Okay so to elaborate on the title more for people that want to know what I'm talking about or the context it's used in, I'm going to explain the basis of equal opportunity and equal outcome. Let's try to keep specific politics out of this, as I just want to discuss the ideologies behind these (though i dont see anything wrong with using a small real life example to help put your point across if need be).

So I'm pretty sure the majority of people in the civilized world are for equality of the human race, despite your race, six, religion or whatever. That equality can be interpreted in a couple different ways, one being equal opportunity and one being equal outcome. So let me just explain them both a little more.

Equal Opportunity: So the basis of equal opportunity is that every human on the planet is or should be born equal. Meaning that no matter your race, six, religion, etc, you have the same chances to be successful in life as anyone else does, you arent barred from anything basically and everyone has the same chance to get rich or become poor. You have the same access to education, work, recreation and basically anything you can think of.

However, with equal opportunity it stands that one man starting with the same thing as another man can become much more successful by working harder and more often in life, basically have more ambition then his neighbour who wants to spend his life sitting around smoking dope and coasting through life or whatever his or her case is.

Other factors also come into play, like luck, being in the right place at the right time (like winning the lottery, or getting 'discovered' by a movie producer who just so happened to sit in and watch your broadway play and decided that you are going to be the next big movie star, or just getting offered a cushy job because you're personal friends with someone who owns a big company or anything along those lines).

Some people see this as being the most 'fair', as everybody starts with the same, and incentive to work harder is that you stand a good chance at becoming more successful then your neighbour. Other people see this as not fair, as everyone should be taken care of the same and have the same lifestyle no matter what their ambition or personality is, and if say someone knows someone who owns a multi million dollar company gets hired in a cushy job is not fair simply because they got the job based on them knowing the owner of the company and not on their merits on how good of a job they can do.

Other side effects of equal opportunity is that you may or may not have equal amounts of men and women, white, black, asian, hispanic, etc people working at the same place. Instead you may find that perhaps the Asian population find themselves in IT and computer-like jobs more often then say Black or hispanic people, whether that's because of culture reasons, geography reasons or whatever is up to debate. Or maybe you see that there are more white men in politics in Western civilization, maybe because Women's interests are in other places and/or maybe simply just because there are more white people in western countries in general.

Equal Outcome: So what equal outcome basically means is that everyone becomes equal. No matter where you were born, your race, religion, six, etc, everyone is equal in the world in the end. Everyone has equal representation everywhere. So for example, every workplace should have an equivalent amount of black, white, hispanic, asian, men, women, etc working in their place and have equal representation. It's an idea that sounds good on paper but the side effect of this is that you find employers discriminating against certain groups of people by not hiring them because they already have enough black people or white people already and dont want another white male but instead need a hispanic woman hired, despite the fact that the black or white male may be more competent at the job.

What this does is insure that everyone, no matter how much life [censored] on you, ends up the same. So if you had some unfortunate things happen in life, like getting robbed or crippled or losing your house because the mortgage was too high, you would still end with the same lifestyle as the person who didnt have anything unfortunate happen to them. What this also means is that no matter your ambition or how hard you work, you keep the same lifestyle as your neighbour, whether or not they work harder or have more ambition is irrelevant.

Some peope see this as fair, as everyone ends up with the same lifestyle and we all have the same problems in life basically. Other people see this as unfair because it gives you no drive or ambition to become successful in life, and most people come to the conclusion of "hell, why should i work harder or spend more time learning my trade then my neighbour? I end up the same as them anyway, i might as well just coast along doing as little as possible because everybody else is and achieving the same outcome as me".

However, some unintended consequences of this is people hiring workers who are black simply because of their skin colour because they dont have enough black people on their work force, which for all intents and purposes is racist (and 99% of the people guilty of this are trying to be so anti - racist, that they end up being racist without realizing it).

So, that basically sums up the differences between equal opportunity and equal outcome, both branches of equality for everyone. Two drastically different ways of going about it, but both with their hearts in the same place.

So I ask you, bethesda forums, what is your take on this? Which do you think is better for humanity, or just better in general? Do you prefer the creed of Equal opportunity, or Equal outcome?

So, to keep the original post as neutral and unbiased as possible (which NOBODY is completely unbiased or neutral, such is the way we are made and sometimes cant be helped, and if you truly believe that you are unbiased then you should get down off your imagined high horse and get back down with the rest us humans, but i digress) I want to throw my personal two cents in it's own post, because what im going to say is completely biased and my personal views.

My personal stance on this, if you didnt guess is Equal opportunity. I believe that we should all have the same chances in life and should all be born equal. However, I think if someone decides they want to work 14 hours a day and end up making more money so they can do more things can feel free to do so without being pulled down by the rest of society. Equal outcome is a great idea, until the practicality of it comes around. If everyone had equal outcome, well then we would end up not having any scientists or doctors, because it takes harder and longer work to become a doctor and scientist, and why work harder when you end up with the same as your neighbour who works 20 hours a week and sits around doing nothing productive?

