# Abandoning Equality

## To Add

Find articles on Hollis related to calculating equality between lanugages.
Find articles on hollis related to calculating equality between people.

Maturity models in business.
Recapitulation theory in Stephen Jay Gould
Complex and non complex objects.

## On Commitment to Details, for the Promotion of Clear Thinking and Improved Social Justice 


<img  class="ui huge center floated image transition visible" data-src="heirloom-tomatoes.jpg" src="heirloom-tomatoes.jpg" />

> *"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."* 
>
> *\- Mark Twain*


## <a name="contents">Contents</a>

1. <a href="#introduction">Introduction</a>
	1. Worries about article
	1. Dependence on intuition
	1. About the language we use
	1. Specificity
	1. Mathematical relicance, respect
	1. The rarity of equality
	1. Corrections of common errors
1. <a href="#equality-talk">Equality-talk: Sloppy Language that is Imprecise and Uses Fake Math</a>
	1. <a href="#imprecision">Imprecision</a>
	1. <a href="#fake-math">Fake Math</a>
 

<a name="introduction"></a>

## Introduction

I wrote this article many times, worrying about how people would respond to the feeling that their core principles are being called into question. For over a year I debated internally, repeatedly editing my thoughts, questioning my inclination to write this. Finally I realized, I can simply call upon the reader to avoid quick judgment, and understand that I am not questioning our core principles. I want to make them clear and bring them into light.

believe that there was something wrong with our idea of equality. After committing my writing to paper, I would see some injustice in real life that would make me regret the opinions I wrote down. I was ambivalent. I would side with social justice, and feel disgust over my writing. "Social justice has not yet been achieved!" I would think. I did not abandon my new way of thinking, but gave up on attempting to communicate it in a way that would not offend. However, I knew I could not run around proclaiming "I don't believe in Equality"—that manner of speaking itself was faulty. 

I needed to wait on finding a new way to talk about the subject entirely. As Goethe said *[Insert Goethe quote here from Faust]*

The topic did not interest me greatly because the defects seemed so obvious, and I found most completely unwilling to entertain any change of mind. I shifted towards politics avoidance, averse to toil on a new written perspective.

The task became necessary in the end though; I found, many of the issues that lead to this incorrect manner of thinking would block progress on other fronts in communicating my new moral philosophy. Aside from being a very important topic, it became vitally important for preparing readers for my new ethic, that would likely be misunderstood without it.

[What is the Importance of Logical Reasoning in Critical Thinking](mattanaw-com/what-is-the-importance-of-logical-reasoning-in-critical-thinking.html)

I also tired of being pestered with nuisance "equality talk" that was doomed to failure again and again. "Do I need to overhear this conversation again? If this is how people think and talk, what were my chances of success in writings that depended on a commitment to inequality? I too was guilty of using the same langauge, so if I couldn't approach the topic differently, how could I expect others to?"

I needed also to find a way to avoid what I consider "traditionalist hostility"— the sort of reaction you get when challening the design of the voting system, for example (a topic I plan to cover in another paper).

I put the writing to the side, and pondered the issue for nearly two years. The issue turned out to be very simple. Deceptively simple! There are two key issues that we need to address that are astonishingly simple to understand and correct. It will just take some discipline to gradually fix our usage when it comes to mind in our daily communication. 


<a name="equality-talk"></a>
## Equality-talk: Sloppy Language that is Imprecise and Uses Fake Math

The biggest issue I found, was "Equality-talk". We all know about Equality-talk! This is when we follow the required rules for affirming and reaffirming that we are really democratically minded, even when we don't entirely believe it or follow it in practice.

"Ok, so I know what equality talk is, but what is is wrong with Equality-talk?" 

