Month: November 2025

While fake news is often bizarre, one of the stranger fake claims was that the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria was part of a child sex ring led by Hillary Clinton. This fake story made the real news when Edgar M. Welch allegedly armed himself and went to the pizzeria to investigate the story. This  investigation led to gunfire, although no one was injured. Mr. Welch surrendered peacefully to the police after finding no evidence of the sex ring.

Given that the story had been debunked by the New York Times, Snopes, and the Washington Post, it might be wondered why someone would believe such a claim. Laying aside the debunking, it might also be wondered why anyone would believe such a seemingly absurd claim.

Some might be tempted to dismiss people who believe fake news as fools or stupid, most likely while congratulating themselves on their own intellectual prowess. While there is no shortage of fools and everyone is stupid at least some of the time, the “people are stupid” explanation does not suffice. After all, intelligent people of all political stripes are fooled by fake news.

One reason why fake news of this sort convinces people is that it makes use of the influence of repetition. While people tend to be skeptical of odd or implausible claims when they first encounter them, there is a psychological tendency to believe claims that are heard multiple times, especially from multiple sources. While the Nazis did not invent this technique, they did show its effectiveness as a rhetorical tool. The technique of repetition is used more benignly by teachers trying to get people to memorize things. Not surprisingly, politicians and pundits also use this method under the label of “talking points.”

This psychological tendency presumably has some value. When people are honest, things that are repeated and come from multiple sources would generally be true (or at least not deceits). The repetition method also exploits a standard method of reasoning: checking with multiple sources for confirmation. However, such confirmation requires using reliable sources that do not share the same agenda. Getting multiple fake news sites reporting the same fake story creates pseudo-confirmation that creates an illusion of plausibility. The defense against this is, of course, to have diverse sources of news and preferably some with less ideological slant.  It is also useful to ask yourself this question: “although I have heard this many times, is there evidence it is true?”

Another reason fake news can be convincing is that the fake news sites often engage in active defense of their fake news. This includes using other fake sources to “confirm” their stories, attacks on the credibility of real news sources, and direct attacks on articles by real news sources that expose a fake news story. This defense creates the illusion that the fake news stories are real and that the real news stories are fake.

Some of these work through psychology: one might think that such a defense would only be mounted if there was truth worthy of the effort. Some appeal to reason: if the real news story exposing fake news is systematically torn down step by step, this creates the illusion of a reasoned argument disproving the claim that the fake story is fake. Attempts to discredit the sources also misuse legitimate critical assessment methods. The fake news sites accuse the real sources of news of being biased, bought and so on. These are legitimate concerns when assessing a source; the problem is not the method but the fact that the claims are also typically untrue.

Those who do not want to be duped can counter this fake news defense by the usual method of checking multiple, diverse and reliable sources. But this is increasingly difficult as fake news sites proliferate and grow more sophisticated.

A third reason that fake news can seem accurate is that it has supporters who use social media to defend the fake stories and attack the real news. Some of these people are honest in that they believe they are saying true things. Others are aware the news is fake. Some even create fake identities to make themselves appear credible. For example, one defender of Pizzagate identified himself as “Representative Steven Smith of the 15th District of Georgia.” Georgia has only 14 districts; but most people would not know this. All these supporters create the illusion of credibility, making it difficult for people to ferret out the truth. After all, most people expect other people to be honest and get basic facts right most of the time as this is a basic social agreement and a foundation of civilization. Fake news, among its other harms, is eroding this foundation.

The defense against this is to research the sources defending a news story. If the defenders are mostly fake themselves, this would indicate that the news story might be fake. However, fake defenders do not prove the story is fake and it is easy to imagine the tactic of using fake defenders to make people feel that a real news is fake. For example, a made up radical “liberal source” defending a story might be used to try to make conservatives feel that a real news story is fake.

A fourth reason that fake news can seem accurate is that the real news has been subject to sustained attacks, mostly from the political right in the United States. Republicans have made the claim that the media is liberally biased a stock talking point, which has no doubt influenced people. Trump took it even further, accusing the news of being terrible people and liars (ironically for reporting that his lies are lies). Given the sustained attack on news, it is no wonder that many people do not regard the real news as reliable. As such, the stories that debunk the fake news are typically rejected because they are the result of liberal bias. This does, of course, make use of a legitimate method of assessing sources: if a source is biased, then it loses credibility. The problem is that rather than being merely skeptical about the mainstream media, many people reject its claims uncritically because of the alleged bias. This is not a proper application of the method as the doubt needs to be proportional to the evidence of bias.

In regard to people believing in seemingly absurd claims, there are both good and bad reasons for this. One good reason is that there are enough cases of the seemingly absurd turning out to be true. In the case of Pizzagate, people hearing about it probably had stories about Jared Fogle and Bill Cosby in mind. They probably also heard stories about cases of real sex rings. Give this background, the idea that Hillary Clinton was tied to a sex-ring might seem to have some plausibility. However, the use of such background information should also be tempered by other background information, such as information about how unlikely it is that Hillary Clinton was running sex-ring out of the basement of a pizza place. That has no basement.

The bad reason is that people have a psychological tendency to believe what matches their ideology and existing opinions. So, people who already disliked Hillary Clinton would tend to find such stories appealing as they would feel true. Such psychological bias is hard to fight,  people take strong feelings as proof and often double down in the face of facts to the contrary. Defending against bias is probably the hardest method as it requires training and practice in being aware of how feelings are impacting the assessment of a claim and developing the ability to go into a “neutral” assessment mode.

Given that fake news is spreading like a plague, it is wise to develop defenses against it to avoid being duped, perhaps to the point where one is led to commit crimes because of lies.

While analyzing the impact of fake news in  American elections will be an ongoing project, there are excellent reasons to believe it has been a real factor. For example, BuzzFeed’s analysis showed how the fake news stories outperformed real news stories in 2016.  When confronted with the claim that fake news on Facebook influenced the election results, Mark Zuckerberg’s initial reaction was denial. However, as critics have pointed out, to say that Facebook does not influence people is to tell advertisers that they are wasting their money on Facebook. While this might be the case, Zuckerberg cannot consistently pitch the influence of Facebook to his customers while denying that it has such influence. One of these claims must be mistaken.

