Month: February 2025

 

By JStark1809 / Deterrence Dispensed

In 2013 Defense Distributed created a working pistol using a $8,000 3D printer. This raised the specter of people printing guns and created quite a stir. The company made the news again in 2018 when Cody Wilson, an anarchist and owner of the company, was the subject of a lawsuit aimed at banning him from selling files for printing guns. As expected, this re-ignited the moral panic of 2013. Most recently, it is alleged that UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was killed with a printed pistol and silencer.

While the idea of criminals, terrorists and others printing their own guns might seem alarming, it is important to consider the facts. As has often been pointed out, the 3D printer needed to make a functioning gun costs about $5,000 on the low end. By comparison, an AR-15 costs between $800 and $1200, while decent 9mm pistols are in the $400-700 range.  As such, 3D printing a gun does not make much financial sense unless a person is making guns in bulk. If a person wants a gun, they can easily buy several good guns for less than the cost of the printer. 

A second important point is that the most basic printed gun is not much of a gun: it is a single shot, low caliber weapon. While it could hurt or kill a person, it would be almost useless for someone intending to engage in a mass shooting and probably not very useful in most criminal endeavors. A criminal or terrorist would be foolish to choose such a weapon over a normal gun. While better guns can be printed, as the shooting of Thompson seems to illustrate, they are not as good as a manufactured firearm.

One reasonable reply to this view is to note that there are people who cannot legally own guns but who can own a 3D printer. These people, the argument goes, could print guns to commit their misdeeds. The easy and obvious reply is that a person willing to break the law to illegally possess a printed gun (and use it in crimes) can easily acquire a manufactured gun for less than the cost of the printer.

It can be countered that there are, for whatever reason, people who want an illegal gun but are unable or unwilling to buy a manufactured gun illegally. For them, the printed gun would be their only option. But guns can be made using legal hardware readily available at a hardware store. This sort of improvised gun (often called a “zip gun”) is easy to make. Directions for these weapons are readily available on the internet and the parts are cheap. For those who cannot acquire bullets, there are evenplans to make pneumatic weapons. Printing a gun just automates the process of making a homemade gun at a relatively high cost. So, the moral panic over the printed gun is fundamentally misguided: it is just a technological variant of the worry that bad people will make guns at home. And the reality is that the more sensible worry is that bad people will just buy or steal manufactured guns.

While people do make their own guns, people prefer manufactured guns when engaging in crimes and terrorist attacks for obvious reasons. Thus, being worried about the threat posed by 3D printers and gun plans is like being worried about hardware stores and plans for zip guns. While people can use them to make weapons, people are more likely to use them for legitimate purposes and get their weapons some other way, such as buying or stealing them.

One could persist in arguing that the 3D printed gun could still be the only option for some terrorists. But I suspect they would forgo making homemade guns in favor of homemade bombs. After all, a homemade bomb is far more effective than a homemade gun for terrorism. As such, there seems to be little reason to be worried about people printing guns to commit crimes or make terrorists attacks. Manufactured guns and more destructive weapons are readily available to everyone in the United States, so bans on printing guns or their plans would not make us any safer in terms of crime and terrorism. That said, a concern does remain.

While printing a gun to bypass the law makes little sense, there is the reasonable concern that people will print guns to bypass metal detectors. While the stock printed gun uses a metal firing pin, it would be easy enough to get this through security. The rounds would, of course, pose a bit of challenge—although non-metallic casings and bullets can be made. With such a gun, a would-be assassin could get into a government building, or a would-be terrorist could get onto a plane. Or so one might think.

While this is a matter of concern, there are two points worth noting. First, as mentioned above, the stock printed gun is a single-shot low caliber weapon, which limits the damage a person can do with it. Second, while the gun is plastic, it is not invisible. It can be found by inspection and would show up on an X-ray or body scan. As such, the threat posed by such guns is low. There is also the fact that one does not need a 3D printer to make a gun that can get past a metal detector.  

While the printers available to most people cannot create high quality weapons, there is the concern that advances will allow the affordable production of effective firearms. For example, a low-cost home 3D printer that could produce a fully functional assault rifle or submachinegun would be a problem. Of course, the printer would still need to be a cheaper and easier option than just buying or stealing guns, which are incredibly easy in the United States.

As a final point of concern, there is also the matter of the ban on gun plans. Some have argued that to make the distribution of these plans illegal violates the First Amendment, which provides a legal right. There is also the moral right of free expression. In this case, like other cases, it is a matter of weighing the harms of the expression against the harm inflicted by restricting it. Given the above arguments, the threat presented by printable guns does not warrant the restriction of the freedom of expression. As such, outlawing such plans would be immoral.  To use an analogy, it would be like banning recipes for unhealthy foods and guides on how to make cigarettes when they are readily available for purchase everywhere in the United States.

