This seems like a disingenuous comment at best. For example, Harvard's incoming class was something like 25% Asian-American, which I think is probably the highest it's been (compared to Asian-American's probably being like 5% of the population). Whatever the policy is, it is not trying for "equality", nor is it really anything close to what happened in the Soviet Union. My grandparents lived there; some relatives were killed in the middle of the night because of their ethnicity. Nowadays, someone gets turned down by Yale, and these BS comparisons start up. Come on.
Conveniently, the year that Harvard was sued for discrimination against Asians, the % of admitted Asians skyrocketed to 25%. Previous years it was about 33% lower.
And Asian Americans have an 8% admit rate going back to 1995, the lowest of all ethnicities.
According to this random site[0][1], the income difference between Yale undergrads vs. those from a top Public school like Michigan is 44K in income per year (10 years after graduation). Obviously there is a good bit of selection bias at play, but I can't imagine the true 'cost' of being denied Ivy admission is trivial monetarily, not to mention the social/interpersonal boost that would come along with it.
I see. Do you think I'm permanently setback because of this? What can I do if I can't get into grad school with a 3.92 GPA and just 2 2nd author papers?
I'm suggesting that you are statistically likely to miss out on a significant monetary 'Ivy League premium' over your career, and that you will certainly miss out on a social 'Ivy League premium', which could affect your social status, mating opportunities (as silly as that sounds), and more.
Because it is a statistical observation, it does not necessarily have any bearing on your outcomes as an individual--though it seems likely that it does.
Saying "Asians are more intelligent" is absolutely, objectively racist, and also incorrect. It's the same as saying "Blacks are dumber than other races," the fact that it's a "good thing" is irrelevant.
If you are precise, and nuanced, you can say something similar without being a racist shitbag about it. The following things are all true, and probably drove the GP to his statement:
* We're largely talking about Asian-Americans, not Asians.
* Most Asian-American families have a strong focus on academics and education, from a young age
* Most Asian-American families have the socio-economic status and familial support that allows them to focus on academics and education in the first place
* Because of the environmental and cultural aspects mentioned above, Asian-Americans, in aggregate, score disproportionately higher on standardized tests than other groups, in aggregate
Nothing racist about any of the points above but they could absolutely drive someone to say "Asians are smarter" if they're willing to ignore the nuance.
Both here and in the general western society, there's a vicious policing of certain taboo ideas about psychology, even ideas that are well accepted by the researchers. Being anti-science is seen as a good thing here because the truth might turn us all into Nazis! It reminds me of religious people who oppose education and scientific knowledge because it might weaken people's faith in God which would turn them into immoral criminals.
The scarier thing is that the researchers themselves are also subject to this policing, though with a little more leeway allowed. But they can still get ostracized for making the wrong findings and you get ridiculous cases where the published data from a study clearly shows the opposite of what the conclusion says because the authors are scared of punishment from their peers. In one case, an author openly admitted this was his reason after people were confused about the apparent contradiction.
At the individual level of course there is a huge genetic component to intelligence. Even with the perfect environment and all the money in the world you might just be a dummy.
But I'm not sure how you square the argument that intelligence is mostly genetic with population-level shifts in intelligence such as that of the Jewish-Americans that someone else brought up in this thread. The only thing I could see is those populations begin selecting for intelligence with regard to reproduction, but a couple hundred years is an extremely short period of time for something like that to happen at the population level if it's mostly genetic.
In the 1920s and 1930s Jewish Americans scored very poorly in IQ tests. Since WW2 they have rapidly risen up the ranks and now as a group score among the highest of any ethnicity.
Economic and sociological factors make a massive difference to population IQ scores and are very difficult to control for because we don’t know what all the factors that influence it are.
To give benefit of the doubt, the comment that spawned this thread didn't make any claim as to why Asians are supposedly more intelligent. If it's from social and economic factors then that it stands to reason that it's something worth studying so that the knowledge gained can be used over time to make everyone more intelligent.
