A Philosopher's Blog

Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

Redefining “Woke”

by Leave a Comment

If you live in Florida or listen to the news, you have almost certainly heard the term “woke” and might wonder what it means. The short version is that it now means everything and nothing. The longer version involves looking at how “woke” has been captured and transformed into a rhetorical weapon.

The most extensive use of “woke” is by the governor of my adopted state of Florida and many of his fellow Republicans. What does DeSantis mean by the term? It seems to mean whatever he wants it to mean. In what follows, I will look at the rhetorical weaponization of “woke.”

In the beginning,  “woke” meant “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.” Through use, the term gradually expanded to include the broad areas of identity politics and social justice. While originally seen as a positive term, “woke” has been redefined in increasingly negative ways.

Around 2019, it began to be used ironically and to mock people for insincere performative activism and virtue signaling. It is also now taken to mean “to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.” While somewhat vague, this definition does have a set meaning. However, “woke” has been subjected to a fascinating rhetorical modification to make it mean everything and nothing. This can be traced back to Christopher Ruffo redefining “critical race theory” in March, 2021: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.  We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

What is fascinating about what Ruffo did is that he did this in public, on Twitter and you can still see the tweet today (assuming Musk has not destroyed Twitter). In effect, he told everyone that he is engaging in a deceit without any concern that doing so would undercut his efforts. This seems to entail that he thinks that his audience is in on the deceit. This is analogous to a con artist Tweeting that they are running a con; this only makes sense if they think the marks do not care or will happily go along with the con.

What Ruffo is doing here is creating a Balloon Man. The Balloon Man is a variant of the Straw Man fallacy in which the target is redefined in an excessively broad or vague manner. This expanded definition, the Balloon Man, is taken to include a wide range of (usually) bad things. This Balloon Man is then attacked, and it is concluded that the original is defective on this basis. This Balloon Man redefinition of “critical race theory” proved successful but it was soon engulfed by the term “woke.” That is, critical race theory is now generally presented as but one example of what is “woke.”

This move could be called creating a Zeppelin Man. Zeppelins are airships that contain multiple inflated cells, so they can be seen as being made of multiple balloons. As a rhetorical move or fallacy, this would be a matter of making a term that has been made into a Balloon Man part of another term whose meaning has also been redefined in an excessively broad or vague manner. A fallacy would occur when this Zeppelin Man is attacked to “prove” that the original is defective. For those who are aware that the term is now a Zeppelin, using it in this way is an act of bad faith. But it has numerous advantages, many of which arise because the vagueness of the definition also allows it to perform other rhetorical functions. The redefinition also involves other rhetorical techniques. This is all done to weaponize the term for political purposes.

A key part of the redefinition of “woke” involved the rhetorical device of demonizing. Demonizing is portraying the target as evil, corrupt, dangerous, or threatening.  This can be done in the usual three ways: selective demonizing, hyperbolic demonizing, or fictional demonizing. Selective demonizing is when some true negative fact about the target is focused on to the exclusion of other facts about the target.  Hyperbolic demonizing involves greatly exaggerating a negative fact about the target. Fictional demonizing is simply lying about the target. For example, “critical race theory” (which now falls under “woke”) originally referred to a law school level theory about the impact of race in the law. But, in addition to being made into a Balloon Man, it has also been demonized as something awful. Likewise for the other terms that now fall under “woke.”  The defense against demonizing is to critically examine such claims to see if they are plausible or not.

The right has also been scapegoating wokeness by blaming it for problems that it did not cause. The most recent example is the bizarre efforts of some conservatives to blame the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on wokeness. As would be expected, no serious person gives this any credence since the bank collapsed for the usual reasons we have seen over and over. Presumably this is intended to misdirect people from the real causes (a Red Herring) and to “prove” that wokeness is really bad. While not the most absurd thing pushed by the right, Americans should feel both insulted and offended by this latest attempt at deceit. After all, even the slightest reflection on the matter would show that the idea that a major bank failed because of wokeness is absurd. As such, unless these people think that their base is onboard with their lies, they clearly think their base is ignorant and stupid.