It is the ritualization of sloppy language into a cultural game (ref. Wittgenstein's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Investigations-Translation-Anniversary-Commemorative/dp/0631231277/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1541032148&sr=8-4&keywords=philosophical+investigations+ludwig+wittgenstein">Philosophical Investigations</a>). This game includes both:

1. Imprecision unto falsity. AND,
1. Fake math.

There are only two problems, but they are massively important. They block progress on social-justice! Since this is completely against the intentions of "Equality-talk" and commitment to fairness in Democracy, it is not something we can leave unaddressed. It affects our moral perspective.

We confused social-justice marketing for the logic justifying social-justice. Since it didn't make sense we had to codify and ritualize it to preserve it (I will develop this further in an the article *Codification, Ritualiztion, and Dogmatism as a Preservation Mechanism for Emotionally Important Unjustifiablels*.

<a name="imprecision"></a>
### Imprecision

> *"When I get it right my mind will be the universe"*
> 
> \- Mattanaw

Let's look at the first problem regarding imprecision. Consider the exmaple from my thoughtstream, [*A Lesson in Creating Specific Sentences*](/christopher-matthew-cavanaugh-thoughtstream.html#a-lesson-in-creating-specific-sentence).

The first, is that we simply are not being specific enough in how we are speaking. We are largely blind to this when we engage in culturally defined "equality talk." Secondly, there is a genuine conceptual confusion. We implicitly respect the word "equality" for its mathematicity, but are completely sloppy in our usage. Mathematics is certainly not intended to be sloppy, and if it were sloppy, it would not be respectible math. 

[Qualify it to Death, Qualify it to Life](/christopher-matthew-cavanaugh-thoughtstream.html#there-is-no-end-to-the-qualification-the-logician-knows-the-difficulty-of-truth)

I have never been a fan of short contextless communications. I enjoy details. What would literature be, if reduced to Twitter. There was once an appreciation for getting desciptions of situations and emotions correct. Today, people are likely lacking in their capacity to observe the world effectively for not appreciating literature any longer. Our entertainment has degraded our sophistication. There was a time not long ago when the average person was very skilled in discering poor from high quality literature, and there was an awe for high-mindedness and recognition of superior writing ability. People wanted to become writers and admired them greatly.

Even Mark Twain's quote from the opening is misleading. On many practical issues, siding with the majority is smart. Learning a language is siding with a majority. Part of our job is to extend the language towards truth.

This is why I am not fond of quotations. Why? People are liable to misunderstand quotations, and misapply them. It is why they are unable to choose between alternative tidbits of advice. (They haven't been written out in detail and it is not clear whey one applies over another or when contradictory ones apply). Short precepts often completely conflict, but that is only on the surface (although sometimes they completely conflict because they are form diffferent sources). When they are from the same source and the source is highly reliable and the person is very intelligent, the details once spelled out would provide all the information required to make the disctinction. However, the audience would be lost to many and the reading level would increase due to the inclusion of more words and necessarily a greater grade level requirement for reading comprehension. For the addition of each clarifying word increases the likelihood that it would come from a pool of words that is in the higher vocabulary set rather than the lower vocabulary set. Remember, that when you clarify something for someone else, it is unlikely that you would repeat the same thing. Instead you would end up using different words to say about the same thing, relying on knowledge and associations you perceive the other person has that doesn't require additional teaching. Or, if there are concepts you need to introduce to them, you will try to create a bridge for them that would bring them from where you think they are to where they need to be. (Consider this for a future paper: This ability requires that you can see into another person's mind and know what associations they are likely to have, and to be able to do this, the teacher must in some sense have more associations available, in the area of interest, than the person being taught. They think "Aha! This is what you know, and this is waht I want you to understand. Let me make this relation for you!' But one has to realize that there are also other times where this bridge is impossible to build.

It is why Twitter is not reliable as a tool for communicating truths. Instead it is a tool for communicating non-contextualized tidbits that are usually misunderstood. Notice: if someone misunderstands your writing, *you have more to say* to help them understand. Or, you might want to say it a different way. But you don't know that without having at first prompted them to ask with the first sentence. So one should not think that one has replaced one version with another. One should realize that one has used the first, then introduced the seconds as a clarification.

