Hopefully, Equal Opportunities Will Never Exist

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by skywalker
equal opportunities == success is directly proportional to ability ONLY

So that means all playing fields must be leveled by the government.

I completely agree.

[MrFun]

Did you have too much to drink when you created this thread, Bod?

[Kuciwalker]

Even with home-schooling et al, there is equal opportunity to be educated, because equal opportunity refers to actions of the government.

For example, my dad teaches me a lot of math, so that even though I'm in very advanced classes, I usually know it all beforehand (I'm still in a public school). Is that "inequal opportunity"?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by skywalker
For example, my dad teaches me a lot of math, so that even though I'm in very advanced classes, I usually know it all beforehand (I'm still in a public school). Is that "inequal opportunity"?

Yes. It is "inequal opportunity" in comparison to those who don't get any education from their parents, either because they don't have enough time, enough money, or enough knowledge themselves.
Thanks to the efforts of your dad, you'll have a better chance to get a successful schooling than people whose parents don't / can't do this effort. This is "inequal opportunity", at least in my understanding.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Dissident
Let me put it to you bluntly. Men strive to succeed to get chicks, not for their kids. The more successful a man is, the better women he can get.

It's just that simple.

[Kidlicious]

Shouldn't women want nice guys the most. I mean if you marry an ******* or a ***** that makes life pretty tough, but I think it's some kind of instinct that makes us attracted to people who are successfull and who look, well maybe healthy.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Shouldn't women want nice guys the most.

The theory goes that women want to marry nice guys because they make better fathers.

Believe it... or not.

[Clear Skies]

Originally posted by MrFun
Did you have too much to drink when you created this thread, Bod?

Does he ever not?

[GePap]

Let me try to make the point simple Bezerker:

But you haven't answered my question. How will we achieve this equal opportunity if some of us get to give our kids advantages like private and home schooling?

The key is the definition of "equal opportunity", which obviosuly, as a policy goal, wil NOT be defined in a literal way (which you harp on for some "reason"). What you do is make a policy decsion of what level of knowledge and starting resources and access to resource is considered the minimum needed to have a chance of success. The you install policies meant to insure that all kids achieve these levels (how they get there is immaterial). If a kid goes beyond, then good for them, but the asusmption is that the level we have set is what is defined as being given a good opportunity. Once everyone reaches it, then you have "equal opportunity". You assume that from that point, personal ability will be the best criteria for success. Another thing to do is to end certain parochial privaledges from on top, like "god ld' boys networks" that favor were you cam from, not how good you are. Neither policy has diddly to do with home schooling of pirvate education, as far as the education portion of them goes.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Clear Skies


Does he ever not?

You're right -- I forgot about his pattern.

[Solly]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Shouldn't women want nice guys the most. I mean if you marry an ******* or a ***** that makes life pretty tough, but I think it's some kind of instinct that makes us attracted to people who are successfull and who look, well maybe healthy.

Acting 'nice guy' is how subservient men have learned to act in the presence of stronger men in order to protect themselves from harm ("I am no threat to your status as the more dominant male... please don't hurt me... let me be your harmless, lovable side-kick..."). To women, then, "niceness" is a screaming red flashing signal of LOW MALE STATUS.



Berzerker seems to have some idea where I am heading with this.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Boddington's
Acting 'nice guy' is how subservient men have learned to act in the presence of stronger men in order to protect themselves from harm ("I am no threat to your status as the more dominant male... please don't hurt me... let me be your harmless, lovable side-kick..."). To women, then, "niceness" is a screaming red flashing signal of LOW MALE STATUS.



Berzerker seems to have some idea where I am heading with this.

No, there are nice guys. I'm one of them.

[Sirotnikov]

99% of the replies on this thread are based on prejudice and pre-conceptions about bodds. And I'm not a person who usually defends him.

Boddington was merely taking the idea of equal opportunity to the extreme - no inherited incentives what so ever.

It is exactly connected to cummunism, because exactly this issue arose in a previous thread about communism. The local poly commies were crying about the unfair head start that children of successfull people recieve. Their arguement was that the kids did not get the money and status due to their ability but due to their kinship alone.