I don't see why we should be blinding ourselves to any difference that happens to fall along racial lines. It seems like an overwhelming majority of the time once the issue is studied we find out it has nothing to do with genetics or race anyway and that it's something socioeconomic and cultural that applies to everybody and it happens to correlate with race for historical reasons. We have no problem studying mostly isolated cultures (e.g. the Amish, some tribe in the Amazon, etc) in a clinical manner without people getting their panties in a knot. Why is this not true for big groups?
Socioeconommic conditions are themselves not independent of race though. It's not so long ago that it was perfectly legal to discriminate who got a job on the basis of Race, and it was commonplace for people to do so.
It's interesting that it's not the considered least bit controversial to speak about certain ethnic groups being physically genetically gifted, or statistically over-represented in certain athletic endeavors. Perhaps the most obvious examples are black athletes who dominate popular American sports, or east Africans being superb long distance runners, but the same extends to free divers, mountain climbers, and more.
Put simply, some populations have physical adaptations that make them better at certain things - be it lung capacity from ancestry in bolivia, lighter / skinnier legs from ancestry in kenya, or whatever. That's uncontroversial.
Why do we all accept without question that population genetics play a somewhat key role in athletic pursuits, but insist that intelligence or mental acuity is distributed perfectly evenly across the entirety of humanity? It doesn't really pass the smell test to be honest.
Sibling comment did a great job and I want to add one more thing. Paraphrasing the evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein from a podcast I listened to a couple of years ago:
Physical challenges are unevenly distributed. Some places are very hot and others are very cold. Some places are high elevation. Bodies have adapted to these differences to produce the physical differences across races. The brain solves for the challenge of life and life is difficult everywhere. What the brain adapted to is evenly distributed.
I think that's a very interesting and concise formulation, that I'll probably refer to when having similar discussions in the future.
However, I'd like to play devil's advocate with a thought experiment. Specifically, I'd like to address your fundamental assumption of equally distributed evolutionary pressure. It's true of our ancient history (which covers most of human existence), but it feels premature to ignore the potential impact of modern human societies over the last few millenia.
Imagine two identical human groups, one which spends 1000 or so years in an urban or quasi-urban setting, and one which spends the same time as hunter gatherers. Seems like some traits would be self-selected more heavily in one group vs the other based purely on environmental pressure. I.e. someone gifted with an above-average capacity for abstract modeling, but with - say - severe myopia, would find it easier to procreate in an environment where their skills are valued and their physical limitations negated, and vice versa.
Human history is long, but reproductive pressure can have a discernible impact on a population even over the relatively short time scale covered by human civilization. It's an imperfect analogy, but for instance new dog breeds only require a handful of generations (<10) to be both physically and behaviorally discernible. Why should reproductive pressures applied by different social environments, stretched over millenia, not have an impact on human populations?
Is the quasi-urban group modern, e.g. with technology and everything else? Even ignoring the fact that 1000 is not a long time evolutionarily - you'd get what, 15-20 generations? - a hunter-gatherer group is going to have a lot of evolutionary pressure that a modern technological group won't. You can have a physical injury or disability in the modern group and be fine, but without support that may not be there in the hunter-gatherer group, you will die quickly.
> First, this could only happen to small, isolated, and bottle necked populations. This on its own eliminated the vast majority of humanity
I disagree with several points made here. Firstly, I would question your reasoning behind the prerequisite of the population being "small", because in fact larger societies face different and more complex challenges than small ones, which in turns favors the ability to navigate the challenges of large human groups. More to the point, environmental pressure is applied regardless of a group's size.
Secondly, an isolated population does not eliminate the vast majority of humanity - far from it. While there's always some form of mobility between societies, until very recently that was a relatively rare phenomenon. By and large people lived and died within artillery distance of where they were born.
> including any racist notions like "asian" or "black."
This is actually the first time I've heard those designations described as 'racist', but that's somewhat orthogonal and more of a passing observation
> In your dog metaphor, it's like looking at a dachshund and then saying "all dogs with short hair are also have short legs."