It is required to be more detailed. We have to be willing to read more. Not more tiny messages that amount to reactions of attitude. But higher quality messages from reliable people. Social media platforms using quick methods of communcation are desirable, but we can't only be using them.

The idea "If you can't say it simply, you don't understand it well enough" happens to be false. There is a reason that people like this quote. It is because they can believe that they are experts without having to put in any effort. It allows them to judge sophistication harshly. But it is all a lie. We are confusing efficiency and economy of thought for "simple," and interestingly, this is an example of the error I pointed out above. We need more detail to understand the intent of the quote, otherwise it is deadly.

It is true that with time you can think of an economical and efficient way to provide explanations that most people will be able to grasp; but all one needs to do to show that this is false is to consult peer reviewed journals on any topic of complexity and see that the language employed is anything but simple. The editors of such journals maintain a standard for inclusion that is based on succinctness, but there is no requirement that a reader of 5th grade proficiency must understand the text. In fact, there are many master works that cannot be understood by anyone at any age that is not intelligent enough or well-prepared enough to understand the writing. Much of what I will publish will be incomprehensible to others, but that does not mean it is due to not understanding the topic. It is due *to understanding the topic*! 

Intelligence and sophistication is intimately related to our total vocabulary. If it were not, there would be no drive to absorb new concepts, and most significant new ideas and theories result in coinages. Knowledge is growth. Growth of culture is growth of complexity. Live in the *more detail* not in the *less*. Ignorance is not rich in detail.


<a name="fake-math"></a>
### Fake Math

Equality is a term of hard logic, of mathematics, but we have forgotten this in our application. Writers avoid clichés (consider [*On Writing Well*](https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-Classic-Guide-Nonfiction/dp/0060891548) by William Zinsser). We've converted math to hackeyes. We put all our trust in this ee word, because we trust in mathematics. But the trust was due to the precision? We are like children using words in the wrong, never looking at reference materials, mimmicking other children. There is nothing self-evident about human equality, but our mimickry is evident enough.

Do you feel you are thinking for yourself when you use Equality-talk? 

Let's consider a simple example that I provided in my thoughtstream, on "Love they neighbor as thyself". The issue with this dictum is that it is not detailed enough. We are very quick to point out obvious cases where one should simply *not* love our neighbors, and we regularly execute people that we previously trusted, for having no remorse and repeatedly murdering people or showing extreme cruelties. Now, what would it take to convert this dictum to one that is more palatable? The answer is obvsious: more details that connect with the distinctions and delineations of how things are in the real world. I would be willing to love my neighbor if they were very much like myself, but were perhaps deficient in ways that do not take away greatly from my freedoms. If my neighbor is not a serial killer, and they don't aim to harm me, there is a good chance I will treat them better than I treat myself under most circumstances.

Consider this. "All men are created equal." Is it not obvious what the problems are here? We need to be more detailed to avoid the obvious issues that we can find with it with ease. It does not take extremely highly developed cognition to understand that there are issues here. If we are to compare two very different people, we would find many differences between the two, but would be hard pressed to clearly define the similarities. And the proof of this is in our inability to describe exactly what it is that makes us human. That's because there is no essense of any kind that makes us huma. This is a controversial point that will require another article, but for the time being, we have to acknowledge that we already claim that every person is unique and special, and if that is the case, we have to admit that we are different, often in very major ways, and we are unable to stop valuing different traits differently. We are committed to seeing people as unequal and valuing them differently. 

It is only when we enter into a specific culturally defined way of talking about the subject that we revert to saying that all people are equal, and we temporarily disable our critical thinking when we do this. It is obviously not correct to simply state "Everyone is equal" without qualification. However, if we overqualify, we make our writing really boring and lengthy and tiresome to read. But we are also making it *more accurate*.

