A level playing field.

I've been iterating on a thought experiment that aims to answer the question: "What makes a winner?"

Within any social context, there is the "playing field" - the set of rules and assumptions about an individual's status in society. Owning property, for example, is a central part of capitalism. But what if we consider a truly level playing field? What would that even look like? And what sort of experiment could we run to truly determine somebody's intrinsic value?

Part One: The Rating System

I'll start the thought experiment by first tallying up my privileges and subtracting away my disadvantages.

For the privileges: I'm white, which makes me part of the majority in the U.S. In other countries race might not be as big of a factor, but unfortunately here it does have an impact. I do enjoy certain privileges being born male - such as not seeing career discrimination for being pregnant. I come from a middle class family where I received a good education and had parents invested in my success. There wasn't any drug or alcohol use by my parents growing up. I don't have any major physical disabilities. I was exposed to computers at an early age, graduated from high school, and landed an internship that taught me software development. I'm married, which gives me a safety net as well as tax and legal benefits.

For the disadvantages: I never received a college education, I was born into a cult (that I've since left), and I don't own a house.

Is that fair? The answer: no. I obviously have way more advantages than disadvantages. So can I really count my successes as intrinsic? It seems more reasonable to think that I'm just a by-product of my environment and that I've won some sort of birth lottery that guaranteed me a good position in society. In a way, I can't truly take credit for any of my success. After all, being born on a playing field on top of a hill is not quite fair.

So, let's continue the thought experiment. What could we do to balance this out? I spent some time considering different equations that could give a person a number that represents their "privilege" level - and finding ways to evaluate current privilege as an ongoing function. For example, escaping for an abusive relationship was a disadvantage for a long time, but now you're stronger for it. That's more of an advantage than somebody who is currently in an abusive relationship. Assigning a number to each criteria and summing them up is one way.

It's not the only way though. There's a better way. Simply take a cross section of society - people from every race, gender, economic background, family situation, and education level, and create a jury. Maybe it's 5 people. Maybe 20. In any case, the jury would evaluate a candidate and determine how that person stood in relationship to the theoretical average person. Maybe there's a rating system like chess's Elo rating system.

In this way, people can be sorted by their average privilege level and assigned a number, without diving too deep into any formula.

Part Two: The Equalizers

Now is where we begin recruiting people for the game. Let's picture it as a reality T.V show where the winner nets a cool million dollars. The goal? Starting from scratch - as in with only the clothes on your back, be the first person to save $25,000. The catch? Each contestant's privilege is neutral.

How would this work? We could take a second jury whose goal is to suggest balancing factors that would bring someone's privilege to neutral. For example, if you were born male, you may have to pretend that you have a physical disability, or pretend that you have a woman's name when applying for jobs. If you were born white, you may be required to forego using any documentation that proves you can legally work in your country. If you were born with a physical disability, you might get a support network of people helping you to land a job, or find a community. If you have a college degree, you can't use it, etc.

The nature of the balancing factor is to neutralize your privilege so everybody begins the game at the same point. The first jury (the ones responsible for ranking people based on privilege) would then re-review the candidate along with their new handicaps or boons and either accept the candidate as neutral, or request additional adjustments.

At the end, each contestant is truly on a level playing field and then we start the game.

Part Three: The Game

You have your contestants, perhaps 20 in total, and place them all within the same city at the same spot. It's a city none of them have been to and in which none of them have any family or work ties.

They have the same clothes, the same phone (for emergency calls only) - that can also record video of them as they play the game. And that's it. They're effectively homeless with no assets or connections.

The rule of the game is simple: you must respect the equalizers (whatever boons or banes the jury selected for you) or be disqualified. The first contestant to earn $25,000 wins the game and the million dollar prize.

Joe, our first contestant, can't apply to any jobs that use computers since he has a background in I.T. Alexandra, however, never graduated high-school because of her family situation and is given the boon of a Toyota to get around town. All the candidates scatter - GPS tracks them and they get a notification to record a short video of themselves every hour or so.

Mary goes to a church and networks with people - asking for help or a job. Maurice goes to the library and looks for work opportunities or community events. Making connections with people might be the best way to get started, but perhaps one candidate has a different strategy.

They all deposit their money into a tracked bank account, doing what they can to tip the number over $25,000 and the first contestant that does, wins!

Finale

The winner is announced to much fanfare (perhaps champagne, assuredly amongst family and friends), knowing they truly are the best. They're intrinsically better because of who they are on the inside - not because of how society sees them. It's how they interact with people, their beliefs, and their motivation that propelled them to overcome the same odds as everybody else and come out on top.

If that's not worth rewarding, what is?

P.S: Because the show runners are such generous people (and the show so successful), they donate another million dollars to help build more resilient communities. 😉