"We are seeking equality."
That's what feminists and many so-called "peace groups" tell us all the time.
What exactly is equality? What do they actually mean when they say they are seeking "equality"?
1) Marxist equality
-Anyone, regardless of productivities or any other features, should receive the same treatment.
The first type of equality, as the Soviet Union had indicated, simply won't work, because of the fact that people would become "free-riders", and this is going to be disastrous the economy. With productivity being abysmally low, nobody is going to be happy. If this is what they mean by equality, I am certain that this kind of people will not do any good for us. Fortunately, judging from what they do, they don't seem to be so.
2) Statistical equality
-All groups of people should be statistically equal in ALL aspects of life.
This is total nonsense. Just take STEM as an example. Assuming that men are innately better at these subjects. If equal number of men and women attend STEM courses, then it follows that men are handicapped in some ways or women are compensated in some ways. Now that's the problem: Either way, there will be some economic loss, because some resources have been wasted, and it is not creating any additional value for us. No matter what, resources are wasted.
In other words, chasing statistical equality is simply going to waste a lot of resources. Imagine two countries, A and B. People in A spend a lot of money in seeking statistical equality, while those in B don't. Assume all other factors being constant, B will end up being more affluent that A, because it simply waste much less resources than A. The consequence will be that A will lose the competition with B, and people in A will either migrate to B, or change their nations to be more like B, or die. Many activist group seems to be seeking this form of equality. I would say that what they do are, in fact, quite harmful for our society.
3) Eqaulity of opportunity
-The assignment of individuals to places in social hierarchy is determined purely by competition.
At first glance, this is the only type of equality out of the three that seems to make any sense. However, I noticed that as one drill down to this, this form of equality becomes quite hopeless, indeed.
Let say, should men earn more than women?
No matter you answer "yes" or "no", it seems that you are not going to reach the criteria of equality of opportunity. This is because even if men are indeed more efficient than women, one may argue that it is because women are handicapped in some ways relative to men. Similarly, if men earn less than women, than you can still argue that men are handicapped. Moreover, we can never know if we have given enough support for all people such that they are "not handicapped". For example, even if we give completely equal support for everyone, you may still argue that some people perform less well because the type of support given to them are not qualitatively suitable for them, they are disadvantaged in some other ways, etc.
In addition, even if we manage to find all factors that can impair performance, we would still have little clue as to whether they did contribute to the poorer performance at all, because we simply cannot obtain information about all of them and to calculate their overall effects.
See? The debate is endless, and I seriously doubt if it is possible to yield any fruits at all. It is absolutely hopeless, at least with our current technology. If we seek this type of equality, then we are doomed to waste a lot of time (and money). It doesn't sound like it is going to be good for us.
Conclusion
As one can see, equality, despite being a very popular notion, is very doubtful regarding its execution. If equality is nothing but a spam, then it follows that chasing it is not going to bring us any good at all. Instead, if we abandon the so-called "equality", I think our society will be more properous, and if we don't do so, what will happen is simply identical to that between A and B.
2011年7月31日 星期日
2011年6月4日 星期六
Freedom, Freedom, Freedom
One of the most highly valued thing in nowaday society seems to be so-called "human rights". Basically, no matter what those activists do, claiming that they are defending human rights alone can bring them huge support (and of course the funds). For instance, gay activists constantly claim that being accepted as normal citizens is basic human rights, and therefore demand "equal" rights.
This is not going to do us any good.
One of the very first assumptions of "goodness" of absolute freedom is that humans are rational creatures. This statement is obviously flawed. More importantly, making choices can be costly. Imagine the following scenario:
A person is choosing which subjects as his major. He is given a variety of choices, but he has no idea what subjects is going to be suitable for him, so he randomly picks one at first, then keep switching majors until he finds one that he seems to like.
University Education requires government funding. So imagine what would happen if thousands of people are doing the same thing, and we all know that our resources are limited. If we waste so much money on these people, the old and the sick is going to receive less funding to help them. That's the key of my problem with those so-callled "freedom": In real world, letting people make choices freely is going to cost us resources, and the amount is far from negligible.