I don't follow this extension to my analogy, which is probably a reflection of the problems of using analogies as a discussion aid in the first place
> Between the occasional plague and the occasional famine, you have times of war and times of peace. You have changing aesthetics, shifting cultures, values gained and lost.
Yes, but at its core an urban, even if premodern, existence places emphasis on different skill sets than a hunter gatherer lifestyle. This goes back to my point above about the social challenges of navigating large human groups - aesthetics can change, but figuring out how to grapple with complex social dynamics, as opposed to taming nature, is a constant (and one closely correlated with the evolution of human intelligence to boot)
If that’s true then in today’s society with abundance and pervasive entertainment will we see a cleavage between the academic class and those who gravitate toward leisure and entertainment?
Evolution doesn't distinguish between physical and mental challenges and organs aren't the unit of evolution. They don't survive or reproduce in isolation.
Species can and do evolve different adaptations to the same evolutionary pressures. Bret isn't convincing.
Have we actually had much in the way of mental challenges on an evolutionary timescale? It would appear to be a reasonably recent phenomenon. I think I heard Jordan Peterson comment that a couple of hundred years ago, most people were piss poor working in fields, so a high IQ didn't actually gain you very much.
First, because minds are tremendously complex and much less well understood than things like fast and slow twitch muscles. That we see different distributions in one does not imply different distributions in another.
Second, because we have tremendous evidence of clear bias, discrimination, and oppression of certain groups and a direct link to confounds that make claims about people of certain races just being genetically smarter amazingly messy.
Third, because for physical characteristics we don’t use broad racial categories but instead use ethnicities. “Black people” don’t have the specific physical characteristics that enable the absolute peak of running capabilities. Specific subgroups do. Expanding to racial categories (that were invented by humans to justify slavery and colonialism) is fraught with peril.
Fourth, because discussion of physical traits usually looks at the very very very peak while discussion of intelligence is usually a broad claim about all members of a race. This is not the same thing.
And finally, because these arguments have been used for centuries to justify literal enslavement. To justify denying voting rights. To justify all manner of horrors because it was just obvious to eugenicists that black people were less developed. And we should be extra careful of claims that, if followed carelessly, lead to genocide.
The first one is indeed true. But i hope even acknowledging the theoretical possibility is not mistaken/admonished as racial supremacy and scientific inquiry gets hurt.
The second one, I don't think anybody says that there is no nurture component. Acknowledging theoretical possibility of a nature component via genetics is not saying that there is no nurture component, and that it does not confound any test. We would need to design better tests.
For third, that is just a definition issue. You're saying that it is wrong to investigate differences between races, but fine to do so for ethnicities. So, let us look if there are cognitive differences between different ethnicities?
Fourth is just downright false. Subgroups living in Africa are generally darker, taller, and better runners. Subgroups in east Asia generally shorter. None of the statements about physical characteristics or intelligence are about extremes or broad strict inequalities about all members. They are always statistical distributions over the whole population.
Fifth is the crux of the matter. Are we going to stop scientific inquiry because of that? Instead of trying to stop scientific inquiry, we should debate why our liberal values are useful and should hold even if there are genetic components that determine intelligence.
nutrition and environmental nurture account much more for intelligence than race. Genetics, at most, account for a tiny difference, and is only barely visible at the very top level of competencies - and even then, those differences are massively dwarfed by environmental factors.
I was under the impression that every year we discover more genes tied to "educational attainment" so the assumed heritable % for g increases. In another comment you mentioned 100% environmental--If you have a study, please link to it. Granted, you are correct at the other end, where if one grows up malnourished and lives in a war zone, this will have a oversized negative impact on intelligence potential, but the overall context of this discussion is admittance to Yale.
Intelligence is just one small aspect out of many of what it means to be a human. It isn't special any more than having freckles is. We really need to dissolve the cult we have created around it.
it's taboo because there is no real scientific basis for one race being more superior. The differences can almost 100% be entirely traced to environmental factors like wealth, nutrition, nurture and community support.
No, we don't make things taboo because they're wrong, we make them taboo because they're dangerous.
