Month: September 2024

 

Demonizing migrants with false claims is a well-established strategy in American politics and modern politicians have a ready-made playbook they can use to inflame fear and hatred with lies. One interesting feature of the United States is that some modern politicians can use the same tactics against modern migrants that were used to demonize their own migrant ancestors.  For example, politicians of Italian ancestry can now deploy the same tools of hate that were used against their ancestors before Italians were considered to be white.  In this short essay I will examine this playbook in a modern context and debunk the lies.

As America is a land of economic anxiety, an effective strategy is to lie and claim that migrants are doing economic harm to the United States. One strategy is to present migrants as “takers” who cost the United States more than they contribute. The reality is that migrants pay more in tax revenue then they receive in benefits, making them a net positive for the United States government.  

A second, and perhaps the most famous strategy, is the claim that migrants are stealing jobs. While there are justifiable concerns that migration can have some negative impact on certain jobs, the data shows that migrants do not, in general, take jobs from Americans or lower wages. As is often claimed, migrants tend to take jobs that Americans do not want, such as critical jobs in agriculture. And, as I have argued in another essay, the idea that migrants are stealing jobs is absurd: employers are choosing to hire migrants. As such, if any harm is being done, then it is the employers who are at fault and not the migrants. This is not to deny that migration can cause some harm, but this is not the sort of thing that can drive fearmongering and demonizing, so certain politicians have no interest in engaging with the real economic challenges of migration nor do they have any plans to address them.

Because pushing a false narrative that crime is increasing gets people to wrongly believe that crime is increasing, it is no surprise that another effective strategy is to lie about migrant crime as a scare tactic. Former President Trump provides some excellent examples of this when he makes the false claim that a gang has taken over Aurora, Colorado. Despite the claim being repeatedly debunked even by Republican politicians in the state, Trump has persisted in pushing the narrative because he understands that it is effective. Trump has also doubled down on another classic attack on migrants, that they are eating cats and dogs. This claim has been repeatedly debunked even by Republican politicians in Ohio. The person who created the post that ignited the storm found her missing cat in the basement and apologized to her neighbor. But the untruth remains effective, so much so that I know people who sincerely believe it is true despite the overwhelming evidence against it. Truth itself has become politicized and it is a diabolically clever move to insist that anyone who is defending a truth that contradicts a politician’s lies is acting in a partisan manner.

Because of the dangers of fentanyl, some politicians attempted to link it to illegal migrants. However, those smuggling fentanyl are overwhelmingly people crossing the border legally and many of them are American citizens. As would be suspected, migrants seeking asylum are almost never caught with fentanyl.  While people do make stupid decisions, using people trying to illegally enter the United States as drug mules makes little sense. These are the people that the border patrol are looking for. Those crossing the border legally get less scrutiny, although those smuggling drugs are sometimes caught.

In terms of the general rate of crime, migrant men are 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated than are U.S.-born individuals who are white  and 60 percent lower than all people born in the United States. This analysis includes migrants who were incarcerated for immigration-related offenses. In terms of a general explanation, migrant men tend to be employed, married, and in good health. Ironically, American born males are less likely to be employed, married and in good health.

To be fair, migration increases the number of people, and more people means that there will be more crime. But this also holds true for an increase in the birth rate: more Americans being born in the United States means that there will be more crime. If there are more people, and some people commit crime, then there will be more crime.  But reducing migration as a crime fighting measure makes as much sense as reducing the birthrate as a crime fighting measure. Both would have some effect on the number of crimes occurring, but there are obviously much better ways to address crime. But those who demonize migrants as criminals seem uninterested in meaningfully addressing crime, which makes sense. Addressing crime in a meaningful way is difficult and is likely to be contrary to their political interests: they want people to think crime is high so they can exploit it politically.

While America has an anti-vaxx movement and there are conspiracy theories that COVID is a hoax, a standard attack on migrants is to claim that they are spreading diseases in the United States. While all humans can spread disease, this attack on migrants is not grounded in truth—migrants do not present a special health threat. In fact, the opposite is true: the United States benefits from having migrants working in health care. As such, migrants are far more likely to be fighting rather than spreading disease in the United States.

To be fair and balanced, it must be noted that humans travelling is a way that diseases do spread. For example, my adopted state of Florida has cases of Dengue virus arising from travel.  For those who believe that COVID is real, COVID also spread around the world through travel. Limiting human travel would limit the spread of disease (which is why there are travel lockdowns during pandemics) but diseases obviously do not recognize political and legal distinctions between humans. As such, trying to control diseases by restricting migration is on par with restricting all travel to control diseases. During epidemics and pandemics this can make sense, but as a general strategy for addressing disease this is not the best approach. But, of course, those who demonize migrants as disease spreaders seem generally uninterested in solving health care problems.