While my own observations do not constitute a proper study, I routinely observed people on Facebook treating fake news stories as if they were real.  In some cases, these errors were humorous as people had mistaken satire for real news. In other cases, they were not so funny as people were enraged over things that had not actually happened, such as Trump’s lies about migrants. There is also the fact that public figures (such as Trump) and pundits repeat fake news stories acquired from Facebook (and other sources). As such, fake news is a real problem on Facebook. As is AI slop.

As president elect, Trump has continued to spew untruths and the attacks on the mainstream media continue and have even escalated in his second term. The ecosystem is ideal for fake news to thrive. As such, it seems likely that while the fake news will decline to some degree, it will remain a factor as long as it is influential or profitable. This is where Facebook comes in. While fake news sites can always have their own web pages, Facebook serves up the fake news to a huge customer base and thus drives the click-based profits (thanks to things like Google advertising) of these sites. This powerful role of Facebook gives rise to moral concerns about its accountability.

One obvious approach is to claim that Facebook has no moral responsibility in regards to policing fake news. This could be argued by drawing an analogy between Facebook and a delivery company like UPS or FedEx. Rather than delivering physical packages, Facebook is delivering news.

A delivery company is responsible for delivering a package intact and within the specified time. However, it does not have a moral responsibility regarding what is shipped. Suppose, for example, that businesses arose selling “Artisanal Macedonian Pudding” and purport that it is real pudding. But, in fact, it is a blend of sugar and feces  that looks like pudding. Some customers fail to recognize it for what it is and happily shovel it into their pudding port; probably getting sick, but still loving the taste. If the delivery company were criticized for delivering the pudding, they would be right to say that they are not responsible for the “pudding” as they merely deliver packages. The responsibility lies with the “pudding” companies. And the customers for not recognizing sugary feces as feces. If the analogy holds, then Facebook is just delivering fake news like a delivery company delivering “Macedonian Pudding” and is not morally responsible for the contents of the packages.

A possible counter to this is that once Facebook knows that a site is a fake news site, then they are morally responsible for continuing to deliver the fake news. Going with the delivery analogy, once the delivery company is aware that “Artisanal Macedonian Pudding” is sugar and feces, they have a moral obligation to cease their business with those making this dangerous product. This could be countered by arguing that if the customer wants the package of “pudding”, then it is morally fine for the delivery company to provide it. However, this would seem to require that the customer knows they are getting sugar and feces—otherwise the delivery company is knowingly participating in a deceit and the distribution of a harmful product. This would seem to be morally wrong.

Another approach to countering this argument is to use a different analogy: Facebook is not like a delivery company; it is like a restaurant selling the product. Going back to the “pudding”, a restaurant that knowingly purchased and served sugar and feces as pudding would be morally accountable for this misdeed. By this analogy, once Facebook knows they are profiting from selling fake news, they are morally accountable and in the wrong if they fail to address this. A possible response to this is to contend that Facebook is not selling the fake news; but this leads to the question of what Facebook is doing.

One way to look at Facebook is that the fake news is just like advertising in any other media. In this case, the company selling the ad is not morally accountable for the content of the ad of the quality of the product. Going back to the “pudding”, if one company is selling sugar and feces as pudding, the company running the advertising is not morally responsible. The easy counter to this is that once the company selling the ads knows that the “pudding” is sugar and feces, then they would be morally wrong to be a party to this harmful deception. Likewise for Facebook treating fake news as advertising.

Another way to look at Facebook is that it is serving as a news media company and is in the business of providing the news.  Going back to the pudding analogy, Facebook would be in the pudding business as a re-seller, selling sugar and shit as real pudding. This would seem to oblige Facebook to ensure that the news it provides is accurate and to not distribute news it knows is fake. This assumes a view of journalistic ethics that is obviously not universally accepted, but a commitment to the truth seems to be a necessary bedrock to any worthwhile media ethics. 

While fake news presumably dates to the origin of news, the 2016 United States presidential election saw a huge surge in the volume of fakery. While some of it arose from partisan maneuvering, the majority seems to have been driven by the profit motive: fake news drives revenue generating clicks. While the motive might have been money, there has been serious speculation that the fake news (especially on Facebook) helped Trump win the 2016 election. While those who backed Trump would presumably be pleased by this outcome, the plague of fake news should be worrisome to anyone who values the truth, regardless of their political ideology. After all, fake news could presumably be just as helpful to the left as the right. That said, the right lies while the mainstream left remains silent. In any case, fake news is damaging and is worth combating.

While it is often claimed that most do not have the time to be informed about the world, if someone has the time to read fake news, then they have the time to think critically about it. This critical thinking should, of course, go beyond just fake news and should extend to all important information. Fortunately, thinking critically about claims is surprisingly quick and easy.

I have been teaching students to be critical about claims in general and the news in particular for over two decades and what follows is based on what I teach in class (drawn, in part, from the text I have used: Critical Thinking by Moore & Parker). I would recommend this book for general readers if it was not, like most textbooks, absurdly expensive. But, to the critical thinking process that should be applied to claims in general and news in particular.

While many claims are not worth the effort to check, others are important enough to subject to scrutiny. When applying critical thinking to a claim, the goal is to determine whether you should rationally accept it as true, reject it as false or suspend judgment. There can be varying degrees of acceptance and rejection, so it is also worth considering how confident you should be in your judgment.

The first step in assessing a claim is to match it against your own observations, should you have relevant observations. While observations are not infallible, if a claim goes against what you have directly observed, then that is a strike against accepting the claim. This standard is not commonly used in the case of fake news because most of what is reported is not something that would be observed directly by the typical person. That said, sometimes this does apply. For example, if a news story claims that a major riot occurred near where you live and you saw nothing happen there, then that would indicate the story is in error.

The second step in assessment is to judge the claim against your background information. This is all your relevant beliefs and knowledge about the matter. The application is straightforward and just involves asking yourself if the claim seems plausible when you give it some thought. For example, if a news story claims that Joe Biden plans to start an armed rebellion against Trump, then this should be regarded as wildly implausible by anyone with true background knowledge about Biden.

