The goal is not to directly increase the X:Y ratio -- that&#x27;s just a proxy, or &quot;shorthand&quot; for something more fundamental: equal access to power. Now <i>that</i> goal operates under the assumption that while individuals vary, all groups (a group is what society categorizes as a group) don&#x27;t normally yield power to others; they don&#x27;t want others to control them.<p>The reason talking in ratios (as shorthand) is better than your goal of &quot;void excluding people, and allow them entry if they want (and are capable) of it&quot;, is that we know that what people want and are capable of are much of the time what power directs them to want or be capable of (obviously, not entirely, but it&#x27;s a strong component). So that means that if those in society manage to make some people not want power, then everything is fine -- while others, like me, think it is not.<p>I spent some time writing about poor youth, and one of the things that surprised me is that they all wanted money. That wasn&#x27;t the surprising thing -- what surprised me was that when I asked them how much money they wanted they said something like $60K a year, which seemed like an enormous amount to them. That&#x27;s what the most successful people they know make. So they wanted to open a small convenience store and make that amount of money (or make that money in crime). When I told them that people who go to college and become, say, engineers make a lot more, they just couldn&#x27;t believe me.<p>&gt; Do you favor this?<p>I favor all groups having equal(ish) representation in the seats of power. That means no group is underrepresented, and that no group is overrepresented. Whether to achieve that by what you Americans call affirmative action (which is what you seem to be alluding to) or by fixing the fundamental causes for the inequality -- or both -- is a completely different matter.<p>Also, I have no problem with different groups achieving power in different means. If, say, Asians were overrepresented in tech but underrepresented in banking -- that would be fine. What isn&#x27;t fine is when the same group is underrepresented in most seats of power overall.