In the end, i feel this would destroy society as we know it, as eventually doctors, scientists, hell even janitors would cease to exist, and alas we would all end up having to fend for ourselves, lose society and become tribal again. Which hey, some people might want us to go back to that stone age lifestyle, but lots of those people dont realize that means working 24/7 whenever you arent sleeping (life is work), having 15 kids (with a 33% mortality rate) to have enough hands to keep everyone fed and dying at the ripe old age of 35 without having your TV and Iphones and facebook and all the luxuries we have now.

In a way, equal opportunity is a restriction on freedom in my opinion. Freedom of choice and freedom in general means that you are literally free to do anything you want, but freedom comes with consequences. You have the freedom to not work and just sit around if you so choose, but the consequences for such actions are you will probably lose your house and become homeless because nobody is paying your bills.

You have the freedom to sit around just making art, but if nobody buys that art because they decided in their freedom of choice that your art isnt good, then you will become broke because your art isnt good enough to meet demand, so you either have to stop doing art and get another job, or make 'better' art (as decided by the public, by their freedom). Equal outcome would instead MAKE people buy that artist's art (whether through legislation or enforcement or whatever), so that they can keep a good lifestyle and still be able to make their art, even if the art was bad. With equal opportunity, that artist may become broke, OR they could come to the conclusion that maybe they arent good enough at it (even if they want to be) and that they have to find a new profession to be able to live, but you would still have the FREEDOM to CHOOSE to make the art on your own free time, with the distinct possibility that nobody will buy it because they dont think it's good, even if you do.

Lots of advocates for Equal opportunity would say that the artist has a right to be able to make his art. Well i disagree, I say the artist has a privilege to make his art IF he has the means to do so (whether that means hes rich enough to not care about money, or good enough at art to sell it and sustain himself, or just have the free time to do it after working his job that makes him money and capital gain). But if that artist cant feed himself or house himself, then he should have to give up his art UNTIL he has managed to feed and house himself like the rest of society had to do. THAT to me is fair, and it's freedom.

Yeah, with unchecked freedom, sometimes coincidences or lucky things happen, like a totally undeserving guy winning the lottery, or getting a cushy job that he doesnt deserve because he was in the right place at the right time. Well that's called chaos, stuff like that isnt planned, and it's part of life. Sometimes life comes by and [censored] all over you, but sometimes it comes by and gives you everything. Things like that cant be forseen and we have to work around it, not work to stop chaos altogether.

Anyway, that's my personal view on it, take it with a grain of salt if you so choose, you have the FREEDOM to do so.

Equal outcome is gross. If I work my ass off to be my high school Valedictorian, go through the effort of getting a PhD, and finally manage to land myself in a high-ranking position in a major company (this isn't necessarily me, just a generic example), why the hell should Joe High School Dropout live the same life I do?

So, equal opportunity. Joe had the choice to go for it, he didn't. Screw Joe.

(Of course, equal opportunity is itself impossible, absent genetic manipulation. My cousin was born with an IQ 29 points above my own and neither of us had control over that--but we should still go for equal opportunity insofar as nonbiological factors are concerned).

I should have the opportunity to go for Valedictorian.

I should have the opportunity to go for a Bachelor's.

I should have the opportunity to go for a Master's.

I should have the opportunity to go for a PhD or MD.

I should have the opportunity to work for Google or Microsoft or Apple or Tesla or Samsung or Alienware or anyone else.

...and I should be rewarded for taking it.

Equality of outcome means no motivation. No motivation means no progress. No progress svcks. (No one in a communist country exceeds their quota. A whole hell of a lot of capitalists do everything in their power to push the limits.)

I would prefer equal opportunity and proportional outcome. You work more, you get more, but you never reach the point where you make a thousand times as much as the guys who work for you. At that point, you begin infringing on other people's equal opportunities.

And I should have the opportunity to be a jobless leech and live off your tax contribution

Only kidding. Despite being an eternal slacker and poster child for wasted potential, I agree that what you put in should be what you get out, to a degree. Society shouldn't be responsible for my quality of life, past a certain degree, if I refuse to contribute to society. There are limitations, though. There needs to be some kind of baseline, like everyone deserves food and clothing and a warm place to sleep. And if a person is unable to contribute to society, be it disability or something else, they should be taken care of to a degree, but this basically falls under the opportunity part.

So I'm on the equal opportunity side of things. To a degree.

Equal Opportunity of course. If someone works there ass off while the other person sits down and does nothing, then they shouldn't live the same life, the working one should have a better life.