Nobody is forbidding mention of modified Newtonian dynamics, just pointing out all the evidence against it.
The idea of differences in intelligence between ethnic groups, regardless of whether it is true or not, is not one that our society is currently able to discuss in a productive way. So, we very sensibly keep quiet about it for now.
I think it's taboo because certain segments of society secretly think there might be an element of truth and are disturbed by the implications and potential ramifications if the theory was proven to be true.
>it's taboo because there is no real scientific basis for one race being more superior
In which case it stands to reason that it's something that the things that make this or that race "superior" at this or that metric can be emulated by people regardless of race to everyone's benefit.
On your second point, I don't believe that is true. Not the 100% part. I am sure they play a big part, but a Kenyan Olympic runner doesn't win (only) because of environmental factors.
Since all of the studies in this area have essentially been done by racists with obvious flawed methodology, yes.
To the extent that IQ means anything at all (it doesn't, past about 100), there are much greater inter-personal differences than inter-group differences, except when one of the groups is explicitly disadvantaged by the test (e.g. the test is administered in the first language of one group and the second language of the other).
Wow... Hard-core racism, here on HN? And connecting 'accomplishments of races' with modern day policing practices...
Are you even aware of the influence of black people on ancient history? Of the black Roman emperors? Of the black Egyptian Empire, one that was looked at in awe for 5 thousand years?
Are you aware of the inspiration the founding fathers took from the Hodenoshone (Iroquois)?
And in general, are you even slightly aware of how much circumstance and happenstance impact big historical moments?
Either way, you are a perfect example of the kinds of people who invented IQ, and exactly the reasons why it was invented - scientistic veneer to justify racist beliefs, not much better than phrenology before it.
And I sincerely hope you'll get to experience how the kind of policing you praise feels on you own skin. It will hurt, but perhaps it will help you grow as a human being.
Edit: the above comment was heavily edited after my response, removing everything except a link to 1 study.
A published study doesn't make the theory mainstream. This study is heavily criticised in the field, for p-hacking amongst other things. Also their conclusion is about IQ, which itself isn't seen in the mainstream as an indication of general intelligence, so they're really reaching from the get go. You have to have a serious agenda to read this paper and sincerely think the conclusion correct...
Sure, one of the least reliable fields of science mostly believes this effect exists. They also have one of the worse reproducibility crises, and a history of fraudulent but widely believed studies (Stanford Prison Experiment, to name just one), and entire schools of thought defeated by a priori arguments (behaviorism as a theory of the human mind).
Meanwhile you ahbe neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists arguing against the plausibility of differences in intelligence in large ancient groups a priori. You have people like Stephen Jay Gould arguing against the idea that IQ is a measure of general intelligence at all.
And then, just to prove a point about how warped your perspective is, you cite James Damore as an argument for a basic statistical fact. You really should avoid citing beligerantly misogynistic and/or racist people when you're trying to claim that science is on your side.
Not to mention that large scale aptitude tests (rather than 'general intelligence' tests) do NOT show a normal distribution of aptitudes, rendering Damore's claims statically correct but un applicable anyway.
Anti-Jewish philosophy in the Soviet Union was not 'equality at all costs' it was 'jews are thieves' and other horrible racist beliefs, same as in most of Western Europe before.
The buzzword now is “equity.” The left now seeks equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity. All such initiatives are oppressive should be rejected outright.
The human potential lost to poverty is heartbreaking. Unfortunately, it seems like the political toolbox we’ve been bequeathed is filled with wooden spoons instead of scalpels. Open to ideas.
Perhaps I was too hasty in my comment. I am not partisan. The right has its own problems, obviously. I recently moved from deep red Georgia to deep blue Maryland, and the polarization is demoralizing. Even though the political climate is so caustic these days, there are reasoned arguments on both sides of issues that are worth listening to. Unfortunately, these voices are being drowned out by extreme views. Our democracy is being eroded by gerrymandering, 24 hour news and social media. Unfortunately, these sources of extremism and authoritarianism are extremely profitable for a very select few. I wish the bright minds that visit this site would work to create products that foster democracy rather than erode it.