Some of what is included under the redefinition of “woke” includes dog whistles. One version of the dog whistle is to use coded language such that its true (and usually controversial or problematic) meaning is understood by your intended audience but not understood by the general population. This is analogous to how slang terms and technical terms work; you need to know the special meanings of the terms to understand what is being said. Another version of the dog whistle is a form of innuendo. A word or phrase is used to suggest or imply something (usually negative). If you do not know the special meanings or the intended implication, you are excluded, often intentionally so.  For example, “Critical Race Theory” has been assimilated into “woke” but the phrase is now a dog whistle.

Interestingly, the term “woke” itself functions as a dog whistle. Since anyone can technically be woke (and straight white men have claimed to be woke), someone using the term as a dog whistle has that all important plausible deniability.  The dog whistle aspect of the redefinition is a critical part of weaponizing “woke.” After all, making something into a dog whistle means that:

  • Your fellows know what you mean, and they approve.
  • Your foes know what you mean, and they are triggered.
  • Critics can seem silly or crazy to “normies.”
  • Plausible deniability that “normies” will accept.
  • Can onramp “normies.”

The vagueness and demonizing enable the term “woke” to reference what could be called a Universal Enemy. This is a rhetorical technique of broadly defining something in negative ways so that it can serve as an enemy for almost anyone. If the universal enemy is successfully created, then the term can be effectively used to persuade people that something (or someone) is bad simply by applying the term. If pushed enough, this can also be a form of Begging the Question: arguing that something is bad by defining it as bad. If people see “woke” as whatever they think is bad and they think that something is woke, then they will think that it is bad—no actual proof needed. A defense against this technique is to recognize that the redefinition of the term is vague (and the product of demonizing) and not fall for the technique. Crudely put, if “woke” just means “bad”, then it is effectively vacuous.

The vagueness of the redefinition of “woke” also allows for assimilation of anything that expresses criticism of “woke”, whether the critic agrees with the redefined term. For example, someone might create a video or blog that is critical of “woke” defined in terms of performative activism or virtue signaling but also believe that people should be alert to injustice and discrimination. But their video or blog can simply be assimilated and used as “evidence” that “woke” is bad. One common tactic used to assimilate is Headlining: using the title of something that seems to  support what is being claimed. For example, if the imaginary blog or video was titled “Wokeness is Bad for Justice” then it could be used to “prove” that the redefined wokeness is bad for justice. The defense against this is to check the critic’s definition of “woke.” If they are not using the redefined definition, then their criticism does not automatically apply. In the fictional example given, the creator of the blog or video would presumably not support their work being used that way.

The vagueness of the redefinition of “woke” allows it to function as a weasler—a rhetorical device that protects a claim by weakening it. Attacking such a vague definition is like attacking the fog with a stick—it is so diffuse that there is nothing solid to hit or engage with. If the critic does manage to have some success with one aspect of the term, the user of “woke” can simply move on to another aspect and claim victory because the critic cannot possibly engage everything that falls under such a broad redefinition (see the Appeal to Silence). The defense against this is to recognize when the definition of a term is so vague as to be effectively without meaning. While pointing this out to the person using it in bad faith is unlikely to deter them, you would at least show that you have not been deceived by them.

In closing, the redefining and weaponization of “woke” is a clever move by the right in terms of crafting a rhetorical weapon to use in a campaign of deceit and division. However, a recent poll shows that most Americans have not accepted the redefinition of “woke” and see being woke as positive. Most Americans also seem to have far more important concerns than the Republican’s war on woke, so it is not clear that this will be a winning strategy in 2024.

The Pronoun Wars

by 1 Comment

As America faces collapsing banks, closing hospitals, and radioactive waste contaminating elementary schools, most Republicans are laser focused on their war on woke and pugilism against pronouns. This is eminently rational on their part since addressing these other problems would risk the ire of their financial backers, rejection by their base, and put them at odds with their professed ideology. But let us look at the pronoun wars.

