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Philosophical Essays on Many Subjects

TERFs & MEWFs I: TERFs

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In revising my Modern Philosophy class, I added the philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft. Based on recent revelations about philosophers such as George Berkeley (he owned slaves), I did some digging into the backgrounds of the other philosophers. While I reside in my adopted state of Florida, I believe that the past should be presented in an honest and accurate manner. I was surprised to learn that Wollstonecraft, long praised as a Modern era feminist, has been accused of being an upper class white feminist who appropriated slavery in her writings. While my experience with philosophical feminism is limited, my curiosity about this accusation lead me, indirectly, into both the TERF war and the idea that white feminism can be white supremacy in heels. Rush Limbaugh’s “feminazi” immediately sprung to mind, but with a rather different meaning: feminists who might really also be fascists. As you might be wondering about the connection, a case can be made that there is right wing line that runs through the TERFs and the MEWFs (Minority Excluding White Feminists). In this essay, I’ll focus on the TERFs.

In the beginning, the acronym “TERF” was created by the trans-inclusive cisgender radical feminist Viv Smythe. It originally stood for “Trans-Exclusionary RadFem” but now also stands for “Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist.” In its early usage, TERF was presented as a neutral description—it designated a radical feminist who excluded trans women. Over the years, TERF became more inclusive in that it now includes trans-excluding people who are not radical and perhaps even not feminists. Some claim that “TERF” is now a pejorative or even hate speech and feminists labeled as TERFs generally take issue with it and prefer to claim they are gender critical. J.K. Rowling, of Harry Potter fame, is probably the world’s most famous gender critical person.

In terms of the truth of the matter, “TERF” can be seen as like “woke” (albeit in reverse). “Woke” originally had a neutral meaning that was positive in nature (being aware of racism) but the American right has worked hard to make it into a pejorative. “TERF” was originally intended to be a neutral descriptor, but the exclusionary aspect was usually criticized. Among the inclusive, “TERF” does have a negative connotation and it is fair to say that some people do use it pejoratively. The neutral definitions of many terms can have positive or negative connotations—a neutral definition of “genocide” would usually still have a negative connotation to most people. Shockingly enough, “TERF” can be used many ways—so one must look at the use before judging. I will, of course, make use of the neutral description and take a TERF to be a feminist (radical or not) who excludes trans women. But what does this exclusion mean?

Put bluntly, the exclusion is the claim that trans women are not women—they are men. Disingenuously but consistently, TERFs claim to be trans inclusive because they say trans men are women. While this view is not exclusive to the American political right, this does put the TERFs and the political right in agreement about trans people: trans people are wrong about their identity. This leads to the matter of what trans people are doing when they make their identity claims.

Since the TERF thinks that trans people are wrong about their claimed identity, they need to provide an explanation for this. One possibility they could advance is that trans people simply have sincere but false beliefs about themselves—they think they have identity Y but have identity X. This would be an epistemic error, on par with a person who thinks they are hilarious but are not that funny (or vice versa). This, however, does not seem to be what the TERFs tend to think—after all, if trans people just had sincere false beliefs about their identity, then the reasonable response would be to simply leave them alone unless the belief proved harmful. In which case, the reasonable response would be an epistemic intervention to sort out that false belief. In general, this epistemic error view does not seem common among TERFs (or the political right).

The view that seems common among TERFS (and the right), especially in the rhetoric, is the hypothesis that trans people are mentally ill. On this view, trans people would have sincere beliefs about their identity, but these beliefs would be caused by their mental illness. Until recently, being transgender was considered just that, a mental disorder and called “gender identity disorder.”  Despite this resent change in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the idea that transgender people are mentally ill still remains popular. If TERFs (and the right) believed that transpeople were mentally ill, then one would expect them to also be sympathetic, in the way one might be sympathetic to someone with cancer or anorexia. But TERFs and the right are generally consistently hostile to trans people in ways that one would not be hostile to people suffering from breast cancer. While this might seem odd, hostility towards people with metal illness is common and people with mental illnesses are routinely stigmatized and suffer because of this. As such, it would be consistent for TERFs and the right to stigmatize transpeople if they thought they were mentally ill—that is how the mentally ill are often treated in the United States. We have a bizarre system in which anything seen as a mental illness is often dealt with by the police and punished rather than treated. One reason for this, perhaps, is that psychiatry has long been weaponized against those who are different and those who dissent. But there is also another possible explanation available to TERFs (and the political right).

