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The handicaps only enforce sameness because there are inequal amounts of handicaps on people; the more handicaps you have, the stronger you are. It's clear who is actually equal and who is forced into sameness. Most people would react very negatively to enforced sameness, especially in their private lives.

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I don't believe it is fair because if you are much stronger than the average person, you have to wear much heavier waits than other people.

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The handicapping does not make anyone equal! In my opinion being equal means being treated the same, not being the same. If everyone is the exact same than how can we define who we are. We lose all means of expressing ourselves. On the other hand, with everyone being the same it can help with comparisons and competitive nature. An example of this can be found anywhere in any private school. With everyone wearing  the same uniform there is less competition with looks. I just think this story takes it to an extreme.

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when some people have more handicaps than others should it not be still unfair, I mean wouldn't it be sameness if everyone just wore the same mask, clothes and all had the same earphones. so I know this does not support sameness due to the fact that they are still supporting people having advantages over others. and if handicaps were enforced then I would have to assume that there would be people that would rebel.

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Handicapping in the story isn't fair, having loud noise used in your ears as a way to scatter thoughts is a good idea in the slightest. The handicapping isn't fair in any capacity as trying to control environmental and genetic factors are nearly impossible. Different standards exist for different people, by this I mean people will have different expectations and ideas that handicapping can't stop. In terms of method I disagree, there are plenty of other ways to give people equal opportunity by doing a bracket system instead where the high end of the bracket compete against the high end. In terms of the way handicapping is done it is done very poorly and used the wrong way.

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It did change my perspective on what 'equal' really means

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In my opinion having the handicaps doesn't make people equal. The handicaps forces people to be the same not equal as not everyone has the handicaps. People in our society would react negatively if handicaps were enforced.

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I disagree with the "make everyone equal by taking things away from others" idea. It's absolutely unnecessary and if you limit the intelligence of intelligent people, no good ideas can be made

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Their goal was to make everyone in the world equal, and they did this. It may not be fair but they completed their job to the best of their ability- technology wise. Although this does not make the world a better place, just one that is bland and the same from person to person. If this happened now I feel like we would have an uproar. People would find a way to hack these or make a work around.

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The handicaps in the story are used to make people the same by having more handicaps the more advantaged or above average a person is. They accomplished their goal of making people equal by handicapping anyone stronger, smarter, or more beautiful, so this is not fair. People in our society would certainly react in a negative way if these kinds of laws were enforced.

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The way handicapping works in the story is unfair because people who a naturally born better have to be handicapped down to a very low "average."

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Being equal means everyone has the same opportunities as everyone else, no matter how you look or how strong you are, or how smart you are.

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In the story's perspective it is fair that some people have more handicaps than others in order to keep sameness. In my opinion however, I see this as unfair because people with more handicaps are forced to be the same as others.  People who have more handicaps than others have a very high intelligence than others, so the multiple handicaps are there to keep them from reaching their true potential and making them easier to control. These handicaps are what stop people from going over the average intelligence and keep every the same as each other.  People here today would protest against these handicaps because it would be taking away their freedom of thought and speech.

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in my opinion it is not fair some people have to wear more hanicaps than others. to make everyone equal they should really make everyone better instead of making people worse. if people in our society had handcaps they would feel unequal which is the entire point of the handicaps.

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In the story, the governments idea of equality was altered so that everyone who wasn't like the others were treated as if they had an unfair advantage over the others. True equality is the act of treating others equaly and not punishing them for being higher than average in something. This influence also reaches to the people being handicapped, as they think that it is completely normal to be handicapped. We can see this affect when George is telling Hazel the consequences of taking off weights. I don't think that our society would allow this sort of thing to happen. We would treat it as discrimination.

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Equality, as most people conceive it, is not practical or really possible. Having equal opportunities for all relies on us all agreeing what 'equal opportunities' even means, and that is an intangible goal. Equality is not everyone being the same, but everyone being treated, not as 'we are all equal in all aspects', but 'We care for everybody we interact with, not picking and choosing who we care to help and who we cast aside.'

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in my personal opinion it is equal when we accept our differences, not take them away. i mean that when you wear a t-shirt your expressing yourself, when someone else does the same thing with a different shirt no difference has been made. that is what equality is, the opinion of yourself and others to achieve a communal relation, while ignoring each others differences.

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I do not believe that it is fair for people to have more handicaps than others. The reason being that by putting massive amounts of handicaps on people, you are tearing away freedoms from the people. The reason why sameness is being met, and not equality is with the handicaps. If the purpose was to make everyone equal, then there would still be distinctions from one person to another. However, since everyone is reduced to the same mental and physical level, it is creating multiple of the same "equal" person. I don't think that the people of this nation would even let a scenario like this be carried out unless everyone had their brains removed. Someone is always going to be opposing ideas and fighting for counter ideas. Nevertheless, IF a scenario like this would play out, then I don't believe people would be very happy at all. Each of us have a certain skill set which make us interested and good at a specific job. Football players have lots of muscle and are huge because they need to be for the sport. A scrawny guy wouldn't last a second. But I don't think the scrawny guy would be bothered by this, because he knows it's not the job for him. Because of his mental capabilities, the scrawny guy has a job in computer science. And that fits him. The main reason why I don't think people would be ok with this is that they would feel their rights are being stripped away. Being forced to wear these ridiculous contraptions just to look and act the same seems illogical. People who would think up ideas to overthrow this injustice wouldn't have the chance to because of the mental handicaps.

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In my opinion being equal means having the same opportunities as everyone one else and to be treated the same.