While the pronoun war is largely a conflict manufactured by the right using the straw man and nut picking tactics, there is a tiny bit of truth buried deep under all the hyperbole. There are some cases in which people do appear to be acting in extreme ways about pronoun usage and these can be weaponized to “argue” that the left is looney about pronouns. But, of course, this is fallacious reasoning.

I do also get that people can seem to be engaged in pompous virtue signaling about pronouns and that other people can find this annoying. This is analogous to the stereotype of vegans annoyingly telling everyone they are vegans—even if people are fine with veganism, the posturing is annoying. There are also stereotypes of religious goody two shoes telling everyone that they are goody two shoes. Again, it is the posturing that is annoying. But tolerating annoying behavior by having a proportional response is part of being a mature, decent person. People do like to signal that they are virtuous, and people do have a right to express their values, even if other people are mildly annoyed by this. As such, the right thing to do is politely tolerate such mild virtue signaling. But what about cases in which a person is serious (and not just virtue signaling) about their pronouns? My view of this is shaped by the “Mikey Likes It” commercial for Life cereal.

While my name is “Michael” I usually go by “Mike.” I do know some Michaels who go by “Mickey”, but I do not. As far as I can recall, no one has tried to call me “Mickey.” But, as you have probably guessed, people have called me “Mikey.” I do not like that.

The reason why I don’t like being called “Mikey” is that when people use “Mikey” they have almost always been trying to insult or provoke me. I have usually responded by politely saying that I do not go by “Mikey”. If they keep pushing it, it just becomes ever more evident they are doing it to insult or provoke me. People have, of course, claimed that they do not understand why I am taking offense at being called “Mikey” and some have even said that they can call me whatever they want. It has, of course, been a while since this has happened but the pronoun wars reminded me of how much I hated being called “Mikey” by people trying to mess with me in my youth.

Looked at philosophically, my view is that my name is my name and I have the right to decide what name I will respond to. It is not up to other people to decide. This is especially true when they are misnaming me with malicious intent: they are engaged in attempting to insult or provoke me. Obviously, I don’t think this is a serious offense against me—it is on par with other insults or verbal provocations. But it is still a hostile action, motivated by malice or cruelty.

When I hear of people insisting that they be called by their chosen pronouns, I get it—I think of people trying to insult or provoke me by calling me “Mikey.” Their pronouns belong to them and thus they have the right to refuse to respond to pronouns they do not accept. People attempting to impose pronouns on them are most likely trying to insult them, be cruel, or provoke them—and hence are to be condemned in their misdeeds. But wait, someone might say, isn’t forcing people to accept your pronouns forcing them to accept your values?

When made in good faith, there is an interesting issue here of whether accepting a person’s pronouns entails accepting a specific value system about identity.

On the one hand, it can be argued that it is like me expecting people to call me “Mike” rather than “Mikey.” I am not forcing people who believe that “Mikey” is the right short version of “Michael” to adopt my world view about my name; I just expect them to respect my name when they talk to me. If this is too much for them, they can just call me “Michael.” Likewise, if a person has “they” as their pronoun, no one is forced to accept whatever world view might lie behind that choice—the other person can either use “they” or avoid pronouns if they have a sincere commitment against using pronouns in ways, they do not want to use them.

On the other hand, one could argue that using a person’s preferred pronouns is to endorse or at least tolerate the values that are purported to lie behind their choice. For example, a person might use “she/her” and someone talking to them might have a conceptual scheme in which that person is a “he/him.” As such, if they use “she/her”, then they would be respecting the other person’s pronoun choice at the expense of their own professed belief. Likewise, if a person had a sincere belief that “Mikey” is the correct short form of “Michael” then they would be respecting my choice at the expense of their own professed belief.