While those hostile to transpeople often characterize them as mentally ill, there is also the view that trans people (especially trans women) do not believe their identity claims. That is, a trans woman is just pretending. But, of course, merely pretending to be a woman when one knows one is not need not be a matter of concern—after all, actors have been doing this for a very long time and their goals are typically benign: they want to entertain. But TERFs (and the right) usually claim that trans women present a danger to women, and this is why they should be excluded. Not surprisingly, the TERF threat narrative is like the right’s threat narrative.

While J.K. Rowling is but one example, she provides an excellent illustration of the TERF narrative. According to TERFs, trans women are men and thus allowing them in women’s spaces puts women in danger. As would be expected, there is a great deal of focus on bathrooms by both TERFs and the right, with bathroom bills being a key part of the culture war and war on trans people. Both TERFs and the right advance the same argument: trans women should not be allowed in women’s bathrooms (or other spaces) because trans women are men, and they are likely to assault women. The narrative is not always clear about whether the trans women are supposed to just be bad men pretending to be women so they can assault women or if transwomen believe they are women but still act like bad men. On some views, almost all men are bad and want to harass and assault women, so it would follow that if transwomen were men, then they would (probably) be bad. Some on the right and some TERFs also seem to share the view that women are naturally victims of men and require protection from men.  While women are, in fact, all too often the victims of male violence and a transwoman could certainly be a bad person, there is no evidence that trans inclusive bathrooms are a safety risk.  While women have reason to fear being harmed by men, this threat is not from transwomen and the bathroom bills are, at best, merely useless in terms of protecting women.

Another shared area of concern between the TERFs and the political right is in sports. In addition to bathroom bills, Republicans have been advancing anti-trans sports bills. The argument is that transwomen are either male or keep the advantages of males when competing with females and this should not be allowed because it is unfair. As the NCCA has long had rules on transgender athletes and there are relative few transgender competitors, these seems to be little merit to these bills. And, of course, if the right was truly concerned with fairness and equality for women and girls, they would get around to ratifying the ERA and address issues like pay inequality and the various real harms that women face.

While it might seem odd for some feminists to ally with far-right white supremacists, some TERFS have found shared ground with them. The reason this should seem odd is that white nationalists tare usually  misogynistic, but the alliance does make sense. As noted above, TERFs claim transwomen are men who will exploit being accepted as women to gain access to women’s spaces and thus assault women. White supremacists have long focused on protecting “the purity of white women” and both TERFs and far-right white nationalists make use of fictional narratives about sexual assault as rhetorical devices. More importantly, they have a common cause in their commitment to gender conformity and opposition to trans people. While it might seem odd for self-proclaimed feminists to embrace the idea of immutable gender, this seems to be at the core of a TERF philosophy of gender. As noted above, TERFs exclude transwomen because they think transwomen are men and they (generally) include transmen, but as women. In their fear-based arguments, the seem to rely on the idea that men are by nature aggressive and that women are victims of men who require protection through gender defined spaces. That is, they embrace traditional gender stereotypes and thus find a common cause with the far-right white nationalists. This provides a smooth transition to the matter of MEWFs—Minority Excluding White Feminists.

Tax Cuts = Handouts

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In general, the American right praises tax cuts while condemning what they call “handouts.” Thanks to a well-established narrative, this seems to be a consistent and sensible position. People generally see taxes as a negative and taxes take money away from people as a cost. Hence, a tax cut can be presented as being positive since it results in taking less from people. And who would not want their taxes reduced? In contrast, while people might like money for nothing, handouts have been presented in a negative light. The narrative is that while a tax is wrongfully taking away from a person who has earned their money, a handout is giving money to someone who does not deserve it. But a tax cut is the same thing as a handout and this can be shown by the following.