There are, of course, some obvious problems with using background information as a test. One is that the quality of background information varies and depends on the person’s experiences and education (this is not limited to formal education). Roughly put, being a good judge of claims requires already having accurate information stored away in your mind. All of us have many beliefs that are false; the problem is that we generally do not know they are false. If we did, then we would no longer believe them. Probably.

A second point of concern is the influence of wishful thinking. This is a fallacy (an error in reasoning) in which a person concludes that a claim is true because they want it to be true. Alternatively, a person can fallaciously infer that a claim is false because they want it to be false. This is poor reasoning because wanting a claim to be true or false does not make it so. Psychologically, people tend to disengage their critical faculties when they really want something to be true (or false).

For example, someone who really hates Trump would want to believe that negative claims about him are true, so they would tend to accept them uncritically. As another example, someone who really likes Trump would want positive claims about him to be true, so they would accept them without thought.

The defense against wishful thinking of this sort is to be on guard against yourself by being aware of your biases. If you really want something to be true (or false), ask yourself if you have any reason to believe it beyond just wanting it to be true (or false). For example, I am not a fan of Trump and thus would tend to want negative claims about him to be true. So, I must consider that when assessing such claims. Unfortunately for America, much of what Trump claims is objectively untrue.

A third point of concern is related to wishful thinking and could be called the fallacy of fearful or hateful thinking. While people tend to believe what they want to believe, they also tend to believe claims that match their hates and fears. That is, they engage in the apparent paradox of believing what they do not want to believe. Fear and hate impact people in a very predictable way: they make people stupid when it comes to assessing claims.

For example, there are Americans who hate and fear that migrants will eat cats and dogs. While they would presumably wish that claims about this were false, they will often believe such claims because they correspond with their hate and fear. Ironically, their great desire for it to not be true motivates them to feel that it is true, even when it is not.

The defense against this is to consider how a claim makes you feel. If you feel hatred or fear, you should be very careful in assessing the claim. If a news claim seems tailored to push your buttons, then there is a decent chance that it is fake news. This is not to say that it must be fake, just that it is important to be extra vigilant about claims that are extremely appealing to your hates and fears. This is a very hard thing to do since it is easy to be ruled by hate and fear.

The third step involves assessing the source of the claim. While the source of a claim does not guarantee the claim is true (or false), reliable sources are obviously more likely to get things right than unreliable sources. When you believe a claim based on its source, you are making use of what philosophers call an argument from authority. The gist of this reasoning is that the claim being made is true because the source is a legitimate authority on the matter. While people tend to regard as credible sources those that match their own ideology, the rational way to assess a source involves considering the following factors.

First, the source needs to have sufficient expertise in the subject matter in question. One rather obvious challenge here is being able to judge whether the specific author or news source has sufficient expertise. In general, the question is whether a person (or the organization in general) has the relevant qualities and these are assessed in terms of such factors as education, experience, reputation, accomplishments and positions. In general, professional news agencies have such experts. While people tend to dismiss Fox, CNN, and MSNBC depending on their own ideology, their actual news (as opposed to editorial pieces or opinion masquerading as news) tends to be factually accurate. Unknown sources tend to be lacking in these areas. It is also wise to be on guard against fake news sources pretending to be real sources. This can be countered by checking the site address against the official and confirmed address of professional news sources.

Second, the claim made needs to be within the source’s area(s) of expertise. While a person might be very capable in one area, expertise is not universal. So, for example, a businessman talking about her business would be an expert, but if she is regarded as a reliable source for political or scientific claims, then that would be an error (unless she also has expertise in these areas).

Third, the claim should be consistent with the views of the majority of qualified experts in the field. In the case of news, using this standard involves checking multiple reliable sources to confirm the claim. While people tend to pick their news sources based on their ideology, the basic facts of major and significant events would be quickly picked up and reported by all professional news agencies such as Fox News, NPR and CNN. If a seemingly major story does not show up in the professional news sources, there is a good chance it is fake news.

 It is also useful to check with the fact checkers and debunkers, such as Politifact and Snopes. While no source is perfect, they do a good job assessing claims. Something that does not make liars very happy. If a claim is flagged by these reliable sources, there is an excellent chance it is not true.

Fourth, the source must not be significantly biased. Bias can include such factors as having a very strong ideological slant (such as MSNBC and Fox News) as well as having a financial interest in the matter. Fake news is typically crafted to feed into ideological biases, so if an alleged news story seems to fit an ideology too well, there is a decent chance that it is fake. However, this is not a guarantee that a story is fake. Reality sometimes matches ideological slants. This sort of bias can lead real news sources to present fake news; you should be critical even of professional sources-especially when they match your ideology.

While these methods are not flawless, they are very useful in sorting out the fake from the true. While I have said this before, it is worth repeating that we should be even more critical of news that matches our views. This is because when we want to believe, we tend to do so too easily.

While many supporters of Trump insist he is not a racist, white nationalists have once again rejoiced in his victory. Regardless of what Trump believes, his rhetoric has created a safe space for the alt-right. While this term is broad and, perhaps, misused, it bundles groups that are perceived as racist and even neo-Nazi in character. I will not endeavor to break down the fine distinctions between these various groups but will focus on white nationalists. As the name indicates, they have an ideological commitment to creating a nation consisting solely of whites.

Since Nazis and other hate groups have advocated the same goal, it seems reasonable to consider that white nationalists are racists and a hate group. Not surprisingly, they often claim they are not racists and are not a hate group. They even advance some arguments in support of these claims. In this essay, I will consider the family argument.

While the family argument is presented in various ways, the gist is that it is natural for people to prefer the company of their family members and that it is right to give precedence to one’s family. In their family analogy, they take whites to be a family. This, as they see it, warrants having a white nation or, failing that, giving precedence to whites. Some white nationalists extend the family argument to other races, arguing that each race should act in the same way and each race should have its own nation. This helps explain the apparently inconsistent claims about Jews by some white nationalists: they want the Jews to leave America, but they support Israel becoming a pure Jewish state.