 

 

 

Plato argued philosophers should be kings, based on the idea that ruling was best done by those with knowledge. While having a philosophy professor running the show might not be the best idea, it makes sense to think intelligence is an important trait for good leaders. After all, good leadership requires making good decisions and intelligence can help here.

As might be expected, there is evidence for this view: there is a strong correlation between perceived leadership effectiveness and intelligence. Interestingly, there is positive correlation up until the leader’s IQ is 120. Above that and the leader is perceived as less effective. There are, of course, questions about IQ as a measure of intelligence, but let us set that aside for this discussion.

It is tempting to embrace the stereotype of the bumbling and ineffective intellectual and think that these higher IQ leaders are bad at leading because of their intelligence. To use a fictional example, consider the Star Trek episode “The Galileo 7.” In this episode, Spock and several crewmembers from the Enterprise crash on a planet and are beset by hostile natives. In the course of the episode, Spock uses his logic and intelligence to make decisions—but fails as a leader until he takes a desperate gamble to save everyone. The same, one might argue, can happen in the real world: a leader whose intelligence leads them astray when they try to lead. To use a real-world example, Jimmy Carter was often characterized in this manner. He was an intelligent (and compassionate) person, but many claimed he was a poor leader because he overthought things.

While this explanation has some appeal, especially in a political and social climate that is savagely anti-intellectual and anti-expert, it does not hold up to scrutiny. While there are intelligent leaders who are bad at leading, high IQ leaders are generally perceived as performing worse than their actual performance. As such, the problem is more one of perception of leadership than leadership.

It could be objected that this perception problem is a problem of leadership because a good leader would ensure that their leadership was properly perceived. On the one hand, this objection does have appeal because a key part of leadership is getting people to follow and shaping perceptions is important. On the other hand, it could be argued that the fault lies in the followers and the responsibility of learning how to perceive reality accurately lies with them.

In many ways, this challenge is like that faced by educators. A very intelligent teacher presenting difficult material to students who do not understand might be perceived as a bad teacher because of the students’ own ignorance. In contrast, a less intelligent teacher presenting simple material might be seen as a very good teacher (especially if the students get good grades). In the education scenario, one could blame the students as they should put in more effort to understand and in doing so would realize that the teacher knows their stuff. Of course, one could also blame the teacher: their job is not to show off their intelligence before uncaring students, but to teach them. As such, a good teacher must develop the skills needed to win the attention of students and the ability to guide them from ignorance to knowledge. In the history of education, the pendulum of perceived responsibility tends to swing between these two points depending on the dominant educational theory (and politics) of the day.

One approach is to take the middle-ground and argue that both intelligent leaders and their followers need to improve. That is, the followers should learn to assess leadership better and the high IQ leaders need to develop ways to connect to their followers and present themselves in a way that is not perceived as ineffective. This might, perhaps, involve dumbing things down. Or, more charitably, improving their explanations.

Another approach is to put more of a burden on leaders or on the followers, which harkens back to the education analogy—the tendency is towards the extremes rather than the middle ground. This leads to interesting questions about the responsibilities of leaders and followers. Since the leader is in the position of authority and more should be expected of them, the leader is responsible for ensuring that the followers perceive their leadership effectiveness accurately. But, going back to the teaching analogy, it is unfair to put all the burden on a teacher for making students learn and likewise for leaders. As such, the middle-ground approach is perhaps the fairest: high IQ leaders, like high IQ teachers, need to ensure that they are understood. But, followers, like students, must also assume responsibility to try to understand.

 

The received wisdom is that when Americans buy vehicles, they consider gas mileage when gas prices are high and mostly ignore it when gas prices are low. As this is being written, gas prices are relatively low and gas mileage concerns are probably low on the list for most buyers. As such, it is not surprising that the Trump administration has decided to lower the fuel efficiency standards of the Biden administration. This is consistent with the Trump administration’s approach of trying to undo what Biden did, primarily because it was done by Biden. He had a similar approach to the Obama administration.

When the Trump administration did the same thing in his first term, they said the standards were “wrong” and were set as a matter of politics. One plausible economic reason to oppose fuel efficiency in cars and light trucks is that more efficient vehicles also cost more. This economic argument can be retooled into a moral argument: saving consumers money is the right thing to do. But there is also an economic argument in favor of greater fuel efficiency.

While gas prices can vary greatly, increased fuel efficiency will offset increased vehicle costs and result in the consumer saving money. As such, the long-term economic argument favors fuel efficiency. As before, this can be retooled into a moral argument that saving Americans money is a good thing. But consumers saving money would seem to mean lower profits for the fossil fuel industry.

