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Fictional Outrage at Fiction

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Inuendo Studios presents an excellent and approachable analysis of the infamous Gamer Gate and its role in later digital radicalization. This video got me thinking about manufactured outrage, which reminded me of the fake outrage over such video games as Cuphead and Doom. This sort of outrage has also manifested against the She-Ra and He-Man reboots. More mainstream fictional outrage against fiction involved the Republican’s rant about Dr. Seuss being “cancelled.” In the world of gaming and media, this fictional outrage can lead to real consequences, such as death threats, doxing, swatting, and harassment. In the political world, this fictional outrage is weaponized for political gain, ratchets up the political divide between Americans, and escalates emotions. In short, this fictional outrage at fiction makes our world worse.

While it is probably obvious, I call this fictional outrage at fiction for two reasons. The first is that the outrage is fictional: it is manufactured on an imaginary foundation. The second is that the outrage is at works of fiction, such things as games, TV shows, movies, and books. Since Thought Slime, Innuendo Studios, Shaun, and others have ably gone through numerous examples in great detail, I will focus on some of the rhetorical and fallacious methods used in fictional outrage at fiction. These methods also apply to non-fiction targets as well, but I am mainly interested in fiction here—if only to point out that some people put considerable energy into enraging people about make-believe things like games and TV shows. While fiction is subject to moral evaluation, it should be remembered that it is fiction. Although our good dead friend Plato would certainly disagree with me here.

While someone wishing to generate fictional outrage can simply lie, this is often less effective than basing the outrage on a particle of truth. One way to do this is to make use of the rhetorical tool of hyperbole. Exaggerating a true claim allows the user of hyperbole to pretend that they have a foundation in truth while they generate the desired emotional impact. While this can be debated, hyperbole is usually distinguished from outright lying because hyperbole is an exaggeration rather than a complete fabrication. For example, a person who did not catch any fish would be lying if they said they caught a monster of a fish while a person who caught a small fish would be engaged in hyperbole if they made the same claim. It is true they caught a fish, while it is not true that it is a monster of a fish.  There can be debate over what is hyperbole and what is simply a lie. For example, when the Dr. Seuss estate decided to stop publishing six books, the Republicans and their allies claimed that Dr. Seuss had been cancelled by the left. While it is true that six books would not be published, it can be argued whether saying the left cancelled them is hyperbole or simply a lie. Either way, of course, the claim is not true.

Even if the target audience is aware that hyperbole is being used, it can still influence their emotions, especially if they want to believe what is being claimed. So, even if someone recognizes that “wrongdoing” of a games journalist has been absurdly exaggerated, they might still go along with the outrage. A person who is particularly energetic and dramatic in their hyperbole can also use their showmanship to augment its impact.

The defense against hyperbole is, obviously, to determine the truth of the matter. One should always be suspicious of claims that seem extreme or exaggerated, although they should not be automatically dismissed: extreme claims can be true.

A common fallacy used in fictional outrage is the Straw Man fallacy. This fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person’s actual position, claim or action and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of it. This fallacy often involves the use of hyperbole. This sort of “reasoning” has the following pattern:

 

  1. Person A has position X/makes claim X/did X.
  2. Person B presents Y (which is a distorted version of X).
  3. Person B attacks Y.
  4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed/wrong.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of something does not constitute an attack on the thing itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to physically harm the person. To illustrate the way the fallacy is often used, consider what happened to start the “outrage” over Cuphead. A writer played an early version of the game badly, noted that they were doing badly, and were generally positive about the game. All this was ignored by those wanting to manufacture rage: they presented it as a game journalist condemning the game for being too hard because they are bad at games. At it escalated from there.

The Straw Man fallacy is an excellent way to manufacture rage; one can simply create whatever custom villain they wish by distorting reality. As with hyperbole, there is the question of what distinguishes a straw man from a complete fabrication; the difference is that the Straw Man starts with some truth and then distorts it. To use the Cuphead example, if a person had never even played Cuphead or said anything about it, saying that they hated the game because they are incompetent would be a complete fabrication rather than a straw man.

Straw Man attacks tend to work because people generally do not bother to investigate the accuracy of claims they want to believe; and even if they are not already invested in the claim, checking a claim takes at least some effort—so it is easiest to just believe or not without checking. People also expect others to be truthful, which is increasingly unwise.

The defense against a Straw Man is, obviously, to check the facts. Ideally this would involve going to the original source or at least using a credible and objective source.

