SCOTUS rules on Travel Ban

[Dill]

(06-28-2018, 10:16 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't know how else to explain this to you, because this seems like some very simple statistics to me. If all people are afforded equality of opportunity, then each strata should reflect a distribution of race, gender, religion, etc., as overall society. The poorest 10% would have nearly the same racial makeup at the top 10%. Equality of opportunity doesn't result in equality of outcome, but it does result in equal distribution among demographics. There is no equal distribution among demographics, which means that equality of opportunity is not in effect.

Am I getting too technical in my argument? Does this make sense to other people?

It makes sense to me.  But I understand you to be posing a question which can, in principle, be answered by social science.

A simple illustration of what I mean by posing and answering questions in this fashion: if someone claims that cell phone ownership in the US is largely restricted to the wealthiest 10% of the population and almost non-existent among the poorest 10%, then one could research that claim (as an in-principle-refutable hypothesis) by various and established social scientific methods, including surveys and data from service providers and retail outlets, not to mention personal observation.

If the research found there was no appreciable difference in ownership between the above-mentioned demographics (rates of ownership roughly the same) and if research from other researchers replicated these results, then the hypothesis of uneven distribution would be refuted.  A further consequence: there would be no scientific basis for asserting, say, that "In the US, opportunity for cell phone ownership is largely restricted to the rich," or some such. Conversely, if the hypothesis were confirmed, there would be basis for other claims/hypotheses worth exploring, such as that cell phone ownership correlates with economic opportunity.

I have not done any such study, but for the moment I am assuming cell phones are almost equally distributed across all classes. If there is any variation in ownership demographics, it is likely due to factors like age.  I think I can see this "equal" distribution everywhere I go. If someone does not have a cell phone I think is because he/she did not want one very badly.

But I don't see opportunity equally distributed everywhere I go, and I don't think that is because some people don't want it very badly.

Claims about the distribution of "opportunity" are a bit more complex than claims about cell phone ownership, since defining it is not simple: is it for education? jobs? housing? Does it depend on home resources (including cultural capital)? Distance from services?  Equal "access"? Can it only be measured in achievement--grades, hiring and promotion, home ownership? But nevertheless, it seems like the question of whether opportunity is equally distributed is, in principle, answerable, if people want to answer it.

The difficulty might be that people don't want to answer it, that the question in itself disrupts existing narratives about how one achieves success or wealth in the US, and who is to blame if one does not, what kind of nation we are. (Not referring to Beaker here, who will not dismiss any question framed in scientific terms nor dismiss scientific results out of hand, but I am saying that for many in the world beyond this forum, the question itself is prima facie disturbing, even blaming.)