If, for example, an efficient vehicle saves me $4,000 in fuel costs over its life, then that is $4,000 less for the fossil fuel industry. While few would shed tears over lost profits for the industry executives, the broader impact must also be considered. While the executives reap the most benefits, the fossil fuel industry also includes the people working at gas stations and in the production and distribution of the fuel. If the harm done to these people outweighs the good done for the consumers, then increased fuel efficiency would, on utilitarian grounds, seem to be wrong. But it seems unlikely that the savings to consumers would cause more harm than good. After all, if we compare the benefit of the average American saving money to the  harm of a microscopic loss of profit for fossil fuel CEOs, then efficiency seems to be the right choice. In addition to the economic concerns and the associated ethical worries, there are also concerns about health.

While the Trump administration does not seem to care about the harms of pollution, about 50,000 deaths each year result from the air pollution caused by traffic. There are also many non-lethal health impacts of this pollution, such as asthma.  Increased fuel efficiency means vehicles burn less fuel, thus reducing the air pollution they produce per mile. Because of this, increasing fuel efficiency will reduce deaths and illnesses caused by air pollution. This health argument can be retooled easily into a moral argument: increasing fuel efficiency reduces pollution deaths and illness, and, on utilitarian grounds, this would be morally good. But this argument only works with those who care about the lives and health of others. That is, it should work with people who profess to be pro-life. But it will not, for the usual and obvious reasons.

It is reasonable to ask about how significant the reduction in deaths and illness might be. Arguments can also be made to try to show that the reduction in pollution would not be significant enough to justify increasing fuel efficiency on these grounds. It also should be noted that we, as a people, tolerate roughly 40,000 vehicle deaths per year. As such, continuing to tolerate deaths from air pollution is also an option. Tolerating deaths and illness for convenience and economic reasons is as American as apple pie.

For those not swayed by health concerns, there are national security and economic arguments that have been advanced for increasing fuel efficiency and they can still be applied today. One argument is that increased fuel efficiency will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and make us safer. This security argument can also be presented as a moral argument based on the good consequences of increased security.

Another argument is based on the claim that buying foreign oil increases our trade deficit and this is economically harmful to the United States. Because of the negative consequences, this argument can also be refit as a moral argument in favor of increasing fuel efficiency. Given the Trump administration’s professed obsession with national security and trade deficits, these arguments should be appealing to them. But it is not.

Given the above arguments, there are excellent reasons to maintain the goal of increasing the fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks. While there are some reasons not to do so, such as helping the fuel industry increase profits, this would be the wrong choice.

 

I was asked to share a link to a post by another philosopher:

 

Written by Tracy Llanera, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut.

Everything doesn’t happen for a reason

https://iai.tv/articles/everything-doesnt-happen-for-a-reason-auid-3073?_auid=2020

“Everything happens for a reason,” “it’s meant to be,” “it is what it is.” These cliches express an increasingly popular form of Stoic fatalism. The underlying idea is that “Reality” just is a certain way, determined by God or physics. This superficially tough realism comforts us by absolving us of responsibility: whatever happens was bound to happen. But this makes it dangerous, argues Tracy Llanera. It leads to resigned inaction in the face of geopolitical strife, injustice, and our personal lives. Instead, we must recognize that there is no higher being responsible for us: we must take responsibility for each other and the world we live in.

 

 

The United States has been waging a war on drugs and the drugs are winning: in 2016 63,000 people died from drug overdoses. The path from prescription opioids to heroin has resulted in over 15,000 deaths from heroin overdoses. The addition of fentanyl made things even worse.

Because of slowly shifting attitudes and the fact that the opioid epidemic hit white Americans and cut across our economic classes there was increased interest in treating addiction as a medical issue. This change is long overdue and could help provide some solutions to drug abuse.

One approach to reducing deaths has been safe injection facilities. A safe injection facility, as the name states, is a place where people can safely inject drugs under the supervision of people trained and equipped to deal with overdoses. These sites also provide clean needles, reducing the risk of infection and disease. Looked at from a legal viewpoint, these sites are problematic: they enable illegal activity, although the intention is to mitigate rather than contribute to the harms of drug abuse. While the legality of such facilities is a matter for law makers and judges, they also raise an ethical issue.

As with most large-scale social ills, a good starting point in the moral discussion is utilitarianism. This is the view that the morality of an action is determined by weighing the positive value it generates against the negative value for the morally relevant beings. An action that creates more positive value than negative value would be good; one that did the opposite would be evil. Bentham and Mill are two famous examples of utilitarians.

There are numerous positive benefits to injection clinics.  Because trained people are present to deal with overdoses, these facilities reduce overdose deaths. For example, there were 35% fewer fatal overdoses in the area around a Canadian injection facility after it opened. In contrast, other methods of addressing overdose saw only a 9.3% reduction in overdose deaths. While more statistical data is needed, this does point towards the effectiveness of the facilities. For folks who profess to be pro-life, supporting such facilities should be an easy and obvious choice.