I urge the reader to consider this fact: equality is a mathematical term if we want to borrow the mathematical sense at all. Our predecessors, in their propaganda, leveraged it to invoke the trustworthiness of mathematics. But we forgot that when we draw upon the mathematical sense, and draw upon the repuation of mathematics, to firmly establish our ideas, we have to observe mathematical rules. After all, that is what makes it trustworthy! Not that it's *from math*, but because we will actually *use math* to find out an important truth! Of course, it turns out we are not observing these rules when we discuss human equality (have you ever felt the need to think about math when talking about human equality?). Instead we are merely restating traditional ideology, or are making assumptions. 

In short, the way we use it reveals our bias, and not our clear thinking. This is easily demonstrated, when we try to clarify our views on equality, by explaining to others why we are justified using the word, only to find that we are actually not justified! 

Consider the following. When people talk about it, do they seem scientific? Or do they seem to be making assumptions? Are they repeating traditional phrases in traditional ways? Or do they seem like they are analyzing afresh? Do they seem to be making detailed observations, or are they simply making assertions? Again, no one is every saying what they are comparing. No focus is provided, no details about what precisely would turn out to be equal if we made comparisons. Whenever it comes up, there is always fuzziness, and I find myself thinking "What equality are we talking about exactly? What are we comparing? Who took the measurements?" Notice these are all required in making mathematical comparisons of equality. As I observe that no one even understands that this is necessary for clarity, I get frustrated. These aren't frivolous questions either. If truly well established, some people would have clear answers to these questions, and not merely take them on trust. After searching, I could find no evidence that detailed comparisons and measurements were ever made. Instead, it is based off of some assumptions we will discuss shortly, about psychology and human potential, but these ideas have since been abandoned, yet we have not re-evaluated the reality of any form of human equality.

Even if we are not clear what we are doing when we talk about equality, there is one thing we are really good at—playing the *equality game*. We all know how and when to affirm belief. We know when to avoid revealing disbelief. There are times when emphasizing equality will keep us from getting punished, and then there are other times when it will definitely get us into trouble (you can't emphasize equality with your superiors at work, in the military, or with the police or other authority figures). I'm sure you will find plenty of examples, just by thinking of places where fairness is not the goal. 

This might be a controversial topic, but we should not shy away from it! Because our concept of equality is intertwined with social justice, it is certainly of great importance to understand. For this reason, we should not hesitate to try to bring clarity to our meaning. We should be ready to find the truth in what we are saying for the sake of preserving and extending the social justice that was so hard to gain to begin with. Our children, hopefully, can defend these ideas, without simply repeating our assumptions. Equality had a role in making social justice a partial reality, but that is largely due to old propaganda and modern marketing, and not because it is as meaningful as people suspect. 

For the philosophically inclined, there is no topic that is protected from analysis, in order to get better knowledge and wisdom. I hope the reader can be patient with me as I challenge some accepted perspectives, and realize that my goal is not to tear down an institution of justice, but to improve it by making it rational, and more meticulous. To make it totally clear, we will have to abandon our normal ideas and behaviors surrounding this equality game. We should hold clear thinking and reasoning far above our fuzzy views on equality. If we look closely, people are not even loyal to equality. Our society is self contradictory on this topic. We are uncertain in many cases, which direction to take this equality. And the only way we will discover what we should do next is by clearly thinking it through and making careful observations about the truths of our society.

After spending a considerable amount of time trying to write about it, I find our traditions may have made it difficult to disentangle the truth from the marketing. There is a lot of historical propaganda around the usage. Since I found it difficult to analyze, and bring myself clarity, perhaps there are just too many conceptual knots for us to really figure out what is real and what is not with respect to equality, in all the ways we discuss it, so instead we state that we believe in equality, because we do care about some social justice, we're just not sure how, why, or when precisely. 

When certain traditional ideas spring into consciousness to easily, it becomes an obstacle to critical thinking. We simply restate rather than think it through. Equality is no exception to this. This article is about removing the mental block that is "equality," to replace it with a respect for detailed observation, that is likely to lead to greater social justice. Our views on equality actually hinder us from become sophisticated enough to reason correctly about situations that may call for changes to increase justice.

