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Archives for October 2019

Mike’s Free Encounter #17: Frostcursed Guard Post

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This is the 17th in an ongoing series aimed to provide the overworked DM with ready-to run encounters. The PCs face off against a Frostcursed dwarf guard post.

The encounter includes:

  • History/Background for the encounter.
  • New Monsters: Frostcursed Captain, Frostcursed Lieutenant, Frostcursed Sergeant, Frostcursed Priest, Frostcursed Warrior and Dwarven Skeleton.
  • Encounter guide.
  • Color Maps

The companion ZIP file contains:

  • JPEG and Campaign Cartographer versions of the maps (with and without grid).
  • Hero Lab file for the encounter.
  • Word file of the encounter.
  • PDF of the character sheets for all the monsters.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/293598/Mikes-Free-Encounter-17-Frostcursed-Guard-Post

Two Sides Problem: Presidential Responsibility

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Baghdadi, the ISIS leader who proclaimed a short-lived caliphate, was recently killed by American forces. While the ISIS brand will continue to be a threat, this killing was a significant accomplishment. As would be expected, comparisons were immediately drawn between Obama’s announcement of the killing of bin Laden. Both leaders made the announcement in their usual styles. Obama was calm, serious and sober. Trump put on his usual performance including wild rambling, praising himself (for his internet skills), and focusing on how he might profit (in this case by grabbing Syrian oil). While their speeches differed, they both raised the same question: to what extent is the President responsible for such actions in terms of praise and blame?

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When bin Laden was killed, Trump argued that Obama did not deserve credit for the death. One excellent point Trump made was that the decision options were very limited, essentially boiling down to keep trying to kill him or stopping. As Trump noted, not killing bin Laden was not an option, so the decision was easy. Trump also asserted, correctly, that the Seals rather than Obama killed bin Laden. Obama was obviously not on the ground to make the killing shot—he was safely in the White House. As such, Trump draws a reasonable conclusion: Obama does not deserve credit for the killing of bin Laden.

To use a non-violent analogy, imagine a CEO of a corporation you work for who decides to keep a project going you have been working on for years. Suppose your project proves to be a great success. While the CEO will certainly take credit for your work, they do not deserve it—they simply allowed you to keep doing what you were doing.

Not surprisingly, supporters of Obama took issue with Trump’s remarks and Obama is lauded by them for the death of bin Laden. The situation is now reversed: those who dislike Trump are probably tempted to refuse to give him credit, while his supporters are praising him for his great accomplishment. This yet another example of the Two Sides Problems. Trump, who argued that Obama did not deserve credit for bin Laden, does not make those same arguments against himself. Trump’s supporters, as one would expect, do not bring up these arguments—while his opponents revel in bringing them up.

Trump’s foes might be tempted by the following:

Premise 1. Trump claimed that Obama did not deserve credit for the military killing bin Laden.

Conclusion: Trump does not deserve credit for the military killing Baghdadi.

This is bad logics and to think otherwise would be to fall victim to the Tu Quoque Fallacy. One version of this fallacy is committed when one infers that a person is wrong now because they previously held a view that is inconsistent with their current view. While it is fair point out when a person is applying their (alleged) principles inconsistently (by Trump’s argument neither he nor Obama deserve credit—yet he is taking credit), this inconsistency does not establish that a claim is true (or false).

Obviously enough, if Trump’s argument against Obama hold, then they also apply to him: neither deserve credit. If his argument does not hold against Obama, then they would seem to both deserve credit. Naturally, there are facts that would be relevant to the discussion of the extent of credit. If Obama was very active in keeping the hunt for bin Laden a focus and took an active hand in the matter, then he would deserve credit to that degree. If Trump left everything to his subordinates and focused on Twitter, golf, and enriching himself, then he would deserve credit to that degree. And, of course, if Obama was slacking and Trump a magnificent engine of vengeance, then the reverse would hold.

This manifestation of the Two Sides Problem shows, once again, how easy it is for principles to be applied and then rejected based on whether they advantage one’s side or the other. To do this, of course, is to be lacking in principles.