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I think a quote from a book series I read does a really good job of summing up how I think: "Beware the engineers of society, I say, who would make everyone in all the world equal. Opportunity should be equal, must be equal, but achievement must remain individual"

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Being equal means to treat everyone the same way, whether they have a different religion, race, ethics group. Being equal doesn't mean everyone has to be the same. There are some people who do better than others in certain activities, some who are smarter than others. But that's okay as along we treat others with the same respect we have, we become one and the same, no matter what are stats are. Vonnegut's view of equality is something not to strive for. In order to achieve physical & mental equality in his eyes, the government would need to torture it's citizens to do through the use of handicaps.

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In the idea of the story, everyone should be equal. So if others having more handicaps to make everyone equal then it is fair. In my opinion, I don't think it's fair because that's more weight or more pain one person has to go through just to be equal. After going through all this everyone is still not equal, they're making everyone the same. This is because if everyone was equal no one would have to feel more pain than the other person. As shown when Hazel is envious of the noises George gets to hear here which shows that they are not equal. They're only the same because they're all brought down to about the same level of intelligence. If this idea was put in our society some people would like it and many people would hate it. Anyone who has ever been compared to someone smarter or better than them may feel that it's finally their time to have the same playing ground. Anyone who strives at the things they're good at or take advantage of their looks by modeling would feel like they got the short end of the deal. I think we're all good at one specific thing so to have us, all the same, would be absolutely miserable.

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To me, being equal means less judgement, same opportunities in life, and not being restricted by appearance, age, race, gender, etc. Being equal is not equivalent to being the same, though they do have similar meanings, they are not the same thing. Through this story, we were able to see Vonnegut's view on equality and how our dreams of equality might actually be harmful. The story is similar to if we were not to help people in poverty and instead have anyone richer go into poverty. It would achieve economic equality but would be more harmful than helpful.

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To be equal is not to be the same. To be the same is to have things be a very exact way with no error to the formula which if this was the intent the handicaps failed to do anything other than make everything worse off. To be equal is to have the same opportunity and also to have the same level of ability respective to where you sit in other criteria like in this short story; attractiveness, intelligence, and athletecism.

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In society today this would not work! people are already too creative and smart to find ways to work around it. Also I feel like it would cause the amount of mental health issues to rise extremely fast. Right now a big issue is people feeling like they need to be perfect and getting dragged down by that, but what happens when there is no "perfect".

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In my opinion, being treated the same way could easily lead to equality if done correctly. On the other hand, I believe being handicapped to be the same as other people is a minor form of cruel punishment. The person or group of people being handicapped is just going to bring them pain. And even though being physically handicapped might lead to being physically the same, no one will ever be the same simply because every person is unique in some way and essentially no one can control that since most of it is mental.

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in my opinion being equal means everyone has the abillity do do the same things as everyone else. being equal does not mean being the same. being the same means everyone is on the same level and knowone is uniqe.

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In the story, it seems that equal refers to no one person is better, smarter, prettier than another person. In my opinion equal means that everyone has the same rights and punishments, the same chance at doing something, and the same ability to thrive in something they're good at. Being equal does not mean everyone must be the same. We are all are different for a reason, we can be equal in different ways. after reading Vonnegut’s story, he has a darker way of looking at equality. Instead of raising everyone up to the same standard, he's bringing everyone down to the lowest point. I think what he says in his story is that although we have this great idea of equality, actually achieving that could be hurting  us way more than helping

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I don't think its fair at all to strip someone of there natural god given abilitys to make other people feel better about themselfs

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Being equal doesn't mean that everyone is the same level of dumb that is so unhelpful to the world. Being equal means that no one is cut down for there race or the color of there skin. That everyone is treated equally

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To be equal is to be treated as an equal human being. No one person is treated better than another for any reason. Equality and sameness are very different. With equality, there is still the unique individual. With sameness, there is no unique personality from one person to another. I believe Vonnegut's view on equality is that it is good at heart, but if people pursue absolute equality, they're going to hit a dead end. Every person is different, and punishing those with desirable traits to meet the ones without is just as bad if not worse than there being an equality in the first place.

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The concept of equality isn't, 1. how the story describes it, 2. isn't that we all get the same opportunities. I is however, the concept of giving them the same ORIGINAL starting space. we all get equivalent amounts of talent. but we don't get equivalent amounts of opportunity. this may be because your parents didn't get the same amount of talent and the rich kid's parents did at handling money. and while yes, it's not your fault, you still have to deal with that. you pay for your bloodlines mistakes. but you also reap the fruits of their strengths. and while you still pay for your bloodline's mistakes, there is only so much those mistakes can ask for. eventually(if YOU can use YOUR talents right) you will be free of those mistakes. and at that point you can shine. As a great woman of MY bloodline once said, "You can't go your whole life without tasting a speck of dirt.". So i say, "Get down and dirty. work Until you cant work, and then work some more. once you have finished working, work even more. because once you're done, You will be truly equal, and truly yourself."

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For me personally, being equal has a few factors to it. one of them being that you should have the same number of opportunities as other people. Another one is obviously to be treated the same way as other people are. Also, you just can't put handicaps on people who have better abilities and assume that they are the same. Handicapping people is basically only bring that person or group of people pain and still won't make that person the same as the other people by being the same even though there are some benefits to being handicapped that I can think of.

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prompt 1- the author used the term equality in the worst case senario, and in my opinion thats kind of not good, because its not likely to happen, instead of the weighing down the helthy poeple, theyd prolly give the disabled people better treatments so that they would be able to evolve.

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promt 2- so the authors concept of equality isnt exactly correst, equality isnt bringing down the smart and healthy, they would try to provide more help to the ones in need of it.