To expound on my previous comment, those on the left calling for ‘equity’ should be viewed critically. The calls for ‘removing barriers’ should alarm everyone, because ultimately it only serves to control and dumb everyone down. The alternative is to encourage public policies that seek the empowerment of all individuals and groups. One concrete example is the debate in NYC schools that math and honors courses are ‘inequitable’ and racist. Voices on the left are calling for the abolishment of such classes, thereby denying students the opportunity to be challenged according to their ability. The other undiscussed side of this issue is that such calls for ‘equity’ result in basically giving up on poorer students who won’t be given the support they need to meet the higher standards. In short, anything involving ‘equity’ should be viewed as a race to the bottom for everyone.
You would lose nothing by omitting terms like "the Left" and "the Right" and gain not immediately baiting people into partisan flame wars. I find it baffling that so many Americans have an inability to discuss politics without invoking either of those terms, especially when your "Left" and "Right" are practically leanings of Centrism to most of the rest of the world.
But really, it does nothing to enforce your argument. You complain about 24 hour news and social media eroding Democracy (and presumably discussions about the politics of Democracy), yet you use these terms so loosely and end up reducing anyone Left of you to some or other policy you deem to be essential to that position.
I completely agree that adding these polarizing terms is not helpful in persuading anybody, however I think it's an extreme simplification to say the American Left and Right are leanings of centrism from the view outside the US.
This is kind of an outside perspective - America as seen through the news - but I would say that a lot of the stuff I see espoused by the Left and Right in the US is much more extreme than in Germany for example. Germany has laws that allow for positive discrimination, but I can't think of any such extreme measures as in the US here, where chances are diminished for one race by a factor of 10. Even having race on the application form would be unthinkable here.
On the other hand we have many more social programs that would be unthinkable in the US. We have 4+ (usually 5-6) weeks vacation per year, etc.
The American Right on the other hand is also in many ways more extreme than in Germany, nobody would consider Republicans as right-leaning centrists here, e.g. building a wall would be a bit taboo, although maybe more due to historical reasons. Denying people health-care, because they're poor would also probably not count as centrist here.
I guess Germany itself is kind of exceptional, given its past, but maybe I'm just moving the goalposts now, so let me try to substantiate.
I don't think positive discrimination laws in the US has as much to do with an embrace of Leftist ideology as it does with an attempt at attracting previously disenfranchised voters. I realise this seems very cynical, but my argument is that having a few policies that seem Leftist doesn't mean that the underlying ideology behind those policies is; correlation does not imply causation etc. So I'd argue those laws are reactionary, much in the same way they are in Germany and also in places like South Africa, to varying degrees of course. They're exactly the kind of toe-dipping you'd expect of parties who are more driven by quests for power than ideology. That's why, even with several Democratic presidents, for instance, the US still doesn't have proper vacation and parental leave: it's bad for business.
If I had to plot it, I'd say Germany's political landscape is also quite huddled up around the Center, but slightly Left (with more outliers than the US), where the US is huddled around the Center and slightly Right. This would explain why the Right in the US feels further Right than in Germany. These configurations are probably not even that strange for developed and developing Western nations, though most have more outlier parties than the US even if they're not generally in contention during elections.
I just feel that the binary-narrative - even though the spectrum is quite large and nuanced - is something that has spread from US political commentators to other nations and is watering down the discourse.
I consider myself left and i do not think that. I don't think this type of generic mud slinging adds anything to the conversation especially when it is not based on verifiable facts.
Its not just slavery, its jim crow, segregation, black people being systematically disadvantaged through racist policies like getting higher rates on loans despite having the same risk. Also:
- the New Deal excluded black people
- The GI Bill excluded black people
etc...
Slaves built a huge part of the economy for free and americans benefit from that work for which they were not compensated, so yes there absolutely should be reparations. I think this should be done in several ways:
- monetarily: by funding scholarships and other projects to remedy the injustices perpetrated and help black americans accumulate some of the generational wealth they have been denied. Although at the end of the day, no amount of money will ever compensate for the hurt, death and atrocities, its a start.