Because the facilities provide clean needles, they reduce the occurrence of infections, and this saves the community money as sick drug addicts often end up being treated at public expense. Clean needles are much cheaper than emergency room visits.

If all the facilities did was provide needles and try to keep addicts from dying, then it would be reasonable to argue that they are just bailing out a sinking boat rather than plugging the holes. Fortunately, such facilities also refer their visitors to addiction treatment and some people manage to beat their addiction.

While significant statistical data is still needed, an analysis indicates that each dollar spent on injection facilities would save $2.33 in medical, law enforcement and other costs. From an economic and health standpoint, these are significant positive factors and help make a strong moral case for injection facilities. However, proper assessment of the matter requires considering the negative aspects as well.

One point of concern is that the money spent on injection facilities could be better spent in other ways directly aimed at reducing drug use. Or perhaps on other things, such as education or community infrastructure. This is a reasonable point, and a utilitarian must be open to the possibility that these alternatives would create more positive value. While this is mainly a matter of an assessment of worth, there are also empirical factors that can be objectively assessed, such as the financial return on the investment. Given the above, injection facilities do seem to be worth the cost; but this could be disproven.

Another point of concern is that although injection facilities refer people to treatment programs, they enable people to use drugs. It could be argued that this helps perpetuate their addiction. The easy and obvious reply is that people would still use drugs without such facilities; they would just be more likely to die, more likely to get sick, and less likely to enroll in addiction treatment programs. So, those who care about other people should support these facilities. Those who favor human suffering should oppose them.

A third matter of moral concern is that, as noted above, injection facilities enable illegal activity. It could be argued that this might damage the rule of law and have negative consequences that arise when laws are ignored. The easy and obvious counter is that the laws should be changed as treating drug use as a crime rather than a health issue has proven to be a costly disaster. Even if the laws were not changed, it can be argued that morality trumps the law. After all, if people should obey the law because it is the right thing to do, then unjust or immoral laws would be self-undercutting. The cynical might also note that the rule of law has been openly shown to be a lie and to allow people to suffer for this delusion would be a grave moral mistake.

A final point is that the utilitarian approach could be rejected in favor of another moral theory. There are many other approaches to ethics. For example, under some moral theories actions are inherently good or bad. On such a view, enabling drug use could be regarded as wrong, even if the consequences were positive. While this sort of view can provide the satisfaction of being among the righteous, it can impose a high cost on others, such as those dying from overdoses. But to be fair to these moral theories, they also provide the foundation for moral arguments against views that terrible means can be justified by the ends.

Considering the above arguments, while there are some concerns about the ethics of aiding people in using drugs, the strongest moral case favors injection facilities. As such, the laws should be changed to allow them to operate legally.

 

While most of the earth’s surface is covered in water, there are ever increasing water shortages. One cause is obvious: the human population is increasing and the same amount of water is being spread among an increasing number of people. So, there is less water per person as our population increases.

Water is also being used in more ways than before, and industrializing countries have increased their water use. To illustrate, AI, manufacturing and agriculture use massive amounts of water, often in places that are ill-suited to such activity. In some cases, water can be reclaimed and re-used, but not always.  

It is not just the amount of water that matters, but what it can be safely used for. As we contaminate water, we decrease the usable water supply.  In some cases, we transform it from a resource to a waste that must be sealed away. Industrial chemicals, fertilizers, and even radioactivity are examples of water contaminants. Fracking, for example, contaminates water—even when it is done properly. While contaminated water can sometimes be re-used, it is usually unfit for human consumption. While it can be argued that contamination is limited and the amount of water vast (“the solution to pollution is dilution”), the earth’s water is obviously still finite. That means that as water is contaminated, the amount of usable water is reduced. If this goes on long enough and the water is not decontaminated, the effects will be significant. While worldwide contamination is of concern, what matters to  most people is not the total available water, but what is available to them. In addition to contamination, there is also the impact of climate.

While some deny climate change or the role of humans in the process, it is well-established historical fact that the climate does change and the ruins of ancient cities attest to this. In these cases, it is the location of water that matters and shifts in climate (whatever the cause) can create zones of shortage. This is happening today, just as it happened in the past. While the total water on the earth is not really impacted by climate change, the location and quality of the water is affected. For example, while drought in one area does not mean that the earth has less overall water, it does mean that the people living there have less water. Climate change can also cause contamination. For example, my adopted state of Florida is plagued by blooms of toxic algae which might be impacted by the changing climate. While some might taunt those concerned with this for being lake huggers, these outbreaks impact what matters most to the “practical folk”, namely money. Florida, after all, generates revenue from tourism and few want to travel to look at green slime. There is also the concern with the water supply as green slime is not safe to drink. While it is possible to continue the litany of water worries, the above should suffice to show that water shortages are a concern. This raises the question of how to deal with the problem.

