Created Monday 11 January 2021
Prove equality
I want to have equality. The world seems too depressing and painful without it, empathetically or otherwise.
- There are several arguments against equality, all of which are theories without evidence.
- We also have to keep in mind that although we now have biological facts to make these decisions, is was not so for our ancestors(still had ample evidence, say from communication).
- I haven't mentioned the ego, virtue(so called), respect insecurities, societal norms because most of them stem from malice, which we cannot do anything about and I don't care much.
Arguments and answers:
- Patriarchy - Women bear children and therefore must take care of them. This is why women are not as able as men, both physically and mentally. Women cannot be warriors. Womem are capable only emotionally, which is a sign of weakness and because men don't have much of it, they are strong and pragmatic.
Answer: Yes women do bear children. But that does not prove in any way that they have to be inferior to men. Also, it is careless and irresponsible of people to tag women as 'child caretakers only', because this is not a requirement from nature. Both parents are equally responsible for their child.
- Physically, women are not that strong and obviously not strong as men: Wrong(even anecdotally), women did(had to) things like running, climbing on trees much the same as men when humans did not live in homes, e.g in jungles or as hunter-gatherers or nomads(which is still prevalent in some parts of the world). Another evidence is that of child birth, which is very taxing(mentally, physically etc) to women, and a lack of strength/fitness can be detrimental to her and the child.
Evidence: Female pilots(involves forces such as 9g), women athletes, weightlifters, astronauts, Vietnamese women snipers in the Vietnam War, YPJ
- There have been female rulers(e.g Cleopatra) and warriors across the world. In fact, some societies have existed(and still do) where females exercised more power. This is very common in non-humans like tiger, lion, spiders.
Evidence: Joan of Arc, Rani Laxmibai, Raziya Sultana of Delhi.
- Mentally, there doesn't appear any distinction between men and women before technology advanced, and I don't know why women were thought to be inferior. In some cultures: women worked on the fields, did business etc.
Evidence: Our teachers, Marie Curie, Noether, Kalpana Chawla, Peggy Whitson, Grace Hopper, Fei-Fei Li, JK Rowling and many more. It was after we became sufficiently advanced(economically and technologically), that it was not necessary for both partners to work. I think this lead us to believe that it was 'men' who were capable and who 'should' work.
- Emotionally extreme - This is pure rubbish. No person is just emotional and nothing else. If mothers had been emotionally extreme, they wouldn't be strict or practical, which is definitely not the case as we all know. This can vary culturally.
Evidence: Our moms, teachers, bosses, coachs.
- Racism - Because species evolved differently, there has to be a difference of ability.
Answer - Initially you would say maybe. But how do we know which 'race' is better than another, one way is to judge based on criteria such as listening, thinking, reasoning which is rooted in biology etc. Things like languages, accents, color are not at all a valid criteria. Also, tech may be used to justify the ability of one race, but cannot be used to justify the disability of others. This is because of their contextual difference, tech was possible due to communication between different people. Some tribes were isolated, factors such as terrain, calamities, pandemics or wars can also cause populations to wither. But we cannot stay neutral, coz it still affects the real world. Update: Racism is a myth because race itself is a myth. See Nature and NatGeo There are two ways to go about racism, both of which are valid:
- Meet the people and communicate with them in an open way, this will surely help us clear things.
- Look at the data that we have from all these years.
But here's another problem, how did the constitution makers of many countries come to terms with this. Keep in mind that societies had evils like slavery those days, which would have incentivized turning a blind-eye.
Prerequisites: The value of life and of living. Concept of handshake Life, and to live is the most important thing, the constituion makers knew this. So they saw to it that unknown people were given ample oppurtunities so that they could communicate with everyone, and grow. This would make society more equal.
This is also important because it is against common sense to exploit something without finding an alternative or a way to minimize it.
So they assumed the unknown people as equals and communicated with them. The data they got suggested(to those who thought openly) that these people are not very different from us. In fact, they are exactly the same, except with different genetic(cosmetic) features. This handshake(of initial trust) proved with certainity the uniformity between various tribes and people.
After so many years of such handshakes and friendships, due to travel and communication technological progress, the number of unknown people increased manyfold, making it clear that different tribes are indeed equal.
Note:
- It is important to note that the Concept of Handshake can be generalized(applied) to the genders, age(young and old) people, animals and even alien civilisations(if we meet).
- Trust and honesty is the only way to minimize bias.
- How much time for the handshake: This varies across organisms, but for humans it is very less. Sometimes 2 or 3 conversations do it.
- "Never judge a book by it's cover", I think is a succint form of this.
- My education involved a diversity of people in books. My father was in the Indian Air Force, so you can say I was a part of an extended handshake, a live collector of data.
- It always seemed to me that this is intuitively true. I cannot understand why, maybe "empathy" is a part of our biological makeup, which can be suppressed or developed, just like a muscle.
- Slavery and Equality: This is an important question, slavery is an evil, even if two things are not biologically equal. For example you, and your dog or plant. The reason is that each living thing yearns(and communicates this in some way) for its freedom and life, data exists for this assumption, viz symbiotic relationships and general behaviour of species. We can take animals only as companions, and not slaves. This sentiment is seen, taught and practised by almost everyone around the world - wildlife conservationists, veterinary doctors, animal feeders, water for birds in population-dense regions etc.
- About meat - Many people falsely associate meat with cruelty. This is not the case. Animals and plants are all living cells and prey-and-predator is the rule for a healthy ecosystem, not a cruel one. For example, you'll not say a tiger or a polar bear is evil because it eats the prey. It can also be observed that animals don't kill just for the sake of killing.
- About pests/rodents - They are eliminated because they provably cause diseases and other disorders.
- Phenomena like Neuroplasticity increase the importance of such ideas even more, especially in the case of age discrimination. Simply said, we acknowledge that people develop(grow). So assuming them as static beings is wrong.
- It has been conclusively proven, both theoretically and by evidence that equality is undeniably a basic and universal human right for all humans irrespective of their attributes.
- Equality is an important fact which is a prerequisite for life and for living in the world.
- Humans have never cared about so called 'races' or 'skin-color', most of us have Neanderthal DNA too.😃️
- The differences should be cherished and celebrates, they're a result of our 'choices' as humans - to migrate, to stay, to grow.
- Taking children seriously
- Knowledge is more important that food, but only after a threshold(which was crossed long-long ago).
- Fundamental Human needs