family just because one of them might be a certain color. That’s utter nonsense.

papertowels ,

What’s the differing factor between them?

Obviously if you paint this hypothetical situation as between two identical parties it’ll look silly. What do you think would differentiate the two enough to warrant a scholarship difference?

jtk ,
@jtk@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

One of them got “the talk”, the other didn’t. It’s not all about economic status. They’re treated different, no matter what. I see it every single day, even in friends and family, and even on Lemmy. This mindset just adds to the fire. Resentment is in the mind of the beholder, skin color is not a choice.

DarthBueller ,

What is the justice of a rich black valley girl from Santa Barbara (who was always going to be college-bound) getting a free ride because of her skin color despite ZERO financial need, and a poor white yokel kid from rural Alabama not going to school because she can’t afford to (who also gets zero social support for going to college because her culture decided to intentionally devalue education as being “liberal elite”)?

The fact that racism is a problem and that “the talk” is still a reality doesn’t justify race-based preferential treatment. No wonder culture wars are so easy to wage.

jtk ,
@jtk@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Culture wars are easy to wage because of childish assholes that can’t handle seeing someone else receiving aid. Poor white yokel kids from rural Alabama problems stem from their parents voting for shit people that want them to be poor and uneducated. Then they grow up to vote for the same breed of shit people, against the aid (education, fair labor laws, safety regulations, etc) everyone else is trying to give them. They dig their own graves, over and over. Minorities are born into a grave, they’re trying to crawl out of it and a ridiculous amount of assholes are, not only not lending a hand, they’re attacking anyone that tries. Affirmative action doesn’t work perfectly but only because it gets abused by those same assholes.

phillaholic ,

Can you link me to a source so I can review the details of that case?

DarthBueller ,

The source is me. One of my roommates was from Santa Barbara and enjoyed a free ride to a out-of-state public school based on her race. She reeked of money and privilege and had no business getting a free ride.

phillaholic ,

So every minority that wanted to attended that school got a scholarship then? Presumably a worse off minority should have taken the slot. Your missing a lot of vital context.

DarthBueller ,

Fair enough. I’m not singleminded about this, but it certainly raised my hackles hearing her go on and on in her valley girl meets prep school accent about how hard it was to be her, while she meanwhile had every privilege available to her,flew anywhere she wanted on a whim, and drove around a paid-for new Lexus SUV that her daddy gave her. I don’t know what justice should look like, but giving her a free ride sure as hell wasn’t it.

phillaholic ,

There are always going to be individuals that don’t deserve things. Across the entire population however, these systems work and well. For all we know she was in massive debt. I know throughout my twenties some of my peers would have new cars constantly and buy expensive things they didn’t need and most of the time I found out they had $10k+ on credit cards and were living paycheck to paycheck with no savings or investments.

It’s important to keep in mind that these systems are seeking to correct the long standing discrimination faced by people of color that were unable to obtain these things for no other reason than the color of their skin. They weren’t given access to capital despite being just as qualified as anyone else. They weren’t allowed to attend most colleges. Movies like Hidden Figures and the Banker, although dramatized, paint a picture of what needed to be corrected. As modern society chips away at these safeguards, it remains to be seen if we slip back into those patterns.

DarthBueller ,

She wasn’t in debt. It was family money in great abundance. Yet she deserves a hand on the scale because of her skin color? I’d rather see a just and effective social state for everyone instead of selective handouts in a broken system that effectively reifies race and othering. Does recognizing the harm of systemic racism require reinforcing the concept? We talk about race as a harmful social construct and yet push for reparatory systems that amplify and reinforce it.

phillaholic ,

Depends where the money came from. If he parents had it, she would have been disqualified from paying Nicole based scholarships. If her grandparents had it and not her parents, it wouldn’t have been known.

My point still stands. If the scholarship was solely based on the color of her skin, there must have been someone of the same race with more need that could have qualified. There had to be other merit attached to it.

If all things equal a black person got into college instead of a white person, then congratulations, you’ve experienced a little bit of what black people have gone through since the beginning of the nation in not just higher education, but jobs, housing, dealing with the police, etc.