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Trump & Lynching

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Trump recently tweeted a comparison between his impeachment process and lynching. Since “lynching” carries a bloody and brutal historical burden in the United States, this ignited the usual firestorm. Critics of the president chastised him for using the term, some Republicans expressed mild dismay at his word choice and others insisted that the president was spot on in his comparison. In addition to the specific matter of Trump’s use of the term, there is also the broader issue of the use of such terms in political discourse.

Trump could certainly be defended by asserting that he is ignorant of the connection of the term to racial violence in the United States and was simply using the term in utter innocence. Given the level of cognitive capacity Trump exhibits in his rambling, nonsensical speeches and his difficulty with language, it would be reasonable to accept that Trump really had no idea of the significance of the term. As such, the ignorance defense would be a plausible move.

Trump could also be defended by contending that he is not ignorant, but that he was merely using the term in a commonly used way. After all, one might argue, people do refer to metaphorical “lynch mobs” being after them or someone else. On this defense, the critics are reading too much into “lynching. Trump was simply using it the same way he uses phrases like “witch hunt”—a hyperbolic expression of his rage at others following due process to address his high crimes and misdemeanors.  

Trump is obviously using the term incorrectly—lynching involves a parody of justice: mob violence inflicted without a trial. While one might disagree with the Democrats, they are operating well within the framework of the Constitution and in accord with the established processes for impeachment. One could argue that the whole point of hyperbole is to exaggerate—which is true. But to defend Trump’s use of the term by asserting he is right would be an error.  The rage is, of course, not over Trump’s hyperbole but because of the connection of the word to brutal violence against African-Americans.

Some of Trump’s critics allege that Trump intentionally used the term in the hopes of triggering a response—if so, that strategy worked. Trump does enjoy attention and he certainly seems to delight in creating controversy around race. Critics have also argued that Trump intentionally chose the term because doing so would be an act of vicious racism—claiming that a lawful procedure against a corrupt white President is akin to the brutal lynching of blacks. This interpretation is certainly consistent with Trump’s past actions. His defenders could argue that Trump did not intend the tweet to be racist and those who see racism in it are the racists. Taking this view requires that one either be ignorant of the connotation of the term or believing that the president is ignorant. Or pretending to not understand how language works. This tactic seems very popular with his supporters. It seems that one must conclude that Trump is either utterly ignorant of the term’s connotation and history or that he engaged in yet another racist tweet. Now, what about the general use of such charged terms in political rhetoric?

While hyperbole is a standard rhetorical device, using such terms when they do not properly apply is morally problematic. First, such usage is inaccurate and serves to obscure the facts of the matter. Second, such usage appeals to emotions, usually in a negative way and this has no good use in resolving a matter rationally. Third, the frivolous usage of such terms is an insult to those who suffered and died. Fourth, it is also a lazy approach—if the matter is important, one should put some work into picking words. As such, terms like “lynching” should not be used in discourse except when one is referring to an actual lynching.

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Mike’s Free Adventure #16: Necrolossi

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This is the 16th in an ongoing series aimed to provide the overworked DM with ready-to run encounters. The PCs face off against a rampaging Necrolossi.

The encounter includes:

  • History/Background for the encounter.
  • New Monsters: great necrolossi and necrofire skeleton.
  • New magic item: dimensional chain.
  • Encounter guide.
  • Color Map

The companion ZIP file contains:

  • JPEG and Campaign Cartographer versions of the maps (with and without grid).
  • Hero Lab file for the encounter.
  • Word file of the encounter.
  • PDF of the character sheets for all the monsters.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/292848/Mikes-Free-Encounter-16-Necrolossi

Two Sides Problem: Erosion of Norms

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Humans have a natural tendency to divide each other into “us” and “them”, which provides the foundation for the two sides problems. If one side has a power advantage over the other and elects not to be overly constrained by law or morality, this can be very bad for the weaker side. Paradigm examples include American slave owners and their slaves, Nazis and their victims, and Stalinists and their victims.  If the two sides are roughly equal in power and are willing to abide by certain limits, this division can provide benefits to both—or at least to the elites of each group.

When people are divided into us and them, the usual course is for the us group to see itself as good and superior to the them group. This helps cement group identity and serves various psychological needs. In times of identity stress or fear, people in the us group quickly accept the demonization of the them group.