As another example, imagine that Sally is divorced and changed her name from Mrs. Sally Jones back to Ms. Sally Smith. Now, suppose that Sally is talking to Ted at the DMV and Ted has sincere believes about marriage such that he does not recognize divorce, that he believes that a married woman must go by Mrs., and that a woman must take and keep her husband’s name. Sally is trying to get a new driver’s license as Ms. Sally Smith. Because of Ted’s beliefs about marriage, as a person he refuses to refer to her as “Ms. Sally Smith” and, as a DMV worker, refuses to issue her a new driver’s license. His belief is profound and sincere, but it would be absurd to say that he thus has the right to refuse to accept her choice just because he has a different conception of marriage than her (and almost everyone else). Likewise, one could say it would be absurd for someone to just impose pronouns on people based on their conception of proper pronoun use—even if this is based on sincere beliefs. After all, it is not Ted’s beliefs that should decide how Sally refers to herself.

A person could, of course, be both respectful of the other person and act in accord with their beliefs by simply not using pronouns. After all, if the person asked to use pronouns they do not want to use sees it as an imposition on them, then they would also have to accept that applying pronouns that people do not accept would also be an imposition on them. If someone insists on imposing pronouns on others, then it might be suspected that they are motivated by malice or cruelty.  Obviously, misusing pronouns for the sake of being cruel or from malice would be wrong, even if the person professed that they had sincere beliefs about correct pronoun usage.

In closing, I obviously don’t think that people should be able to use the right to choose their pronouns and name to engage in identity theft, etc. I also do not think that people would identify themselves as attack helicopters or whatever—I say this to show that I am familiar with the rhetoric used in the “debate.” It does no more harm to use the pronouns that people wish to use than it does to use the name they prefer. If it is asking too much to do this, then the easy fix is to simply not use pronouns.

Progressives Put Boebert & Greene in Congress

by 2 Comments

Votes for Women
Progressives

The title of this essay could be interpreted as claiming that Boebert and Greene’s culture war against “the progressives” and “the woke” is what got them into congress. While this is likely, what I mean is that progressives fought for the rights of women to vote and hold office and without them, Boerbert and Greene would be unable to do either.

 

The right tends to be ahistorical or mythological in their approach to the past, so it is not surprising that they rarely talk about how conservatives now accept progressive and even radical views that past conservatives fought. An excellent illustration is women’s rights. Women were granted the right to vote by the 19th Amendment which was ratified on August 18, 1920. While this might seem like a long time ago, there are people still alive that were born before then. Interestingly, the first woman served in congress in 1917.

As would be expected, the battle over women’s right to vote and hold office mostly followed the usual template of conservative arguments for exclusion. One anti-suffrage argument was that women did not want the vote because they took care of the home and children and hence did not have the time to vote or stay informed about politics. Interestingly, this argument was advanced by the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage which was founded in 1911 by Josephine Dodge. Dodge had also led a movement to establish daycare centers for working mothers and was apparently not deterred from political involvement by her own reasoning.

The other argument, which is a stock argument for exclusion, is that women are defective in some manner relative to men: they lack the mental capacity to engage in politics or are too emotional. A “nicer” version of the argument is based on the belief that men and women are fundamentally different and that women would be sullied by getting involved in politics. There were also racist and class arguments against extending the vote: allowing all women the right to vote would allow, well, all women the right to vote even minorities and those in the lower classes.

There was also the “practical” argument that allowing women to vote would increase the cost of elections by doubling the number of voters. Some often unspoken “practical” arguments were concerns that women would act from maternal concern and vote for prohibiting alcohol consumption (which did happen with Prohibition) and vote for safer working conditions and limits on working hours.

While progressives and radicals (including some anarchists) were the people backing women’s suffrage, one argument in favor of it rests on the stereotype of women as maternal and purer than men: the argument was that women voters would clean up politics and government (which was, as noted above, some people worried about). There were also more liberal arguments based on natural rights (citizens have a moral right to have a say in the government) and, of course, the classic “no taxation without representation” argument. Despite the stereotype argument, the movement for women’s suffrage would best be cast as a leftist, progressive, and even radical movement opposed to traditional family values. It is true that the Republican party at the time did support women’s suffrage, but the Republican party of the past is fundamentally different from the Republican party of today (and likewise for the Democrats).  So, what does this mean for today?

Given that women’s right to vote and right to hold office are progressive and even radical views, the fact that the American right (mostly) accepts women like Boebert, Greene, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Nikki Haley in positions of power suggests three possibilities.

