> this is basically the diametric opposite of the liberalism which seems to focus on equalizing outcomes in society rather than empowering people to escape victim mentality.

I think the biggest problem in our political discourse is the degree to which people from different viewpoints/parties/etc make statements that aren’t the best faith representation of the other side’s perspective.

In this instance, I’ve never actually heard anyone besides liberals make the “equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome” comparison. I think a more reasonable dichotomy is that conservatives make the assumption that everyone has roughly equal opportunities while liberals don’t. In the end, both actually do believe in equality of opportunity.

As someone who does ML, you should connect with the probabilistic argument well: if we assume that am everyone has the same opportunities, who would we consistently see such disparities in outcome? The only answer is that there is something intrinsic to these groups that leads them to be the cause of their own shortfalls, which is the conservative argument you put forward here (that black culture is the problem).

The liberal counter argument is that there is a strong weight of hundreds of years of history in America to suggest that opportunity is very much not equal. Further, it’s an American value that we assume all people are equal regardless of race, therefore it’s most reasonable to assume that such disparities are the result of bias. This of course does not mean that individuals aren’t able to be statistical outliers due to their own efforts.