The American political system is a Two Sides system of the more equal sort and one of increasing demonization. While the Republicans have gained the upper hand in many states through being better at gerrymandering and voter suppression than the Democrats, the two parties are still roughly on par. While this does have some negative consequences for the party elites, it also confers many important advantages. On the minus side, a politician from one party is unlikely to win over voters from the other party, unless they can create another us-them paradigm. This is something Trump managed to do. While doing this initially caused some splits in the Republican party, most Republicans quickly accepted the situation and Trump’s embrace. As such, almost all Republicans are on Trump’s side. On the positive side, the us-them situation means that the party elite can use the various cognitive biases, rhetorical devices and fallacies that are fueled by the Two Sides Problems. Another advantage is that the party elite can expect that their misdeeds will often be defended by fellow party members—even when these misdeeds are a clear violation of professed principles. This is because group identity and political advantage are accepted as more important than almost any professed principle—although some people do have limits even within the upper reaches of the parties.

One unfortunate consequence of this aspect of the Two Sides Problems is that an American elite can commit misdeeds that damage the norms of the country and still count on their fellows to defend them. One excellent example of this occurred when NPR’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro interviewed Indiana Rep. Jim Banks about Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria. In a rare break with Trump, some Republicans were quite critical of his action. This is, in part, because Trump’s base tends to not care about foreign policy, but it is also a case in which Democrats and Republicans form an us group against another them group.

Prior to the interview it had been announced that Trump would be committing a crime and violating the emoluments clause by hosting the G-7 at one of his Florida resorts. Garcia-Navarro asked:

When we look at something like this – the president’s resort – for many people, it speaks to sort of a larger issue with this president about him blowing through every acceptable norm of behavior. And so I wonder for you, what happens when you want to object to something a Democratic leader does someday? Don’t you worry that this sets a precedent that will make that very difficult?

Banks replied, as politicians are wont to, by using a Red Herring. He switched the issue and avoided the questions: “Again, the president decided to retreat from the position of holding it at his property. And I appreciate that the president made that decision. Whether that sets any norm moving forward, it shows that the president is taking the advice of his advisers to do so. And I appreciate that type of leadership.” Garcia-Navarro’s question about Trump’s plan to profit from the G-7 and inquiry about future consequences shifted Banks back into the two sides mode involving Republicans and Democrats rather than the two sides of Americans and foreign foes.

Garcia-Navarro raises excellent questions that should be asked whenever Democrats or Republicans refuse to act against one of their own party members when they are clearly doing wrong. This matter splits into a logical part, a practical part, and a moral part. I will address the practical part because that is the easiest.

Obviously enough if a Democratic president commits misdeeds in the future, then the Republicans will rush to criticize them—even if they rolled over like chubby puppies when Trump did the exact same thing. This is because doing so will be advantageous—it will hurt the Democrats and they know that only a few people, like NPR reporters and philosopher professors, care at all about consistency. If anyone brings up how they rolled over for Trump, they will deny it—and then John Oliver will do a show juxtaposing Republican chubby puppies for Trump turning into rabid pit bulls when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pushes to hold the G-7 at her vegan-hipster coffee bar (co-owned with vice-president Corey Booker). The simple matter is the political elite and their followers do not really care about principles; it is all about their side winning and the other side losing. Witness how the Republicans were so focused on the deficit and the Constitution when Obama was president; now they are happy to hemorrhage money and rarely talk about the Constitution.

From a logical standpoint, the way the Republicans roll over like chubby puppies for Trump has no bearing on the merit of future criticisms they might advance against President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. To think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem fallacy. So, suppose that  a chubby puppy Republican goes full pit bull when President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tries to hold the G-7 at that vegan hipster coffee bar. They would be right that she would be in the wrong—even though they refused to criticize Trump on this matter. Their past actions and words have no bearing on the truth (or falsity) of his future criticisms of President Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

From a moral standpoint, Garcia-Navarro is right to be concerned that tolerating bad behavior because your side is doing it will erode norms and prove harmful for the country. While the Republicans will certainly go back to their righteous stances when a Democrat is in office, their past tolerance of misdeeds will rob them of the moral authority to criticize Democrats. Democrats will be able to point, correctly, to Republican moral inconsistency and hypocrisy. While this will not impact the truth of Republican claims, they will be devoid of moral authority—they will be seen, rightly, as hypocrites who pretend to play at virtue when doing so is convenient. They will be the opposite of the boy who cried wolf; they said nothing too many times.