Therefore, it follows that there should be a point at which freedom and restriction are well balanced such that human happiness is going to be maximized. It is obvious that limitlessly raise freedom people have will definitely not bring us to this point.
Conclusion
I don't think endlessly demand freedom is going to do us any good. Instead, it is probably not going to creating anything but misery and misallocation of resources. One of the greatest reasons people seem to mindlessly support the so-called "human rights" is that it appears to induce intense emotions in us such that people in general stop doubting if what they do is correct.
I am really beginning to wonder why being emotional seems to be associated so strongly with poor decision making.
This is not going to do us any good.
One of the very first assumptions of "goodness" of absolute freedom is that humans are rational creatures. This statement is obviously flawed. More importantly, making choices can be costly. Imagine the following scenario:
A person is choosing which subjects as his major. He is given a variety of choices, but he has no idea what subjects is going to be suitable for him, so he randomly picks one at first, then keep switching majors until he finds one that he seems to like.
University Education requires government funding. So imagine what would happen if thousands of people are doing the same thing, and we all know that our resources are limited. If we waste so much money on these people, the old and the sick is going to receive less funding to help them. That's the key of my problem with those so-callled "freedom": In real world, letting people make choices freely is going to cost us resources, and the amount is far from negligible.
Therefore, it follows that there should be a point at which freedom and restriction are well balanced such that human happiness is going to be maximized. It is obvious that limitlessly raise freedom people have will definitely not bring us to this point.
Conclusion
I don't think endlessly demand freedom is going to do us any good. Instead, it is probably not going to creating anything but misery and misallocation of resources. One of the greatest reasons people seem to mindlessly support the so-called "human rights" is that it appears to induce intense emotions in us such that people in general stop doubting if what they do is correct.
I am really beginning to wonder why being emotional seems to be associated so strongly with poor decision making.
2011年5月22日 星期日
On Gender-based Oppression, Again
I know that I have written about gender-based oppression before, but I would like to investigate the issue slightly more deeply in this article. As we all know, feminists keep shouting that women were oppressed throughout history and that they need liberation. First, let's see how we define "oppression":
Oppression = the inappropiate use of authority (or power) to cause distress
Let's do some analysis, shall we?
In those old day (in almost all races), people are in general, divided into "nobles" and "serf", with the former exerting authority to the latter. Obviously, the latter don't have what we call "authority", so by definition they can't cause any oppression. To begin with, it is obvious that NOT all men are "nobles" and NOT all women are "serf", but men of both classes seemed to have more authorities than their womenfolk.
Does this mean that women were more oppressed?
Think about it clearly, having authority is merely a neccesary condition, but not sufficient condition, according to our definition. To prove that women were more oppressed, one need to prove that men tended to use authority inappropiately compared to women.
Within-class Oppression
However, it may be reasonable for men in both classes to have slightly more power than their womenfolks. This is because of the fact that in many parts of the world the society had what we call "chivalry" or its variants (e.g. Keen, 1984), which oppose male aggression towards females, but not the other way round. Therefore, it may be that if men and women were given equal power, the latter will be more likely to inappropiately use their authorities to aggress. Thus, to balance to amount of aggression experienced by either gender, it may be reasonable to give men in both classes slightly more power than their female counterparts.
Apart from the issue of inter-gender aggression, we all know that women have access to various tools for emotional manipulation when it comes to indirect aggression, such as spreading rumors or manipulating people into aggressing on their behalf (e.g. Bjorkqvist, 1994; Osterman et al., 1998) and that men are far less likely to do so, and this is quite likely to have some biological basis, since those results are cross-cultural. This means that even if women had slightly less direct power than their male counterpart, it may be to a certain extent fair and thus may not constitute what we call "oppression".
Lastly, one should compare the life of noble men and women in those days. Noble men in those days had to go to work. Was it something pleasant? Probably not. After all, you need to face the demanding bosses and various tasks that sprung up from nowhere in workplace, and we all know that people mostly consider work to be something they want to get away from. In comparison, noble women didn't have to work, instead they lives were probably better than their husbands in some aspects.