- education: teaching kids at school what slavery was really like, instead of what some of the schoolbooks teach (that slavery wasn't that bad for example). Teaching kids about systemic racism that persists to this day.
This is a real problem and it has to do that we try to quantify everything for risk assessments. This is a huge problem and the IT sector is a large part of that. A problem that should be discussed.
Reparations within a country between different ethnicities a good way to increase animosity. Because people would complain rightfully, that the wealth transfer is unjust.
I doubt you find any book in education that says that slavery wasn't bad. Every ethnicity on the planet has suffered from it and < 1% were slave owners. Yes, I know the argument that people profited passively... it isn't too convincing given the huge wealth distribution discrepancies western nation exhibit.
I don't think you are advocating for justice or equality here.
He's saying that if the economic gains where wiped out, then blacks and whites should have had equal economic standing after the war. But we all know that didn't happen, which is why he posed that question.
Even if it was the case that the civil war wiped out the gains from slavery, it doesn't change the case for reparations as well as the other injustices that were being committed are are still being committed to this day
I assume your interest in reparations is to create an even playing field. Reparations won't do that. It'll just create a lot of opportunities for capitalist predators to milk a poorly educated population that is now flush with cash. Once they've been squeezed dry, most of them will be in an even worse situation, because reparations will have assuaged the white guilt of their supporters while stoking the racism and anger of their opponents.
So you are assuming all black people are poorly educated and will suddenly be flushed with cash?
I wasn't talking about wealth transfer. I was mainly talking about stopping discrimination and providing loans and scholarships to a section of the population that has been discriminated against to redress centuries of oppression.
The average educational attainment of black people in the united states is lower, that's not racism, it's data. You can attach racial causes to it if you want, but it doesn't change my point.
"Reparations" is basically code for wealth transfer. If you mean crafting a more just, fair society, you probably want a different word.
Firstly, the milking you refer to is already happening, and has been happening for hundreds of years. Second, as i've already said, the way i see reparations is not a simple cash transfer. Its stopping the systemic injustices and having programes in place to help black communities in terms of loans, grants and educational scholarship.
If you agree that the New Deal and GI bill helped spur economic development (though they were not perfect) and lifted poor white people out of poverty, why not do that today for black people? Black people were systematically left out of that help, so time to give them the help they are owed.
I’m sure people were saying that and they can speak for themselves. The problem is with extrapolating that thought to “the left”. Now you’ve editorialized it to fit you political views.
While your point is valid, media outlets with known political biases to "the left" have been putting out a lot of pro-reparations stuff since the protests started. Regardless of what the people who are actually protesting want, white folks sure like to talk about reparations.
The difference is that political bias of news outlets is a matter of public record, as is the number of articles on reparations before and after the protests started. All objective.
Was that really the philosophy of the USSR? Marx argued against the abstract notion of equality to begin with (and more concretely, the idea of equality between people) and Lenin explicitly rebuked the notion that equality means anything more than class equality for socialists. The whole phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is precisely against equality - it recognizes that people have different abilities, talents, capabilities, and things happening in the course of life, and it recognizes that people have different needs, wishes, and desires.
Unless you're saying that the USSR's underlying philosophy comes from somewhere other than Marx or Lenin, in which case I'm curious as to what philosophy, and originated by whom, you're talking about.
I actually meant AA similar to the American one, for the school admissions. I don't believe the US has reached the USSR level of D&I to set quotas of minority representatives in governments of various levels (yet). And sorry, there is no source for this - even Yale does not publish their minority quotas or even admits they exist, what do you expect from the USSR Ministry of Education?
> The whole phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" is precisely against equality - it recognizes that people have different abilities, talents, capabilities, and things happening in the course of life, and it recognizes that people have different needs, wishes, and desires.
This is not the kind of equality the poster was talking about. Forcing equality at government level does not mean forcing everyone to have equal IQ and work ethic. It means ignoring those differences and forcing everyone to get the same benefit in life even though some are less productive than others ("to each according to his need"). "Equality of outcomes" as another poster put it.
