It’s a turn of phrase but I don’t actually understand what all things being equal means.
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You’re trying to compare two things. There’s lots of ways those two things could be different but you’re only interested in talking about one particular way they might be different. So for purposes of the discussion you assume that the two things are identical in all of the other ways they might be different except for the specific way you’re interested in discussing.
There’s really an implied “other” in there: “all *other* things being equal, X is true.”
“All things being equal, I prefer crunchier apples.” There are lots of things that impact your enjoyment of an apple, but given two apples that are identical except for their crunchiness, you would prefer the one that is crunchier.
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