The extent of the use of "equality" in disagreements must be incredible. Have you ever had a disagreement about equality? I have had plenty. These disagreements play out in different ways, depending on how it is discussed, and which form of human equality is under discussion. These disagreements are seldom easy to resolve, because people are not speaking on the same terms. Similarly, have you ever had a disagreement over whether or not two things are the same or different? That disagreement has continued to come up my entire life. Similarly, this is very difficult to resolve in practice, until one realizes that both people are using terms differently, from different perspectives, and if all was clarified, confrontation would not have arisen. These two topics are intimately related and are cured by the same solution. 

Equality is a term of hard logic, if we are using it with any seriousness. We have to observe this if we want to benefit from the reputation of the logical and mathematical sense. There are rules of correctness, and we learned them well enough as children. We can swiftly identify when each other are using it incorrectly, when we are talking math. When criticized for an error of this type, we readily concede. We acknowledge our mistakes, and rapidly accept another's rightness. When exchanging money, we get it right with few mistakes. We are well practiced in ensuring quantities match, and we are everday making real measurements. 

Sometimes we are terrible about making these comparsons. For everday comparisons like weights, heights, money, and so on, we are skilled. There is a reason for this. We are all trained to do this for simple things, with a clear focus. For very complex things, or unfamiliar things, we become terrible at making comparisons, unless we have put in additional thought, or received additional training, to understand and compare quickly. Literally people are completely unable to compare even very basic objects, when it is not immediately clear what the focal point of comparison is. We need the focus to understand how to measure. Simple objects, still physically quite complex, are bewildering to compare, when the person doing the comparison, is not able to quickly break that object into properties of interest. That is a challenging thing to do, and unless at least one participant can do this to guide the conversation (it only takes one particpant), the conversation will progress. This is true of ordinary objects becasuse they are still physically very complex, so consider also, how much more difficult it is for comparing animals. Soon we will discuss how this relates to people, who are the most complex objects we know about.

There is one specific time when this routinely happens. When instead of trying to compare specific properties of objects, we try to compare objects themselves, forgetting that they have many dimensions and many properties for comparison. When we ask then, if two objects are the same or different, we immediately hit a wall. What are we comparing? Are we really comparing everything or are we supposed to focus on a couple aspects. Two people, coming from different perspectives, with no training or shared analysis to go by, enter a situation where the rules are undefined. People stop speaking the same terms, and conversations either end up going nowhere, or end up in conflict. 

Sometimes we can get to the point where we might say "we are comparing apples and oranges" when really all that is needed is to identify a focal point of comparison, or a subset of items to compare, because actually, apples and oranges are easy to compare if we are clear about what we're talking about. We invoke this phrase, when we have a sense that we are unable to identify the rules of the comparison, or that the complexity and number of things we are comparing are too great, and wewould prefer to give up than continue. 

We will, however, argue endlessly about what is equal and what isn't in the social domain, and people rarely admit errors in calculation. That's because no one is making any calculations to begin with. So we are unable to identify when others are using it incorrectly, or know when we are using it incorrectly. Things are very complex, too complex often to truly know what is being compared. We pretend we are being mathematical, but we simply are not. We are making no true comparisons, are making no measurements, are using no shared methods, and have no means to really verifying anyone's claims. We simply state it full of bias. It is the height of prejudice to walk around believing and talking about "human equality." 

Imagine someone who walks around comparing themselves to every other person, thinking "I'm as good as you. We're equal." That seems truly arrogant, interestingly. How can someone be equal to just anyone they encounter? Especially if the person doing it seems to have many defects.  

Why do we still talk about human equality as if it is self-evident? If it really was, wouldn't we just forget about it, and accept it? Why compare? Just like with fingers and toes. "Hello ma'am, just curious, can I see your fingers and toes?" No one thinks about that. When something is self-evident, you don't spend time wondering about whether or not it is true, instead you tend to forget about it. You feel it with deep confidence, and you can verify it easily. You know it so well, you don't care to look, and don't care about rare mistakes you might make, by not looking. That's the point, human equality would be so familiar, you wouldn't think about it. 

