I think you’re confusing some concepts here? Or being absolutist ad-absurdum?
If you insist that everyone have exactly the same chance (equality of opportunity), then sure. Might as well make a lottery.
If you’re saying equality of effort means one persons 1 hour products the same output as someone else’s, then that also is pretty absurd. If for no other reason than people are not or cannot be identical.
I don't think you can even come close to providing equality of opportunity if you let ppl spend money on their children.
Society just doesn't have the resources to provide a private tutor to each student, but rich parents can. How do you close the equality of opportunity gap there?
For someone interested in sailing, opportunities are quite limited unless your parents have a sailboat, in which case you almost learn by default.
> Society just doesn't have the resources to provide a private tutor to each student, but rich parents can. How do you close the equality of opportunity gap there?
i dont think that's what equality of opportunity means though.
The private tutor is giving the child an opportunity to learn. But a child that doesn't have a tutor will still receive an education from a publicly funded school. So both child will have an education. The assumption that having a private tutor automatically gives that child a better education is not really established in evidence imho.
> For someone interested in sailing, opportunities are quite limited unless your parents have a sailboat
so if schools and tertiary institutions have a sailing club, then the student could join that, rather than having to have the capital to own a sailing boat. Of course, today we don't truly have equality of opportunity, so some people don't get to sail, but i think as time progresses, it would get better.
Sure, with enough perseverance, a smart kid could get a better education than a tutored kid just by via the internet. As you point out, the tutor may actually be a crutch and the self-taught kid might actually be better off.
So does simple access to the internet provide equality of opportunity when it comes to learning? At least beyond something like 6th grade?
And each college having a sailing club seems pretty unrealistic. Consider something even more niche like being a dolphin marine biologist. Easy if your parents own something like SeaWorld, otherwise get in line.
When you really boil down a lot of the arguments, it seems to work out to ‘x demographic should have y percent of this high paying industry/powerful position because I say so’.
Which is really about wealth distribution and power blocs.
Which, historically, requires significant effort and adjustment from ANY demographic to get into said power bloc, or make that wealth. And a whole lot of adjustment from them for it to work and everything to not just collapse into ruin. This tends to happen organically. A new student thinks x is cool.
They go into it, but most burn out, or figure out the actual work (or actual people who also like the work) isn’t to their liking and leave.
The small percentage that remain usually have some kind of cultural or parental support, or a particular mindset, that makes them a fit for the situation. If it continues to fit, they find success.
Over time, industries in certain areas then have certain demographic/attitude/background patterns.
It is not uncommon for people who aren’t succeeding using whatever existing system or patterns exist, if the industries are seen as valuable and desirable, to grow resentful, try to weaken/capture them, and/or attempt to destroy and replace them.
It’s also not uncommon for people who ARE successful to setup barriers (explicit and implicit) to perpetuate what they saw as creating the success and protect their (and their kids/whatever) ongoing success.
Both of these responses have evolutionary pressures in their favor.
I agree with you; I think the solution is to try to create a floor of opportunity that is accessible to 99.9+% of people.
There are going to be kids who learn to sail, ski, fly, surf, or take ocean-crossing vacations 4x per year. You don’t gain as much from trimming the top as you do from putting in a solid floor. (It also costs a lot to put in an effective floor.)
I agree. The problem I think is a lot of the discussion is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Specifically, the baby being a reasonable level of equality that gives everyone a chance to do well, and the bath water being the reality thar people still do badly regardless, and many supposedly ‘good enough’ opportunities are actually just well disguised shittiness/scams. Like poorly run school districts in many areas, which tend to correlate with a lot of minorities.
In that case, I'd argue the internet is sufficient.
Any motivated individual can now access not just average content for each grade-level, but in most cases even better content than is taught in most schools.
One could learn to code or even learn a specialized trade with the right websites/youtube videos.
If you insist that everyone have exactly the same chance (equality of opportunity), then sure. Might as well make a lottery.
If you’re saying equality of effort means one persons 1 hour products the same output as someone else’s, then that also is pretty absurd. If for no other reason than people are not or cannot be identical.
But maybe we’re in violent agreement?