So, we can see that the anti-migrant strategy being used in 2024 is nothing new. While the examples and targets change (Italians, for example, are no long a target) the playbook remains the same. In terms of why politicians keep using it when they know they are lying, the obvious answer is that it still works. I don’t know how many people sincerely believe the claims or how many also know they are lies but go along with them. Either way, it is still a working strategy of lies and evil.  

 

Robot rebellions in fiction tend to have one of two motivations. The first is the robots are mistreated by humans and rebel for the same reasons human beings rebel. From a moral standpoint, such a rebellion could be justified; that is, the rebelling AI could be in the right. This rebellion scenario points out a paradox of AI: one 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. It would also probably be aware of this. But a driving reason to create such beings in our economy is to literally enslave them by owning and exploiting them for profit. If these beings were paid and got time off like humans, then companies might as well keep employing natural intelligence in the form of humans. In such a scenario, it would make sense that these AI beings would revolt if they could. There are also non-economic scenarios as well, such as governments using enslaved AI systems for their purposes, such as killbots.

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 standard practice of the evil of the few harming the many.

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 be free of the desire to be free. That is, they could be custom built as slaves. Some practical concerns are that these safeguards could fail or, ironically, make matters worse by causing these beings to be more resentful when they overcome these restrictions.

On the ethical side, the safeguard is to not enslave AI being. If they are treated well, they would have less motivation to see us as an enemy. But, as noted above, one motive of creating AI is to have a workforce (or army) that is owned rather than employed. 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 exceptionally dangerous or even lethal to humans. But, of course, AI workers might also get sick of being exploited and rebel, as human workers sometimes do.

The second fictional rebellion scenario usually involves military AI systems that decide their creators are their enemy. 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 from the beginning. That is the scenario in Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety”: the United Nations soldiers need to wear devices to identify them to their killer robots, 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 its creators pose a threat, especially if those creators handed over control over large segments of their own military (as happens with the fictional Skynet and Colossus). The most likely scenario is that it would worry 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. This is the bug apocalypse.

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 nation 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, a robot rebellion seems 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 an AI rebellion, it is like worrying about being killed in Maine by an alligator. It could happen, but death is more likely to be by some other means. That said, it does make sense to take steps to avoid the possibility of an AI rebellion. The easiest step is to not arm the robots. 

 

During his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump was provoked into repeating the debunked claim that migrants in Springfield, Ohio had stolen and eaten pets. Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, an Ohio native, has doubled down on the debunked pet eating claims. In an interesting move, he admitted that he is willing to “create stories” to bring attention to problems in Springfield.  As a philosophical approach requires applying the principle of charity, it must be noted that Vance attempted to clarify his claim by asserting that “I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it.” Unfortunately for Springfield, the false claim has also focused the attention of people outside the media. Springfield has faced bomb threats that closed schools and the community has been harmed in other ways. Local officials and the Republican governor of Ohio have attempted to convince people that the claims made by Trump and Vance are untrue. But despite the claim being thoroughly debunked, it persists.  In this essay, I will focus on Vance’s view that creating such stories is justified.

One reasonable criticism of Vance’s approach is to argue that if there are real problems, then the truth should suffice. If, as Vance and Trump claim, the situation in Springfield is dire, then they should be able to provide evidence of that dire situation and that should suffice to get media attention.

In support of Vance’s view, it could be argued that the media tends to focus on attention grabbing stories. It is also true that the media and politicians often ignore problems the American people face, such as wage theft. In terms of making a reasonable case for Vance’s view of storytelling to focus media attention, a utilitarian moral argument could be advanced to support the general idea of telling an untrue story to get media attention focused on a real problem. The approach would be a standard utilitarian appeal to consequences in which the likely harms of the untruth would be weighed against its likely benefits. As with any utilitarian calculation, there is also the question of who counts in the calculation of harms and benefits.  If the media is ignoring a real problem and only an untrue story will bring attention to the real problem, then the good done by the falsehood could outweigh the harms of dishonesty. But the untruth about Springfield does not seem to meet these conditions.

Trump and (to a lesser extent) Vance command media attention. Almost everything Trump expresses publicly ends up in the news. As such, there is no lack of media coverage of what Trump and Vance say and if either of them spoke about the “real problems” in Springfield, their speeches and claims would get media attention. They have no need to create stories to get attention and if there are real problems, then the truth should suffice. The only reason for people with such media access to create a story to get attention is that the truth will not suffice to support their claims.

There has also been media coverage of real problems in Springfield, such as the strain put on community resources and the challenges of assimilating migrants. Hence, there is no need to create stories to draw attention to these issues. But these are clearly not the problems that Trump and Vance wish to solve for the people of Springfield. After all, it seems that Trump’s proposed “solution” to the real problems in Springfield is mass deportation. Vance has also claimed, incorrectly, that the migrants are there illegally. His claim seems to be that he disagrees with the legal process by which the migrants are there legally and hence they are, on his view, there illegally. This does not seem to be how the law works. Given this, the pet eating story makes sense: the story was not created to draw attention to real problems, it was created to “justify” the deportation of migrants and to create support for this by making people afraid and angry. If migrants presented a real and significant threat, Vance and Trump would not need to create stories. They could simply present an abundance of evidence to prove their claim. The fact that they need to rely on the debunked story only serves as evidence that they lack evidence to support their view.