Equal opportunity wins every time

The trouble is how do you deal with the next generation

Basically 1st gen the people with real ability win out,

next gen their descendents have an unfair advantage over everyone else because of what they inherited

next gen we've totally given up on any pretence about equality (except in reality it takes a few more generations than that)

Well, this is a bit of a political topic, but here's my two cents. We are not equal. No one is equal. One person may be smarter, another fitter, another more creative. We all have talents and strengths and weaknesses, and any attempt to impose a romantic idea of equality onto the real world is doomed to failure precisely because we are not clones raised in an identical environment. People get so caught up about the race or six or religion that they fail to consider talent as an important value. Let's be honest, the only way equal outcome could ever honestly be achieved is if everyone were treated as if everyone were the single most mentally deficient person on the planet. You have to go with the absolute lowest common denominator because that is the only way to make the truly talentless feel equal.

Way I see it, any boss that doesn't hire the absolute best person for the job because that person doesn't fill some quota that not enough Baha'i people or Branch-Davidians work at the office, then that manager deserves to lose his job, and the entire hiring process scrapped. And you point me towards the ghetto or some impoverished african country, and I'll point you to a dozen people (rhetorically, I'd have to do my research) who've gotten out because of their talents.

And then there's the idea that equal outcome is condescending as all hell. "Son, you got the job. We didn't have enough Mexicans kicking around. Congratulations, don't you feel like you've achieved something?"

At the end of the day, neither equal opportunity or equal outcome applies. Everyone starts different and everyone ends different depending on genes, upbringing, luck, and choices.

My trumpet instructor taught me an important lesson about talent; he said it wasn't worth a damned thing, and was often an impediment to success. He was told all his life he had no talent and would never achieve success, and yet he worked his ass off and made it to a professional level anyway. Along the way, he saw a lot of talented people give up when things got tough while he kept busting hump and made it through. The man made a certain amount of sense.

Hmm, have to say, I've never heard/read anything about IQ being determined at birth. I mean, yeah, you can be naturally gifted, but a person can also work their butt off to become smarter then they would if they were just doing what's needed to get by, and be at the same level as the person who is naturally gifted, it's just going to take more effort.

Okay. Now put him up against someone more talented who had also busted his hump. But at the end of the day, I said "Talent", not "talent at X activity". Willpower and drive are talents as much as anything else. There's also the fact that not having talent and being told you have no talent are two totally different things.

It's a solid starting point, however. Furthermore, people who start out successful (e.g. natural talent) are more likely to work harder due to more motivation.

It goes both ways, but what it really hinges on is, Is the talented person challenged? If yes, they'll learn to use their talent. If no, they'll learn to not work and they'll fail.

My IQ's the same now as it was when I was 6. I use my brain a lot harder now. (Also, the tests in comparison were both taken with neither of us working at it much)

I don't see how that is in any way possible at all. IQ tests involve a lot of logic and what not that a 6 year just isn't going to have available to them. My 6 year old daughter would probably have an IQ of like 75 right now, but by the time she's graduating highschool I fully expect she'll be able to approach more complex problems in different ways then she can now and will have a higher IQ.

They're modified according to age. IQ is a relative measure, not an absolute one. An IQ of 100, 115, 130 or 145 is meaningless in terms of actual measurements; all it says is that you are at the median or one, two or three standard deviations above it, respectively.

Actually, IQ scores have long been shown to remain steady or even decrease over time. Not saying they're worth a damn, it's trying to quantify something with so many variables it's ridiculous. When I was ten I tested at 168, and 50% of the time I'm a [censored] moron. Shows you what they're worth.

Just want to quickly add, that after a simple google search of "Is IQ determined at birth", the fairly solid answer is "no" just from a quick perusal of several links supplied. I'm not going to bother posting any, but just type exactly what's in the quotation marks and you'll get the same results I did, including at least one article that says that IQ being determined at birth is a myth, and apparently a hard one to dispel.

I wouldn't read too much into it. IQ tests are still debated as to whether or not they are even valid. But to my knowledge, they are supposed to test your brains ability to make connections and adapt itself. This, and the knowledge that the brain grows over time until about 20 (?) leads me to agree with you.

OT: Equal Opportunity. Slackers don't deserve what they don't earn.

It's only processing speed and spatial reasoning (but it is fairly accurate in that respect--I can out-spatial-reason and out-mental-math everyone I know at my 149).

According to some articles it does also predict things like educational attainment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ (decent amount of correlation, not 100%)

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/intelligence-and-genetics-do-some-people-inherit-an-edge (again, 50% heritability)

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304898704577478482432277706 (69% in twins)

Relative measure. An IQ score is just a representation of your percentile ranking, with 100 being 50%, 115 being 66.7%, 130 being 97.5%, 145 being 99.75%, and the same downwards shift when dropping below 100. Each 15 from 100 is one standard deviation.

Hence, constant with age.

Further (and this is anecdotal evidence), as I said, I test the same now as I did when I was 6 (I am now 15). Since then, I've done these things that should have changed it if it was going to change:

-Gifted middle school

-Self-brain training through conceptual physics

-Processing-speed-increasing program (that did change it 5 points, but most children aren't doing that).

[The test when I was 6 gave a result which did not include my processing speed result, which I am using as my comparison point except for the last bullet--my score is now the same as that non-processing-speed score]