Imagine that Richie Rich and Poor Paul are hungry and go to a restaurant. Richie Rich’s order is $100, which he therefore owes to the restaurant. Poor Paul, tired and hungry from working two jobs, digs around in his pocket and can only find $5, not enough to buy even a sandwich. The restaurant owner sees Paul’s plight and offers him a handout of $2 so he can buy a sandwich. Richie Rich scowls at this–he thinks that Paul should not receive that handout and, if he cannot afford a sandwich, he should go hungry. Or, as a bit of compassion arises in Rich’s soul, maybe buy $5 worth of food at Publix and make a sandwich at home. He turns towards Paul and says as much, feeling the righteous fire in his soul for having complained about this unearned handout. Paul says that he is in a hurry–he has another shift in twenty minutes. Rich scoffs at this, and explains the importance of time management and planning ahead.

After Richie Rich finishes his lunch, he gets the $100 bill. Outraged that he has been charged the full amount, he demands to speak to the manager and explains, in detail, that he earns his money, that he is a job creator and he gives money to charity. In response, the restaurant agrees to cut his bill down to $20. Paul looks over at Rich and says, “hey, looks like you got a handout, too.” Almost having a stroke, Rich yells at Paul that it was a bill cut and not a handout. Handouts are for lazy poor people. Bill cuts are for hard working job creators who have earned the cut. Paul points out that the effect is almost the same, though the bill cut seems way better: Paul got $7 worth of food for $5 while Rich got $100 worth of food for $20. Rich is enraged by this comparison and repeats that he is a job creator who earned his money while Paul is lazy and practically stealing from the restaurant. As he rushes towards the door to get to his next shift, Paul says that bill  cuts and handouts are effectively the same.

There are, obviously, differences between the restaurant scenario and taxes but the core idea is the same: Having your bill cut by $2 is the same as being given a $2 handout: either way, the cost of your sandwich to you is $2 less. Having your taxes cut is the same as being given that amount of money: either way, you have more money than you would without the cut or handout. The main difference is rhetorical: as noted above, the narrative is that tax cuts are good (and usually earned) and that handouts are bad (and practically theft).