I gave an example which was rather similar to the one bodd's gave - imagine a world where inhertance is banned.

I think I got some of the issue figured out.

Commies, what you have been constantly saying is that people like Bush Jr. or Bill G. have not actually made opportunities for themselves but have recieved opportunities that they were inherited by their rich family line. They were "born rich". Other people, have sadly not, and thus what is unfair is that some people get more opportunities that others don't, simply for being lucky enough to be born rich.

I think the point is mute, since if Bush Jr. (or lets say, Bush 3 or 4, when both leading Bushes fade out) will be total slackers, their opportunities will waste away and doors will slowly close for them. A person who is born rich has more opportunities but if he doesn't exploit any of them, he might die poor.

But let's assume you don't accept that and think that Bush Sr. will awlays be in the picture, and then Bush Jr. since even a no good slacker like him gets more privelages since he did get to be president.

Let's cancel privelages that go with family name. You can think about that, but then you would have to legally and morally deal with inheritance. How can you prevent Bush Sr. from inheriting his properties and name to Bush Jr.? You can't really. That's the whole point of inheritance and that's the point of life. We better ourselves in an attempt to create better starting ground for our children and to allow OUR genes to succeed better in the evolution struggle.

Our whole life goes by the way of accumulating wealth in hope to create better starting position for your kin. That goes not only for us as individuals, but also as a race. If we would stop accumulating things like wealth, knowledge and status, and would stop becoming more successfull, we will die out as a species. So we do have to accumulate 'stuff'.

So you might suggest, that to give a fair chance to all newborns, you can't inherit things directly to them. Rather the money goes to a govt. which will use it for public good, and will distribute equal money to all newborns, from which they can have a fresh clean start. But the universal knowledge and wealth are still acumulated.

However, one can't look at life as an issue of personal achievements. It's rather a string of achievements passed on through generations, as it's intended to be. One tries to improve his life in order to leave a better world first and foremost for HIS children. His kin are seen as a natural continuation of his life process. In many ways breaking family inheritance and taking away what someone's fathers have earned, is just as logical as taking away everything you own at the age of 40, saying that you have to start all over, to give a fair chance to those who did not do so well until the age of 40. Wealth and status is meant to be given to the next generation.

Inheritance being taken away, is against evolution in many ways. To an extent, it's down right impossible. No one can take away for instance, talent, mind and beauty. Suppose some people are born pretty and talented while others are not. Is this 'fair'? They did nothing active to gain the opportunities that their genes give them. Should we also forcefully randomize genes? That OBVIOUSLY goes against evolution and against natural processes.


Therefore, you can't possible eliminate inheritance, and claim that having everyone start from point blank, without extra, inherited opportunities, is in any way more productive (as seen before) or just (since the father has to see his fruits of hard labour go down the drain).


So capitalism can't fight inheritance, which does create a situation in which not everyone start from point blank. However capitalism is still fair enough, to let anyone, given he is talented and willing enough, be the started of a new 'thread' of successfull genes and wealth, by rewarding those with enough motivation and effort and proper reading of the market.

If you start a bussiness, and inherit it to your son, he can find a way to improve it and broaden it, and after 3 generations you can possibly be the next Bush.

Why is it promised that you will not 'run out of space'? Because the human species keeps growing in size and new products and gain opportunity will appears. 150 years ago it looked like people who owned horses and railways would rule transportation forever, until a couple of silly brothers invented flight.

Why are you assured that the same families won't keep winning, pushing you aside? Because sometime there will always be a f*ckup who will be a total loser and a slacker.

Think of Rome. It had everything. All the opportunities, all the money, all the military, all the culture. And it accumulated it too. It technically should have ruled the world forever. But then came a few bad, incompetent rules, and then arrived, fairly weak and burtal raiders from other places, who took advantage of that.


So yes, you, personally probably don't have a chance to become bill gates. But you have a chance to be a start of a process that might produce someone bigger.

Now obviously this is taken to extreme, and this is not what most folkes asking for 'equal opportunities' mean.

However it shows that there can't be absolutely equal opportunities, and that continued whining about the children of rich people are unfounded.

[Sirotnikov]

bump