Environmentalists have been arguing for years that the solution is to reduce pollution and address climate change. While a reduction of pollution has been a general trend in the United States (thanks in part to Richard Nixon creating the EPA), the current political environment favors an increase in pollution and a decrease in regulation. The moral value behind this view is that environmental costs should be shifted from those who profit from causing damage to those impacted by the damage. For example, rolling back regulations on what companies can dump into the water reduces their costs, but imposes health costs on those who drink contaminated water. The principle of fairness would seem to require that those who make the profit also pay the cost, but politicians are very selective in their concerns about fairness. Because of the current political climate, we should expect an increase in water contamination.

One controversial solution is to recycle waste water, especially sewage, so that it can be used as potable water. While recycling always involves some loss, this would allow cities to address water shortages by reusing their water. It would also have environmental benefits, if the waste was dealt with properly (and, interestingly, sewerage can provide valuable raw materials).

One major obstacle is the cost as recycling water for human consumption requires infrastructure. However, this cost can be worth it in the face of water shortages. It is, after all, probably cheaper and more convenient to recycle water than to transport water (and that water must obviously come from somewhere).

Another major obstacle is psychological. Many people find the idea of drinking water that was recycled from sewage  distasteful, even if the  recycled water is cleaner than the water they currently consume. To be fair, there are real concerns about ensuring the water is properly treated and improperly recycled sewage could contain harmful microbes or chemicals. But these are problems that can (and have) been addressed so that recycled sewage is no riskier than a conventional water supply (and perhaps less so in many places).

Even when people accept treated water as safe, the distaste problem remains because some think that drinking water that was recently sewage is gross, even though the water is pure and safe to drink. As such, simply proving it is safe will not solve this psychological problem.

This is analogous to proposals to use processed insects as a food source. Even if the food is indistinguishable from “normal” food, clean, healthy and nutritious, many people think this is gross. This includes people who regularly devour parts of animal corpses (better known as “meat”)

Since this is a problem of feeling rather than reason, the solution would need to focus on changing how people feel about recycled water so they can reason about it. One possible approach is by telling the story of water in general. With a little reflection, people understand that tap water has been recycled countless times. Any water you recently drank was most likely filtered through the kidneys of many creatures over the millennia and probably passed through many humans. It might have even passed through you at one point. As such, all the water we consume is recycled already and was almost certainly disgusting (vulture vomit, for example) at one point. However, the process of cleaning it, , cleans it: the water is then fine to drink. As such, if a person is willing to drink any water, then they should also be willing to drink properly recycled water. Water that was just recycled properly from sewage is no more disgusting than water that was once part of vulture vomit and is now in your coffee or bottled water.

People can still say that it is proximity that matters. Recycled water was just recently sewage, but their bottled water or coffee has (probably) not been vulture vomit for a long time. From a rational standpoint this difference should be irrelevant: clean water is clean water, regardless of how long it has been clean. Unless one believes in some sort of mystical or metaphysical contamination that is undetectable by empirical means, then the rejection of safe recycled water would be unfounded. However, unfounded and irrational beliefs drive much of politics and human decision making in general, so the practical challenge is to influence people to not be disgusted by recycled water. Some might be won over by other feelings, such as positive feelings about the environment or the survival instinct (recycled water is preferable to no water). Hard core campers and hikers, who have sucked up bog water through a filtration straw, might be the easiest people to win over.  But such psychological manipulation goes beyond the scope of philosophy, so I will leave this matter to the experts in that field.

 

Supporters of prohibition argued that it would solve the ills caused by alcohol. Ironically, prohibition ushered in more evils, such as creating a financial foundation for organized crime. While they were right about the ills of alcohol, their solution was mistaken.

Studies of alcohol use back up the intuitive view that it contributes to the frequency and severity of violence, especially domestic violence. It is also linked to child abuse, suicide and (obviously) drunk driving. While there is neither a necessary nor sufficient link between alcohol and violence, there is a causal connection. As such, reducing alcohol consumption would reduce these harms, providing a basis for a solid utilitarian moral argument for doing so. Since a return to prohibition is not an option and individual efforts are limited to individuals, something with broad reach is needed to have a significant impact on the problem.

While few would argue for a return to prohibition, there is support for raising taxes on alcohol. Intuitively, increasing the cost of a product will reduce its consumption, but intuitions can be wrong. However, numerous studies  establish a link between raising alcohol taxes and reducing consumption. This, in turn, helped reduce violence. It also had other unexpected positive effects, such as reducing the number of gonorrhea cases. Raising taxes (and thus prices) is also supposed to reduce teen drinking, lowering the chances they will grow up to become heavy drinkers. These are all significant benefits which can be used in a utilitarian argument in favor of raising alcohol taxes. Naturally, the possible negative consequences must also be considered.