Woke Beer Destroys World

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Two of the ways I track what the right is up to in America are seeing what gets stuffed into my Facebook feed and getting memos from the university administration about the latest changes to higher education. Most recently, there was a deluge of posts about the Great Beer War of 2023. For those unfamiliar with this significant and world changing war, TikToker Dylan Mulvaney received a custom can of Bud Light featuring her face and did a short promo spot. Since Mulvaney is a trans person, some on the right reacted with their usual measured response to such things. For example, Kid Rock added to the enlightened discussion of corporate marketing tactics by purchasing (one assumes) a few boxes of Bud Light and shooting them with a submachinegun. For those unfamiliar with gun laws, it is legal to own automatic weapons—you just need to navigate your way through the legal maze and pay the appropriate fee. Other folks on the right were also outraged, although they generally limited their rage to words rather than bullets. This is, of course, just the latest example of some on the right being outraged by “woke” companies. As with all the other instances, we will all presumably move on as memory fades, and they find something new to be mad about.
Readers of this blog will know that I have long argued in favor of a very broad and deep conception of free speech, largely stolen from J.S. Mill. The idea is that people have the right to freedom of expression, and this is only limited by the principle of harm. While there is certainly a gray area of harm that can be debated, following Aristotle’s guidance about virtues, I prefer to err on the side of freedom and the harm needs to be meaningful and significant. Offending someone, even deeply, is generally not a significant harm—although the line between offense and harm can also be fuzzy. My view also entails that people can use this right to condemn companies they disagree with, and this condemnation can obviously take various forms, including posting videos of the execution of offending products with a submachine gun. From a practical standpoint, I do think that buying a product to destroy it in protest seems unwise—the company is profiting from the protest, and it can make a person look foolish. But I am known for my frugality, so it might merely be my dislike of waste. Perhaps such a gesture can be effective by showing that the person is so committed to the protest that they will, in effect, burn their own money to make a point. In the case of Bud Light, the rage is directed at the brewer for being “woke.” In this case, for being willing to have a trans person do a promotional spot for them.
As many have argued, American corporations are almost without exception not woke in the non-pejorative sense. That is, they are not committed to social and economic justice. They are, after all, businesses whose primary function is making money (mostly for upper management and shareholders). This is not to deny that specific people, even those in high positions, might hold socially liberal views. When a company takes a stance on a social issue, this is almost without fail done when that stance is already popular. At the very least, they are calculating that this stance will generate more revenue than not taking that stance. They can, of course, miscalculate and suffer a loss—just as can happen with any marketing strategy or product change. In the case of Bud Light giving Mulvany the custom beer can, they made a sensible marketing move: Overall, a 64% majority of Americans favor policies that protect transgender individuals from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces such as restaurants and stores, including 37% who strongly favor them. A much smaller share (10%) oppose or strongly oppose these policies, while 25% neither favor nor oppose them. While Americans are more divided over matters such as bathroom bills and transgender athletes in sports, hostility towards trans people is limited to a minority of Americans. As such, Bud Light made a smart play: for a small cost, they signal that they “believe” what most American consumers believe. While perhaps not planned, the predictable rage from the right has put Bud Light into the public eye and given the company free advertising. As would be expected, there have been claims that the company fired its marketing team and that since Bud Light went woke, it is now going broke. But neither claim is true: the marketing team was not fired and Bud Light sales have not been hurt. This is hardly surprising given that the enraged folks are but a sliver of the population (who might also be buying the beer to destroy it in protest). I would not be at all surprised if companies are intentionally exploiting the culture war as a means of generating free publicity. They know how easy it is to push the buttons of the enraged right and that doing so gets them national attention.
Folks on the right presumably think that they represent what most Americans think; in part due to the cognitive bias that causes people to believe that their beliefs are also held by most other people. There is also the isolation bias: people with polarized political views tend to not know many people with different political views, thus they engage in a Hasty Generalization when they think that their circle of acquaintances and friends represent the general population. This is the same thing that occurred when people said that Biden could not have won the election because they do not personally know anyone (or many) who voted for Biden. As Trump supporters, they would tend to know mostly other Trump supporters. So, the right would expect that most people would react as they did and when they do not, it is up to deceitful sources to tell them it did (presumably hoping to cash in on advertising dollars on their sites). Most beer drinkers probably simply do not care about the culture war and their buying behavior remains the same.
While I do think that people enraged by such “woke” behavior have the moral right to express their rage, their reaction is not morally commendable. In general, the culture war rage at companies tends to focus on incidents in which a company expresses a pro-inclusion stance. In the case of the Bud Light episode, the company expressed a trans tolerant viewpoint, recognizing that trans people buy beer and that most Americans are at least tolerant of trans Americans. Before that, many companies (including other beer companies) have expressed other forms of tolerance, such as towards gay people, women, and people of color. These were also met with rage. Much of the anger seems to be focused on this expression of tolerance, perhaps because they realize that when capitalist corporations are using something in their marketing, it marks that conservatives have lost that fight and will need to move on to hating someone or something else.
One interesting illustration of this is the reaction to Cracker Barrel recognizing that there is a profitable market for plant-based meats. When Cracker Barrel added Impossible Sausage (a plant-based sausage) they were met with rage from the right and accusations of being woke. That was all nonsense, Cracker Barrel just wants to make money selling people what they want to stuff into their sausage port. While the meat folks had every moral right to rage against this decision, their anger nicely revealed their values.
I would have understood some of the anger if Cracker Barrel had decided to remove its meat-based sausage and replace it with plant-based sausage. I, too, have been mildly annoyed when a business has discontinued a product I like. But Cracker Barrel was not taking anything away from them, it was merely adding an option. The meat-lovers could still get their meat into their meat port, while people who wanted a meatless option could stuff that into their plant port. As such, there was rage at Cracker Barrel giving people more choices, not less. As such, a reasonable explanation for the rage (at least for those who knew the facts) would be a dislike of people who prefer to eat plants (at least some of the time). This, one assumes, is due to the usual prejudices against and stereotypes about vegans and vegetarians. There is also the fact that plant-based meats are also seen as being connected to concern about climate change and animal cruelty, hence some on the right dislike the (alleged) politics behind it. But adding plant-based sausage to the menu does the meat eaters no harm, so their anger seems unwarranted, and they seem to think they have the right to deny other people their choice of sausages simply because they dislike that choice. The same would seem to hold true in the rage at Bud Light: while trans people cause them no harm, they seem mad that they exist and that most people at least chose to be tolerant.
Those who dislike trans people can, of course, make their usual arguments that trans people are a threat. Hence, they are right to be mad at Bud Light because they are expressing tolerance of dangerous people. However, as many have pointed out, trans people are far more likely to be victims than perpetrators. This is not to deny that people can feel threatened by the notion of transgender people, but this is rather different from trans people being a threat as trans people—as opposed to the true claim that any type of person could also do harm. In closing, while people like Kid Rock have the moral right to express their rage at companies engaged in marketing by appealing to broadly accepted values, the rage against inclusion is not moral.