A third common fallacy used in fictional outrage is the Hasty Generalization. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough. It has the following form:

 

Premise 1. Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P.

Conclusion: Claim C is drawn about Population P based on S.

 

The person committing the fallacy is misusing the following type of reasoning, which is known variously as Inductive Generalization, Generalization, and Statistical Generalization:

 

Premise 1: X% of all observed A’s are B’s.

Premise : Therefore X% of all A’s are B’s.

 

The fallacy is committed when not enough A’s are observed to warrant the conclusion. If enough A’s are observed then the reasoning is not fallacious. Since Hasty Generalization is committed when the sample (the observed instances) is too small, it is important to have samples that are large enough when making a generalization.

This fallacy is useful in creating fictional outrage because it “enables” a person to (fallaciously) claim that something is widespread based on a small sample. If the sample is extremely small and it is a matter of an anecdote, then a similar fallacy, Anecdotal Evidence, can be committed. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a very small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. The fallacy is considered by some to be a variation on hasty generalization.  It has the following forms:

 

Form One

Premise 1: Anecdote A is told about a member (or small number of members) of Population P.

Conclusion: Claim C is made about Population P based on Anecdote A.

Form Two

  1. Reasonable statistical evidence S exists for general claim C.
  2. Anecdote A is presented that is an exception to or goes against general claim C.
  3. Conclusion: General claim C is rejected.

 

People often fall victim to this fallacy because stories and anecdotes tend to have more psychological influence than statistical data. This leads people to infer that what is true in an anecdote must be true of the whole population or that an anecdote justifies rejecting statistical evidence in favor of said anecdote. Not surprisingly, people most commonly accept this fallacy because they would prefer that what is true in the anecdote is true for the whole population. For example, if one game journalist is critical of a game because it has sexist content, then one might generate outrage by claiming that all game journalists are attacking all games for sexist content.

A person can also combine rhetorical tools and fallacies. For example, an outrage merchant could use hyperbole to create a straw man of an author who wrote a piece about whether video game characters should be more diverse and less stereotypical. The straw man could be something like this author wants to eliminate white men from video games and replace them with women and minorities. This straw man could then be used in the fallacy of Anecdotal Evidence to “support” the claim that “the left” wants to eliminate white men from video games and replace them with women and minorities.

The defense against Hasty Generalization and Anecdotal Evidence is to check to see if the sample size warrants the conclusion being drawn. One way that people try to protect their claims from scrutiny is to use an anonymous enemy—not identifying those in their sample but referring to a vague group such as “those people”, “the left”, “SJWs”, “soy boys” or whatever. If pressed for specific examples that can be checked, a common tactic is to refer to someone who has been subject to a straw man and just use Anecdotal Evidence again. Another common “defense” is to respond with anger and simply insist that there are many examples, while never providing them. Another tactic used here is Headlining.

In this context, Headlining occurs when someone looks at the headline of an article and then simply speculates (or lies) about the content. These misused headlines are often used as “evidence”, especially to “support” straw man claims. For example, an article might be entitled “Diversity and Inclusion in Video Games: A Noble Goal.” The article could be a reasoned and balanced piece on the merits and cons of diversity and inclusion in video games. But the person who “headlines” it (perhaps by linking to it in a video or including just a screen shot) could say that the piece is a hateful screed about eliminating white men from video games. This can be effective for the same reason that the standard Straw Man is effective; few people will bother to read the article. Those who already feel the outrage will almost certainly not bother to check; they will simply assume the content is as claimed (or perhaps not care).

There are many other ways to create fictional outrage at fiction, but I hope this is useful in increasing your defense against such tactics.

 

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The Republican Death Calculation

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As this is being written, 1 in 500 Americans have died of COVID. Some states, especially my adopted state of Florida, are facing a health care crisis as hospital ICUs fill up with COVID patients. The fact that most of these unfortunate people are unvaccinated shows the sad fact that this was an easily avoidable crisis. Getting a safe and effective vaccination would have protected these people and following the health protocols, such as wearing a mask, would also have helped. While these people chose to remain unvaccinated, Republican politicians have been instrumental in enabling COVID to continue to plague America.

Opposing mask and vaccine mandates is the default position in the Republican party. This is exemplified by the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. Rather than simply not imposing statewide mask or vaccine mandates, he has actively used the coercive power of the state to prevent local governments and school boards from having their own mandates. To be fair, he has encouraged people to get vaccinated as he has. But he has started courting the anti-vax part of his base.