It relates to our level of certainty. First there are things that are self-evident. Supposedly. Self-evidence may not truly exist, there are just quickly evident things (depending on who you are...). It is usually restricted to logic and math ("axioms"), and our most basic perceptions ("first principles" like "Cogito ergo Matt"). Then there are evident things, that we are confident about but need to check to feel certain, to a degree. "I have 20 carple-tarsles". Finally there are things that are "not evident."—things that are uncertain, or better yet, counter-intuitive. I find human equality to be "not evident." This explains why we still talk about it. It is counter-intuitive too. In practice I see a lot of inequality, diversity, and differences at all levels of magnification and detail. So what is this talk of human equality at the biggest scale? I find human equality to be uniquely counter-intuitive, and outside of democracies, I think it would be considered false immediately. That's another important thing: it is a *novelty*, an invention. If it were self evident, we wouldn't have had to invent it.

Calling it self evident results in all sorts of paradoxes. If equality were self-evident we would have no explanation for jealousy about natural differences. Everyone would be instantly aware that they are as valuable as anyone else. But instead we are instantly aware that we are all different, and these differences *are naturally* valued in different ways. We admire some few, who seem to have many natural traits that are valuable, and we aspire to have those traits also ourselves, if they are *possible* for us.

The term "equal", meant for precise application, now evokes ambiguous feelings about justice and fairness. 

"Equality" for us contains two key elements, the emotional and the logical. The emotional is related to how we were indoctrinated, and how we want to see the world. The logical is related to the fact that the word is a homophone, to one we heard in math class, but are not actually using. The logical and the emotional can both coexists in a statement seriously when there is sufficient attention paid to both parts. In this expression, however, the logical is only superficially included to serve the emotional.

I don't overlook the role the word has played in our shared traditions that we are proud of, but at the same time, there are dangerous and looming side effects that are not immediately obvious, at least, not until one looks closely. 

That is the reason for this series, to look a little more closely at the topic, to see the pitfalls we would otherwise fall into. We will talk about our current usage results in prejudice, and how it gets confused about the goals of social justice. Furthermore, I will explain why we need to abandon "equality" in order to remove impediments to achieving greater and greater social justice— that depends on developing a more advanced notion of fairness, that can deal with allocating resources differently to those that will inevitably serve a specific function in society, very different from other functions. We will show that diversity and equality are completely at odds with each other, and that fairness depends on a correct treatment of diversity.

For now, however, I want to focus on how our views of equality can lead to a bias against detailed observation and sophisticated thinking. But how could commitment to equality possibly result in bias? This the question I intend to answer in this first part of our series.

"All men are equal." Phrases of this form cause me acute discomfort. They have so many flaws that I overflow with objections, to the extent that the topic is hard to discuss. I'm also thwarted by the occasions when this topic arises. When people solemnly invoke human equality, it is usually considered inappropriate to express, how illogical or meaningless the phrases people are using are. So I end up having to sit through it, knowing that everything being said is regurgitated. I mean that not only to say that people are repeating it when they shouldn't, but that it is as unpalatable as vomit spewed from other people's mouths. 

There are so many errors, I assure you, that the quotes cannot be redeemed outside of history; yet they are traditional, and everyone is ready to speak them today. Having spoken them quickly, they are bound to be defensive about what they said, than to realize that they are merely programmed to be quick with those expressions. 

"All men are *created* equal." This phrase is more self aware. But I want to be clear—the defects contained cannot be corrected by more qualifications of the same basic formula. The writer knows that people are not equal in almost any area compared, and the only moment where equality can be considered, is in infancy, where differences are harder to see. The observation behind that was novel at the time, but now we are blocked by that same now ancient observation. There have been many more detailed observations since revoking the idea that infants are interchangeable, that require us to reformulate our now falsified dictums, however solemnly spoken, and in this case we have to abandon the expression entirely rather than make modifications. 

