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by solarhoma
1510 days ago
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I agree with your train of thought on most of your post. Though disagree with the below segment. >And even today left-handed people encounter some discrimination or bias (intentional or not) in their daily lives. Utensils may still be needlessly tailored to right-handed people or left-handed alternatives may be unavailable simply because nobody considered the need for them or left-handed people are just expected to make do because they're a minority and shouldn't cause a fuss (and they can just try to use their right hand anway, right?). Right handed people are roughly 90% of the world population. So, as a business owner, why would you cater half your production to something that only 10% of the population finds appealing? Which brings me back to my original point. Why over represent people so drastically? |
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Wheelchair users only make up an estimated 1% of the US population. Would you argue businesses shouldn't try to make their storefronts wheelchair user accessible, e.g. installing ramps or wider pathways were applicable?
The point isn't just that left-handed people hardly find any products that actively cater to them, it's that many products explicitly exclude them by design. And alternatives are often hard to find and/or more expensive.
I'm not accusing any business of making a deliberate decision to be inaccessible. Inaccessibility is the default because the group is in the minority. But through statistical bias alone left-handedness effectively acts as a disability.
The question is ultimately one of equality of opportunity. Do you think that society should be shaped in such a way that statistical bias is compensated or do you think that society should reflect the statistical bias of its makeup (or option C: that society should be shaped by the biases of those with the political power and capital to shape it). If you think statistical biases should be compensated, you will necessarily end up with "dramatic overrepresentation" because the status quo is the consequence of many lifetimes of statistical bias shaping our society.
Note that there is no objectively "right or wrong answer" as this is a question about your values. And this is also what makes the question so polarizing as there's simply no way to pave over values that are the polar opposite of each other.
BTW this is ultimately the value difference that underpins the distinction between the political left and right, progressivism and conservatism, anarchism and statism: one proposes that hierarchies (i.e. power imbalances) are undesirable and should be avoided, the other believes in a (in Christian conservatism literally divinely ordained) "natural order" that is self-justified and desirable, and that any deviation from it or correction for it is a step towards societal decay (or literal "evil"). Most people tend to not use such an explicit language as they've never analyzed their own opinions (or "vibes" as the kids call it these days) in such detail but if pushed on it they usually steer one way or the other, though often with reservations that tend to be more pragmatic than ideological.