It would be great if the problem could be solved without uneven rules. You’ll find it unrealistic to accomplish once learn how much is involved. You’re not asking to solve one problem, but dozens. Dozens of huge issues each with smaller sub-issues that could take you a lifetime to correct. Forcibly correcting it through affirmative action actually worked, and wouldn’t take generations.

DarthBueller ,

I’m pretty far left, and even I felt resentment as a first-generation college grad from a lower middle class background that had to go into massive debt for law school. A friend of mine had Pilipino and black parents that were college educated and quite well off, but she had a free ride to law school because of her skin color instead of her grades, despite having far less financial need than I did. There’s no reason a poor white yokel and a poor black kid, both of whom have substantial structural and cultural barriers keeping them from accessing higher education, should be treated differently. I am not denying history, or saying that systemic racism isn’t a thing, but history and systemic racism shouldn’t be justifications for furthering inequality.

Hazdaz ,

You don’t solve racism with MORE racism.

And “reverse racism” is no different than any other racism.

Yet that is exactly what is happening. And people see it happening and it turns off some of the same people who would otherwise support your cause. This is a situation that breeds resentment, and stories like the ones posted over the last few days where a LOT of young white males are turning to right-wing groups should not be a surprise to anyone. These terribly thought-out policies are pushing many white (as well as Asian and Indian and Cuban) voters away from left-leaning causes because they feel they are being excluded. The Left is fighting racism in the dumbest way possible… with more racism, and SHOCKINGLY it is blowing up in their faces.

phillaholic ,

All things considered, she will be hit with more roadblocks then you over the course of her life only because of the color of her skin, and being mixed. Consider this one of the only times where the shoes on the other foot. Many minorities feel like this constantly about most major elements of society.

FinnFooted ,

Because money doesn’t cover the whole issue. Two people starting at the same economic point, one is statistically more likely to have downward economic mobility compared to the other based on race. There are people in our society actively being held back.

duffman , (edited )

We have need based programs to address people who need help. Why not bolster to those? Why focus on shifting resources/programs away from the poor to people who objectively don’t need it as much? We know how much people need, we can measure income.

How much money/time/reaources are going into programs, grants, scholarships that target single demographics?

FinnFooted ,

We should certainly be helping the poor universally. Education should be free. Food should be a basic human right.

But, racism is well and alive in modern society. And it actively pushes people down based on race. So, we should address both issues.

duffman ,

racism is well and alive in modern society. And it actively pushes people down based on race.

I noticed that when I was trying to apply for scholarships.

FinnFooted ,

And yet, you still have a statically better chance at upward mobility than the people who obtained these scholarships. And, don’t get me wrong. I’m white from a poor background with a lot of student loan debt. I feel your pain. But I’m not interested in fighting other poor people for scraps. Education should be free. We should be asking the wealthy and powerful why they are keeping education and other resources artificially difficult to obtain. Why is education and health care only this expensive in the US compared to other western and developed countries?

duffman ,

you still have a statically better chance

You mean people of my skin color have a statistically better chance. You don’t know me though, or how I was raised or whether or not I had two, one, or zero active parents in my life. Or their income, whether or not we owned a car, had proper access to food. factors like these are what we should be measuring, but today, skin color trumps all to most institutions.

I’m not asking for anything for me. I want people to be treated fairly. I want systematic means of discrimination destroyed, not constructed. Racism, racial tensions, bigotry are empowered by creating racially targeted policies.

No objection to your points on the ultra wealthy.

FinnFooted , (edited )

You’re right. I don’t know you. I assumed you aren’t black due to context. Perhaps you are native, but that’s the only group that is statistically less likely to have upward mobility compared to black people. But I haven’t really made any other assumptions other than you’re probably not part of a group getting race based scholarships thus you are part of a group statistically more likely to have more upward mobility than groups that do get race based scholarships. I think that’s a fair contextual assumption. And I don’t feel like playing the oppression Olympics with you, I just was trying to explain my position and that I have no benefit in defending affirmative action.