While DeSantis has spoked of “medical authoritarianism” and he and other Republicans speak about freedom, this seems to be a bad faith “argument.” After all, DeSantis and his fellows have been busing using the coercive power of the state to ban critical race theory from public schools and to impose various “trans bans.” The impositions are aimed at imaginary harms and impose on meaningful freedoms—such as freedom of expression. While I do agree that people do have the basic right of bodily autonomy, this right (like all rights) is limited by the principle of harm. The “freedom” to refuse a safe and effective vaccination during a pandemic is not a legitimate freedom and can be compared to the “freedom” to decline to have operating brakes on your car: you become a danger to yourself and others. DeSantis and the other Republicans do seem to recognize the harm of the pandemic, as noted above they have been encouraging people to get vaccinated. So why are they not supporting mandates or at least allowing local governments to impose them? The answer would seem to be politics.

Trump and his allies spent months presenting the pandemic as a hoax, downplaying it, and pushing snake-oil “cures.” They also either tapped into or caught the attention of the anti-vax folks. After Trump was soundly defeated in a legitimate election, there was a brief attempt by Republicans to give Trump credit for the vaccine. To be fair to the Republicans, it is likely that most of them wanted Americans to get vaccinated and to get the pandemic over with. Trump even attempted to convince his followers to get vaccinated. Their response was shocking:  they booed Trump. This sent a clear message to Trump and his Republicans: a loud portion of the base had become anti-vax. Testing things out, they found that using the power of the state to prevent vaccine and mask mandates was also popular with the base—one can hear the cheers from their supporters when such announcements are made. If one listens closely, one can also hear the dry coughs of the ghosts of the future. As such, even if Republican politicians wanted to support the mandates or at least not oppose them, they cannot do so without a high political cost: such a rational and ethical act would open them to a primary attack from a challenger with even less ethics.

To be fair to the Republicans, many of them probably hoped they could cash in on being anti-mandate and appease their base while everyone else got vaccinated and brought the pandemic to an end. After all, for a moment it seemed like we were emerging from the pandemic—so the pandering probably did not seem dangerous at the time. But then the Delta strain arrived and COVID cases surged again. Rather than taking the morally correct action of fighting this surge, the Republicans doubled down and stuck with their base. Making this decision presumably involved a rational death calculation.

As noted in an earlier essay, the Republicans are gambling that their gains will outweigh their losses. On the plus side are the votes Republicans will gain and those they will keep. A voter who votes for a  Republican because of this anti-mandate approach who would otherwise vote for the Democrat is a double plus: they get a vote and the Democrat loses one. Gaining or keeping a voter who would not otherwise vote for the Democrat is only a single plus. Each voter who dies who would have voted for the Democrat is also a plus for Republicans. As this is being written, black Americans have had the highest COVID-19 death rate.  This is due to a variety of reasons, such as the fact that black Americans generally have less access to health care than white Americans. Black Americans tend to vote for Democrats, so the death of black voters is a plus for Republicans.

On the minus side are the votes Republicans will lose due to individual voters dying from COVID. COVID is hitting Trump territory hard; so, there might be enough deaths to impact elections in the future.  Also on the minus side are votes lost because of a negative view of Republican COVID policies; these are voters who would have otherwise voted for a Republican but for these polices and their impact. For example, a voter who loses their husband to COVID and does not vote for a Republican because of this would be a lost vote. A Republican suffers a double loss if the voter who would have voted for them votes for the Democrat instead.

Republicans are, of course, not depending on their COVID stance to win upcoming elections for them, they are also busy gerrymandering, forcing recalls, and engaging in voter suppression. If the pandemic kills enough Republican voters, they will need to increase their efforts in these areas.

 

 

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Federal Vaccine Mandate

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The Biden regime has mandated that all employees working for employers with over 100 workers must either be vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing. All employees at health care facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid must be fully vaccinated. This does raise some moral issues.

While some employers had already implemented their own vaccination and testing requirements, this changes the situation. It is one thing for an employer to impose requirements on their employees and another for the federal government to use its coercive power to compel employers to compel their employees to get vaccinated or tested. Since I have already written about the ethics of employers requiring vaccination, I will focus on the ethics of the state requiring employers to require vaccination or testing. I will leave the legality of the mandate to the lawyers.