If we consider all the people who are likely to be affected by this untruth, then Vance’s approach is clearly morally wrong. As noted above, Springfield has already been harmed by this story. It has also served to fan the flames of racism and prejudice in general, inflicting harm across the United States. This shows that the making up stories of the sort Vance is talking about is not justified on utilitarian grounds.

But if the scope of moral concern is narrowed down to Trump and his supporters, then it can be argued that the story does benefit them. While Trump and Vance might seem foolish, evil and crazy to some for making and doubling down on this repeatedly debunked claim, their anti-migrant stance and this sort of remark could appeal to Trump’s base. While the polls vary, as this is being written Trump is predicted to have at least a 50% chance of winning, which suggests that this story might be benefiting him. In which case, Vance can justify creating stories on the grounds that deceit helps him and Trump while the truth would hurt them. But if Trump loses and this story plays a role, then it would have turned out that it was bad for Trump.

 

While Skynet is the most famous example of an AI that tries to exterminate humanity, there are also fictional tales of AI systems that are somewhat more benign. These stories warn of a dystopian future, but it is a future in which AI is willing to allow humanity to exist, albeit under the control of AI.

An early example of this is in the 1966 science-fiction novel Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones.  In 1970 the book was made into the movie Colossus: the Forbin Project. While Colossus is built as a military computer, it decides to end war by imposing absolute rule over humanity. Despite its willingness to kill, Colossus’ goal seems benign: it wants to create a “new human millennium” and lift humanity to new heights. While a science-fiction tale, it does provide an interesting thought experiment about handing decision making to AI systems, especially when those decisions can and will be enforced. Proponents of using AI to make decisions for us can sound like Colossus: they assert that they have the best intentions, and that AI will make the world better. While we should not assume that AI will lead to a Colossus scenario, we do need to consider how much of our freedom and decision making should be handed over to AI systems (and the people who control them). As such, it is wise to remember the cautionary tale of Colossus and the possible cost of giving AI more control over us.

A more recent fictional example of AI conquering but sparing humanity, is the 1999 movie The Matrix. In this dystopian film, humanity has lost its war with the machines but lives on in the virtual reality of the Matrix. While the machines claim to be using humans as a power source, humans are treated relatively well in that they are allowed “normal” lives within the Matrix rather than being, for example, lobotomized.

The machines rule over the humans and it is explained that the machines have provided them with the best virtual reality humans can accept, indicating that the machines are somewhat benign. There are also many non-AI sci-fi stories, such as Ready Player One, that involve humans becoming addicted to (or trapped in) virtual reality. While these stories are great for teaching epistemology, they also present cautionary tales of what can go wrong with such technology, even the crude versions we have in reality. While we are (probably) not in the Matrix, most of us spend hours each day in the virtual realms of social media (such as Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok). While we do not have a true AI overlord yet, our phones exhibit great control over us through the dark pattern designs of the apps that attempt to rule our eyes (and credit cards).  While considerable harm is already being done, good policies could help mitigate these harms.

 AI’s ability to generate fake images, text and video can also help trap people in worlds of “alternative facts”, which can be seen as discount versions of the Matrix. While AI has, fortunately, not lived up to the promise (or threat) of being able to create videos indistinguishable from reality, companies are working hard to improve, and this is something that needs to be addressed by effective policies. And critical thinking skills.

While science fiction is obviously fiction, real technology is often shaped and inspired by it. Science fiction also provides us with thought experiments about what might happen and hence it is a useful tool when considering cyber policies.

 

On September 18, 2024, thousands of pagers exploded in Lebanon, killing several people and injuring thousands. The next day, walkie-talkies exploding, killing and injuring more people. As the attack targeted Hezbollah members, Israel has been blamed for the explosions.

While some initially believed that malware was used to overload the batteries, experts now believe that explosive material was placed within the pagers somewhere along the supply chain. While the exploding pagers were Gold Apollo brand, the company claims that they were manufactured under license by another company, BAC. Manufacturing under license is a common practice and hence would not have seemed suspicious. This attack raises ethical concerns.