Inter-class Oppression
To prove that serf women suffered more oppression than their male counterpart, we need to prove that the maltreatment exerted on these women from "nobles" are greater. Nonetheless, it had been very consistently found that cross-culturally, both men and women in positions of power tend to treat males more harshly than females, even if the severity of misbehavior is the same (Daly & Tonry, 1997; Mustard, 2001), and this is true even in childhood (Lambert et al., 1971), implying a biological basis.
This implies that it was likely the case that both "noble" men and women tended to exert more oppression on serf men than on serf women. If this is true, that it logically follows that serf women could not have suffer more oppression than their male counterparts in those days, in fact the converse would probably be true.
You may tell me that many women in those days were sexually restricted. However, I seriously doubt if you would call this "oppression" if you compare it to being subject to painful death in the battlefield or having to work in dirty and dangerous environments to financially support one's wife.
If it is the case that men created a system in which they suffer more (as a whole, since NOT all men are kings, obviously), how can this constitute "oppression"? Moreover, were rulers treated that nicely? Of course the majority of them led very extravagant life, they also had opportunities to fulfil their ambitions (only a few of them did so though), but these came with a burden: intense stress. Well, just imagine how you would feel if you are constantly told that your decisions can affect the lives of hundreds or thousands, and women seem to have idealized these positions too much.
Conclusion
As you can see, I used a lot of "may" and "probably" in this article. Well, obviously because these are merely my speculation, so do those feminist theories. First, we all know that those old societies won't give us any objective statistics and subjective observation is just unreliable since women are just so much better at claiming victim status than men (statistically speaking, of course!). Therefore, is it reasonable to suggest that one of the genders (be it male or female) were more oppressed in those old days?
I suspect not.
One last thing, although feminists claim that women are more oppressed in some parts of the world, I am not willing to give help to these "oppressed women", since I seriously doubt if feminists are telling us the truth. Such doubt is not without reasons, considering the fact that feminists have already done a lot of things in which they deliberately distort the truth using their political power. With this in mind, I am not very motivated to give these "oppressed" women help, at least not via feminists.
Are feminists truly helpful for impoverished women?
Once again, I suspect not.
Reference
Bjorkqvist, K. (1994). Sex differences in physical, verbal, and indirect aggression: A review of recent research, Sex roles, 30(3-4), 177-188.
Daly, K, & Tonry, M. (1997). Gender, Race, and Sentencing. Crime & Justice, 22, 201-252.
Osterman, K., Bjorkqvist, K., Lagerspetz, K. M. J., Kaukiainen, A., Landau, S. F., Fraczek, A., Caprara, G. V. (1998). Cross-cultural evidence of female indirect aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 24(1), 1-8.
Mustard, D. (2001). Racial, Ethic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts. Journal of Law and Economics, 44(1), 285-314.
Oppression = the inappropiate use of authority (or power) to cause distress
Let's do some analysis, shall we?
In those old day (in almost all races), people are in general, divided into "nobles" and "serf", with the former exerting authority to the latter. Obviously, the latter don't have what we call "authority", so by definition they can't cause any oppression. To begin with, it is obvious that NOT all men are "nobles" and NOT all women are "serf", but men of both classes seemed to have more authorities than their womenfolk.
Does this mean that women were more oppressed?
Think about it clearly, having authority is merely a neccesary condition, but not sufficient condition, according to our definition. To prove that women were more oppressed, one need to prove that men tended to use authority inappropiately compared to women.
Within-class Oppression
However, it may be reasonable for men in both classes to have slightly more power than their womenfolks. This is because of the fact that in many parts of the world the society had what we call "chivalry" or its variants (e.g. Keen, 1984), which oppose male aggression towards females, but not the other way round. Therefore, it may be that if men and women were given equal power, the latter will be more likely to inappropiately use their authorities to aggress. Thus, to balance to amount of aggression experienced by either gender, it may be reasonable to give men in both classes slightly more power than their female counterparts.