Determining the ethics of the mandate is a matter of sorting out the legitimate limits of the coercive power of the state. That is, what the state has the moral right (or perhaps even obligation) to use its power to acc0mplish. The evaluation should be done in a consistent and principled manner, as opposed to (for example) deciding based on what one happens to mad about at a given moment.

Aside from the anarchists, most political theorists agree that a basic function of the state is to protect its citizens from harm. For those who value liberty, the actions taken in support of security need to be weighed against the cost of the imposition. While there are many ways to approach this, a basic utilitarian approach is generally a sensible starting point. In the case of Biden’s mandate, the idea would be to weigh its harms and costs against its benefits in protecting citizens. This approach is obviously nothing new. To illustrate, after 9/11 and after almost every terrorist incident since then, the United States has purported to act to increase security against terrorism. These always come with the cost of increased limits on liberty. For example, we have lost the liberty to bring liquids over a certain volume onto a plane. As other illustrations, state governments have passed laws restricting liberty by purporting that they protect people from the alleged dangers of critical race theory, to guard against the purported threat of transgender people, and to defend against  supposed voter fraud. Biden’s mandate is thus in crowded company: he is using the coercive power of the state and justifying it by asserting there is a danger that warrants its use. But is Biden right?

People tend to take a stance based on how they feel about the matter (or what they think other people feel) rather than based on a theory of the state. This is usually because most people, even national politicians, have no such theory. I admit to not having a complete theory, but I do have the basics.

As usual, I am operating within a liberal Locke-Mill framework of political philosophy. I accept that people should be free, that the purpose of government is the good of the people, and that liberty should only be infringed upon based on the principle of harm. I also favor small government: the state’s use of coercive force should be kept at a minimum.

My first consideration in assessing this mandate is determining whether it falls under the legitimate use of the power of the state. The issue is whether requiring vaccination or testing by employers is a legitimate use of the coercive power of the state. In the context of mandates that impose on liberty, I generally follow J.S. Mill: liberty can only be justly restricted to prevent harm to another. COVID-19 is a dangerous and infectious disease. Variants have also appeared that are more infectious than the original and it is reasonable to expect that as the longer the virus is unchecked, the more likely it is that increasingly dangerous variants will arise. As such, the unvaccinated harm others by providing the virus with the opportunity to change—thus becoming a greater threat to everyone. They are literally helping the enemy of humanity become stronger. There is also the fact that the unvaccinated can spread the infection to others; these include people who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. As such, the unvaccinated are aiding the enemy of humanity. There is also the impact on the health care system.

While the American health care system is good for people who have the resources to pay for the care and either live near or can travel to medical facilities, it has long been a problem for people who lack resources and access, such as people in rural areas. This problem is being compounded by the unvaccinated.  As this is being written, 5 states have less than 10% of their ICU beds left, due largely to hospitalizing unvaccinated people. As such, even if an unvaccinated person does not infect someone else, if they get very sick, they still use up limited health care resources—thus doing harm to others who need access to that care. Sometimes people even die.

One could attempt to counter these claims by asserting that the vaccine is dangerous—but the best available evidence shows that this is untrue. Trump was vaccinated early, thus showing he believed it is safe and effective. Even Governor DeSantis was vaccinated, showing that he thinks it is safe and effective. Most Republican politicians are also vaccinated; they also believe that it is safe and effective. As such, the mandate is justified by the principle of harm. But even if  the mandate would prevent harms, this does not entirely settle the issue of whether it is a just use of the power of the state.

A second consideration is the issue of whether the significance and nature of the alleged harm warrants expending public resources to enforce the mandate. Harms vary in significance and even significant harms might not be the right sort of harms that justify the use of the coercive power of the state. As argued above, the harm presented by the unvaccinated is significant—the unvaccinated are infecting other people, serving as “weapon laboratories” for the virus, and wasting limited medical resources with their easily avoidable illnesses. But are these the right sort of harms to warrant using the coercive power of the state?

On the face of it, these harms do seem to be the right sort. After all, these harms are illness, death and wasting of medical resources. The most basic function of a state is to protect the lives of its citizens from dangers and this mandate is aimed at this goal. As such, it is warranted. Since it is Republicans who oppose the mandate, it is interesting to see what sort of things they consider as legitimate uses of the coercive power of the state. One example is that the Texas house has voted, in an impressive assault on free expression, to defund sports teams that do not play the national anthem at games.  This does not seem to prevent any meaningful harm and, in fact, causes harm by using the coercive power of the state to force teams to express what the Texas lawmakers want them to express. If the Republicans thinks that this warrants the use of the coercive power of the state, then they should be incredibly enthusiastic about Biden’s mandate since it addresses a real harm.