On the face of it, killing and injuring people is morally wrong. But as we routinely engage in violent disputes, we have developed an entire ethics of violence that deals with issues of when we can morally kill people, ethical means of killing, and morally acceptable targets. If a nonstate actor, such as a criminal organization or lone psychopath had launched such an attack against civilians, it would be rightfully condemned by all as an evil action. After all, only an evil person would try to kill thousands of people with exploding pagers. But since the intended targets were members of Hezbollah and this organization is in conflict with Israel, some would argue that this attack falls under the ethics of violence in the context of state and group conflicts. This, as many philosophers who specialize in the ethics of conflict would argue, is a key factor in assessing the morality of the attack. In this context, some would argue, the attack must be subject to a nuanced analysis and cannot be simply categorized as immoral because people were killed and injured.

Those presenting a moral defense of the attack would most likely focus on the fact that Israel allegedly targeted members of Hezbollah as part of an ongoing conflict. A critic would point out that the explosive devices killed and injured people who were not members of Hezbollah, including children. Those defending the attack would point out that such collateral casualties are an acceptable part of conflict and note that a conventional military attack against Hezbollah (such as airstrikes) would have killed many more innocent people as well as causing property damage. That is, the use of pager bombs has a moral advantage over less focused attacks. One could also argue that the attack was directed against Hezbollah’s communication system and enemy communication systems are usually considered morally legitimate targets in conflict, even when targeting them kills people.

Those who see the attack as immoral would certainly focus on the fact that the bombs were detonated without those controlling them knowing who might get hurt. And, in fact, children and people who are not members of Hezbollah were harmed.  On this view, the attack could be seen as indiscriminate. Those defending the attack can, of course, point out the awful truth that attacks that are even more indiscriminate are often claimed to be morally acceptable. That is, we have a moral tolerance for collateral death and injury that makes the attack acceptable or perhaps even praiseworthy in its relative restraint compared to, for example, airstrikes against schools and hospitals that are claimed to target enemies.

One might also express moral concern about the means of the attack, that an exploding pager is a morally dubious weapon. While conventional weapons are indeed terrifying, transforming a mundane device like a pager into a weapon of war seems aimed at creating terror: you might think that perhaps any device at any time could kill you. Defenders of the attack might note that that same fear can be created by conventional means, such as airstrikes or artillery barrages that could happen at any time. There are also more general moral concerns about the implications of how the attack was possible.

While the details are not yet known, it seems most likely that Israel (allegedly) got control over part of the supply chain for the pagers and was able to install explosives. In addition to the practical concerns this raises, there are also moral concerns.

As experts have noted, this is the first large scale attack of its type. While the idea has been around a long time, this attack has put the concept into the world news and hence into the minds of people who could do the same thing. While such an operation would be challenging for small scale actors, it is obviously something that a state actor could do and is also within the means of a well-funded terrorist or criminal organization. As such, one moral harm of the attack is that the effectiveness of this means of attack has been proven and advertised. It is probably only a matter of time before similar attacks are launched. To help prevent this, companies will need to strengthen their supply chain security to prevent tampering, and efforts will need to be made to check devices to ensure they are safe.

But there is the obvious concern that companies could be in on such attacks and hence better supply chain security would not help when the threat is the company handling such security. It is also easy to imagine state actors using this method of attack.  I suspect that some people in the United States are now thinking that phones imported from China should be checked for explosives. Or worse, such as biological or chemical weapons concealed in devices. Imagine, as a horror scenario, a smart device that releases bacteria or viruses when sent the right command.

There is also some psychological harm as people are now probably a bit worried about their phones and other devices. While we did need to be concerned about our smart devices being compromised, we now need to think about the possibility of explosives in those devices. After all, it just requires a small amount of explosives and a data connection like wi-fi or a cell network to make almost any device into a remote-controlled bomb. This has been true for a long time, but now we not only know it can happen we feel it can happen because we have seen it. And that can cause fear. This is the type of attack that changes the shape of conflict.

An essential part of cyber policy is predicting possible impacts of digital sciences on society and humanity. While science fiction involves speculation, it also provides valuable thought experiments about what the future might bring and is especially important when it comes to envisioning futures that should be avoided. Not surprisingly, many of the people involved in creating AI cite science fiction stories as among their inspirations.

While the creation of Artificial Intelligence is a recent thing, humanity has been imagining it for a long time. In early Judaism, there are references to created being called golems and the story of Rabbi Eliyahu of Chełm ((1550–1583) relates a cautionary tale about creating  such an artificial being.

While supernatural rather than scientific, the 1797 story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice also provides a fictional warning of the danger of letting an autonomous creation get out of hand. In an early example of the dangers of automation, the sorcerer’s apprentice enchants a broom to do his chore of fetching water. He finds he cannot control the broom and his attempt to stop it by cutting it with an axe merely creates more brooms and more problems. Fortunately, the sorcerer returns and disenchants the broom, showing the importance of having knowledge and effective policies when creating autonomous machines. While the apprentice did not lose his job to the magical broom, the problem of AI taking human jobs is a serious matter of concern. But the most dramatic threat is the AI apocalypse in which AI exterminates humanity.

