[pessimizer]

I need to hear a restatement of 3) that doesn't rely on the word "equal" or "egalitarian" without defining them in the context of the argument you're making.

What does it mean to say that everyone is or isn't "equal?" Are you trying to say that people are distinct (i.e. there is more than one person)? Are you trying to say that people aren't the same height, and there are others insisting that they are? What are you saying?

The first two are very clear.

[antiterra]

Right, I can think my child is abstractly ‘equal’ to another person’s child but also not feel as much ownership for their well being.

I think what the commenter is saying is similar to a reductio ad absurdum of what it would be like if every child was of equal direct importance and priority to you. It, however, doesn’t address what would happen if everyone in a community voluntarily had this concern nominally and therefore could allocate responsibility across many.

[pessimizer]

I have no idea of what the commenter is actually trying to say, which is why I asked. I have to admit that usually when I hear people make statements like that, they're being deceptive in a couple of ways.

Sometimes, when people claim a logical implication (if A then B), and people object to them by saying that A doesn't imply B, they will 1) follow with a claim that the objector is claiming that nothing can imply anything else, or 2) follow with a claim that "A doesn't imply B" is equivalent to saying "B doesn't exist."

In these ways, a claim of "all birds fly" responds to a counter-claim of "not all birds fly" with: "so you're saying that there are no birds that fly, then" or even worse "so you're saying that nothing can fly, then." I've even seen "so you're saying that everything except birds can fly, then."

So I have no idea where it is going, but precision in the definitions of "equal" or "egalitarian" used in this context would help me to understand.

[lo_zamoyski]

Putting the OP's comment aside, what is this abstract "equality"? We seem to be quite confident in announcing this proposition and affirming it in the public square, but how many people can actually tell you what this equality concerns? (Mind you, I am NOT claiming there is no sense in which human persons may be said to be equal. I am merely raising the issue that many people don't seem to know despite the confident assertions to the contrary and that lots of weird political hay has been made claiming some nebulous kind of "equality" that resists any kind of examination or analysis.)

[pessimizer]

> lots of weird political hay has been made claiming some nebulous kind of "equality" that resists any kind of examination or analysis.

The resistance to analysis is often because they use it polymorphically. It will mean one thing in one sentence, a totally different thing in the next, and this will not be acknowledged in any way.

I'm not an arguer about what words mean, for me it's enough that people tell me what they mean by the word so we can have an effective discussion. But the word has to mean something and its definition cannot change within the same context.

[User23]

Surely you understand exactly what is meant. Why play dumb? For example I’m not equal to Bobby Fischer as a chess player.

[pessimizer]

I'm not playing dumb. And I'm also surprised that you're so confident that what they meant by equality is "equal skill levels at a particular task." If that's what they meant, there's literally nobody who believes either that everyone is equal at every task, or that everyone is equal at any task. That would be a dumb strawman.

So are you playing dumb, or is that really what you think they meant?

[User23]

Egalitarianism is such a weak position that there’s no need to strawman it.

And yes literally nobody except children and fools truly believes that people are equal in any material sense. Evidence suggests to me that you are neither a child nor a fool.

Indeed the egalitarian position is so transparently weak that even its erstwhile proponents have abandoned it in favor of “equity,” whatever that means.