My primary objection to any of these phrases is that they sustain their credibility from mathematics, without appreciating what is required to make such statements true and meaningful. Like pseudo-science, this is pseudo-mathematics. Untenable statements are propped up by superficial similarity to something authoritative. This pseudo-math is more serious than much pseudoscience, because it is so obvious on inspection, yet the defect has infected our entire culture and moral framework. We can see these are mistakes by comparing with basic arithmetic we learned as children, that we can truly rely on and trust. 

a new dream of how society could be. Nevertheless, I think this expression is slowly impeding our progress in the same direction.

It is nonsense if you do not clarify what you are comparing when you say two things are equal, if that comparison isn't made perfectly clear by context. Even in simple conversations, of two people observing the same two objects, the context isn't always clear. In such cases we must make the context explicit, to avoid miscommunication. 

Statements of this form lack basic information *required* to be meaningful. When we say two things are equal, we must say how they are equal and what we are actually comparing. If the features of two objects being compared are really simple, we can sometimes skip the step of saying what we are comparing. When we do this, we have to be careful to know that the person we are communicating with, actually understands clearly what *you* are comparing, because not everyone is as adept, and extracting and predicting, what another person surmises a context to be.

If we are weighing people, we can get away with saying people are equal weight. But for complex things, or complex features, we simply cannot do this, if there is no context making it really obvious what we are comparing. This is the cause of frequent miscommunication related to considering whether things are the same or different, because we have not identified what we are comparing in particular. If we agree on the specifics of what we are comparing, then it is as easy as taking measurements to resolve a dispute. When comparing people, the most complex entities we are aware of, it hardly makes sense to just state "they're equal" without talking about how. We know this in our day to day lives, but we forget it when we are talking politics, religion, or morality. Look at any two people, taken at random, and simply stating "they are equal," because we are committed to an ideology, is really stupid. That commitment makes people completely blind to what is in front of their face: two highly complex objects, so complex that there are probably millions of differences between any two individuals, and instead of noticing those differences, and appreciating the uniqueness of the two people, we just state "they are equal." We don't say how, or why, or what measurements establish it. We look at these two people with complete prejudice and learn nothing from our observation. 

Clearly it is common practice to omit the context. Omitting the context is acceptable as described above, but if the context is not provided and confirmed, then the statement is actually a universal. That means what you are saying is that the two objects are being compared in total. "These people are equal" then means "These two people are equal in all ways." When we did not say what we are comparing, and there is no additional information, that is the *only* interpretation remaining to us. 

We only ever have two interpretations of this type of statement. That one more features of the object are being compared, and that these are assumed or expected to be known by all those communicating, or else *all features are being compared*.

Instead of finding areas where justice could be established, we instead see what has been established, and proclaim our work is complete. This is what the bigot does, who wishes to preserve the status quo. You are already equal" -- they state this without saying how or why. So this failure to appreciate the mathematical sense, does not mean that you are more likely to support equality, you are just as likely to capitalize on this ambiguity, to remain a bigot and to perpetuate injustice.

Contrast this with the more meticulous and inquisitive type of mind that looks at the two objects for patterns. Unless two things are truly the same in all ways, there will be matches and mismatches. When someone is observing meticulously, they rarely fail to find differences, and confuse things for being identical copies of each other. The mistake that people clearly do make, is to fail to make meticulous comparisons in all situations. This is why we find the scientist, who is exception in a laboratory setting, will speak about human equality without any awareness they haven't actually observed anything.

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A meticulous observer would not fool themselves into thinking that the two things are perfectly the same. fools themselves into thinking that there is an exact match. That is what is required for global equality. If we say that two things are equal, without specifying how, we are implying that in every way they are identical. This is why we call identical twins identical, and of all types of people, we should want to say that they are equal, but then we remember people are unique and special, and so in the case of identical twins, we refrain from calling them the same, and failing to call out their differences. That would not be respecting their individuality, and in fact, it would be rude. The twins themselves are aware of their similarities, but could still point out many differences, and these differences are extremely numerous, except perhaps for cell division, but even upon cell division, they have different spatial relations to the world, and these relations cause necessary variations, from the start. Two cells are never guaranteed the same nourishment for growth.