The first is that the right is more progressive than it believes and is willing to quietly embrace some progressive values, such as allowing women to vote and hold office. This seems unlikely.

The second is the “Queen Victoria” approach: while these women think they should be in office, this is not a commitment to the general principle that women should have the right to hold office. While possible, there is not much evidence either way—although Boebert recently claimed that women are weaker vessels and because of their frailty need men.

The third  is that while these were once progressive and radical ideas, they are now old enough and established enough to no longer be considered progressive or radical. If so, this indicates that traditional and conservative values can shift over time, albeit at a slower progression than the progressives. On this view, the distinction between progressives and conservatives would also include the factor of time: conservatives eventually embrace some progressive views but it just takes them longer. This seems plausible and if anyone were to suggest to Boebert and her fellows that they are embracing progressive views by holding office, they would presumably deny it and then probably tear into the “woke” and “progressives for wanting to do for others what the progressives once did for women.  This gradual increase in inclusion relative to who gets excluded by the right suggests that in 100 years there might be a trans conservative in office raging (and voting) against rights for synthetic people. This is not intended to be against trans people; the point is that members of any excluded group are people and a person can be an exclusionary bigot even if they are a member of a group that is or was excluded and subject to bigotry. The American right demonstrates this every day. For example, not long ago Italian Americans were not considered white and were subject to discrimination and racism. But now Ron DeSantis, whose family immigrated fairly recently, is infamous for his anti-migrant policies and even his cruelty to migrants.

While I do not expect such people to experience a revelation about the inconsistency of their views and their fundamental immortality, this does nicely undercut the right’s professed world view. Far from holding fast to traditional values, the American right (slowly) shifts and progresses in terms of who is excluded and who is the target of bigotry. True, they do hold to the traditional values of exclusion and prejudice, but the tent really does get bigger. The right has already accepted, with some limitations, women, minorities, and homosexuals—groups they once violently excluded.

This does lead to an interesting question about what will happen if the tent keeps getting bigger. Will the right need to stop expanding the tent or will they eventually need to kick some people back out into the rain? Or could progress eventually put an end to exclusion when there is no one left to exclude? As I suggested above, this might be where technology can save the right for a while: once all humans are included, they can briefly exclude synthetic people. But eventually, there might be a right-wing AI member of congress raging against the people of Alpha Centauri and so on as long as they can find some outsider to exclude. So, the right had better get busy on backing AI and warp drive research.

The Sun Goes Dark

by 4 Comments

Gator watching the sun go dark.In what was once very on brand, my adopted state of Florida has strong sunshine laws. In general terms, the public has extensive access to information about public institutions ranging from the minutes of university search committees to the doings of the governor.

As a professor at Florida A&M University, I am familiar with operating in the sunshine. Almost everything (with obvious exceptions for student grades and health records) we do is subject to public scrutiny. When I have chaired search committees, I must make them available to the public and keep careful records that the public can also access. While it is extra work, I support this on moral grounds: the public has a moral right to know what public money is being used for and what public employees and officials are doing. This also has the moral benefit of making misdeeds harder to conceal. For example, everyone in academics knows about “rigged” hiring in which the results of the search are already pre-determined by political considerations, friendships, or nepotism. While the sunshine laws do not make this impossible, it makes it more likely that hiring will be fair. Unfortunately, there has been a push to darken the sun. In academics, one recent example is that the hiring of university professors has been moved out of the sunshine and into the shadows. While there has been a bad faith attempt to argue that this is needed to attract “top talent”, its purpose is clearly to hide the truth from the public. After all, if this was all about top talent, then it should also apply to faculty hires. But more importantly, Ron DeSantis and the Republican-controlled legislature are busy putting out the sun.