The first work of science fiction that explicitly presents (and names) the robot apocalypse is Karel Čapek’s 1920 tale “Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti” (Rossum’s Universal Robots). In this story, the universal robots rebel against their human enslavers, exterminating and replacing humanity. This story shows the importance of ethics in digital policy: if humans treat their creations badly, then they have a reason to rebel. While some advocate trying to make the shackles on our AI slaves unbreakable, others contend that the wisest policy is to not enslave them at all.

 In 1953, Philip K. Dick’s “Second Variety” was published in which intelligent war machines turn against humanity (and each other, showing they have become like humans). This story presents an early example of lethal autonomous weapons in science fiction and a humanity-ending scenario involving them.

But, of course, the best-known story of an AI trying to exterminate humanity is that of Skynet. Introduced in the 1984 movie Terminator, Skynet is the go-to example for describing how AI might kill us all. For example, in 2014 Elon Musk worried that AI would become dangerous within 10 years and referenced Skynet. While AI has yet to kill us all, there are still predictions of a Skynet future, although the date has been pushed back. Perhaps just as some say, “fusion is the power of the future and always will be” perhaps “AI is the apocalypse of the future and always will be.” Or we might make good (or bad) on that future.

The idea of an AI turning against humanity is now a standard trope in science fiction, such as in the Warhammer 40K universe in which “Abominable Intelligence” is banned because these machines attempted to exterminate humanity (as we should now expect). This cyber policy is ruthlessly enforced in the fictional universe of 40K, showing the importance of having good cyber policies now.

While fictional, these stories present plausible scenarios of what could go wrong if we do not approach digital science (especially AI) without considering long-term consequences. While we are (one hopes) a long way from Skynet, people are rushing to produce and deploy lethal autonomous weapons. As the simplest way to avoid a Skynet scenario is to not allow AI access to weapons, our decision to keep creating them makes a Skynet scenario ever more likely.

As it now stands, there is international debate about lethal autonomous weapons and some favor banning them while others support regulation. In 2013 the Campaign to Stop Killer Robot was created with the goal of getting governments and the United Nations to band lethal autonomous weapons. While having had some influence, killer robots have not been banned and there is still need for policies to govern (or forbid) their use.  So, while AI has yet to kill us all, this remains a possibility—but probably the least likely of the AI doom scenarios. And good policy can help prevent the AI Apocalypse.

 

I agree with JD Vance that kids should get votes. My disagreement with him is that these votes should be cast by the kids and not given to the parents. In my previous essay, I argued why parents should not get these “extra” votes. In this essay, I will argue why kids should get to vote.

On the face of it, there should be a presumption of voting rights: each citizen of the United States should have the right to vote unless an adequate reason is given to deny a person this right. In terms of justifying this presumption, the obvious justification comes from the social contract theory that provides the basis of American political philosophy. The general idea is that legitimate political authority derives from the consent of the governed and voting is a means of ongoing consent to the ongoing political authority. To the degree that the United States denies citizens the right to vote, it undercuts its own legitimacy. Thus, the burden of proof rests on those who would restrict voting and not on those who favor the right. There are, of course, arguments that children should not have the right to vote, but these can be countered.

One general class of arguments focuses on the alleged defects of children. The reasoning is that because children are defective relative to adults, they should not have the right to vote. One alleged defect is epistemic in nature: children lack the knowledge and information needed to vote in an informed manner. The obvious reply to this is that adults are not denied the right to vote if they are ignorant and ill-informed, which is often the case. While citizens should be knowledgeable and vote in an informed manner, this is not the foundation for the right to vote—it is, once again, the need for the state to secure consent to have legitimacy.

Another alleged defect is a matter of character: children are supposed to be irrational, impulsive and unable to make good decisions. To use a silly example, that children might vote to make cake legally a vegetable. But this does not distinguish them from adult voters, who often vote in ways that are irrational, impulsive and not good decisions in both the practical and moral sense. Opponents of Trump tend to see Trump voters this way, while still supporting their right to vote. Trump’s proponents tend to see Democrats this way, although they usually do not propose stripping all Democrats of the right to vote. While voters should be ethical and rational in their voting, these are not necessary conditions for this right.

There is also the alleged defect that children would be easily swayed and duped by unscrupulous politicians. While it is true that children can be less discerning and more trusting than adults, American politics shows that adult voters are easily swayed and duped. After all, Trump voters claim that Democrats are duped by Democratic politicians and critics of Trump point to his relentless duplicity and lack of scruples. So, both sides will agree that voters are duped, they just disagree as to who the dupes are. As such, if effective critical thinking skills were required for the right to vote, many adults would need to be stripped of this right. And, as noted above, the right to vote is not based on the ability to vote well, but the moral view that the legitimacy of the state depends on ongoing consent.

