Great, thanks for making a clear assertion.

IME, that particular assertion has been discussed at length for years. Is it intellectually curious or interesting to start over again? Why would you want to have the discussion again? But I asked for it, so I'll go along with it a little.

...

Imagine a wealthy hedge fund manager's white male kid, a graduate of Exeter and a reasonably qualfied candidate, is denied admission to Harvard. How does and doesn't that implicate equity? Imagine a bicycle delivery person's Latina female kid, a graduate of an underfunded public school and similarly qualified to the other kid, is denied admission to Harvard, or is admitted but can't afford it. How do those situations differ?

White billionaires and Latinx poor - an extreme example used for simplicity (skipping the real-life complexity of, for example, Latinx billionaires) - are both 'groups', and each individual in both groups should have equal rights and something like equal opportunity. But to infer that the two situations are therefore the same with regard to equity is, IMHO, obviously false - to the point of being dishonest and just disruptive, demanding we spend our time explaining it. So I'm going to skip the explanation and assume we all understand those parts. ...

...

A few thoughts on the issues:

Discrimination x Power = Harm

The harm caused by discrimination is some of the worst in human history. To cause harm, discrimination requires power. Imagine Native American businesses in Los Angeles refused to hire white people. It would be discriminatory but mostly harmless - the white person's job market is statistically unaffected because Native Americans as a group have little power. But if white people decided not to hire Native Americans, there would be lots of harm; it would effectively end careers and economic opportunity for many Native Americans because white people have enormous power (and such things have happened). Using a ten point scale,

(1) 10D x 0P = 0H
(2) 10D x 1P = 10H
(3) 1D x 10P = 10H

(1) The truly powerless can cause no harm, ipso facto - they are powerless. (2) Even with maximum discrimination, the weak are limited. (3) Even minimal discrimination by the powerful can cause significant harm.

Young male education: IMHO it is a real problem that isn't getting enough attention. I doubt it's tied to race (is there evidence that it varies by race?) and while I suspect it's tied to family wealth, I'm not sure - that is, I could imagine that wealthy males and low-wealth males both perform at 80% of female economic peers, but that still lands wealthy males in college because of economic inequity. Still, I don't know those gender differences are an issue of equity - not every problem is an issue of equity.

> I think people who are genuinely working toward equity would advocate it for all people. Groups who only advocate for equity when it favors certain groups aren't really working toward equity at all.

I agree to a point. First, people have limited resources; they can't solve every problem for everyone; you can't tell a brain surgeon that they are discriminating against cardiac patients. Second, sans harm (see above), there is no issue of equity; nobody needs to advocate for white billionaires (though it seems that more HN commenters advocate for Elon Musk than for poor people in disadvantaged groups).

Most importantly, IME people who raise the parent comment's well-worn question advocate against equity measures for black people, women, and other disadvantaged groups. I don't recall any of them (I don't know you) supporting equity measures for those groups and arguing to add, for example, measures for poor white males.