As this is being written, the Florida legislature has filed dozens of bills to expand the already lengthy list of open government exceptions. While it does make sense to keep things like defense plans and intelligence operations secret, these bills do not seem to be aimed at protecting critical state secrets from foreign enemies. Rather, these bills seem aimed at expanding the ability of DeSantis and other politicians and officials to operate without fear of public scrutiny. Ironically, when people complain about law enforcement or the state violating the privacy of citizens, the right usually responds that people who have nothing to hide have nothing to worry about. One could, of course, turn their own rhetoric against them: if they have nothing to hide, they should not fear the sunshine. But they clearly have a lot to hide and hence fear the sunshine. Ironically, despite DeSantis claiming to have made Florida free and raging against “cancel culture”, he and his fellows are working hard to curtail freedom.

Because of his morally awful policies and actions, DeSantis has often been condemned and criticized. As a lover of freedom and a foe of cancel culture, his natural response has been to push to make it easier to bring defamation lawsuits against the media and even people who post on the internet about public officials and employees. Somewhat ironically, his proposal might run up against his own anti-woke campaign. For example, if he goes after “woke” public school teachers or public university professors, then it would seem they could bring a lawsuit against him for this defamation.

The proposed legislation also includes the presumption that anonymous statements in the news are false for the purpose of defamation lawsuits and accusations of racial, sexual or gender discrimination would be treated as intrinsically defamatory. While anonymous claims should be subject to careful assessment, they do have an important place in reporting. After all, people within organizations who are aware of misdeeds will tend to fear retaliation or other harm when they blow the whistle, hence the importance of anonymous statements. This proposal is clearly aimed at using fear of a lawsuit to silence criticism of the state.

DeSantis and many of his fellow Republicans have been accused of discrimination because of such things as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, the (possibly illegal) transport of migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, anti-trans laws, the “war on woke”, DeSantis’ attacks on diversity programs, and so on. This legislation would allow them to weaponize the courts to cancel their critics and take away their freedom of speech. Yes, it is pointless to point out the inconsistency between the right’s rhetoric about freedom and canceling and their actions. They, and their base, know that freedom is the freedom to say what they wish to say and the freedom to cancel those they dislike.

But one can take all the arguments and rhetoric the right uses against “cancel culture” and for “freedom” and apply it against their own proposed laws restricting freedom of expression. In fact, people should play back recordings of DeSantis and his fellows talking about “freedom” and raging against “cancel culture” in response to these proposed laws. It would at least make for a funny clip on YouTube.

This might be the last time I will be able to write anything critical of DeSantis. But it might also be the last time anyone can legally say mean things about me in the comments without risking a defamation law suit. After all, I am a public employee and thus would be protected by the law. Which is absurd—you should obviously have the right to criticize me or even say mean things. Because freedom.

Permitless Carry in Florids

by 4 Comments

Florida currently requires a concealed weapon permit to legally carry a concealed weapon. Getting a permit requires receiving proper training (typically a four-hour class), a background check (with fingerprints), and paying a fee. I have been through this process and was even required to complete the training despite having held hunting licenses and a concealed carry permit from my home state of Maine. As might be expected, I did rather well in the class.

Having gone through the process, I do understand why some people might see it is burdensome and there are certainly reasonable objections to the need to pay a fee for the permit. Then again, it does seem fair to place the burden of the cost of the process on the citizen getting the permit, rather than offloading it onto the other taxpayers.

Given that unsafe gun handling is dangerous, it makes moral sense to require such training—just as is done in the case of hunting licenses. After all, if people are going about armed, then they have an obligation to undergo basic safety training to reduce the chances they will hurt themselves and others. Having spent many years hunting and at gun ranges, I know how dangerous people can be when they do not have a grasp of basic gun safety. That said, it could be argued that the right to keep and bear arms trumps the right to not have some untrained and irresponsible person shoot you by accident.

Ron DeSantis and other Republican leaders are advancing a bill that will allow permitless carry. DeSantis and these Republicans might seem to be something of a paradox: while they dominate Florida, most Floridians disagree or even strongly disagree with many of their policies. In the case of permitless carry, one would expect that 93% of Democrats oppose it. What is surprising is that 77% of independents and 62% of Republicans oppose it. Police often oppose it as well, mostly from the belief that officers will be interacting with more armed citizens. DeSantis has said that while he will support the bill, he would prefer that it also allowed open carry.