One concern is that if alcohol taxes are raised, people will turn to more dangerous alternatives such as other drugs and “boot leg” alcohol. The worry is that this “solution” will make things worse. But even if some people did turn to more dangerous alternatives, there could still be an overall positive outcome. This is an empirical matter that will require evidence to resolve, and the challenge is raising the tax enough to reduce alcohol consumption but not so much that people start switching to worse drugs or drinking Sterno.

As with any tax on a popular product, it is likely to disproportionally impact people with lower income. This concern has two main moral components. The first is that such a tax would be unfair because of this disproportionality. In this it does not differ from other sales taxes. While everyone pays the same rate, it is a higher percentage of the income of the less well off, which is why progressive taxes are fairer than sales taxes.

The second is that the higher cost would hurt poor people more than the wealthy (which is always true of any such tax). If they keep buying alcohol, they will suffer a greater financial burden, and this could cause additional problems. But if they decide to spend the same as before and thus drink less, then the overall impact would be positive (assuming there are benefits to less alcohol consumption).

There is also ideological opposition to increasing taxes, even (or especially) for the public good. In this case, it could be contended that increasing taxes is simply wrong, even to create good results. While there are some whose opposition to increasing taxes is absolute, it is difficult to argue that it is worse to not raise taxes and tolerate the serious harms, than to raise taxes to create significant benefits. This is why those who oppose tax increases aimed at the public good endeavor to shift the debate from the public good to well-worn ideological sayings about taxes being bad.

One last concern is opposition to the “nanny state.” The idea is people should be responsible for their own choices and the state should not be a “nanny” regulating behavior (except behavior one wants to regulate, of course). An obvious response is that while raising taxes can influence people’s choices, it neither compels nor forbids them in that they are still free to decide about drinking; it will simply cost them more to drink.

It could be objected that the state is still trying to influence behavior in a desired direction. This cannot be denied. But this is what states, by their very nature, do. For example, states impose penalties for things like theft in the hope of changing behavior. Influencing behavior through penalties and imposed costs is what states do. As such, the state trying to reduce alcohol related deaths by raising taxes is as justified as the state trying to reduce murders or illegal border crossing by imposing penalties on those behaviors. As such, increasing alcohol taxes would appear to be the right thing to do.

 

Some years ago, researchers created “minibrains” which are more formally known as cerebral organoids. As the name implies, a minibrain is a pea-sized collection of a few million human neural cells. A human brain consists of about 85 billion cells. These minibrains are usually created by transforming human skin cells.  As should be imagined, these minibrains raise ethical concerns.

One concern is that as minibrains are human neural masses, they could develop consciousness. Since moral status often rests on mental attributes, this means they might someday possess a moral status, perhaps even a near person status. The epistemic challenge is determining if they achieve that status. This is a version of the philosophical problem of other minds: how do I know that other entities feel or think as I do?  This problem also applies one of my favortie foods from my home state of Maine, the lobster.

Thanks to thinkers like Descartes, animals are often regarded as biological machines that lack minds. While scientists now see higher animals as capable of feeling and even thinking, lobsters are often seen as biological automatons that neither feel nor suffer. However, some people do think lobsters can suffer and Switzerland banned the boiling of live lobsters. The moral justification is that boiling lobsters alive is unnecessary suffering. Oddly enough, few take the next obvious moral step: if boiling them is wrong, then killing and eating them would also seem to be wrong.

I think that while lobsters are not mentally complex, they do feel pain. The reason for this is the same reason I think you feel pain: an argument by analogy. I know that I, as a living thing, feel pain and dislike it. I note that you, as another human, are like me. So, I infer that you also feel pain and probably dislike it. While lobsters are different from me, they do have some similarities: they are alive, they interact with their environment, they have nerves and so on. As such, they probably feel pain. It must be noted that there are those who deny that humans think or feel—so denying this of lobsters is not odd. Naturally, the relative simplicity of lobsters does suggest that they do not have a depth of feeling; but pain is probably one of the simplest feelings.

Moral concerns about minibrains and lobsters arise from their alleged ability (or potential) to feel. The epistemic concern is how to know this. As should come as no surprise, the same concerns arise about fetuses in the context of the abortion debate: the epistemic and moral problem is knowing when the zygote gains moral status. Obviously, if lobsters can have moral status, then fetuses would also get it rather early in the development cycle—at least at the point when they have a nervous system at least as complex as a lobster. As one would expect, people are often inconsistent in their moral views and some who might balk at eating a lobster might accept abortion, while someone horrified by abortion might happily devour the flesh of a slain baby cow.