The family analogy gains much of its appeal from human psychology: as a matter of fact, humans do generally prefer and give precedence to their own family members over others. This approach is also commonly used in solving ethical problems, such as who to save and how to distribute resources. For example, if a mother is given the choice between saving a stranger or her daughter from drowning, the intuitively right choice is her daughter. While the family approach has considerable appeal, there are some obvious concerns. One is whether whites constitute a family. Another is the extent to which being family morally warrants preference and precedence.

In the biological sense, a human family is made up of humans who are closely genetically related to each other. This is something that can be objectively tested, such as with a paternity test. In this regard, family identity is a matter of the genetic similarity (and origin) of the members. There is also the matter of distinguishing the family members from outsiders. This is done by focusing on the differences between the family members and others.

To argue that whites are a biological family requires establishing that whites are genetically related to each other. This is easy enough to do; all humans are genetically related because they are humans. But the white nationalist wants whites to be an exclusive family. One obvious problem with this, especially in the United States, is that most whites are closely related to non-whites. To use one well-known example, Thomas Jefferson has many descendants, and they thus constitute a family. However, many of them are descended from him and Sally Hemings and thus would presumably not be regarded as white by white nationalists. While one might quibble about whether Heming and Jefferson had children, it is well-established that the genetic background of most “white” Americans will not be “pure white.” There is also the fact that the genetic background of many “non-white” Americans will include white ancestors. This will mean that the “white family” will include people who the white nationalists would regard as non-white. For example, Dick Cheney and Barack Obama are related and are thus family. As such, the biological family analogy breaks down immediately in terms of the white nationalists’ approach.

A possible counter to this is to focus on specific “white” genes and argue that these are what define being white. One obvious point of focus is skin color; white skin is apparently the result of a single letter DNA mutation in the 3.1 billion letters in the human genome. As such, white nationalists could rally around this one letter and use that to define what it is to be white. This would certainly seem like an absurd foundation for preference and precedence; but perhaps the absurd would suffice for the white nationalists.

While families are often defined biologically, there are also family members that are adopted and, of course, people marry into families they are (hopefully not) closely related to. As such, a family need not be genetically defined. This provides an alternative way to try to make whites into a family.

White nationalists could argue that the white family is not defined by white genes, but by a set of values or interests that constitute being white. That is, being white is a social construct analogous to a political party, religion, or club. While there is the obvious challenge of working out what would be the values and interests one must have to be part of the white club, this could in theory be worked out. After all, the white nationalists have set up their own little white club and they presumably have ways of deciding who gets to join. The obvious problem with this approach is that it does not seem to capture what the white nationalists want in terms of being white. After all, anyone could have those values and interests and thus be white by that definition. Also, there are many people who have white skin who do not share the interests or values of the white nationalists and would thus not be white on this approach. I, for one, do not want to be in their little club.

The white nationalists could always go with the traditional approach of regarding as white anyone who looks white. Potential whites would presumably need to provide some proof that they do not have any non-whiteness in their background. There is, after all, a long history of people passing as whites in the United States. Since white nationalists tend to regard Jews as non-white, they would also need to sort that out in some way; after all, Jews can have very white skin. Presumably they can look to the Nazis for how to work this all out. There is also concern about using technology to allow people to appear white, such as genetic modification. One could even imagine a sci-fi scenario in which people could switch genes as they wished, thus creating a bit of a problem for racists who base their racism in genetics. Presumably white nationalists would really need to worry about such things. After all, they would not want non-whites in their white paradise.

One obvious problem with this approach is that it is like accepting as family anyone who looks like you in some specified way. For example, embracing someone as a relative because they have a similar nose. This seems an odd way to set a foundation for preference and precedence, but white nationalists presumably think in odd ways.

Given the above discussion, there seems to be no foundation for regarding whites as a family. As such, the white nationalist family analogy fails.

The authors of the United States Constitution were aware of the dangers of state infringement on religious liberty. The First Amendment provides two key protections for citizens. The first is the prohibition against making “law respecting the establishment of religion.” This protects citizens from the tyrannical imposition of a state-backed religion. The second is that congress is forbidden from making any law that prohibits the free exercise of religion. This protects citizens from the tyrannical forbiddance of religion by the state.

I support both prohibitions. While many believe it would be great if their religion was established and imposed by the coercive power of the state, they would not want someone else’s religion imposed upon them. For example, Americans who want their interpretation of Christianity as foundation for laws express horror at the prospect of Sharia law being imposed on them. As always, it is wise to consider the actions of the state in accord with the spirit of the Golden Rule: impose laws on others as you would have them impose laws on you. So, just as I would not want to have Sharia law imposed on me, I should not impose my faith-based law on others.

While I am not very active in my exercise of religion (although I am religious in my exercise), I also support the freedom to exercise religion. On the extreme side, impositions on religious liberties are often the starting point of efforts to oppress religious minorities. This can, and has, lead to attempts at extermination. As such, it is wise to make it difficult to get the ball of hate rolling. On the less extreme side, the free exercise of religion is part of the broader moral rights of liberty of conscience, freedom of expression and freedom of belief (which I also support). The American experience has shown that the acceptance of religious freedom, as imperfect as it may be, has helped maintain the stability of the United States. While we have many sects and religions, we generally do not have significant sectarian or religious violence (although the past is a different story). While there are, of course, other contributing factors, the freedom of religion has contributed significantly.

In recent years, there have been claims that religious liberty is under attack in the United States. As a holiday tradition, Fox News runs its absurd stories about their fictional war on Christmas. While rampant, soulless consumerism has all but defeated religious Christmas, there is obviously no war against it. There are also claims that Christians are persecuted in the United States. To support this, people point to the legality of abortion (in some stateas), the legalization of same-sex marriage, and laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination. These are taken by some as attacks on religious liberty. In response, several states have endeavored to roll back these alleged intrusions on liberty, although public support varies even when there are well-funded efforts to manufacture it.

To appeal to certain evangelical voters (who are not a monolithic bloc) Trump claimed that he would act in accord with their view of religious liberty. As they see it, Trump will enforce the second prohibition and protect citizens in their free exercise of the religion by ensuring that their freedom is prioritized over the rights of other Americans. However, critics argue that this would violate the first prohibition by imposing religion on others via the law. I hold the supporters of religious liberty to their rhetoric about freedom. To be specific, let it be assumed that religious freedom is something they think should be protected by the state, even when doing so can impose harms on others. To illustrate the harms, consider the impact of not protecting LGBT people from discrimination based on faith as well as the impact of the anti-abortion efforts on women’s health and freedom of choice.

