Fun with Excel - Equality VI

Part of my approach to explaining my views on equality involves a lot of calculations that bog down my computer. My latest spreadsheet maintains this problem, but there is one key difference. Most of my spreadsheets relating to equality made calculations that kept me from looking at many categories. I have been trying to make my point about how a key to equality from an individualist's perspective. This has included random values for a limited number of skills, showing that the more skills you consider, the more equal people are likely to seem. This time, I'm utilizing simpler calculations, and most cells have been converted to values only. This spreadsheet can be found at: Equality VI.xlsx


This is still heavy on the calculations. To help out, I reduced the number of people considered from 100,000 to just 10,000. I also replaced most formulas with values. For each person, I calculated a full 200 possible skills. In short, I was using the law of large numbers to help me prove my point. I also provided averages for 1 skill, 2 skills, and up to 200 skills to show an overall value for each person for the different number of skills considered.

I included a summary page. This includes calculations for the overall ratings if we consider 1 skill, 2 skills, and up to 200 skills. Among these calculations is the maximum rating, the minimum rating, the average rating, and the median rating. A chart has been included showing how these values change as more skills are considered. Of particular note is the average, which is very close to .50 at all times and getting even closer. By averaging the overalls, this is essentially an average of a larger number. If I could go past 200 skills, all of these values should approach .50. Median is similar.

Another section has been included to show percentile ranks. In case anyone doesn't know, this means that the rating shown at 10% consists of people who have 90% score higher and 10% score lower. Since 10,000 is a round number (in the decimal system), this would effectively be the 9,000th highest ranking. Looking at just one skill, this value is predictably at about .1. Other percentages are similar. Once you add additional skills, these percentile rankings change substantially. Over time, all of these will approach .50.

The point that I'm trying to make is that the more you consider about each individual, the more equal they can become. Granted, this does not include considerations that certain skills can relate to others. In some cases, this could be skills that are likely to be similar. In other cases, these could be skills that can have tradeoffs.