Republicans have also been busy passing laws to prevent the teaching of critical race theory and imposing various “trans bans” aimed at imposing restrictions on trans people. When pressed for actual examples of harms these laws are intended to address, they have little but vague claims about people being concerned that something might happen. But if Republicans believe that the coercive power of the state should be deployed against citizens when there is even just some concern that something might happen, then they should be onboard with a mandate aimed at addressing a deadly pandemic. Obviously, I understand that the Republicans are not operating from the principle of harm. They are operating from rather different principles; those that make it “acceptable” to force sports teams to play the national anthem while also making impose a vaccine mandate to fight a deadly pandemic “tyrannical.”

 

My third consideration is the issue of whether the harm is adequately addressed by existing laws or other means. If the harm is already being addressed adequately, there is no need for the state to get involved with a new mandate. While most Americans acted in an ethical, self-interested, and rational way by getting vaccinated, the limits of voluntary compliance have been reached. Unfortunately, this has not been enough: new variants are sweeping through the unvaccinated as Republican leaders rage against efforts to keep Americans from getting sick and dying—to the cheers of their apparently suicidal base. Because of the failure on the part of some Americans and the active Republican obstruction of efforts to combat the pandemic, the federal government needs to act to protect American citizens from needless and avoidable illness and death. As such, the mandate is warranted.

 

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RWB: Running with Black

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One year in grad school I was training for the Columbus Marathon with fellow student and runner Tony. I am white, Tony is black. While doing a training run on the course, a police car pulled up behind us and flashed its lights. We stopped running and turned to face the officer.

We had been running within the law, so I initially had no idea why we were being stopped. Getting out of his car, the officer called to us “what are you boys doing?” I replied with the obvious, “running.” He wittily replied, “running from what?” On runs back home in Maine, I had interacted with the police. One of our high school distance coaches was a police officer; he was a patient guy and a good coach. So those were all positive interactions. I was once before stopped by the police while running; the officer stopped to tell me I should not be running on the sidewalk. So, I got into the street to run. She stopped me again and said that I should not be running in the street. She let me go. That was not scary, just confusing—I assumed she was just “playing” with me or something. But this situation in Ohio was the first time I felt afraid of the police.

I had the thought, which might have been mistaken, that Tony and I might get shot or at least arrested for something. It felt that the situation could easily go very badly if we did not navigate it just right. What we did was stay calm and explain that we were training for the Marathon. I added that Tony was trying to qualify for the US Olympic team. This seemed to make a difference; perhaps it changed us from boys in the wrong neighborhood for a black man and a skinny white runner to athletes who might be representing the red, white, and blue. Eventually he let us go; I recall him making some sort of vague warning about running in the right places. After that, we were careful to avoid that neighborhood and we were never stopped by the police again. I ended up running a 2:45 marathon, Tony had a bad race and got a disappointing 2:36.

Over the years I have thought about that stop. The one positive aspect of the experience is that it provided a clear example of what I had known in an abstract and academic sense: black Americans face many obstacles and dangers that white people do not. At this point, someone might point out that the officer stopped me as well. It might be that just stopping Tony would be too obvious or that doing so would have been impractical. It might also be that as a runner I was also in a target class.

When I ran in my hometown, I (and other runners) would sometimes get mocked—running was not a well-respected sport in those days. I did, however, get intentionally forced off the road while biking—by a car with Ohio plates. When I went to college in Ohio, one of my first running experiences was when a car drove up on the sidewalk to try to hit me and the coach I was running with. That marked the beginning of my running challenges in Ohio: cars would occasionally swerve at me, things would be thrown at me, and so on. I was also stopped by the police while biking. And, of course, I got the same treatment I got while running, only I was even more vulnerable to cars.

When I moved to Florida, the hostility I faced while running and biking continued. People who make casual attempts to hit me with their cars and I learned to avoid roads where drivers were likely to throw things at me. I finally got hit by a car while biking; my bike was destroyed, and the car sped away. I was unscathed. My experiences are not unusual; about 122,000 runners get hit by cars each year and 843 bicyclists were killed in car crashes in 2019. These injuries and deaths were not all intentional, but running and biking can be dangerous even when you are being careful. My running friend Paul Hoover was killed not long ago in a hit and run; he was struck in the crosswalk and was a cautious runner. They did finally catch the person who hit him; his day in court is soon.