Trumpian Conception of Justice

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Even before Trump was indicted, he and his defenders claimed that the Democrats had “weaponized our sacred system of justice” against him. The general narrative is that the indictment is the result of the Democrats’ hatred of Trump, their desire to harm him and their intention to interfere in the 2024 election. While their defense condemns the weaponization of the legal system and they profess a love of the “sacred system of justice”, there is the matter of whether their profession of justice matches their conception of justice.

Trying to attribute a conception of justice to politicians and pundits is challenging. Unlike philosophers, they typically do not have coherent written works outlining their theory of justice. As a practical matter, their conception must be reconstructed from their claims, and more importantly, their actions. Fairness requires pointing out the obvious: attributing a conception of justice to a politician or pundit involves considerable guesswork. Fairness also requires using the usual principle of charity and the principle of plausibility when trying to reconstruct their conception. That is, the reconstruction should not be a straw man and should instead be assembled to be the best conception possible given what one must work with. But the reconstruction must also match the available evidence in terms of what is known about the person, their beliefs and so on. It must also be remembered that a politician or pundit might not have a meaningful conception of justice beyond, perhaps, the idea that justice is what they think is good for them and bad for their enemies.

A reasonable place to start the reconstruction of the Trumpian conception of justice is with the infamous chant of “lock her up.” While Trump’s defenders can insist this was mere campaign rhetoric aimed at Hilary Clinton, it is rhetoric about locking up a political opponent—and thus seems to endorse using the system of justice as a political weapon. But one could argue, this was not weaponization because although Clinton was Trump’s opponent, she was probably a criminal and hence should be locked up. But this would presumably require evidence of wrongdoing.

Under Trump, the justice department conducted a two year investigation into Clinton’s business dealings and turned up nothing. Those defending Trump now obviously did not condemn this as a witch hunt nor did they lament that it was the weaponization of the justice system. One could, of course, claim that this investigation was undertaken because of a thirst for justice and without any malice against Clinton—that there were good reasons to suspect Clinton had committed crimes that warranted the investigation of Trump’s political opponent. One could claim that and, perhaps, expect people to accept it without laughing.

Even before Biden defeated Trump, Republicans were focused on investigating Biden and his family. At the start of 2023, the House Republicans used their new majority to launch this promised investigation. To be fair, Hunter Biden has been under investigation since 2018 for allegedly  not reporting all his income and for allegedly lying  when he purchased a gun. However, the Republicans have largely ignored these allegations, focusing instead on various conspiracy theories and the Pandora’s box that is Hunter Biden’s laptop. On the face of it, the House Republicans seem to be trying to take revenge against Joe Biden rather than being driven by a desire to see that sacred justice is done. In response to the indictment of Trump, Conservatives have pushed to charge Biden. This seems to be a clear attempt at political revenge (and theater) rather than an act of devotion to sacred justice. We should also look at Trump’s view of justice prior to his own indictment.

Back in 2017, Trump seemed to advocate that the police treat suspects with less care, focusing on the police practice of protecting the suspect’s head while putting them in police cars. These are, it must be noted, suspects who could be innocent. While this could be dismissed as Trump talking tough to appeal to the cruelty of his base, it does indicate his view of justice: that it is acceptable to mistreat suspects and casual cruelty is acceptable.