While Trump made a great rhetorical effort to win evangelical voters, he also engaged in sustained attacks on Muslims. He once proposed a complete ban on allowing Muslims into the United States, he called for a registry of Muslims, and has used anti-Muslim rhetoric. While the ban and registry can be taken to violate the prohibition against interfering with the free exercise of religion, this can be countered. It could be argued that banning Muslims from the United States would not prevent them from freely exercising their religion in the United States, they would simply be excluded from coming here because of their religion. It could also be argued that a registry would  not violate this prohibition. While some Muslims might elect to keep their faith private to avoid being put on that list, the registry itself would not forbid the free exercise of religion. Those willing to identify themselves to the government and have their information in a database conveniently available for hate-groups would be free to exercise their religion.

Not surprisingly, some Christians dedicated to their own religious liberty supported the registry and ban. However, they should have considered the matter not just in terms of their own perceived self-interest, but in terms of their professed support for religious liberty as a principle. They should consider reversing the situation: what would be their view of a country that banned Christians and had a registry of Christians? They would be critical of that country and would consider those acts persecution. This reflection should help suggest what is wrong with the ban and registry. But consistency does not seem to matter, and one suspects that the principle they embrace is not freedom of religion but their right to impose their religion on others.

The principle of religious liberty would seem to prohibit the registry and ban as they seem to be clear impositions on the freedom of religion, broadly construed. This can be countered by defining religious freedom more narrowly limiting it to, for example, the freedom to worship within a religious edifice. This narrow interpretation would, however, preclude using the religious liberty argument in regard to such matters as abortion, contraception and LGBT rights.

Another possible counter is based on the fact that rights do have limits. One basis for limiting rights is the principle of harm: liberty can be restricted to protect others from harm. Using the overused example, the freedom of expression does not grant the moral right to yell “fire” in a crowded theater when there is no fire. In the case of the Muslim registry and ban, it can be argued that the religious liberty of Muslims can be limited to protect others from harm. This would presumably be developed in terms of terrorism. However, if possible harms to others were used to warrant the Muslim ban and registry, then the same argument would apply to the religious liberty arguments about abortion, contraception, and LGBT rights based on the harms they will impose on others. This then becomes a matter of weighing the harm imposed by restricting or allowing religious liberties. Regardless of the specific evaluation, this involves recognizing that the ban and registry violate religious liberty and that religious liberty can be constrained on the grounds of harm.

Some years ago, at a road race, a runner entered with a sex of “other” which caused a bit of a problem with the race results. After all, in such competitions people are divided between male and female. They are also divided by age. Because of this, experienced runners tend to check out the competition before the start of the race, looking to see who is present and mentally gauging their chances of being “a have” (runner slang for getting an award).

Since awards are usually divided into categories of sex and age, runners also try to estimate the age of the potential competition. While it is less common, runners sometimes do need to estimate the sex of the competition. While some people advocate avoiding all concerns about age and sex by only having awards for overall top finishers, there are good reasons to have such categories.

One obvious reason is that awards are intended to increase attendance at the race as some people are more inclined to participate when they know they have more chances of winning. If awards were limited to top overall finishers, there would be some decline in participation since people who were not the very top runners would know they had no chance of winning anything.

Another reason is to provide people with a chance to compete in ways that offset advantages. Naturally, almost every race allows people to compete in the overall results, so there is still very broad competition.

Age has a dramatic negative impact on performance. One major factor is that older athletes do not recover as fast, hence it becomes harder to maintain rigorous training while avoiding injury and being well-rested for the competition. People also get weaker as they age, though diligent maintenance can slow this setting of the sun. Because of this, most races have 5 or 10-year age groups for awards to provide runners with a chance to compete against people with comparable temporal challenges. There are, of course, many older runners who can beat younger runners, but the general advantage lies with the youth. For most races, runners are on the honor system, and they provide their age when they sign up. Some races do, however, require proof of age to avoid people cheating.

While there are female runners who can easily defeat almost any male on the planet in a race, males have various biological advantages when it comes to running, such as greater strength. As such, dividing the awards by sex is a way to account for this difference. There are, of course, some races that do not take this approach, but these are very rare and tend to be small races put on by people not familiar with the usual practices of awards.

As with age, runners are on the honor system in regard to disclosing their sex when they sign up. While a male would generally have an advantage if he could pass a female, this could be challenging given the nature of running attire and various other factors. There are, however, some controversial cases. Perhaps the most famous is that of runner Caster Semenya. Semenya is believed to have an intersex condition which causes the production of high levels of testosterone. High testosterone levels are believed to provide an athletic advantage. It must be noted that while testosterone is associated most with males, females also produce testosterone. In the past, some sporting authorities tested female athletes for high testosterone levels, but this practice has largely changed because female athletes, like male athletes, naturally vary a great deal in testosterone levels.

While sex-changes are not common, they do occur often enough that the matter has been addressed in sports. Because the division of the sexes in sports is justified on the grounds of relative advantages, females who transition to male can generally compete without restrictions. The easy and obvious justification for this is that such a male would not have any advantage over other males. In fact, they would probably tend to have some disadvantage relative to people who were born male. A male who transitions to female would potentially have an advantage. Because of this, a transitioned athlete need not have surgery, but she is typically required to have undergone at least a year of hormone therapy. This prevents male athletes from simply claiming to be female on race day and competing with an advantage.

There are also people who want to change their gender identification but do not want to undergo surgery or hormone therapy. Some might wonder what would prevent unscrupulous male athletes from gender identifying as females to win races. The easy and obvious answer is that sex divisions in sports are not gender divisions. They are a matter of physical factors and not a matter of social construction. As such, a male athlete who gender identified as a female would still compete against males. They are still a male in regard to the factors that matter in competition.