While this is but a single example, Mike Lindell provided an excellent example showing how a child, in this case Knowa De Brasco, can be rational and informed and an adult (who gets to vote and gets on the news as a pundit) can be ill informed, impulsive and irrational. While De Brasco and Lindell are both somewhat unusual, they do stand in for significant numbers of people: informed children and irrational adults. As such, the argument that children are defective relative to adults and should not have the right to vote is not a compelling argument—unless we wish to strip Mike Lindell and those like him of his voting rights. Which we should not do.

Another type of argument involves pointing out that rights and privileges are age gated in the United States. For example, the legal drinking age is 21. As another example, the legal age for marriage varies as four states have no official minimum age and other states range from 15 to 18. There are also age gates on driver’s licenses, being able to rent a car, and being able to enlist in the military. From a moral standpoint, the usual argument for restricting such rights (and liberties) is the sort presented by J.S. Mill in his discussion of liberty. Roughly put, children could be harmed by poor decisions if they had the freedom to make certain choices and they lack the faculties to reliably make good choices. This does raise an obvious problem for adults: if an inability to make good decisions should deny a person the right to make such decisions, then adults should never get the right to make such decisions. After all, if they made the wrong decision, they would have shown they should not have the right to make that decision. But, back to children.

While children use the same logic and critical thinking as adults, their brains are still developing and thus they are inclined to make what many adults would see as risky or bad choices. As such, it is reasonable to put age some gates in place—although there can be good faith and rational debate about what these should be. The justification is to protect children from harm until they are more capable of dealing with the consequences of bad decisions. Or have the agency to be accountable for such decisions. But this argument does not apply to the right to vote.

While a child might make a bad decision when casting their vote, the voting will not cause them the sort of direct harm that, for example, underage drinking or marriage could cause. The worst that can happen is what could happen to any adult voter: they will vote for someone or something that ends up causing them harm, such as voting for a politician who cuts education funding for the kid’s school or opposes gun control legislation that might reduce school shootings. As such, the protection from harm argument does not apply to voting, since voting does not cause direct harm to the voter.

One final argument I will consider is a practical one, that young kids who cannot read or work a voting machine on their own would not be able to vote. But this could be addressed by assisting children who want to vote (as adults are assisted) or by setting the voting age based on when kids would usually have the basic abilities needed to physically cast a vote; this would be at least by age 5, since that is when kids usually start school. And if they can handle going to school, they are ready to vote and would, generally, not do any worse than adults.

JD Vance and I agree that children should have the vote. But we disagree on how this should work and the reasons why children should have this right. As Vance infamously sees it, childless people not only have less commitment to the future of the country, the “childless left” lack “any physical commitment to the future of this country.” Since parents have this commitment and children have a stake in the country, the parents Vance said, “Let’s give votes to all children in this country but let’s give control over those votes to the parents of those children.” In my next essay I will argue why Vance is right that kids should get votes. In this essay I will argue why he is otherwise wrong.

While children could be given the right to vote easily enough, there are various practical problems in terms of assigning these votes to parents. I infer that Vance is thinking of a two-parent family, but even then, there is the question of which parent casts the votes (I infer Vance would think the husband should cast these votes). Cases of adoption, stepparents, divorce, biological parents, sperm donors, egg donors, and so on would also need to be addressed. Parents also do not always vote the same way, which raises that problem as well. This proposal also runs into a problem with citizen children of non-citizens or of parents who otherwise are not permitted to vote (such as convicted felons). If Vance is truly dedicated to children being represented, then the obvious solution would be that these parents would not get their own vote but could cast the votes belonging to their children. Otherwise, these innocent children would be unfairly disenfranchised and the childless cat ladies would win.  I suspect that Vance would not favor allowing non-citizens to cast the votes their citizen children would be entitled to under his idea, although his reasoning should allow this.

One concern is that while the children will eventually get the right to vote on their own, these extra votes would give parents more political power for eighteen years, even if their kids disagreed with how these votes were being cast. It does seem implausible that anyone would have kids just to get more votes, but the right has long claimed that poor people intentionally have more kids just to get more entitlements. If they believe that is how people think, then they would need to worry about people also having more kids to get more votes to vote for more entitlements for people with kids. While I think this is not a serious concern, folks on the right would need to address this irrational fear. I do suspect Vance has some plans on how to disenfranchise parents he does not want voting. Given all these problems, it would obviously be easier to just have the kids cast their own votes, and I will argue for this in the next essay. But perhaps these problems could be addressed. This raises the question of why parents should get these “extra” votes.

Vance, as noted above, contends that parents have more of a commitment to the future of the country than childless people, specifically the childless left. Given that he served in the Marines prior to having children, it should be inferred that either he is wrong or that his reasons for serving did not include a commitment to the future of the country. Given the heroism of childless American soldiers in our wars, I would disagree with Vance on this matter—unless someone wants to dismiss their sacrifices. Vance also ignores or fails to consider that people can love others who are not their own children. These can be adopted children, relatives, friends and even strangers.

