Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language

From	Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.python
Subject	Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language
Date	2016-05-08 13:15 +1000
Message-ID	<mailman.494.1462677364.32212.python-list@python.org> (permalink)
References	(6 earlier) <572e06e3$0$1605$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> <1462646456.2677797.601019937.6FC9DC8E@webmail.messagingengine.com> <mailman.458.1462646458.32212.python-list@python.org> <572ea7e4$0$1587$c3e8da3$5496439d@news.astraweb.com> <CAPTjJmr=P21+n42qw_5NaJSg4cyXYGmbq1np8ECM7oWfyWMx3g@mail.gmail.com>

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On Sun, May 8, 2016 at 12:43 PM, Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Sun, 8 May 2016 04:40 am, Random832 wrote:
>
>> On Sat, May 7, 2016, at 11:16, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
>>> > Indian and Chinese H1B holders are getting screwed, which is of course
>>> > the whole objective of the country limits.
>>>
>>> The *whole* objective? You don't think that *part* of the objective may
>>> be
>>> to ensure that citizens of countries other than India and China can get
>>> green cards too?
>>
>> If not for the quotas, a citizen of some other country would have an
>> equal chance to get a green card as a citizen of India or China.
>
> If you have a big hat with 5,000,000 tickets marked "Indian", and 500
> tickets marked "Finish", and you stick your hand in the hat and rummage
> around and pick a random ticket, do you really think that you have an equal
> chance of selecting an Indian ticket and a Finish ticket?

So the question is: Do we care about country equality or individual
equality? You can't have both. As soon as you divide a population up
into unequal parts, you have to figure out what you actually mean by
"equality". For instance, should the states in a country have equal
representation in federal government, or should their sway be affected
by the number of people in each state? In a Wikipedia article, how
much space should be given to a narrowly-held view compared to a
widely-held one? In a summary of a thousand people's comments, how
many favorable ones and how many unfavorable ones should be quoted? In
an extreme case of the latter, suppose you have room to post ten
comments, and of the thousand, only four were against. Do you post all
four, and restrict the other side to four to be "fair", or do you post
one of them against nine "yea" comments, or do you pick randomly from
the entire pool of questions (which would give you a 4% chance of
drawing even a single negative comment)? Which is "fairest"?

If two people both want to enter the country, it's *obviously* right
that they should have equal chance as individuals. And it's equally
obvious that it's not fair to let one highly populous country push out
every other country. Somewhere in there you need math and decisions.

ChrisA

Thread

Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2016-05-05 14:59 -0400
  Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language beliavsky@aol.com - 2016-05-06 13:35 -0700
    Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Ethan Furman <ethan@stoneleaf.us> - 2016-05-06 14:07 -0700
      Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language beliavsky@aol.com - 2016-05-06 14:45 -0700
        Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language alex wright <wrightalexw@gmail.com> - 2016-05-06 18:20 -0400
    Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-05-07 13:33 +1000
      Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-05-07 14:04 +1000
      Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language John Wong <gokoproject@gmail.com> - 2016-05-07 00:25 -0400
      Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2016-05-07 18:43 +1200
        Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-05-07 00:07 -0700
        Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Stephen Hansen <me+python@ixokai.io> - 2016-05-07 01:02 -0700
          Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Gregory Ewing <greg.ewing@canterbury.ac.nz> - 2016-05-07 23:52 +1200
          Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language beliavsky@aol.com - 2016-05-08 03:22 -0700
            Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-05-09 02:27 +1000
              Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Christopher Reimer <christopher_reimer@icloud.com> - 2016-05-08 10:34 -0700
        Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-05-07 11:50 +0300
          Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-05-08 01:16 +1000
            Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-05-08 01:38 +1000
              Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-05-07 18:57 +0300
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-05-08 22:08 +1000
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> - 2016-05-08 08:09 -0700
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Christopher Reimer <christopher_reimer@icloud.com> - 2016-05-08 10:25 -0700
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2016-05-08 12:48 -0500
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-05-09 08:17 +1000
            Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-05-07 18:48 +0300
            Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-05-07 14:40 -0400
              Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2016-05-08 12:43 +1000
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2016-05-08 13:15 +1000
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-05-08 09:58 +0300
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Christopher Reimer <christopher_reimer@icloud.com> - 2016-05-08 10:14 -0700
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2016-05-07 23:40 -0400
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2016-05-08 10:06 +0300
                Re: Python is an Equal Opportunity Programming Language Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2016-05-08 19:07 +1000

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