People should be treated fairly. We agree there. But, they aren’t right now. The bonus that certain groups get in admissions is to counterbalance more impactful lost opportunities they had earlier in life. And, until we address those, the counterbalance is necessary. But, you don’t seem to actually care about people being treated fairly at all stages. You only seem to care about people being treated fairly at stages that may give others opportunities you don’t have.

Because, if you actually cared about the root of the issue then your argument wouldn’t be focused on anti-affirmative action but realistically on creating a system that is equal from birth to death for all of us. Instead, you play into the desires of the ultra wealthy which is to create race based animosity to prevent either group from working together. Instead of arguing to lift others up so they don’t need affirmative action in the first place, you decide to squabble over peanuts in the dirt with over some false perception that someone else might be getting a few more crumbs than you.

uniqueid198x ,

You’re completley correct. We should balance the system so that admissions allow more people of color and first-in-family admissions, instead of preferencing legacies so much

Hazdaz ,

Better yet, base it on merit.

LiquorFan ,

Better yet, expand universities and allow everybody in.

DarthBueller ,

Or teach critical thinking in grade and trade schools. The fact that critical thinking skills are scoffed at as being “elitist” is an intentional devolution of our culture.

JohnDClay ,

How do you decide what majors people should be allowed to take? If money was no object, there would be many many more liberal arts type majors that don’t directly contribute monetarily to society nearly as much as other professions.

Jaderick ,

Doing what’s good for you and others is often very different from doing what’s good monetarily.

JohnDClay ,

The monetary side helps match people where they’re most needed. (Not exactly because capitalism is broken in some ways, but approximately) If education and money were entirely decoupled, there would be less of a way to get people where they’re needed. Raising income wouldn’t help much since you wouldn’t need to think about that when choosing a major.

Distributing skilled labor to where it’s needed is still good for others too. I agree money and morality aren’t correlated, but it can help guide in the useful direction. I think there needs to be a balance between allowing people to do whatever they want and encouraging them to do what’s needed.

Here’s some more info on problems you can have with colleges. youtube.com/watch?v=Rqv0nuP4OAU

LiquorFan ,

In my country university is free, some have a test you have to pass because there are so many people that want to go, but those are law and medicine. And most people drop out in the first year.

Otherwise it’s not really an issue.

JohnDClay ,

Dropping out seems like an issue, as you’re paying for someone who isn’t going to benefit very much from it. Most people overall, or most people in those majors?

LiquorFan ,

I think most people in those mayors drop out, not overall. My guess is that people know you can make a lot of money there but then realize they don’t actually like it.

I don’t think it’s a big issue though, some public money might be “wasted”, but you give everyone a chance which find perfectly acce.

uniqueid198x ,

What is merit? How do you measure it?

Hazdaz ,

You know what ISN’T merit? …simply being born part of some special group that gets preferential treatment based on the most meaningless of things.

Merit could be anything from HS grades to SAT scores or placement in various scholarly competitions. Income level should be mixed in there as well.

Do we want to live in an equitable world? Then stop dividing people over stupid shit.

IcedCoffeeBitch ,

You do realize the things you mentioned as ways to evaluate merit have been shown to be biased against poor people and POCs, right?

I don’t disagree with you on principle, hell I personally think giving entrance advantage to POCs was a band-aid solution to the discrimination POCs usually face. But simply saying “just evaluate based on merit” ignores the fact that for that to happen, the entire system must be reformed.

uniqueid198x ,

being born rich isn’t merit either, but it has lasting inpacts on HS grades, SAT scores, and placement in scholarly competitions. How do you propose to ensure schools aren’t full of people who just bought their way in?

arcrust ,

Agreed.

And we should give extra points to people who grew up in disadvantaged situations but still had decent grades. A ‘C’ in AP History by someone working a job in high school, is just as good as someone who got an ‘A’ And didn’t have to work.

Merit isn’t just a good GPA. It takes into account all of the things that made it some more difficult for a person. Getting a decent score on an SAT exam when you went to a shit school, should be able to get you into a good college. But the reality is someone who lived in a zip code with better schools is more likely to get into that college purely by where they grew up. And you tend to grow up in a good neighborhood if you’re parents were well off or had a degree themselves.