It could be objected that a person who gender identifies as a man or a woman should be able to compete in accord with their preferred identity. That person might, for example, want their race medal or trophy to reflect this identity such as being second female in the 20-24 age group. An easy counter to this is to use an analogy to age. A person might identify as “young at heart” or “and old soul”, but this does not impact their actual chronological age. In the case of athletic competition, this is what matters. If people could pick their age identity for races, this would presumably be used to gain an unfair advantage. So, a 26-year-old person who identified as a 40-year-old would not thus be eligible to win the master’s award (for people 40+).

The next to the last matter to be considered is that which started this discussion; a person who wants to identify as “other.” Resolving this would require determining the basis of the claim of otherness. If the person has a biological identity that falls within established rules for competition (being intersex, for example) then those rules would be applied. If the person has a biological identity that falls outside of the existing rules, then there would seem to be two likely approaches. One would be to match the person with the closest biological sex. The other would be to create a new category for sports and establish standards for being in that category. If the person is electing to select other as a gender identity while having a biological sex, then the person would compete in the category of that biological sex, for the reasons given above.

In closing, there is also a practical matter regarding possible legal troubles. Years ago, I would often see race entry forms with “gender” instead of “sex” because the terms were used interchangeably. These days, “sex” is the standard. If an entry form has “gender” rather than “sex”, then a person could presumably use whatever gender they wish to identify with. This would be rather problematic for the awards budget, since Facebook once recognized over fifty genders. As such, race entry forms should go with “sex.” The form might need to include a brief explanation of the difference between sex and gender to help avoid misunderstandings.

On the positive side, online gaming allows interaction with gamers all over the world. On the negative side, some gamers are horrible. While I have been a gamer since the days of Pong, one of my early introductions to “the horrible” was on Xbox live. In a moment of deranged optimism, I hoped that chat would allow me to plan strategy with my team members and perhaps make new gamer friends. While this did sometimes happen, the usual experience was an unrelenting spew of insults and threats between gamers. I solved this problem by clipping the wire on a damaged Xbox headset and sticking the audio plug into my controller; the spew continued but had nowhere to go.

There is an iron law of technology that any technology that can be misused will be misused. There are also specific laws that fall under this general law. One is the iron law of gaming harassment: any gaming medium that allows harassment will be used to harass. While there have been many failed attempts at virtual reality gaming, it seems that it might become the new gaming medium. Then again, VR might be analogous to fusion power: it is the gaming tech of the future and always will be. In any case, harassment in online VR games is already a thing. Just as VR is supposed to add a new level to gaming, it also adds a new level to harassment, such as virtual groping. This is an escalation over the harassment options available in most games. Non-VR games are typical limited to verbal harassment and some action harassment, such as tea bagging. For those not familiar with this practice, it is when one player causes their character to rapidly repeat crouch on top of a dead character. The idea is that the player is repeatedly slapping their virtual testicles against the virtual corpse of a foe. This presumably demonstrates contempt for the opponent and dominance on the part of the bagger.

Being a gamer and a philosopher, I do wonder a bit about the motivations of those that engage in harassment and how their motivation impacts the ethics of their behavior. While I will not offer a detailed definition of harassment, the basic idea is that it requires sustained abuse. This is to distinguish it from a quick expression of anger.

In some cases, harassment seems to be motivated by the enjoyment the harasser gets from the response from their target. The harasser is not operating from a specific value system that leads them to attack certain people; they are equal opportunity in their attacks. Back when I listened to what other gamers said, it was easy to spot this sort of person. They would go after everyone and tailor their spew based on what they believed about the target’s identity. As an example, if the harasser though their target was African American, they would spew racist comments. As another example, if the target was the then exceedingly rare female gamer, they would spew sexist remarks. As a third example, if the target was believed to be a white guy, the attack would usually involve comments about the guy’s mother or assertions that the target is homosexual.

While the above focuses on what a person says, the discussion also applies to the virtual actions in the game. As noted above, some gamers engage in tea-bagging because that is the worst gesture they can make in the game. In games that allow more elaborate interaction, the behavior will tend to be analogous to groping in the real world. This is because such behavior is the most offensive behavior possible in the game and thus will create the strongest reaction.

While a person who enjoys inflicting this sort of abuse does have some moral problems, they are probably selecting their approach based on what they think will most hurt the target rather than based on a principled commitment to sexism, racism or other such value systems. To use an obvious analogy, think of a politician who is not a devoted racist but is willing to use this language to sway a target audience.

There are also those who engage in such harassment as a matter of ideology and values. While their behavior is often indistinguishable from those who engage in attacks of opportunity, their motivation is based on a hatred of specific types of people. While they might enjoy the reaction of their target, that is not their main objective. Rather, the objectives are to express their views and attack the target of their hate because of that hate. Put another way, they are sincere racists or sexists in that it matters to them who they attack. To use the analogy to a politician, they are like a demagogue who believes in their own hate speech.

In terms of virtual behavior, such as groping, these people are not just using groping as a tool to get a reaction. It is an attack to express their views about their target based on their hatred and contempt. Groping might also not merely be a means to an end, but a goal in itself as the groping has its own value to them.

While both sorts of harassers are morally wrong, it is an interesting question as to which is worse. It could be argued that the commitment to evil of the sincere harasser (the true racist or sexist) make them worse than the opportunist. After all, the opportunist is not committed to evil views, they just use their tools for their amusement. In contrast, the sincere harasser not only uses the tools, but believes in their actions and truly hates their target. That is, they are evil for real.

While this is appealing, it is worth considering that the sincere harasser has the virtue of honesty; their expression of hatred is not a deceit.  To go back to the politician analogy, they are like the politician who truly believes in their professed ideology. Their evil does have the tiny sparkle of the virtue of honesty.

In contrast, the opportunist is dishonest in their attacks and thus compounds their other vices with that of dishonesty. To use the politician analogy, they are like the Machiavellian manipulator who has no qualms about using hate to achieve their ends. 

While the moral distinctions between the types of harassers are important, they generally do not matter to their targets. After all, what matters to (for example) a female gamer who is being virtually groped while trying to enjoy a VR game is not the true motivation of the groper, but the groping. Thus, from the perspective of the target, the harasser of opportunity and the sincere harasser are on equally bad moral footing; they are both morally wrong. In the next essay, the discussion will turn to the obligations of gaming companies in regard to protecting gamers from harassment.