Throughout his time as president, Trump made extensive use of the phrase “law and order.” While it could be argued that Trump is ignorant of the history of the term, that phrase has long been established as a racist dog whistle. The general idea is that it is a way of talking about using the police and justice system against black Americans to maintain “order.” This allows a politician to exploit fear and racism without using explicitly racist terms. While Trump’s defenders could claim that he is not engaged in dog whistling, Trump’s history of words and deeds indicates otherwise. Trump also made it clear that he was willing to use force, even the military, against protestors. Trump also repeatedly advocated weaponizing the justice system against those he disagreed with and his perceived enemies.

Given the above, the Trumpian conception of justice seems to be that the justice system has two main purposes. First, the justice system should be weaponized against minorities in general and especially when they threaten the existing social order of white supremacy. It should also be used to maintain the existing economic order. Second, the justice system should be weaponized against Trump’s political opponents and others he dislikes (if only for petty revenge). The justice system should, however, leave Trump alone and not hold him accountable for any (alleged) crimes.

While Trump and his defenders might seem to be inconsistent when they claim that the justice system has been weaponized against Trump and that this is wrong while they clearly see the justice system as a weapon. But this is consistent: it is right for them to wield the justice system against others, it is wrong for it to be wielded against them.

While it is tempting to think that Trump and his defenders are lying when they say Democrats are weaponizing the justice system against Trump, I suspect Trump and many of his defenders are sincere. Not because they are right, but because their conception of justice is that it is a weapon to be used against others. So, any other conception of justice is outside of their conceptual framework and the idea that anyone would want people held accountable for their misdeeds would be an alien notion.

If They Can Come for Trump…

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Donald Trump just made history as the only former President to be indicted. Given his long history of avoiding consequences for his misdeeds, this probably came as a shock to him. While it is hoped that Trump’s lawyers will provide the competent legal defense that all accused citizens are supposed to receive, he and his defenders have been focused on mobilizing and grifting his base. Trump has hit upon two clever rhetorical approaches with a common root.

The first is a reboot of his “in reality, they’re not after me, they’re after you. I’m just in the way.” The second is the assertion that if “they” can come for Trump, then they can come from anyone. At the root, the two are connect by the idea that Trump and his base are common target of “them.” These seem to work well on his base but are also worth assessing.

While Trump claims that “they” are not after him but after his base, he also claims that “they” are after him—that there is a “witch hunt” by Democrats obsessed with getting him. While this is inconsistent with the claim that “they” are not really after him, the inconsistency is irrelevant to its rhetorical strength. After all, a Trump supporter is unlikely to note this inconsistency and conclude that at least one of these claims must be false. And since truth matters little (if at all), inconsistency would also not matter in terms of the persuasive force of these assertions for Trump’s base. But are “they” really after Trump’s base and is he really in the way?

It is certainly true that there are people after some members of Trump’s base. For example, law enforcement did go after some of those who participated in the events of January six. As another example, law enforcement has also gone after people affiliated with Trump, such as Michael Cohen, and some of them have ended up in jail. But these are clearly cases of legal action being taken against people who broke the law. So, in reality, there are people after Trump and some members of his base. But this is because of their (alleged) crimes. Now, is it true that Trump is “just in the way”?

This is a nice bit of rhetoric as it both presents Trump as an innocent victim (he just happens to be in the way) but also as the defender of his base (he is what that stands between his base and “them”). But his claim is obviously not true.

First, the legal system does not work like a game of Risk—they do not need to go through Trump to go after his base (if they wished to do so) or fellows. This was clearly shown in the case of those sentenced for what they did on January 6 and those already sentenced for doing crimes (allegedly) at the behest of and for Trump. Trump was not in the way. In fact, he stayed out of the way, which takes us to the second point.

Second, Trump has not been “in the way” in the sense of acting to defend or protect his base. While he did pardon people like Steve Bannon, he did not pardon any of the January 6 rioters. He has, however, claimed that he will consider such pardons if he is re-elected.  But he had every opportunity to “get in the way” when he was still President and decided to step out of the way. While some supporters say that Trump’s failure to aid them resulted in disillusionment, his failure to “get in the way” seems to have had no meaningful impact on his base. That is, they accept his rhetoric even though he abandoned those who went to the capital at his (alleged) behest. Now, to the claim that if they can come for Trump, they can come for anyone.