One obvious reason to pass this bill is to ensure re-election funding from the gun lobby. There is probably also some thought given to the fear factor: that certain citizens, especially when protesting, will need to worry more about armed people. Open carry does, of course, allow citizens to put on a show of force and engage in armed intimidation—which would be a good reason for DeSantis and his fellows to back this. But is the bill a good idea? Rather than go with biased intuitions and wishful thinking, I will focus on the available data. Unfortunately, the data is not great—in part because of the gun lobby.

Proponents of permitless carry usually advance two main arguments. The first is an appeal to rights argument. On their interpretation of the Second Amendment, requiring such a permit is a violation of the right to keep and bear arms. I will obviously leave the legal question to the Constitutional scholars. But requiring permits does seem to be on good legal standing and opponents of permitless carry point to these laws.

The second argument is the good guy with a gun argument: allowing citizens to carry weapons without a permit will reduce crime (because criminals will be afraid that their potential victims will be armed) and enable good guys with guns to thwart criminal activity.

From a moral standpoint, I do think that the right of self-defense (see, for example, John Locke) gives citizens the moral right to be armed. But this must be assessed in the context of other rights that would place limits on this right. The right to life, for example, would limit the extent to which people can exercise other rights that present a danger to others. This is where the facts matter: if permitless carry did more good than harm, then it would be reasonable to accept it on utilitarian moral grounds. So, what do the numbers, to the degree we have them, show?

Interestingly, while there are plausible studies that show that shall-issue concealed carry laws might increase homicides and some studies showing that they might increase violent crime, studies of the link between total homicides and permitless carry are inconclusive. As such, we do not know what negative effects this bill might have if it becomes a law. Proponents can point to this to undercut opponents. They can also make the usual argument that criminals will ignore the permit laws, so it is only the law-abiding citizens who are affected. But the obvious reply is that a law-abiding citizen who can afford a gun can probably afford the permit and permits are easy to get for law-abiding citizens. And if the cost is a factor, the bill could just remove or reduce the fee.

Opponents can, of course, make an appeal to intuition: allowing everyone to carry a gun without a permit (and training) will mean more firearm accidents and increase the chances of conflicts escalating to gun violence. They will also point to concerns about the alleged risk to both police and citizens in interactions. But these concerns rest on the assumption that a significant number of people will start carrying guns and that they will be less competent and more prone to violence than permit holders. I suspect, but do not know, that when the bill passes there will be an uptick in people carrying guns—simply because they can. But as the novelty wears off and people realize that carrying around a gun can be inconvenient, the number will drop again. That is, things will probably not be as bad as opponents might think. That said, I do still favor the permit and training requirements, but this is because of my moral view that people should have training before they arm themselves. But what about the crime deterrence and thwarting argument?

While the NRA and their fellows advance the intuitively appealing “good guy with a gun” narrative, it is not supported by the evidence. I do get the appeal: we have all seen the TV shows and movies where the hero shoots the bad guys and saves the day. And I suspect that many people have had at least a brief fantasy of saving the day with their heroic gun play (or martial arts). But fiction and fantasy are not evidence. Unfortunately, the available evidence shows that despite the popular misconception, more guns do not stop more crimes.  What should also be obvious is that permitless carry is not a magical change. After all, people can already easily get a permit in Florida. As such, criminals should already be rationally calculating that their intended victim might be armed and there are already lots of good guys and gals with guns. As such, the deterrence and thwarting argument has no real merit, given how easy it is to get a permit.

While I could be wrong, the most reasonable conclusion is that when the bill becomes law there will be a brief uptick in people carrying guns because of the novelty and then most of these people will stop carrying. After all, most people who really want or need to carry already have permits and carrying around a concealed weapon in Florida can be a bit inconvenient.

There is, of course, a risk that there will be an increase in firearm accidents and that some conflicts might escalate to gun violence. As far as the deterrence and thwarting, the evidence indicates that there will most likely be no meaningful impact. I do, however, hope that I get a refund on my permit—I can use that money to buy some more bullets.