Purely looking at grades and scores is bad. Unfortunately, people of color tend (not always) be from worse neighborhoods. They tend to have a lot of disadvantages when it comes to getting good grades and good scores. Affirmative action is/was supposed to break the cycle. It’s supposed to help give a little more merit to the situations surrounding grades Ultimately, it’s supposed to diversify the nicer neighborhoods.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Do achievements under tougher conditions not have merit?

Redex68 ,

I never thought of it this way, that’s a pretty good interpretation.

JohnDClay ,

An issue is that lower income areas often have less focus on things like test taking skills, so genuine ability is really hard to distinguish from test taking practice.

Also, schools in lower income areas often aren’t nearly as good, forcing a cycle of poverty since they can’t get into college very easily at all.

phillaholic ,

We will be re-learning this lesson for the next fifty years along with why the voting rights act was necessary.

Oyster_Lust ,
@Oyster_Lust@lemmy.world avatar

Equality should be in protection of rights. People are not equal, and never will be. They should have equal rights, though.

Steve Vai is a better guitarist than I am. He shouldn’t have his fingers broken so that we both have equal ability to play the guitar.

Trying to make people equal in every way is evil. It only brings the best in every field down to the level of the worst, since there’s no way to bring everyone up to the level of the best in every field.

ImGonnaTryScience ,

That’s not the point of equity. The point is to compensate for disadvantages people couldn’t prevent and can’t fix on their own. Stairs are equal. They work the same way for everyone. But someone in a wheelchair can’t climb stairs.

Reliant1087 ,

But you can reframe it. People don’t have equal mobility but everyone has an equal right to access a place, so you have stairs and ramps. You can’t make everything a ramp or stair to create equality.

duffman ,

That’s not how equity works in practice. It doesn’t examine anyone’s actual capabilities or disadvantages. They bucket large groups of people into categories they deem worthy to receive resources, despite their actual need. Every person has their individual story, challenges, and priveleges yet equity assumes otherwise, that you deserve compensation based on the group you were assigned to, not what you actually need.

ssboomman ,

That’s just not true. That’s how a person would feel if equity didn’t specifically help them.

oce ,
@oce@jlai.lu avatar

It may work like that in practice in fields where it is extremely difficult to design solutions that are adapted to each person. Imagine you have to tailor laws and their application specifically to many millions of individuals, how do you do that without creating more manageable categories?

ryathal ,

In practice that’s equity programs work by hurtingsomeone. Some California schools cut advanced math classes because they weren’t diverse enough, or it was contributing to an educational gap, or some bullshit. Equity requires adding burden to someone, it may be in an attempt at fairness, but that doesn’t make it right.

DessertStorms ,
@DessertStorms@kbin.social avatar

In practice that’s equity programs work by hurtingsomeone

[citation needed]

duffman ,

Equality people: “Let’s fund these people who are objectively poor, they are disadvantaged and need it.”.

Equity people: “let’s fund people part of this group I can clearly identify by looking at them. They are likely to be disadvantaged.”

Kage520 ,

Not sure why everyone is downvoting any opinion that isn’t “give minorities all the available resources!”.

It should not be: you need x% of your classroom seats to go to minorities. That’s silly because talented and driven people will be sent away to make space. It should be more like: “you must provide an avenue to help those who can prove disadvantaged status to take extra classes and then reapply to your program.” These classes could be online or whatever to make it as easy as possible for someone with less means but still driven to succeed have a way to better themselves.

imPastaSyndrome ,

“let’s fund people part of this group I can clearly identify by looking at them. They are likely to be disadvantaged.”

Uh… they don’t identify by looking at them you braindead fool. They do means testing. As in - actually seeing if they need it.

duffman ,

Firstly, be respectful.

There is a huge range of equity implementations in the US. My company, for example, has not done any “means testing” when recruiting for racial equity. Nor when it donates to blanket racial programs. There was no means testing when internships were offered to high school students of particular demographics.

Bartsbigbugbag ,

When you’re so used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.

ssboomman ,

Lmaooo the only people who use that California talking point are people who have never been inside of a school in California. They aren’t cutting math classes they are offering alternatives to high level math courses like calculus, stats, and data science. Explain to me how that’s burdening anyone??

thereisalamp , (edited )

You entirely missed the point of this picture.