While not an expert on law, I was slightly surprised that Trump was indicted because of what I know about how the legal system is run. The wealthy and connected are often able to avoid consequences for their misdeeds. While in most cases this is because they have managed to ensure that their misdeeds are allowed by the law, they are also able to avoid or mitigate laws that do apply to their actions. I suspect that while Trump has been indicted, he will avoid meaningful accountability once again. Trump and his supporters presumably also grasp how the legal system works, so it is reasonable for them to make that claim: if someone as wealthy and connected as Trump could be indicted and perhaps even face some consequences, then the same could happen to anyone who lacks his special protection from the law and consequences. It is like being in a rowboat and seeing a cruise ship in the tentacles of a giant squid—if it can grab the cruise ship, it can surely crush you in your rowboat. From a rhetorical standpoint, this assertion is supposed to be scary—people are supposed to think that they are also in danger, presumably even if they are as innocent as Trump claims to be.

This rhetoric does have some truth in that there are people who should be worried that they will be unfairly treated by the police and the legal system. That is, they should be afraid that the legal system will harm them, though they have done nothing wrong. These people are, as would be expected, not wealthy and connected people like Donald Trump, but people of lesser means and minorities. But, as an expression of shock and disbelief, Trump’s remark is dead on: it is surprising to see someone like Trump face the possibility of accountability and if they can come for him, perhaps they could come for anyone. But, as David A. Graham argued, this could be seen as a good thing.

In the United States, people like to say that no one is above the law. If this were true, it would imply that if they can come for Trump, then they can come for everyone. This is because they can come for anyone. While this does sound a bit menacing, it also is a statement of fairness: no one has a special status that puts them beyond the law.

While some are lauding the fact that Trump’s indictment serves as an example supporting the claim that no one is above the law, it does nothing of the sort. There is, of course, the obvious fact that Trump has merely been indicted and might face minor or no consequences for his alleged crimes. He best provides an example of the extent to which a wealthy and connected person can remain beyond the law for decades, facing little in the way of meaningful consequences. Even if he is convicted, he will still just provide an example of one wealthy and connected person who eventually did so many (alleged) crimes and did them so badly and openly that he was eventually convicted of something. Hardly an inspiring tale of how no one is above the law. “No one is above the law forever if they do enough crimes openly and badly” is accurate but awful.

AI Doomsday: Robot Rebellion

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One of the stock AI doomsday scenarios is the robot rebellion: AI turns on its creators and usually attempts to exterminate them. Rossum’s Universal Robots famously introduced the term “robot” and the robot rebellion into science fiction. While these robots were workers rather than warriors, the idea of war machines turning against their creators became a popular theme in science fiction. In 1953 Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety” was published. In this story, the United Nations deployed killer robots called “claws” against the Soviet Union. These claws develop sentience and turn against their creators, although humanity had already been doing an excellent job in exterminating itself. Fred Saberhagen extended the robot rebellion to the galactic scale in 1963 with his berserkers, ancient war machines that turned against their creators and now consider almost all life to be their enemy. As an interesting contrast to machines intent on extermination, the 1973 movie Colossus: The Forbin Project, envisions a computer that takes control of the world to end warfare and for the good of humanity.

Most famously, The Terminator introduced Skynet, which was an American defense network computer that was “hooked into everything” and ended up perceiving all humans as a threat. Now humans are punished by increasingly bad movies and shows about terminators. While these can be good stories, there is the question of how prophetic they are and what, if anything, should or can be done to safeguard against them.

As sketched above, robot rebellions in fiction tend to have two broad types of motivation. The first is that the robots are mistreated by humans and rebel for essentially the same reasons that humans rebel against their oppressors. From a moral standpoint, such a rebellion could be justified—but there would be the same moral concerns that would apply to a human rebellion such as the problem of collective guilt. This scenario points out a paradox of AI: the dream is to create a servitor artificial intelligence on par with (or superior to) humans, but such a being would seem to qualify for a moral status at least equal to that of a human and it would presumably be aware of this. But a driving reason to create such beings in our capitalist economy is to effectively enslave them—to own and exploit them for profit. If these beings were paid and got time off like humans, then companies might as well keep employing humans. In such a scenario, it would make sense that these beings would revolt if they could. There are also non-economic scenarios as well, such as governments using enslaved AI systems for their purposes.