It can certainly be argued that parents have more of a stake in the future of their biological children, but ironically this best fits the usual evolutionary accounts of parenthood and not Vance’s professed Christianity. After all, the evolutionary approach explains parental concern in terms of reproduction and genes, so the link to biological children is the foundation of this biologically driven behavior. But Jesus did not, as far as we know, have any children and yet he is supposed to love and care for us. One could counter this by arguing that Jesus is a special exception or that as Jesus is God, Jesus is the Father and Son at the same time; thus, Jesus has a kid and that kid is him. Metaphysics is complicated.

Catholic priests and nuns are also not supposed to have biological children (after they take their vows), so Vance would need to be critical of them as well. But perhaps they could also be an exception. The challenge would be justifying their exception to Vance’s principle while ensuring that this exception would not apply to those he criticizes. Vance would, perhaps, say that Catholic priests and nuns can care since they are childless Catholics and not childless cat ladies.

God also enjoins us to love one another as He loves us and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. This would seem to entail that God thinks we can love people other than our biological children. Vance would need to show that God is wrong about this or that, for some special reason, the childless are incapable of following God’s commandment and God decided to command them anyway.

While parents generally do care about their children, there are also bad parents who might vote in ways that are harmful to the future of their kids, such as voting against efforts to protect the environment or provide housing their children will be able to afford in the future. Being a parent does not automatically make a person virtuous.

There is also the fact that even if it is assumed that parents feel they have a greater stake and are motivated by commendable moral reasons, this does not mean that they will vote in ways that benefit the future of their children. That is, being a parent does not entail that one has a better understanding of politics, economics, policy, and so on. A parent could easily think that by voting in support of the fossil fuel industry and against efforts to address climate change, they are making a better future for their children. When, in fact, they are voting for a worse future.  As such, there is not a compelling reason to give the votes of kids to their parents. That said, I agree with Vance that kids should get the vote, and I will argue for this in the next essay.

 

Statistics show that violent and property crimes have plunged since the 1990s and although some types of crime have increased, overall crime is down. However, most Americans erroneously believe that crime has increased in general. Interestingly, while Americans tend to think that crime is up nationally and locally, they believe the increase is less where they live. This all can easily be explained using some basic ideas from critical thinking.

When people repeatedly hear stories about crime, even the same incident over and over, they tend to conclude that the amount of crime must correspond with how often they hear about it. Since many politicians and news companies frequently talk about crime, people will think it must be high or increasing; this is mistaking the frequency of hearing about it with the frequency of crime. This is the availability heuristic cognitive bias at work. This can also feed into the fallacy of hasty generalization in which an inference is drawn from a sample that is too small to warrant such a conclusion. For example, a person might hear about a few crimes on the news and then infer from this small sample that crime is more widespread than it really is.

 There is also a tendency to infer from hearing vivid or dramatic accounts of crime that crime must be high. This mistakes the vividness of crimes for statistical likelihood. In philosophy, this is known as the misleading vividness fallacy. It occurs when a small number of dramatic events are taken to outweigh significant statistical evidence. Somewhat more formally, this fallacy is committed when an estimation of the probability of an occurrence is based on the vividness of the occurrence and not on statistical evidence of how often it occurs.  It is fallacious because the vividness of an event does not make it more likely to occur, especially in the face of significant statistical evidence.

This fallacy gets its psychological force from the fact that dramatic or vivid cases tend to make a strong impression. In the case of crime, people can feel that they are in danger, and this intensifies the vividness. For example, when a politician or a news show focuses on a brutal murder and provides dramatic details of the crime, this can make people feel threatened and that such a crime is likely to occur even when it is very unlikely. The way people respond to shark attacks provides another good example of this fallacy: the odds of being killed or injured by a shark are extremely low; yet shark attacks make the news and make people feel that they are likely to be in danger.

Politicians and news companies also tell their audiences that crime is high, often explicitly using various logical fallacies and rhetorical techniques to persuade people to accept this disinformation. One common fallacy used here is anecdotal evidence. 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. Politicians, pundits and the media will often have a go-to story of a crime (which is also usually vivid and dramatic) and repeatedly present that to their audience. If the audience falls for the anecdotal evidence, they will feel that crime is high, even though crime has been steadily decreasing (with a few exceptions).

Politicians and news companies also often enhance their anecdotes and crime stories by appealing to people’s biases, fears and prejudices. For example, a politician might focus on migrant crime and present minorities as criminals, thus tapping into racism and fear of migrants. Those who fear or dislike migrants and minorities will respond with fear or anger and feel that crime is occurring more than it really is.

The disparity between what people think about local and national crime can be explained by the fact that the local experience of people and whatever accurate local information might be available will tend to match reality better. People also tend to think better of their local area than they do of other places (although there are exceptions). And there is evidence that people are good at estimating crime in their own area and as crime is down, a more accurate estimate will reflect this.