This picture isn’t about breaking Steve’s fingers so you can both play shitty guitar. It’s about making sure you can both access a guitar and lessons to learn.

The equality picture would be shoving a guitar in each of your hands and a coupon for lessons, while failing to address that you live 2 hours away from the teacher while he lives next door.

Eta: equity would be providing you with a free buss ride to the teachers house 2 hours away. This gives you all the tools to get guitar lessons, but, you might not be able to take advantage of this because a 5 hour commitment isn’t the same as a 1 hour 5 minute commitment and you lose out on opportunity cost. You get free guitar lessons and a ride, but the system is broken. Justice is fixing the system so that there’s enough guitar teachers within a reasonable distance. Like say, making sure that no one is more than 20 minutes from a guitar teacher.

duffman ,

The picture misses the millions of people who are too poor to afford a ladder and don’t belong to one of the groups targeted by the equity crowd.

readthemessage ,

The equity crowd should want the poor people to afford a ladder, I do not understand your point.

duffman ,

Then they would put resources to poor people of any demographic.

readthemessage ,

You’re totally right, ideally yes.

Unfortunately, resources are limited and starting from somewhere is better than not starting at all.

thereisalamp ,

This is where justice would come in. Fixing the system so that resources are distributed automatically to provide everyone with equitable access to the tools

whats_a_refoogee ,

It’s about making sure you can both access a guitar and lessons to learn.

We are already trying to do that. It’s called equality. Also known as equality of opportunity, where everyone has access to acquire a guitar and guitar lessons. How does “justice” augment this?

thereisalamp ,

You failed at reading the rest of the comment.

hark ,
@hark@lemmy.world avatar

Nobody is advocating for breaking fingers. Following the example set by the image, if someone were to have, for example, issues with their hands, then they should be provided tools to help them play the guitar. Do you think someone with a disability shouldn’t be allowed to do things even though tools to let them do those things exist? Keeping up such barriers is how we miss out on amazing talents hampered by obstacles that could be overcome provided adequate access.

Kage520 ,

I think what he was saying, but slightly missed, was, if both people needed guitar classes, we should not give the guy with the hand issues the only available seat.

Really though, if we just spend a bit more on education, there could be seats for everyone! So maybe the last picture could be fertilizing the tree to make it bigger or something.

readthemessage ,

What he said is something closer to “We should not tax the rich to level the playing field” and that is a very bad take.

JustAThought ,

There is no taking away. Someone will have access to guitars that wouldn’t otherwise. Someone somewhere let a great player hear a guitar, see how it’s played, maybe even gave them their first guitar. it’s about giving not taking away.

JustAThought ,

I think your problem is that you think that something will be taken away. Try to think in terms of the giving. Steve is not going to have anything taken away. Someone will have access to guitars that wouldn’t otherwise. Steve will be fine.

SocialMediaRefugee ,

What if resources are limited? There is only one guitar but 3 people want one.

ssboomman ,

Then instead of letting the super advantaged, super rich take all the resources we should work on getting and producing more. Which probably starts with taking from the people who are hoarding them all.

phillaholic ,

According to the picture, increase the supply of guitars.

Cethin ,

At birth there are situations that give people advantages that have nothing to do with ability. These advantages are systemic, where certain people will have better access to opportunity (apples) than others. The goal should be that the opportunities are equal so no one has a head start. The best apple picker will pick more apples instead of the person born with an orchard and apple picking machinery who very well may be a shit apple picker.

For your example, we’d end up with the best musicians becoming popular, not the ones where their parent could afford to give them private lessons since childhood and had industry connections to make them big where they wouldn’t otherwise.

It’s not about equality of outcomes, it’s about equality of opportunity. No one should start a race with a head start because then you don’t know who the best runner is. Everyone should start equally and everyone should have equal access to the same shoes, equipment, and practice opportunity, otherwise we can’t see who’s actually best without an advantage.

kool_newt ,

Why is important to see who is “best”? That’s only important in sports, those which are not actually important.