While running and biking have gained in status and acceptance, for years this was not the case. As noted above, I was routinely subject to threats and attacks simply for running. I think part of the cause it that runners and bikers are engaged in what was seen as unusual activity and they tend to dress strangely. That is, they seem to be “the other” when engaged in running or biking. This seems to trigger hostility in people. There is also the obvious fact that a runner or biker is especially weak and vulnerable when matched up against a vehicle and the people in it. Drivers and passengers can hurl insults or golf balls at runners with little fear of reprisal. A car can easily kill a runner or biker. I also experienced being pushed around when I had my little Yamaha; drivers would swerve at me and when I was stopped at a light one fellow tried to nudge me out into the intersection with his truck. I think that people get very angry at having to share the road with runners and bikers; even modest inconveniences can enrage them. And the runners and bikers are vulnerable. These experiences also helped me understand what minorities experience in America; with an important difference.

When I am off my bike and not running, I am just another white guy—so I go back to being in a class with some privilege. But being black in America is, to use my analogy, like always being running or on that bike in hostile traffic. People are angry at you, they know you are vulnerable, and they know they can get away with a lot. Sometimes it is the police who are the ones doing the harassment and harm. While drivers will behave badly towards people of all races on the run or on the bike, minorities get that even worse. And, as I noted, when I am not running or off the bike then I am back in my privileged class. When I am driving or walking while white, I do not get the treatment I get while running or biking. But other people do not get even that respite: they are always on that road with people who do not think they should be there or should, at least, suffer for it.

 

 

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Ivermectin & Epistemology

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Americans who have decided to forgo vaccination have been hard hit by COVID. In response, some have been self-medicating with ivermectin. While this drug is best known as a horse de-wormer, the same drug is also used to treat humans for a variety of conditions. And, of course, many medications are used to treat conditions they were not originally intended to treat. Viagra is a famous example of this. As such, the idea of re-purposing a medication is not foolish. But there are obvious problems with taking ivermectin to treat COVID. The most obvious one is that there is not a good reason to believe that the drug is effective; people would be better off seeking established treatment. Another problem is the matter of dosing—the drug has the potential for serious side-effects even at the correct dosage. Since I am not a medical doctor, my main concern is not with the medical aspects of the drug, but with the epistemology. That is, I am interested in why people believe they should take the drug. Though the analysis will focus on ivermectin, the same mechanisms work broadly in belief formation.

Those most likely to use the drug are people in areas hit hard by COVID and subject to anti-vaccine and anti-mask messages from politicians and pundits. These two factors are related: when people do not get vaccinated and do not take precautions against infection, then they are more likely to get infected. This is why there is such a clear correlation between COVID infection rates and the level of Trump support in an area. Crudely put, we are now in what could be justly called the Republican Pandemic. As I discussed in previous essays, the trend in Republican political thought is authoritarianism and the rejection of expertise. There is also a clear desire to “own the libs” by rejecting their beliefs and doing things to make liberals mad. Liberals want people to get vaccinated and wear masks, so “owning the libs” here puts a person at greater risk for COVID. Once a person gets infected, then they need treatment. But why go with ivermectin over proven methods? This seems to be the result of how the right’s base forms their beliefs.

The right’s base seems especially vulnerable to grifters and thus inclined to believe what grifters tell them. This is not because they are less intelligent or less capable than liberals; rather it seems to result from two main factors. The first is that the American right tends to be more authoritarian and thus more inclined to believe because an authority figure they accept tells them to believe. The second is that the American right has waged a long war on critical thinking and expertise—hence people on the right are less inclined to use critical thinking tools effectively in certain contexts and they are likely to dismiss experts who they do not regard as authority figures worthy of their trust.

While ivermectin is being studied scientifically, there is currently no evidence that it can effectively treat COVID. But a small and growing industry has arisen for providing people with unproven or discredited treatments for COVID. While some might be well-intentioned, much of it is a simple grift at the expense of those who have been systematically misled. As such, people believe ivermectin can help them because authority figures have told them they should. But, of course, there is the question of why ivermectin was chosen.