In the case of minibrains, scientists want to use them for research. This can be morally justified on utilitarian grounds: the advantages gained from the possible suffering of the minibrains can be outweighed by the gains to science. In the case of lobsters, those who eat them would argue that their enjoyment in eating lobster outweighs the lobster’s suffering.

In both these cases, it is a matter of competing interests: the minibrains and lobsters would prefer to avoid suffering and death, while the humans want to experiment on them or eat them. The same reasoning also applies to abortion: there are competing interests between the woman who wishes to have an abortion and the possible interest of the fetus in not dying. While it can be contended that the fetus has no idea of interests, the same can be said of minibrains and lobsters. As such, the same moral reasoning can be applied in all three cases: it is competition between the interests of a fully developed person and an entity that is significantly inferior in capabilities. As such, the ethics of the minibrains seems to have already been addressed in terms of the ethics of how we treat animals and the ethics of abortion. This, of course, means that there is no resolution—but this is as expected.

 

 

While exoskeletons are being developed primarily for military, medical and commercial applications, they have obvious potential for use in play. For example, new sports might be created in which athletes wear exoskeletons to enable greater performance.

From a moral standpoint, the use of exoskeletons in sports designed for them raises no special issues. After all, the creation of motorized sports is as old as the motor and this territory is well known. As such, exoskeletons in sports designed for them are no different from the use of racing cars or motorcycles. In fact, exoskeleton racing is likely to be one of the first exoskeleton sports.

It is worth noting that exoskeletons could be added to existing sports such as cross-country running, track or football. But the idea of using mechanized technology in such sports doesn’t really break new ground. To illustrate, having runners compete while wearing exoskeletons would be like having bicyclists replace their pedaled bikes with electric bikes. This would simply create a new, mechanized sport.

Adding exoskeletons to existing sports could create safety problems. For example, American football with exoskeletons could be lethal. As another example, athletes running around a track with exoskeletons could result in serious collision injuries. However, these matters do not create new ethical territory. Issues of equipment and safety are old concerns and can be resolved for exoskeletons, most likely after some terrible accidents, using established moral principles about safe competition. For example, there are already principles governing the frequency and severity of tolerable injuries in sports that would also apply to exosports. Naturally, each sport does tend to have different levels of what is considered tolerable (football versus basketball, for example), so the specific details for these new sports will need to be sorted out. Another area of moral concern is the use of exoskeletons in cheating.

While current exoskeleton technology would impossible to hide during athletic competitions like running and biking, future exoskeletons could be hidden under clothing and could be used to cheat. While this would create a new way to cheat, it would not require the creation of any new ethical theory about cheating. After all, what matters most morally in cheating is the cheating, not the specific means used. As such, whether an athlete is getting an unfair edge with an exoskeleton, blood doping, performance enhancing drugs, or cutting the course they are cheating and hence doing something wrong.

While exoskeletons have yet to be used to cheat, there is already an established concept of the use of “technological fraud” in competition. The first apparent case appeared a few years ago, when a cyclist was accused of using a bike with a motor concealed in its frame. Since people had speculated about this possibility, there were already terms for it: “mechanical doping” and “bike doping.” Using a hidden exoskeleton would be analogous to using a hidden motor on a bike. The only difference is that the hidden motor directly enhances the bike while an exoskeleton for the biker would enhance them. But there is no moral difference whether the motor is enhancing the bike directly or enhancing the athlete.  As such, the ethics of cheating with an exoskeleton are already settled, even before exo-cheating has occurred.

One final, somewhat sci-fi, concern is the use of exoskeletons will weaken people. While a person must move to use an exoskeleton, the ones used for play will enhance a person’s abilities and do much of the work for them. Researchers are already talking about running at 20 MPH through the woods for hours without getting tired. While I admit that this sounds fun (aside from colliding with trees), a worry is that this would be more like riding a motorcycle (which does all the work) than riding a bike (which augments the effort).

An obvious reply is to point out that I myself made the obvious comparison to riding a motorcycle. The use of an exoskeleton would not be fundamentally different from riding a motorcycle through the woods and there is nothing wrong with that (on designated trails). This is a reasonable point and I have no more objection to people exorunning (in designated areas) for entertainment than I do to people riding motorcycles (in designated areas). However, I do worry that exoskeletons could make things too easy for people.

While things like mobility scooters do exist, an exoskeleton would go beyond them. After all, a full body exoskeleton would not only provide easy mobility, but also do the work for the person’s arms. While this would be a blessing for a person with a serious medical condition, it would enable otherwise healthy people to avoid even the small amount of exercise most people cannot avoid today (like walking from their car to work or a store).