 

By Modern-Day Debate, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=151424337

American racists are a diverse group of people who are divided by their views on racism. One area of division is the sincerity of a person’s professed racism. Some racists are no doubt opportunists who do not sincerely and deeply believe in racism, they merely take advantage of it. Other racists are true believers. While racists do question the sincerity of other racists, much of the analysis of sincerity comes from outside these circles. For example, commentators in the media often seemed to agonize over the issue of whether Donald Trump is a racist or merely an opportunist. One the one hand, this can be seen as unimportant. After all, from the standpoint of those harmed by racism it hardly matters whether the racist is a true believer or an opportunist. To use an analogy, if someone robbed you, you would presumably not agonize over or even care whether the thief held a deep and sincere belief in being a thief. What matters is the harm they did to you. On the other hand, the sincerity of a racist is relevant in assessing them morally and can have some practical consequences. In terms of moral assessment, a case can be made that the opportunist is worse, since they are adding dishonesty to their moral crimes. In practical terms, an opportunist would abandon their professed racism when it was no longer advantageous. A second realm of division among American racists is the degree of racism they embrace.

While it is often claimed that everyone is a little bit racist, there is significant diversity in the degrees of racism people embrace. A very mild racist might feel superior to others while professing to be appalled at even the suggestion that people should be harmed solely because of their race. At the other extreme are those who engage in genocide and ethnic cleansing. The United States has a history of ethnic cleansing and it is not unreasonable to consider that the current administration’s immigration practices are aimed at this goal. However, there is disagreement on the right as to what degree of racism is acceptable.

The murder of Charlie Kirk created an influence vacuum that Nick Fuentes seems to be endeavoring to fill. In the process, Fuentes has set off what some commentators are calling a civil war of the right. This dispute centers over the next two areas of division. One is the extent to which the right should be openly racist. The historical shift from open racism to dog whistles and code words is often described as the Southern Strategy. The essentials of this strategy are best presented in the words of Lee Atwater:

 

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract. Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.… “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

 

While open racism obviously never went away, modern mainstream racists embraced this approach, using dog whistles and code words. Trump’s election and especially his re-election helped rewind the Southern Strategy as people shifted back from dog whistles and code to being more open about their racism. Fuentes, who has been moving into the mainstream, is noteworthy for expressing his views directly, without euphemisms or employing dog whistles.

The other dispute is over who should be considered White. Nick Fuentes is Mexican American and he seems to regard himself as White, though others on the right might take issue with his view. There is also conflict over whether Indian Americans (with connections to India) count and Fuentes has attacked JD Vance because he is married to Usha, whose parents are Indian immigrants.  But a big fight that seems to be dividing American racists is the question of whether Jews should be considered White.  Tucker Carlson is credited with bringing this division into the national spotlight by interviewing Fuentes.

As Nick Fuentes has openly expressed his antisemitic views, he would presumably regard someone like Stephen Miller as not being White. After all, Stephen Miller is from a Jewish family that emigrated from Eastern Europe.  Others on the right profess to reject antisemitism or at least express support for Israel.

As a relevant aside, antisemites can support Israel for a variety of reasons, though this might strike some as bizarre. One reason can be that they favor ethno-states and endorse Jewish people leaving the United States and going to Israel. Another is for religious reasons, because they see Israel as playing an important role in the end times. There can also be purely pragmatic reasons involving Israel’s strategic importance as an American ally. But back to the main topic.

This fight on the right shines a light on the historical fact that being White is a matter of convention rather than a metaphysical reality. To illustrate, consider how the Irish and the Italians became White after being subject to virulent racism from Whites in America. It might strike some as odd that Irish and Italians would be considered non-White and subject to attacks from White racists. After all, one might say, the Irish and Italians look white in those old photos from back when they were not White. But as history shows, being White is not a matter of looking white but being accepted as White by those who are already accepted as being White. This acceptance is, obviously, not a matter of a vote and not all the established Whites accept new whites as White at the same time (or even ever). For the Irish and Italians, it was a gradual and uneven process, and some prejudices and derogatory terms persist.  

The history of Whiteness in America also shows that the right is inclusive and progressive, albeit at a slower rate and with a different style than the American left. In general, the American left has professed to embrace inclusion not by expanding who they accept as acceptable by allowing more people to be White. Rather, they profess to accept people as people. In contrast, the right tends to accept a broader definition of what it is to be White, thus becoming more inclusive. To be fair and balanced, there are those on the right who profess to embrace inclusivity and reject racism, although this seems to often be limited to non-Whites who happen to be in the upper economic classes or share their right-wing ideology. As an extreme example, Nick Fuentes claims to be good friends with Kanye West and they have appeared together with Kanye sporting a giant swastika on a chain.  As a less extreme example, Clarence Thomas has long been accepted by the mainstream right. The fight, then, is over how inclusive the right should be in terms of accepting people as White and which individuals should be accepted even if they are not White. The current main fight, as noted above, is over antisemitism and this is dividing the right. Because antisemitism has historically been embraced by the right and remains strong in the United States, it remains to be seen whether the right will embrace inclusivity or whether the traditional racists will win this fight.

Back before he funded Grok and spawned Mecha Hitler, Musk claimed that we exist within a simulation, thus adding a new chapter to the classic problem of the external world. When philosophers engage this problem, the usual goal is to show how one can know that one’s experience correspond to an external reality. Musk took a somewhat more practical approach: he and others were allegedly funding efforts to escape this simulation. In addition to the practical challenges of breaking out of a simulation, there are also some rather interesting philosophical concerns about whether such an escape is even possible.

In regard to the escape, there are three main areas of interest. These are the nature of the simulation itself, the nature of the world outside the simulation and the nature of the inhabitants of the simulation. These three factors determine whether escape from the simulation is a possibility.

Determining the nature of the inhabitants involves addressing another classic philosophical problem, that of personal identity. Solving this problem involves determining what it is to be a person (the personal part of personal identity), what it is to be distinct from all other entities and what it is to be the same person across time (the identity part of personal identity). Philosophers have dealt with this problem for centuries and, obviously enough, have not solved it. That said, it is easy enough to offer some speculation within the context of Musk’s simulation.