Apart from the issue of inter-gender aggression, we all know that women have access to various tools for emotional manipulation when it comes to indirect aggression, such as spreading rumors or manipulating people into aggressing on their behalf (e.g. Bjorkqvist, 1994; Osterman et al., 1998) and that men are far less likely to do so, and this is quite likely to have some biological basis, since those results are cross-cultural. This means that even if women had slightly less direct power than their male counterpart, it may be to a certain extent fair and thus may not constitute what we call "oppression".
Lastly, one should compare the life of noble men and women in those days. Noble men in those days had to go to work. Was it something pleasant? Probably not. After all, you need to face the demanding bosses and various tasks that sprung up from nowhere in workplace, and we all know that people mostly consider work to be something they want to get away from. In comparison, noble women didn't have to work, instead they lives were probably better than their husbands in some aspects.
Inter-class Oppression
To prove that serf women suffered more oppression than their male counterpart, we need to prove that the maltreatment exerted on these women from "nobles" are greater. Nonetheless, it had been very consistently found that cross-culturally, both men and women in positions of power tend to treat males more harshly than females, even if the severity of misbehavior is the same (Daly & Tonry, 1997; Mustard, 2001), and this is true even in childhood (Lambert et al., 1971), implying a biological basis.
This implies that it was likely the case that both "noble" men and women tended to exert more oppression on serf men than on serf women. If this is true, that it logically follows that serf women could not have suffer more oppression than their male counterparts in those days, in fact the converse would probably be true.
You may tell me that many women in those days were sexually restricted. However, I seriously doubt if you would call this "oppression" if you compare it to being subject to painful death in the battlefield or having to work in dirty and dangerous environments to financially support one's wife.
If it is the case that men created a system in which they suffer more (as a whole, since NOT all men are kings, obviously), how can this constitute "oppression"? Moreover, were rulers treated that nicely? Of course the majority of them led very extravagant life, they also had opportunities to fulfil their ambitions (only a few of them did so though), but these came with a burden: intense stress. Well, just imagine how you would feel if you are constantly told that your decisions can affect the lives of hundreds or thousands, and women seem to have idealized these positions too much.
Conclusion
As you can see, I used a lot of "may" and "probably" in this article. Well, obviously because these are merely my speculation, so do those feminist theories. First, we all know that those old societies won't give us any objective statistics and subjective observation is just unreliable since women are just so much better at claiming victim status than men (statistically speaking, of course!). Therefore, is it reasonable to suggest that one of the genders (be it male or female) were more oppressed in those old days?
I suspect not.
One last thing, although feminists claim that women are more oppressed in some parts of the world, I am not willing to give help to these "oppressed women", since I seriously doubt if feminists are telling us the truth. Such doubt is not without reasons, considering the fact that feminists have already done a lot of things in which they deliberately distort the truth using their political power. With this in mind, I am not very motivated to give these "oppressed" women help, at least not via feminists.
Are feminists truly helpful for impoverished women?
Once again, I suspect not.
Reference
Bjorkqvist, K. (1994). Sex differences in physical, verbal, and indirect aggression: A review of recent research, Sex roles, 30(3-4), 177-188.
Daly, K, & Tonry, M. (1997). Gender, Race, and Sentencing. Crime & Justice, 22, 201-252.
Lambert, W. E., Yackley, A., & Hein, R. N. (1971). Child training values of English Canadian and French Canadian parents. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 3(3), 217-236.
Keen, M. (1984). Chivalry. USA: Yale University Press.Osterman, K., Bjorkqvist, K., Lagerspetz, K. M. J., Kaukiainen, A., Landau, S. F., Fraczek, A., Caprara, G. V. (1998). Cross-cultural evidence of female indirect aggression. Aggressive Behavior, 24(1), 1-8.
Mustard, D. (2001). Racial, Ethic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from the U.S. Federal Courts. Journal of Law and Economics, 44(1), 285-314.
