> you're really just incentivizing everyone to loudly claim that they have it the absolute worst and need the most help
I understand where you are coming from. What this argument highlights is that there are black sheep everywhere. Should this be the reason to toss support for the rest out of the window? In fact your argument can be applied to every social program, and it is. And to the surprise of every one, it is mostly brought up by privileged people (politicians, lobbyists, employers) who e.g. like to cut social spending.
> And then you'll need somebody to decide whose complaints are true and whose are fake, aka you'll need somebody to feel truth and rule accordingly.
Does this not already exist in other parts of social security programs? Or taking loans? What is the difference, what is new?
> What this argument highlights is that there are black sheep everywhere.
No, the point is that you turn everyone into a black sheep. If you make taxes factually optional by simplifying the form to "do you have income tax to pay, if so, how much?" with no checks and control, you're creating an incentive to lie, and people will lie.
The same happens when you put "subjective feeling of how much money you deserve" on the list of criteria of how much money to pay that person.
> Does this not already exist in other parts of social security programs? Or taking loans? What is the difference, what is new?
It does not. Means tested social security programs are individual. You make less than X, you're eligible for rent support. Grievance studies are not, it's "you're gender x, ethnicity y or subculture z, you get extra bonuses, don't need to reach the same scores for qualifications etc". It's not individual, it's based on some arbitrary group identity.
What you throw out of the window with that line of thinking is the fundamental possibility that innate interests (for gender) and culture (for some minority groups) have anything to do with success. The idea that you just need to pretend that somebody is X to make them value X and put an emphasis on X for their children is completely backwards.
> No, the point is that you turn everyone into a black sheep
What do you mean? I wrote "there are black sheep everywhere" as in "yes, it happens that there will be people who will try to exploit the system". That does not justify not striving to support those who would benefit from it, which most probably are the bigger group.
> If you make taxes factually optional by simplifying the form [...] people will lie.
As the people who understand how to game the system already do?
> how much money to pay that person.
Money is not the only thing people can be provided with. Supporting children from underprivileged groups can also mean supporting single mothers with child care, providing more accessible health care or providing mentors and tutoring.
> Means tested social security programs are individual. You make less than X, you're eligible for rent support
> It's not individual, it's based on some arbitrary group identity
You contradict yourself here. Your first example based on income is also grouping of individuals, exactly what you criticize in the second part. To add to your point: one could even say that the income base lines for eligibility in social programs can be seen as arbitrary as well. Do you think the Mindestlohn is based on an objective, most fair judgement of what people need? It's already an absurd system when you just look at the regional differences of cost of living throughout Germany.
Ignore the trigger words ("gender x, ethnicity y or subculture z") and you'll see that we don't diverge much. The point I'm trying to make is not to find out, how $skincolor_x can be pushed to represent a greater share of graduates. It is to find out how we can lift everyone to have the same chances at the beginning, taking structural and unconscious factors into account.
Incentives. When you give people an instrument to achieve success by making claims, they will make claims to become successful. When you make that official policy, you will create lots of "black sheep" (that is: people abusing the system) because abusing that system will be easy ("claim to be underprivileged") and profitable ("get more money, work less").
> Your first example based on income is also grouping of individuals, exactly what you criticize in the second part.
No, not on some kind of identity. There is no "makes less than X" group, anyone can be a part of that group and anyone in that group can stop being a part of it. That's not true for gender, ethnicity, political convictions etc.
> It is to find out how we can lift everyone to have the same chances at the beginning, taking structural and unconscious factors into account.
Take everyone's children away from their parents, make the state raise them. If you want to exclude the parents' culture and values and the peer group of children from having influence on their future, that's the way. It's not a particularly nice thing, and I doubt that many people want it though.
> One could even say that the income base lines for eligibility in social programs can be seen as arbitrary as well.
Absolutely, they are. But they are the same for all, gender and ethnicity don't play a role. The SJW-alternative is having different laws for different people "to right a historic wrong". Which is pretty much incompatible with anything that wants to call itself democracy.
Thanks for the quick reply! I'm really in the same boat as you, as I do not want to create a system where an "identity police" can create eligibility by the length of noses.
> When you make that official policy [...] abusing that system will be easy
Are you not seeing that this exists already? There are people claiming to be unemployed, receiving unemployment money, and work without registering their income. That's where I wish people would differentiate more. These problems you listed already exist and must be solved either way! But should we therefore not make attempts to get more talented people into the right careers?
> Take everyone's children away from their parents [...] exclude the parents' culture and values and the peer group of children from having influence on their future, that's the way
Why? Why eliminate their environment, instead of - as I proposed - enriching it by providing additional access to opportunities?
> But they are the same for all
They are not, that's the point! Only because you can measure income does not make this barrier objective. It was set by humans, who were biased in their decision (hence why the committee which negotiates the Mindestlohn is composed of multiple interest groups). Again, I am not advocating that using lengths of noses is comparable, but stating that "gender and ethnicity don't play a role" is plain wrong. They do not play a role at the time you ask for it, yes, absolutely. But they do play a role in the negotiation phase and in the overall structure of social programs.
You're right, abuse always exists, and I doubt that we'll ever get rid of it completely. It's important not to create additional incentive for abuse. I don't believe it's a giant number that is abusing the current system, though I do believe it's too many, because people in general don't like abuse and the abuse damages support for the system. However, if we added incentive and made the abuse easier, we'd create more abuse.
That's the plan for accelerationists: increase abuse until the population withdraws support for the abused system, or the system crashes by itself.
> Why? Why eliminate their environment, instead of - as I proposed - enriching it by providing additional access to opportunities?
Do you suggest the same additional access for everyone? Otherwise you're assuming that there's an invisible hand holding somebody down and doing so without merit. What if that invisible hand is their parent not making them go to school? What if that invisible hand is their parents giving them all the opportunities they could wish for and the majority of the group then deciding to go into certain jobs and not others because they are truly free to decide since they lack the economic pressure? That seems to be the reason why you see much more "traditional" gender roles in choosing careers in Scandinavian Countries than in e.g. India. Economic pressure is relieved, people do what they want. Why would we want to interfere with them doing what they want?
> Only because you can measure income does not make this barrier objective.
The point is that they are the same for all identities. It does not matter whether you're a woman, a man, transsexual/transgender, whether your ancestors fought the Roman invasion in a German forest, stayed in Bavaria after Napoleon's wars, or recently immigrated from Turkey.
> But they do play a role in the negotiation phase and in the overall structure of social programs.
No, they don't. You will of course see different groups vary in success in modern societies, and therefore make use of social programs at different rates. But eligibility for said programs does generally not depend on ethnicity or gender. It's specifically outlawed to make them so, with the exception of women, which I believe was very much valid in 1950 but is anachronistic in 2020.
I understand where you are coming from. What this argument highlights is that there are black sheep everywhere. Should this be the reason to toss support for the rest out of the window? In fact your argument can be applied to every social program, and it is. And to the surprise of every one, it is mostly brought up by privileged people (politicians, lobbyists, employers) who e.g. like to cut social spending.
> And then you'll need somebody to decide whose complaints are true and whose are fake, aka you'll need somebody to feel truth and rule accordingly.
Does this not already exist in other parts of social security programs? Or taking loans? What is the difference, what is new?