Democrats will, of course, tend to defend their fellows when they commit such misdeeds and they can engage in their own fallacious reasoning by dismissing Republican criticism because the Republicans defended Trump in his misdeeds. And with each cycle it will get worse—whoever is in power can say that the other side has no moral authority to be critical now since they tolerated such misdeeds when it was their guy.

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Is Trump a Tyrant? V: What Aboutism & the Two Sides Problem

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This essay concludes the series on Trump and Tyranny and does so with full confidence that no minds have been changed.  I will be discussing Whataboutism and the Two Sides Problem.

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The Soviets might not have invented Whataboutism, but they effectively weaponized it. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russians continued to use it effectively. Like other Russian tools, it has now become entrenched in American political discourse. While anyone can use it, it is a favorite of Fox News and Donald Trump. While Whataboutism has many forms, the most common versions used in the defense of Trump has the following general form.

1. Premise 1: Person A of affiliation 1 is accused of X by person B of Affiliation 2.

2. Premise 2: Person C of affiliation 2 is accused of X by person D of affiliation 1.

3. Conclusion: Therefore, A did not do X.

This is a fallacy because whether C did X is irrelevant to whether or not it is true that A did X.  One example of this is when Trump and his defenders bring up the alleged misdeeds of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. The specific flawed logic can be seen as concluding that Trump did not do anything, because “what about Hillary’s emails?”

Alternatively, one could grudgingly admit that Trump did something that might seem wrong, then use Whataboutism to try to “prove” that it is not wrong:

1. Premise 1: Person A of affiliation 1 is accused of X by person B of Affiliation 2.

2. Premise 2: Person C of affiliation 2 is accused of X by person D of affiliation 1.

3. Conclusion: Therefore, it is not wrong that A did X.

Clearly, even if C did X it does not follow that A doing X was not wrong. As noted above, Trump and his defenders try to defend Trump by asserting that Democrats, especially Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, have done bad things. As a specific example, when pressed about Trump trying to exploit his office for personal gain, his defenders will say “what about Joe Biden?” and conclude that Trump did not do anything wrong. But this does not prove that—even if Joe and Hillary did terrible things, this does not prove that Trump did nothing wrong.

It must be noted that if two sides are being compared, it is obviously relevant to consider the flaws of both sides. For example, if the issue is whether to vote for candidate A or B, then it is reasonable to consider the flaws of both A and B in comparison. So, if Biden is up against Trump in 2020, one should consider the flaws of both men.

 However, the flaws of Biden do not show that Trump does not have flaws and vice versa. Also, if the issue being discussed is the bad action of Trump, then bringing up Biden’s allegedly bad action does nothing to mitigate the badness of Trump’s action. Unfortunately, Whataboutism is quite effective from a psychological standpoint, despite being logically vacuous. One reason for this is a general problem I have been considering which I call, for obvious reasons, the Two Sides Problem.

Put in broad terms, the Two Sides Problem is that the psychological impact of having two sides with strong emotional influence on their members has a huge impact on people’s willingness to accept empty rhetoric and fallacies that favor their side and harm the other side. As would be expected, this impact is routinely exploited, thus making the problem worse. While the Two Sides impact does affect all fallacies, it can throw gasoline on the illogical fires of many of them. Whataboutism is, quite obviously, one of these.

As noted above, Whataboutism is about defending one’s side by pointing out (or making up) bad things about the other side. This bad reasoning is powered by the target’s positive view of their side and their dislike of the other side. The most obvious effect is that a target accepts a fallacy as good reasoning because of how they feel about the sides. Another effect is that Whataboutism can cause an erosion of principle: For a person to defend bad behavior by “justifying” it with Whataboutisms (or other fallacies) they must be willing to tolerate that bad behavior on the part of their side. If a person has a principle that they stick to consistently, they would condemn bad behavior regardless of whether it was done by their side or the other side. For example, I condemn Trump’s children for cashing in on the family name to secure underserved positions and I condemn Hunter Biden for cashing in on the family name to secure a job he had not earned. I will not defend Hunter Biden by saying “what about the Trump children?” I will be writing more about the two sides problem in the future, but the series on Trump’s tyranny is concluded.

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