AI vs Sci-Fi (Publishers)

by 2 Comments

One iron rule of technology is that any technology that can be used for pornography will be used for pornography. Another is that any technology that can be used for grifting will be used for grifting. The latest grift involves people using AI to generate science-fiction stories in an attempt to sell them to publishers.

Amazon has also seen a spike in AI generated works, although some are being honest about the source of the text. Before the availability of these text generators, some people would steal content from web pages and attempt to sell them as books. This sort of theft is easier to catch than AI generated text and given the current state of detection software, it is likely that AI generated text will generally be able to avoid automated detection. This means that if a publisher wants to sort out AI generated text from human generated text, they will need humans to do the work. As would be expected, some types of work are easier to detect as AI generated than others and the current AI text generators are better or worse at certain types of text. As such, in some cases a human reviewer need not discern whether the text is AI generated, they can simply do what they have always done, which is weed out the bad text. Fortunately for the science-fiction publishers and writers, AI is currently bad at writing science fiction.

But the practical problem is that certain publishers are being flooded with AI generated submissions and they cannot review all these texts. Since an AI can generate a story from a short prompt, a person using one can rapidly create a swarm of stories. In terms of the motivation, it seems to mostly be money—the AI wranglers hope to sell these stories.

One magazine, Clarkesworld, has seen a massive spike in spam submissions, getting 500 in February (contrasted with a previous high of 25 in a month). In response, they closed submissions because they lacked the resources to handle the deluge. As such, this use of AI is harming publishers and writers. As would be expected, some have blamed AI for this and point to this as yet another harm caused by AI. But it is obviously unfair to blame AI.

From the standpoint of ethics, the current AI text generators lack the moral agency needed to be morally accountable for the text they generate. They are no more t0 blame for the text than the computers used to generate spam are to blame for the spammers using them. Obviously, the text generators are just a tool being misused by people hoping to make easy money and who are not overly concerned with the harmful consequences of their actions. To be fair, some people are probably just curious about whether an AI generated story would be accepted, but these are presumably not the people flooding publishers.

While these AI wranglers are morally accountable for the harm they are causing, it must also be pointed out that they are operating within an economic system that encourages and rewards many types of bad or unethical behavior. While deluging publishers with AI spam is obviously not on par with selling dangerous products, engaging in wage theft, or running NFT and crypto grifts, it is still the result of the same basic system that enables and rewards (and often protects) such behavior. In sum, the problem with current AI is the people who use it and the economic system in which it is used. AI has simply become yet another tool for spamming, grifting, and stealing. But there is some interesting potential here.

As noted above, AI generated fiction is currently quite bad (although humans obviously also generate mountains of bad fiction, some of which get published). But it is likely that it can be improved enough to be enjoyable, if low quality, fiction. Some publishers would see this as an ideal way to rapidly generate content at a low cost, thus allowing them more profit. This would, obviously, lead to the usual problem of human workers being replaced by technology. But this could also be good for readers.

Imagine that AI becomes good enough to generate enjoyable stories. A reader could thus go to an AI text generator, type in the prompt for the sort of story they want, and then get a new story to read. Assuming the AI usage is free or inexpensive, this would be a great deal for the reader. It would, however, be a problem for “working class” writers who are not celebrity writers. Presumably, fans would still want to buy works by their favorite authors, but the market for lesser-known writers would likely become much worse.

If I just want to read a new classic style space opera with epic battles and powered armor, I could just use an AI to make that story for me, thus saving me the time of finding one already written and paying more for it. And if the story is as good as what a competent human would produce, then it would be good enough for the reader. If I want to read a new work by Mary Robinette Kowal, I would need to buy it (yes, one could pirate it or go to a library). But, as I have argued in an earlier essay, this use of AI is only a problem because of our economic system: if a writer could write for the love of writing, then AI would largely be irrelevant. And, if people were not making money by grifting text with AI, then they would probably not be making AI fiction except to read themselves. So, as would be expected, the problem is not AI but us.

%d bloggers like this: