If you push someone you love away, eventually they’ll go away. So decide if you want that. Just because you can successfully push someone away it doesn’t mean they don’t love you. It’s not a valid test for their love, because they’re also wanting to know you love them, and if they’re being pushed away it’s hard for them to know they’re loved.

I read the phrase “if science is right,” but the real uncertainty is “if the current scientific data is right.” Science is always right, because science itself always maintains that uncertainty.

Excellent reader addendum: “Current interpretations of the scientific data, because those change too.”

We sometimes describe people as being “too emotional,” but isn’t the bigger concern whether or not they’re being rational?

In response to this:

I don’t consider myself an original thinker (whatever that actually means). I am, however, someone who loves to learn about thoughts that are new to me. Having said all of that, this is the first article that I’ve seen that’s made a point that has long been percolating in my mind. (Of course I’m POSITIVE these points have been made before, I just haven’t personally come across a source before this).

This is the main idea that pushed me from conservatism to liberalism. The idea that a “fair and just” society is just one that provides “equality of opportunity” instead of “equality of outcome” is basically wrong, and it’s even an incoherent notion. As this article deftly points out, one person’s opportunity just stems from someone else’s outcome.

Also, this doesn’t even take into account the impact of our genetics on our ability to “lift ourselves by our bootstraps.” I’m not one to advocate defeatism, but I think people underestimate how much most of us are hamstrung by our genes.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/02/the-radicalism-of-equal-opportunity?fbclid=IwAR3T1za5r3yO00iRcKFkLw7CC18ZOqAfoAQqj6s_p3wVOoef_PqA2R8kW0A

I think of “equality of outcome” as the most ethical aspiration for a society, and “equality of opportunity” as the most functional, given our selfish natures. Both are impossible fantasies–simultaneously contradictory and interdependent (as excellently explained in the article). In the end, the best we can hope for is endless negotiation and compromise between the two. The day those in power imagine that they can impose only one or the other, or silence the conflict between the two, is what I most fear.

Great share, Eric!

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