Cethin ,

The comment above was about having the best guitarists. Regardless, why wouldn’t it be important to see who’s best? Why is it better to see who has the most advantages that weren’t earned? The argument for capitalism is that whoever can do the best gets rewarded the most. It’s fundamentally flawed because capitalism promotes creating barriers and ensuring the playing field isn’t even though.

No matter what the situation, having the best people doing the jobs will create the best outcomes for the most people. In what way is this not desirable?

SocialMediaRefugee ,

“Hmmm, he’s in a wheelchair so we’ll make things equal by chopping off your legs.”

ssboomman ,

You make it seem like correcting the tree in the last panel hurts the advantaged girl on the left. It does not.

readthemessage ,

What you mean is something close to “We should not tax the rich to level the playing field” and that is a very bad take.

No one wants to bring everyone up to the level of the best in every field. What people want is for the baseline conditions to be good enough so everyone has the opportunity of having a decent life.

It is such a large difference.

ssboomman ,

Why are you arguing against something literally no one said? How is this graphic trying to ‘make everyone equal in every way’? How is the person on the left of the graphic disadvantaged in any way? (That last one answers your idiotic ‘breaking fingers’ point)

GBU_28 ,

You’ll notice the Steve Vai apple picker (left) never has a reduction in apple access.

Your suggestion some harm might come to Steve Vai doesn’t make sense, he can access apples as well as ever

HamSwagwich ,

While your statement is true, the result is Steve Vai not having a motivation or reason to become the top apple picker. If his extreme efforts to become the best in a given field are nullified by a system that will give extra to someone who isn’t as good at it so that they can be as good as Steve, why bother with putting in that effort?

So yes, Steve is harmed by stealing his motivation and (potential) recognition by making the system anti-meritocracy and more about everyone being the same.

The equation changes when we live in a post scarcity society, but we didn’t live in one. Therefore we have motivational pressure to find a niche we are good at and exploit it to survive. Taking away that niche you might be talented at while others aren’t as talented, harm those people who now don’t have that niche to exploit.

Even in a post-scarcity world, where we have unlimited access to energy (and thus can create anything we need), the motivation for social recognition through innate talent and ability is going to drive the human race forward. Taking that away kills the human spirit and possibly the human race.

I bet you are against designer babies/gene editing to give a child a huge advantage over it’s peers, right? Because that is the logical conclusion of this metaphor and “justice.” Genetically engineering every baby to have equal access to abilities and talent.

DulyNoted ,

Meritocracy is a myth though, perpetuated by those lucky enough to benefit from existing systems.

It’s completely circular. I’m on top and the people who are on top are the best so because I’m on top I’m the best.

It never accounts for all the myriad non-merit related ways folks get on top in the first place.

IzzyJ ,

The problem isn’t even meritocracy or equality as goals, we just straight up haven’t achieved them yet.

June ,

This image isn’t about making people equal, it’s about making systems equal…

Cethin ,

I posted this to a comment further down, but thought I should post it up here:

At birth there are situations that give people advantages that have nothing to do with ability. These advantages are systemic, where certain people will have better access to opportunity (apples) than others. The goal should be that the opportunities are equal so no one has a head start. The best apple picker will pick more apples instead of the person born with an orchard and apple picking machinery who very well may be a shit apple picker.

For your example, we’d end up with the best musicians becoming popular, not the ones where their parent could afford to give them private lessons since childhood and had industry connections to make them big where they wouldn’t otherwise.

It’s not about equality of outcomes, it’s about equality of opportunity. No one should start a race with a head start because then you don’t know who the best runner is. Everyone should start equally and everyone should have equal access to the same shoes, equipment, and practice opportunity, otherwise we can’t see who’s actually best without an advantage.

ThrowawayPermanente ,

We could also just shoot the kulak on the left and take back the apples she stole from the people’s tree

Widowmaker_Best_Girl ,

Ah yes, the communist solution.

Reliant1087 ,

The revolutionary solution, not necessarily communist. Like Boston tea party and what followed

imPastaSyndrome ,

Ah yes, the communist boston tea party, French Revolution and … I dunno I don’t feel like putting more effort into this comment

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