One likely reason is that ivermectin has been shown to impede the replication of the virus. Someone who is misled by wishful thinking would probably not consider the matter further; but it is important to note that this test was conducted in the laboratory using high concentrations of the drug that probably exceed what a human could safely use. To use an analogy, this is a bit like saying that fire is effective in killing the virus—that is true, but that does not make it an effective treatment in humans. As such, there is a bit of truth to the claim that ivermectin influences the virus. For some reason, certain people seem to consistently reason poorly in such contexts; I am inclined to chalk this up to wishful thinking.

There is also the fact that a single, unpublished paper influenced some countries to include the drug in their treatment guidelines. However, this paper was never published because the method used to gather the data is both irregular and unreliable. The company that gathered the data, Surgisphere, is already notorious for its role in scandals involving hydroxychloroquine studies. People seem to have a tendency to believe the first thing they hear about something, especially if they want it to be true—hence this discredited paper holds considerable influence. This is like the case in which those who think vaccines are linked to autism still believe in a long discredited study by a discredited doctor.

One might attempt to respond to this by arguing that there are other papers showing the effectiveness of ivermectin. While this would be a reasonable response if these papers were based on good data, they are not. As has been shown, they suffer from serious errors. But, once again, this does not seem to matter. People such as Preston Smiles, Sidney Powell and Joe Rogan have been promoting the drug and, of course, Fox News personalities have been praising it. It is essentially hydroxychloroquine 2.0. This takes us back to the appeal to authoritarianism: people are believing because authority figures are telling them to believe. There is also a fallacious appeal to authority in effect. For example, Joe Rogan is a comedian and not a doctor; yet people believe him because he is a celebrity.

People might also be motivated to accept the “evidence” of bad data and poor methods because doing so can seem rebellious—by rejecting the methodology of the experts they can see themselves as making up their own minds. By accepting what politicians and celebrities tell them. There might also be a conspiracy theory element at work as well; the idea that “they” do not want them to know about ivermectin (or whatever) and hence they want to believe it works.

At this point, ivermectin has been forged into a battle in the culture war. It must be said that the left helped weaponize it by mocking those who use the drug. But now that it is a political battle, the base will double down and defend it, despite a lack of evidence for their view. That is, they profess to believe because doing so is the stance of their tribe.

There have been efforts to conduct clinical trials of the drug, but these have bizarrely been met with hostility and threats from ivermectin proponents. On the positive side, there will be some data available from the people self-medicating. Unfortunately, it will not be very good data because it will mostly be a collection of self-reported anecdotes. Once again, the deranged culture war of the right is hurting people. Although, as always, some are making a sweet profit.

From the standpoint of reliably forming true beliefs, this approach is the opposite of what a person should take.  Believing based on political authorities, grifters and celebrities claim is not a reliable way to have true beliefs. Accepting flawed studies as evidence is, by definition, a bad idea from the standpoint of believing true things. But these belief forming mechanisms do have advantages.

The politicians, celebrities, and grifters obviously benefit from their base having these ways of forming beliefs. Those who form the beliefs also get something out of it; they can feel the pleasure of expressing their loyalty, the reassurance of wishful thinking, the warm glow of unity with their tribe, and the hot fire of angering the other tribe.

 

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“My Body, My Choice”: Pro-Choice & Anti-Vaccine Analogy

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In a clever bit of rhetoric, people opposed to COVID fighting mandates have been using pro-choice terminology. For example, a person opposed to getting the vaccine might assert “my body, my choice.” This phrase is, of course, a standard part of pro-choice language. While some people are no doubt engaged in bad faith rhetoric or trolling, the analogy between abortion rights and the right to refuse vaccination is worth considering. Those who read my previous essay can skip the discussion of the argument by analogy.

An argument by analogy will typically have two premises and a conclusion. The first premise establishes the analogy by showing that the things (X and Y) in question are similar in certain respects (properties P, Q, R, etc.).  The second premise establishes that X has an additional quality, Z. The conclusion asserts that Y has property or feature Z as well. The form of the argument looks like this:

 

Premise 1: X and Y have properties P, Q, R.

Premise 2: X has property Z.

Conclusion: Y has property Z.

 

X and Y are variables that stand for whatever is being compared, such as chimpanzees and humans or apples and oranges. P, Q, R, and are also variables, but they stand for properties or features that X and Y are known to possess, such as having a heart. Z is also a variable, and it stands for the property or feature that X is known to possess. The use of P, Q, and R is just for the sake of the illustration-the things being compared might have more properties in common.