> Would that not fall onto government in a communist state?
and this is why communism fails, because an external entity cannot possibly know the true needs of the individual, and cannot act in the best interest of every individual. Unless somehow they are a benevolent god.
Nowhere does Marx or any other 'communist' author claim that the state knows or pretends to know the needs and desires of the populace, or even an aggregation of their individual abilities. In fact, later 'communist' authors specifically say that it's up to the individual to sort out their needs and abilities, and to cultivate them.
Then you get back to the problem that I presented - who decides the needs and abilities? At least with a free market we can be honest about trying to do as little as possible in return for as much as possible, and let the market decide what your abilities are worth.
>It means ignoring those differences and forcing everyone to get the same benefit in life even though some are less productive than others ("to each according to his need").
I'm not convinced. The slogan specifically recognises differences in needs, and therefore differences in 'income' under a socialist system. This is concordant with Marx's other writing on the matter. It means that in terms of what people need, they'll have access to it. But people have different needs. How can the 'outcomes' possibly be equal if the outcomes are a result of concrete, different needs and life situations? The outcome of a mother of three being given what they need is different from the outcome of a single civil engineer. Both the inputs (based on what they need) and the outputs (the outcomes) vary between each person.
Further, in every society as Marx notes, there is some amount of surplus. If everyone's needs are covered, Marx argued for an allocation based on contribution, at least in the lower phase of Communism (sometimes called socialism). Let's go into what Marx actually said:
>Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society – after the deductions have been made – exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, the social working day consists of the sum of the individual hours of work; the individual labor time of the individual producer is the part of the social working day contributed by him, his share in it. He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another. [0]
So it seems that Marx proposes a system, his 'lower phase of Communism', which Lenin took to mean 'socialism' - in which people get out what they put in, accounting for deductions (which Marx enumerates as deductions for health care, education, care for those who cannot work, provisions in the case of disaster, and expansion of production). In what possible way does "everyone get the same outcome" here? More,
>Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on.
Does this sound like 'equality of outcome'?
[0] Karl Marx - Critique of the Gotha Program (Part I, 1875).
This slogan describes the state of affairs in the society that Communists were aspiring to build, the Communism. It's a class-less and state-less (one and the same from their point of view) paradise, where nobody has to work and all needs are taken care of.
The USSR was not in the Communism, it had Socialism (which is not "a lower phase" but a "transitional state on the way to the Communism" as same as Capitalism, Feudalism, Slavery etc.). However, as far as equality goes, they subscribed to the French Revolution's "liberty,equality,fraternity" with a huge emphasis on "equality", "fraternity" meaning that Soviet people had to help other peoples ("fraternity of peoples") and "liberty" meaning "absence of slavery".
This short video[1] seems instructive in terms of norms in the former Soviet Union. These are named as bad things in that context: "career builder", "initiative at work", some specific Russian noun for "different thinker". Then punishments for "non-conformity".
Consider the phrase also said to have been popular in the USSR, "Everything Marx said about Capitalism was correct, but everything he said about Communism was wrong."
Philosophy of the USSR changed significantly over it's history, and it's actual philosophy, as applied in thinking and decision-making, was at times very different from the public image and propaganda.
You're talking about Marx and Lenin, but one of the first deep changes in USSR history was Stalin's raise to power - and with him, complete rejection of the "world revolution" and nationalistic "socialism in one country", up to re-establishement of orthodox church in the 40s.
Sovient Union was a completely different country with every decade of it's existence. In a dogmatic system it was not openly articulated, and leaders continued to pay lip service to "Marx and Lenin", but their real economic and political decisions were often in complete odds with the original values.
> It reminds you of the Soviet Union because the underlying philosophy is the same. Equality at all costs.
Cannot laugh more at that.
The Union has never been, or at least not the union my father's memory, about that.
It was strongly regimented, rigid, very hierarchical, caste society. The communist fraternity has been a model aristocracy, with its primary imperative being maintenance of party member's status, and privilege.