Like many words, the F word is controversial, it’s definitely used too often, and for many people the F word has different meanings. If for example, I said that it was ‘not fair’ that Dennis Rodman had a growth spurt when he was about twenty, you’d ask: ‘why o’ sage counsel is that not fair?’ I’d look down upon you through my reading glasses at the end of my nose and reply that it’s not fair because other basketballers who actually liked playing the sport didn’t have growth spurts. (Dennis Rodman openly admitted he didn’t really like basketball by the way.) Fair enough you’d say, ‘but what about Michael Jordan’s brother?’ Michael’s brother was a better basketballer than Michael and even Michael has said this many times. But his brother Larry was not very tall - only 5 ft 9” which is enough to be either a tiny basketballer or a gigantic jockey. What isn’t fair about this is that while Larry could execute a perfect three point field goal, he couldn’t ride a horse and this is only because he didn’t have access to horses and the non-access to horses is of course racist for reasons. But if he could have had access to horses (through a government-run horse access program for minority youths in North Carolina), he would have been unable to win as a jockey, but would still be huge nonetheless. I don’t mean metaphorically huge of course, I mean that Larry would have been the only 160 pound jockey around. Naturally, if Larry wanted to be huge as a jockey (metaphorically this time), then another government intervention would mean letting him ride a bigger and/or turbo-charged horse - or if North Carolina government regulations on the importation of exotic breeds allowed - a cheetah. But does riding a cheetah make you um, ‘a person who acts dishonestly in order to win or gain an advantage’? If so, then despite the sudden emergence of annoying homophones, this discussion just got more interesting. If Larry was able to ride a cheetah then it would make him more likely to win because everybody knows cheetahs are the fastest land animal on Earth. Also, horses are scared to death of cheetahs and they wouldn’t want to run anywhere near it. Larry would definitely have a clear advantage, but it would be justified because he didn’t originally have access to horses remember because of racism. But then of course the other jockeys would use the F word in response to Larry’s clear advantage. They would scream and shout until they were er, hoarse at the officials and other people involved in the administration of equine-based sports. Naturally, or as the Germans would say natürlich, this brings our discussion to the issue of equity (not equine). Equity is the word used instead of the F word in many instances. However, it doesn’t mean the same thing as the F word. An example would be if you stepped on a brand new Lego brick in bare feet, in Antarctica and the brick was on fire and instead of screaming fuck!, you said f*dge! In this instance, you’d be using one word that is profane slang meaning: For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, while the other is just an overepriced soft sugary snack.
I asked the AI image creator thing to make a picture of 'a basketballer leading a horse race, but racing on a cheetah' and this is what it came up with. My only question is this: Why did you assume the basketballer would be sponsored by NIKE? Unbelievable.
So we’ve now established the difference between equity and fairness. Or have we? I once had a student tell me the difference between the two by means of an illustration. Let’s say you go to a basketball game and one of the people you go with is in a wheelchair. If you both have the same seats with near-identical views of the court, then that would be fair. However, if the person in the wheelchair was unable to see over the people in front, then that would not be equitable. In order for the fairness to be equitable, the wheelchair would have to be jacked up with er, jacks or be sitting on one of those cherry pickers, or some kind of rudimentary stage with a ramp that meets with current safety regulations within the relevent juristiction. So fairness would be contingent upon equity and the equity would be contingent upon the type of jack, or cherry picker, or the yet-to-be-constructed stage that is subject to the aforementioned safety regulations. As you can no doubt by now appreciate, the process of executing true fairness is simple.
From this excellent discussion we could propose a solution to the issue of fairness as it pertains to basketball. After all, basketball has been central to our erudite discussion so far. But, I also have something to reveal that as far as I’m concerned is revolutionary. As we all know, basketball requires goals to make points. There are only two goals in the game, one on each side. Both goals are identical in height and in size. The height of the basketball goal is ten feet, while its width is eighteen inches. But the players are different heights and some of them are very tall. Some of them are almost as high as the basket. This is neither fair nor equitible - especially when it comes to wheelchair basketball - but more on that later. Consequently, I propose a design for a moving, robotic basketball goal with an adjustable apparatus that allows for it to chase down players who are not tall and allow them to make a goal. The apparatus could also be adjustible in the width of the basket itself, thereby allowing players who ae shitty to be provided with the equity needed for fairness to enable equity to enable fairness. This ‘circular interplay’ of fairness and equity (or equity and fairness so as to be fair to equity), will be er, good. Here is my proposal:
For this design we have adapted some readily available components from existing machines and well as the wheels from my brother-in-law's Range Rover. The horizontal frame is from an actual 14th century Trebuchet, while the vertical section is from a forklift that was just sitting in a warehouse that was closed over the Easter long weekend and the actual goal is surplus to requirements from a local park.
As you may already have realised, this will revolutionise fairness and equity and equity and fairness. Everybody will be able to score a goal, everybody will be a winner and some people will get run over. But everybody will be a winner (except the people who get run over, who will die).