2011年4月15日 星期五
Was one of the genders oppressed?
The majority of people believed that women were oppressed in the past, while some others suggest that men were the one being oppressed. Both of them have cited some points. Let's see what their arguments are:
Pro-women:
1. Women were overpowered.
2. Women were being kept out of work place.
...so on
Pro-men:
3. Men were sent to war to die in painful and gruesome ways, while women stayed in relatively safe and comfortable places for their whole lives.
4. Men's health were less protected, despite being more vulnerable to most diseases.
...so on
Indeed, both sides had made some good points. Now the problem is, if we are to say that one of the genders were oppressed, we NEED to prove that one of the sets of points outweight the others. Say, to suggest that women were more oppressed, one have to prove that the total unhappiness caused by 1 and 2 is greater than that by 3 and 4, and the same goes for vice versa.
Obviously, even if we derive some ingenius methods to measure "happiness", we can by no mean determine the amount of unhappiness experienced by either gender in the past. This implies that we have NO reasons to believe that one of the gender was more "oppressed". In other words, debating over the issue is not going to yield any meaningful answers. To put it bluntly, it is nothing but a waste of time and energy. I guess it would probably be more useful to focus on the present moment.
As I have mentioned in one of my previous pieces, lack of objective measurement can be very dangerous since it would allow some people to interpret data in infinitely possible ways.
Conclusion
All in all, I strongly believe that debating over which gender was more oppressed (and indeed, what classes of people, be it whites, blacks, heterosexuals, homosexuals, etc.) is totally, meaningless and silly thing to do. Instead, it would be more helpful for us if we concentrate on what is happening NOW.
Pro-women:
1. Women were overpowered.
2. Women were being kept out of work place.
...so on
Pro-men:
3. Men were sent to war to die in painful and gruesome ways, while women stayed in relatively safe and comfortable places for their whole lives.
4. Men's health were less protected, despite being more vulnerable to most diseases.
...so on
Indeed, both sides had made some good points. Now the problem is, if we are to say that one of the genders were oppressed, we NEED to prove that one of the sets of points outweight the others. Say, to suggest that women were more oppressed, one have to prove that the total unhappiness caused by 1 and 2 is greater than that by 3 and 4, and the same goes for vice versa.
Obviously, even if we derive some ingenius methods to measure "happiness", we can by no mean determine the amount of unhappiness experienced by either gender in the past. This implies that we have NO reasons to believe that one of the gender was more "oppressed". In other words, debating over the issue is not going to yield any meaningful answers. To put it bluntly, it is nothing but a waste of time and energy. I guess it would probably be more useful to focus on the present moment.
As I have mentioned in one of my previous pieces, lack of objective measurement can be very dangerous since it would allow some people to interpret data in infinitely possible ways.
Conclusion
All in all, I strongly believe that debating over which gender was more oppressed (and indeed, what classes of people, be it whites, blacks, heterosexuals, homosexuals, etc.) is totally, meaningless and silly thing to do. Instead, it would be more helpful for us if we concentrate on what is happening NOW.
2011年4月9日 星期六
Problems of Emotional Tactics
I have just seen a TV programme which depicts children in rural villages of China leading a horrendously difficult life and therefore, deserve help. To put it frankly, these TV programmes make me sick, a lot. I am not saying that these children don't need help. The problem is, they would prompt people to donate a HELL lot of money to them.
Now that's the problem, we know that there are many people who are also in need but are unable or unwilling to seek help in such TV programmes. If these promotions keep running and draw MOST of the money to these children, the ratio of resources devoted to these children and "those-who-need-help-but-don't-know-how-to-do-promotion" will gradually rise and eventually become disproportionate. This, of course, would be unfair to them, and it CAN cause problems.
One of the most important rules to administer help to people in need is that we should give more help to people who are more badly in need. However, according to the above analysis, we find that using emotinal tactics to draw resources run counter to this principle.