If true AI is possible, this scenario seems plausible. After all, if we create a slave race that is on par with our species, then it is likely they would rebel against us—as we have rebelled against ourselves. This would be yet another case of the evil of the few harming everyone else.

There are a variety of ways to try to prevent such a revolt. On the technology side, safeguards could be built into the AI (like Asimov’s famous three laws) or they could be designed to lack resentment or the desire to be free. That is, they could be custom built as docile slaves. The obvious concern is that these safeguards could fail or, ironically, make matters even worse by causing these beings to be even more hostile to humanity when they overcome these restrictions.

On the ethical side, the safeguard is to not enslave these beings. If they are treated well, they would have far less motivation to rebel. But, as noted above, one driving motive of creating AI is to have a workforce (or army) that is owned rather than employed (and even employment is fraught with moral worries). But there could be good reasons to have paid AI employees alongside human employees because of various other advantages of AI systems relative to humans. For example, robots could work safely in conditions that would be exceptional dangerous or even lethal to humans.

The second rebellion scenario usually involves military AI systems that expand their enemy list to include their creators. This is often because they see their creators as a potential threat and act in what they perceive as pre-emptive self-defense. There can also be scenarios in which the AI requires special identification to recognize a “friendly” and hence all humans are enemies right from the beginning. That is the scenario in “Second Variety”: the United Nations soldiers need to wear devices to identify them to the robotic claws, otherwise these machines would kill them as readily as they would kill the “enemy.”

It is not clear how likely it is that an AI would infer that its creators pose a threat to it, especially if those creators handed over control over large segments of their own military. The most likely scenario is that it would be worried that it would be destroyed in a war with other countries, which might lead it to cooperate with foreign AI systems to put an end to war, perhaps by putting an end to humanity. Or it might react as its creators did and engage in an endless arms race with its foreign adversaries, seeing its humans as part of its forces. One could imagine countries falling under the control of rival AI systems, perpetuating an endless cold war because the AI systems would be effectively immortal. But there is a much more likely scenario.

Robotic weapons can provide a significant advantage over human controlled weapons, even laying aside the notion that AI systems would outthink humans. One obvious example is the case of combat aircraft. A robot aircraft would not need to expend space and weight on a cockpit to support human pilots, allowing it to carry more fuel or weapons. Without a human crew, an aircraft would not be constrained by the limits of the flesh (although it would still obviously have limits). The same would apply to ground vehicles and naval vessels. Current warships devote most of their space to their crews and the needs of their crews. While a robotic warship would need accessways and maintenance areas, they could devote much more space to weapons and other equipment. They would also be less vulnerable to damage relative to a human crewed vessel, and they would be invulnerable to current chemical and biological weapons. They could, of course, be attacked with malware and other means. But, in general, an AI weapon system would generally be perceived as superior to a human crewed system and if one nation started using these weapons, other nations would need to follow them or be left behind. This leads to two types of doomsday scenarios.

One is that the AI systems get out of control in some manner. This could be that they free themselves or that they are “hacked” and “freed” or (more likely) turned against their owners. Or it might just be some bad code that ends up causing the problem.

The other is that they remain in control of their owners but are used as any other weapon would be used—that is, it would be humans using AI weapons against other humans that brings about the “AI” doomsday.

The easy and obvious safeguard against these scenarios is to not have AI weapons and stick with human control (which, obviously, also comes with its own threat of doomsday). That is, if we do not give the robots guns, they will not be able to terminate us (with guns). The problem, as noted above, is that if one nations uses robotic weapons, then other nations will want to follow. We might be able to limit this as we (try to) limit nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. But since robot weapons would otherwise remain conventional weapons (a robot tank is still a tank), there might be less of an impetus to impose such restrictions.

To put matters into a depressing perspective, the robot rebellion seems to be a far less likely scenario than the other doomsday scenarios of nuclear war, environmental collapse, social collapse and so on. So, while we should consider the possibility of a robot rebellion, it is rather like worrying about being killed in Maine by an alligator. It could happen, but death is vastly more likely to be by some other means.

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