The sensible reply to my concern is to point out that most people do not use mobility scooters to get around when they do not actually need them, so the same would hold true of exoskeletons (assuming they become as cheap as mobility scooters). However, given the impact of automobiles and other technology on fitness levels, it is worth having some concern about the harmful effects of exoskeletons making things too easy. Unlike a car, a person could wear their exoskeleton into their workplace or the store, avoiding all the need to walk on their own. While the movie WALL-E did not have exoskeletons, it did show the perils of technology that makes things far too easy for humans and it is worth keeping that in mind as a (fictional) cautionary tale.

 

Most players agree that playing tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs) should be fun. But at the table, and away from the table, people are subject to the false consensus effect. This is a cognitive bias that causes people to “see their own behavioral choices and judgments as relatively common and appropriate to existing circumstances.” In the case of D&D, a player will tend to think that everyone agrees with their view of fun. For example, a player who enjoys spending hours in deep role-playing encounters will assume everyone else is enjoying these encounters. But fun, at the table and away, is subjective. For example, I ran a 15k race yesterday and it was fun. Or, more accurately, it was fun for me. Football games are being televised today, but being forced to endure watching football is not fun. Or, as I should say, not fun for me.

Over the years, people have told me I am wrong about running being fun and watching football being awful. They are right and wrong: running is fun for me, not for them. Watching football is fun for them, awful for me. This is because fun, like food preferences, is subjective. What is fun is fun to you, but probably not everyone. What is fun for other people might not be fun for you. As with whether you like plantains or not, there is no right or wrong. There is only like or dislike.

While this might seem too obvious to be worth mentioning, the false consensus effect means that while we know that people enjoy different things, we still tend to assume that everyone at our table will share our view of what is fun in the game. For example, if you like minimal role-playing and maximum combat, you will tend to assume that is what everyone enjoys, and you probably wonder why other players sometimes won’t stop talking to the non-player characters (NPCs) when they should be killing them. This is why we need to remind ourselves that the other people at the table might have a different idea of what is fun, and we should make some effort to find out what that is. It is also worth mentioning that while there are selfish players who are at the table solely for their own fun, a person can appear selfish because they honestly think that everyone else is also enjoying their way of playing. For example, if a player loves going off on lengthy solo role-playing encounters in the game, they might think everyone else is enjoying this as an audience to their role playing. But the other players are probably bored and spend that time on their phones looking at memes. So, it is good to check in with the other people at the table and see if they are also having fun.

It seems reasonable to accept that players have a right to have fun at the table, and this is the approach I try to take a Dungeon Master (DM) and as a player. One should also remember that, just as with other rights, other people have the right to have fun as well. So, it is not that only I have the right to have fun, we all have that right. And, as with other rights, such as the right to free expression, this means that I should and must accept limits on my right so that other people can enjoy their right. For example, if I really enjoy combat, but I know that other players enjoy role-playing encounters in which they talk to the monsters, I should curb by murderous inclinations from time to time, so they won’t have to rely on speak with dead to talk to the monsters.

While, as noted above, fun is subjective, there are some things that are not fun for anyone. One example of this is being unable to act on your turn in D&D. At most tables, a player can spend minutes of time trying to sort out what they will do in seconds of combat. This might be because the situation is dire and complex, and the wrong choice could be the doom of the party. Or it could be because they do not know their character very well, they haven’t read up on their spells, or they were watching football when it wasn’t their turn. This means that if a player is unable to act on their turn, they might have to wait fifteen minutes or longer before they can do anything. While it can be fun to observe the combat, many players tend to check out when they cannot act. Phones, of course, have made this easy to do.

Since I know this, in my role as DM I try to ensure that a player is always able to take their turn. One key part of this involves being very restrained when deciding whether the monsters use spells or abilities that can “steal” a player’s turn (or turns). Spells like Sleep, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, and Banish can take a player character (PC) out of the action, leaving the player with nothing to do. Abilities that stun, paralyze, petrify or control a PC can also steal a player’s turn. And, obviously enough, knocking a PC to zero (or killing them) can steal a turn.

When judging whether to use such abilities, I make a quick estimate of how likely it is that it will steal a player’s turn. This involves some obvious things, like checking how likely it is the PC will be affected but also less obvious things, like how likely it is that another player will do something to save the PC if they are affected. If you, as a DM, know your party works together well, then you can use such things more often. For example, if you know that if the fighter gets held, the party will try to rescue them, then you can have the enemy cleric hit the fight with Hold Person, since they’ll probably not miss their turn, and the other players will have fun rescuing them. As with running the game in general, it is a balancing act in which the DM tries to present a meaningful, but fun, challenge. If you know the party can deal with “lose a turn” abilities and spells, then they can be safely used without risking killing a player’s fun. But if the party cannot or will not counter them, then it is best to avoid them. After all, the point of playing is to have fun and someone who is not playing is probably not having fun.