(Indeed, we may have good reasons to think that people who can't seek help in such TV shows are actually more in need)
Conclusion
TV programmes who attempt to use emotional tactics to draw resources to "minority groups" sickens me a lot. I admit everyone in our society need help, but I believe using statistics to allocate resources would be preferable to emotional tactics. I am still trying to figure out why being emotional seems to be associated so strongly with poor decision making.
Now that's the problem, we know that there are many people who are also in need but are unable or unwilling to seek help in such TV programmes. If these promotions keep running and draw MOST of the money to these children, the ratio of resources devoted to these children and "those-who-need-help-but-don't-know-how-to-do-promotion" will gradually rise and eventually become disproportionate. This, of course, would be unfair to them, and it CAN cause problems.
One of the most important rules to administer help to people in need is that we should give more help to people who are more badly in need. However, according to the above analysis, we find that using emotinal tactics to draw resources run counter to this principle.
(Indeed, we may have good reasons to think that people who can't seek help in such TV shows are actually more in need)
Conclusion
TV programmes who attempt to use emotional tactics to draw resources to "minority groups" sickens me a lot. I admit everyone in our society need help, but I believe using statistics to allocate resources would be preferable to emotional tactics. I am still trying to figure out why being emotional seems to be associated so strongly with poor decision making.
2011年4月1日 星期五
Problem of Equality: Measurement
From time to time, we heard feminists and gay activists claiming that they are seeking equality, and that it is essential for a better society. However, I have came up with a question: How to measure equality?
A common method used by feminists is statistics. If statistics shows that women are underrepresented in some areas, they would say that women are being oppressed. For instance, statistics show that women are still currently underrepresented in science, engineering and mathematics. Then feminists would shout that men are oppressing women by not allowing them to enter those careers.
The problem with this is that it may be showing other difference (probably biological), rather than social structural factors. Taking the above examples, feminists would then take measure to ensure that same number of men and women are represented in those career. Now that's the question. If men ARE indeed innately better at these things, such measures would be problematic to them because this will means that men are structurally handicapped in order for women to enter those career. What is so fair about this?
This method is based on the following premise:
If there are statistical difference, it MUST be due to social factors.
Can anyone tell me the logics behind this absurd statement?
Lack of objective measurement is very dangerous, because it allows powerful groups (especially feminists as this is most commonly used by them) to interpret the data in infinitely possible ways. For example, with the case cited above, it can be explained by a hell lot of data: innate difference, stereotype, hormonal issues and so on. But, we can NEVER know if it is truly due to some kind of "oppression" or "social factors".
Conclusion
Equality MAY BE a worthwhile cause, but I sincerely wish that any groups (no matter feminists or gay activists) who claim that they are seeking it should firstly tell everyone a good way to measure equality. Otherwise, it will become an endless and meaningless debate about "which factors are more important".
A common method used by feminists is statistics. If statistics shows that women are underrepresented in some areas, they would say that women are being oppressed. For instance, statistics show that women are still currently underrepresented in science, engineering and mathematics. Then feminists would shout that men are oppressing women by not allowing them to enter those careers.
The problem with this is that it may be showing other difference (probably biological), rather than social structural factors. Taking the above examples, feminists would then take measure to ensure that same number of men and women are represented in those career. Now that's the question. If men ARE indeed innately better at these things, such measures would be problematic to them because this will means that men are structurally handicapped in order for women to enter those career. What is so fair about this?
This method is based on the following premise:
If there are statistical difference, it MUST be due to social factors.
Can anyone tell me the logics behind this absurd statement?
Lack of objective measurement is very dangerous, because it allows powerful groups (especially feminists as this is most commonly used by them) to interpret the data in infinitely possible ways. For example, with the case cited above, it can be explained by a hell lot of data: innate difference, stereotype, hormonal issues and so on. But, we can NEVER know if it is truly due to some kind of "oppression" or "social factors".
Conclusion
Equality MAY BE a worthwhile cause, but I sincerely wish that any groups (no matter feminists or gay activists) who claim that they are seeking it should firstly tell everyone a good way to measure equality. Otherwise, it will become an endless and meaningless debate about "which factors are more important".
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