If we were able to make computers powerful enough to compare more than just faces, DNA, and thumbprints, on the fly, would we find that by comparing whole people, they are equal, when we couldn't find equality in any of the small things. Humans, composed of many complex elements, have many completely unique patterns, and fingerprints and faces, are only two examples, of hundreds of others that could have been chosen, in lieu of having no approach, to scan entire beings to note differences. And within these differences, are those traits, that we use to determine the value of the person.

While we accept implicitly the value of justice and fairness for all people, we are really ambivalent about whether or not the equality we have in mind is actually real, as applied to different people, different groups of people, or within the same person at two different times. We see differences everywhere. But we resist admitting to ourselves that inequality is everywhere, because we stop ourselves from thinking it through completely, and instead halt, wondering what such a conclusion would mean for our other cherished beliefs. We mistake superficial contradictions for deep ones, due to our aversion from detailed thinking and observation. The sad part is that our cherished beliefs do not need to be abandoned, and that they are the result of increasing powers of observation—the innovations of more powerful and energetic minds, that went beyond previous ancestors at timely moments. Instead of losing our justice and fairness, we just become more detailed about it. We allow ourselves to be more sophisticated, by casting aside mental blocks, such as the presumption of global and complete equality.

If all people are literally equal in value and worth, then no person can actually improve in the course of their own life. The feelings of improvement and personal growth, then, have no connection with personal worth. But clearly, everyone believes that they can improve themselves. If Matt at 30 is better in many ways than Matt at 15, then certainly, we can admit that *other people* are better or worse than Matt at any given age.

Some few might point out that there is an essence of being human but that is easily proven wrong, by looking at the nature of speciation, the definition of a species, and the fact that humans are not a single entity, devoid of great diversity. We can mate with each other, it is true, but if our major world ethnic groups and cultures were isolated for a million years, before we were able to interact, we would have become completely separate species. Racial differences would have grown to be so much more prominent, that we would not have called the differences races, but actual breeds, like different kinds of dogs, that are so different physically, that while they *might* be able to mate, they can't in practice and wouldn't want to, so they actually are sure to diverge. Even if there were some essence to be found, it would be subject to the same argument above, that the essence would persist over the life span, and then there is no reason to value ourselves more or less over the lifespan, and we simply would not be willing to grant that in practice.

In the next part, I will cover the ways that the word "equal" is actually used correctly, so that we can identify when it is used incorrectly. I will also discuss more about why we should take inequality to be the norm in almost all situations, since apparent equality is almost always the result of approximations, and not true equality. 

For now, the main point I want to draw out is the prejudice created in this unfortunate commitment to equality that causes us to fail to make observations. The reason why we wish to have justice in the world is because of our compassion concerning the similarity of feelings among all people, the randomness of fortune both in our endowment and our experiences, and our observations about the all pervasiveness of inequality. We see that in our lives some few ingredients are sufficient to make life tolerable, and enjoyable, and so beginning with these things, we try to distribute and make it available to everyone, not only so we can witness the blessings well distributed, and see unfortunate situations slowly disappear from our eyes, making the world a more beautiful place, but we also know that we are more likely to be cared for, and those we bring into the world, and our close friends, who we might care for more than ourselves.

Using more sophisticated observation, I hope others will also come to the conclusion, that I have made, along with many others, that there are reasons to hope justice will extend beyond humanity, to other animals as well, to our trans-human progeny that will surpass us, and perhaps other organisms and entities in the universe. We may transform the world into a system that is not only physically orderly, but one that has a sort of fairness built in, that we might be able to discover. Liebniz thinks we would create the world we already live in. Either way, detailed observation is the only way to get us to a more sophisticated and complete level of fairness.

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