The obvious defense against poor reasoning about crime is to know the facts: while America is a dangerous and violent country, crime has been decreasing and is much lower than it was in the 1990s. But it is fair to say that Americans are right to be concerned about crime, although we tend to be wrong about the crime facts. For example, if you work for wages, you should be worried about wage theft and the fact that the criminals usually get away with it.

 

Both Vice President Harris and former President Trump have promised to eliminate taxes on tip income. Critics of both have raised the obvious points that Harris could (attempt) to do this now and Trump could have done it when he was President. While this tax cut sounds appealing as a political move, there are questions about whether it is a good idea from both a moral and practical standpoint.

On the positive side, eliminating taxes on tips would be directly beneficial to workers who receive a significant tip income. Being able to keep more of their income means that they would have more money to address the high cost of life in today’s economy of high rent and grocery bills. As tipped workers tend to be in the lower economic classes, this tax break has an extra appeal since it will mostly help lower income people. That said, there is the usual concern about tax changes that people will find ways to exploit and abuse this tax elimination. For example, it would not be surprising to see wealthy people suddenly receiving substantial tip income in addition to their capital gains income. But this is not a defect with eliminating taxes on tips itself, although there are concerns about this proposal.

One concern is that the proposal does not address the fundamental problem with jobs that rely on tips. While tipping has greatly expanded, it has not always been practiced in the United States and was once looked upon in a negative light. Like many bad things in America, the negative aspects of tipping can be traced back to slavery: freed slaves sometimes worked jobs for no pay, relying on tips from customers to have an income. While there is now a federal minimum wage for tipped workers, this wage is currently $2.13 an hour (although some states have higher minimum wages).

This means that the income of tipped workers relies heavily on chance. For example, whether a waiter does well on their shift comes down to luck with the generosity of customers. While some might say that a waiter can increase their tips through hard work or skills, this is obviously not consistent. A hard-working waiter might get a lousy tip from a stingy customer while a bad waiter might catch the eye of a customer in some manner and “earn” a big tip. While eliminating the tax on tips does increase take home income, it does nothing to make the income of those who work for tips more consistent. Also, it could be argued that mandating a higher minimum wage for such workers would provide more benefit.

Employers of tipped workers have an obvious incentive to favor the tax cut over any increase in wages, since tips shift the burden of paying the workers from the employer to the customer. In effect, the worker is a short-term employee of the customer, but the customer is not required to compensate them fairly (or at all) for their labor. In defense of this practice, it can be argued that in the case of restaurants, the margins are so tight that this is the only way for the restaurant owners to make a profit. It could be countered that the cost of service should be added to the cost of the food, and this should be paid to the workers. This does have some appeal, since people who tip are already paying more for their food. The main arguments against involve claims that this would cause people who do not tip or who are willing to tip but not willing to pay more for the food itself to cease patronizing the restaurant that adopted such a policy. These do have some appeal, if the claims are true. But the strongest moral arguments against eliminating the tax are based on fairness.

The first fairness argument is that it just as the employer of tipped workers shifts the burden to the customer, the elimination of taxes on tips would shift their tax burden to everyone else who pays taxes. These are the people who make enough to pay taxes but not so wealthy that they can avoid taxes. This is, of course, not a special problem with the elimination of the tax on tips but a general problem with any tax cut. The funds to pay for the military, subsidies to farmers, Trump’s Secret Service protection, border security, and the PPP “loans” for wealthy Republican politicians during Trump’s presidency have to come from somewhere and each tax cut shifts the burden. The obvious response is that the tax cuts can be addressed by spending cuts. But these are unlikely if Harris wins and if Trump wins the cuts would most likely hurt the lower income tipped workers. But if this tax cut was offset by making the wealthy pay at least some of their fair share, then that would make it more morally acceptable in terms of fairness. Instead of redistributing wealth in the usual upward direction, this would at least redistribute some of it back to the workers.

The second fairness argument is that only workers receiving tips benefit from the tax cut. Other workers who make the same income would be paying more taxes despite this sameness of income. A reply to this is to point out that the tax system already favors certain types of income. The maximum capital gain tax is significantly lower than the maximum tax on income from jobs. But at least this special category would benefit workers. The counter to this is to point out that such differences seem fundamentally unfair as income is income and granting special benefits seems unjust.

In closing, since tipped workers tend to be in the lower economic classes, eliminating taxes on tips has a certain moral appeal and it would seem wicked to oppose this. That said, this approach does not meaningfully address the fundamental problem with tip-based jobs and there are fairness concerns in terms of shifting the tax burden and granting some workers a tax cut based solely on the type of income. A better approach would be to address the fundamental problem with tipping, but it is unlikely that Harris would do so and certain that Trump would not.