One simplified way to present the anti-vaccine (or pro-vaccine choice) analogy is as follows:

 

Premise 1: The right to choose an abortion is analogous to the right to choose to not be vaccinated.

Premise 2: The right to choose an abortion is supported by the left.

Conclusion: The right to choose to not be vaccinated should also be supported by the left.

 

While this analogy seems appealing to many anti-mask mandate folks, a key issue is whether it is a strong argument. The strength of an analogical argument depends on three factors. To the degree that an analogical argument meets these standards it is a strong argument.

First, the more properties X and Y have in common, the better the argument. This standard is based on the notion that the more two things are alike in other ways, the more likely it is that they will be alike in some other way. Second, the more relevant the shared properties are to property Z, the stronger the argument. A specific property, for example P, is relevant to property Z if the presence or absence of P affects the likelihood that Z will be present. Third, it must be determined whether X and Y have relevant dissimilarities as well as similarities. The more dissimilarities and the more relevant they are, the weaker the argument. So, is the analogy between the restrictive voter laws and mask mandates strong? To avoid begging the question by making a straw man, I will endeavor to make the best analogy I can—within the limits of truth.

The right to choose an abortion is often based on a principle of bodily autonomy; something expressed as “my body, my choice.” For those who are pro-choice, this principle warrants a woman’s choice to have an abortion—it is her body, so it is her choice. While there is considerable debate over the moral status of the aborted entity, an entity which might or might not be a person is killed in the process of an abortion. As such, this principle of bodily autonomy allows one person to kill another entity.

The right to forgo vaccination on the principle of bodily autonomy would seem to work in a similar manner. For those who are pro-choice about vaccines, this principle warrants a person’s choice to forgo vaccination-it is their body, so it is their choice. So far, so good. But, as with abortion, the choice does not just the person making the choice.

A person who forgoes the vaccine willingly puts themselves and others in avoidable risk of infection and death. But, if a woman can justly kill another entity as a matter of her choice, then one could infer that a person could thus put others at risk of illness and death. But does the comparison hold here? I contend that because of critical differences, it does not.

First, while an abortion kills an entity there is considerable moral debate about whether the entity is a person. In contrast, a person who forgoes the COVID vaccine puts those who are indisputably people at risk and, in many cases, without their choice or consent. One can, of course, argue that the entity is a person. That is, one can start up the anti-abortion debate. But this would have an interesting consequence.

If it is argued that the aborted entity is a person (or otherwise has sufficient moral status) and thus its right to life overrides the woman’s right to bodily autonomy, then the same reasoning would apply to the pro-vaccine choice argument. Their bodily autonomy does not give them the right to put others at risk. As such, a person who argues in good faith that being pro-choice about abortions is like being pro-choice about vaccines must be for both or opposed to both. So, the anti-abortion folks can only use the pro-choice bodily autonomy argument for vaccine choice in bad faith (or from confusion). In contrast, a pro-choice person need not be pro-vaccine choice. They can accept that the aborted entity is not a person or has a lower moral status than the woman while accepting the obvious fact that the people harmed by the unvaccinated are people.

Second, an abortion kills a single entity while forgoing vaccination puts everyone the person contacts at risk of illness and even death. Since those at risk are indisputably people, forgoing vaccination in a pandemic would seem worse than an abortion. One can, of course, get into a debate about assessing harms in terms of probabilities and other considerations. For example, a person who forgoes vaccination might not infect anyone and if they do, no one they infect might get ill, and if they do get ill, then they might not die. In contrast, an abortion always kills the aborted entity. This becomes a debate about the right to harm other entities and assessing harms. But, if someone argues that a person does not have the right to harm another entity on the basis of bodily autonomy, then this would apply to both abortion and vaccination: no choice in either case.

Third, there is a difference in the cost for not being able to make the choice. If a woman cannot choose an abortion, she can face great economic and social hardships. Our society is not kind to women, and it is especially unkind to mothers who lack support and resources. In contrast, the COVID vaccines are incredibly safe.  Much safer than giving birth in the United States. Once again, if someone accepts the pro-vaccine choice reasoning, then they would also need to accept the pro-choice reasoning.

As such, the attempt to use pro-choice language and draw an analogy between reproductive rights and anti-vaccine rights fails logically. However, some might see it as having rhetorical value or as a bit of fun in trolling the libs with their own slogans.

 

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