Musk and others seemed to envision a virtual reality simulation as opposed to physical simulation. A physical simulation is designed to replicate a part of the real world using real entities, presumably to gather data. One science fiction example of a physical simulation is Frederik Pohl’s short story “The Tunnel under the World.” In this story the recreated inhabitants of a recreated town are forced to relive June 15th repeatedly to test various advertising techniques.

If we are in a physical simulation, then escape would be along the lines of escaping from a physical prison. It would be a matter of breaking through the boundary between our simulation and the outer physical world. This could be a matter of overcoming distance (travelling far enough to leave the simulation, perhaps Mars is outside the simulation) or literally breaking through a wall (like in the Truman Show). If the outside world is habitable, then survival beyond the simulation would be possible as it would be just like surviving outside any other prison.

Such a simulation would differ from the usual problem of the external world in that we would be in the real world; we would just be ignorant of the fact that we are in a constructed simulation. Roughly put, we would be real lab rats in a real cage, we would just not know we are in a cage. But Musk and others seemed to hold that we are (sticking with the rat analogy) rats in a simulated cage. We may even be simulated rats.

While the exact nature of this simulation was unspecified, it is supposed to be a form of virtual reality rather than a physical simulation. The question then, is whether we are real rats in a simulated cage or simulated rats in a simulated cage.

Being real rats in this context would be like the situation in the Matrix: we would have material bodies in the real world but would be jacked into a virtual reality. In this case, escape would be a matter of being unplugged from the Matrix. Presumably those in charge of the system would take better precautions than those used in the Matrix, so escape could prove rather difficult. Unless, of course, they are sporting about it and are willing to give us a chance.

Assuming we could survive in the real world beyond the simulation (that it is not, for example, on a world whose atmosphere would kill us), then existence beyond the simulation as the same person would be possible. To use an analogy, it would be like stopping a video game and walking outside. You would still be you; only now you would be looking at real, physical things. Whatever personal identity might be you would presumably still be the same metaphysical person outside the simulation as inside. We might, however, be simulated rats in a simulated cage and this would make matters even more problematic.

If it is assumed that the simulation is a sort of virtual reality and we are virtual inhabitants, then the key concern would be the nature of our virtual existence. In terms of a meaningful escape, the question would be this: is a simulated person such that they could escape, retain their personal identity and persist outside of the simulation?

It could be that our individuality is an illusion, the simulation could be like how Spinoza envisioned the world. As Spinoza saw it, everything is God, and each person is but a mode of God. To use a crude analogy, think of a bed sheet with creases. We are the creases and the sheet is God. There is no distinct us that can escape the sheet. Likewise, there would be no us that can escape the simulation.

It could also be the case that we exist as individuals within the simulation, perhaps as programmed objects.  In this case, it might be possible for an individual to escape the simulation. This might involve getting outside of the simulation and into other systems as a sort of rogue program, sort of like in the movie Wreck-It Ralph. While the person would still not be in the physical world (if there is such a thing), they would at least have escaped the prison of that simulation.  The practical challenge would be pulling off this escape.

It might even be possible to acquire a physical body that would host the code that composes the person. This is, of course, part of the plot of the movie Virtuosity. This would require that the person makes the transition from the simulation to the real world. If, for example, I were to pull off having my code copied into a physical shell that thought it was me, I would still be trapped in the simulation. I would not escape this way anymore than if I was in prison and had a twin walking around free. As far as pulling of such an escape, Virtuosity does show a way, assuming that a virtual person was able to interact with someone outside the simulation.

As a closing point, the problem of the external world would seem to still haunt all efforts to escape. To be specific, even if a person seemed to have determined that this is a simulation and then seemed to have broken free, the question would still arise as to whether they were really free. It is after all, a standard plot twist in science fiction that the escape from the virtual reality turns out to be virtual reality as well. This is nicely mocked in the “M. Night Shaym-Aliens!” episode of Rick and Morty. It also occurs in horror movies, such as Nightmare on Elm Street. A character trapped in a nightmare believes they have finally awoken in the real world, only they have not. In the case of a simulation, the escape might merely be a simulated escape and until the problem of the external world is solved, there is no way to know if one is free or still a prisoner.

Back before he went into politics and spawned Mecha Hitler, Elon Musk advanced the idea that we exist within a simulation. It was even claimed that was allegedly funding efforts to escape this simulation. This is, of course, just another chapter in the ancient philosophical problem of the external world. Put briefly, this problem is the challenge of proving that what seems to be a real external world is, in fact, a real external world. This is a problem in epistemology (the study of knowledge).

The problem is often presented in the context of metaphysical dualism. This is the view that reality is composed of two fundamental categories of stuff: mental stuff and physical stuff. The mental stuff is supposed to be what the soul or mind is composed of, while things like tables and kiwis (the fruit and the bird) are supposed to be composed of physical stuff. Using the example of a fire that I seem to be experiencing, the problem would be trying to prove that the idea of the fire in my mind is being caused by a physical fire in the external world.

Renee Descartes has probably the best-known version of this problem. In his Meditations he proposes that he is being deceived by an evil demon that creates, in his mind, an entire fictional world. His solution to this problem was to doubt until he reached something he could not doubt: his own existence. From this, he inferred the existence of God and then, over the rest of the Meditations on First Philosophy, he established that God was not a deceiver. Going back to the fire example, if I seem to see a fire, then there probably is an external, physical fire causing that idea. Descartes did not, obviously, decisively solve the problem. Otherwise, Musk and his fellows would be easily refuted by using Descartes’ argument.

One often overlooked contribution Descartes made to the problem of the external world is consideration of why the deception is taking place. Descartes attributes the deception of the demon to malice because it is an evil demon (or evil genius). In contrast, God’s goodness entails He is not a deceiver. In the case of Musk’s simulation, there is an obvious question of the motivation behind it. Is it malicious (like Descartes’ demon) or more benign? On the face of it, such deceit does seem morally problematic but perhaps the simulators have excellent moral reasons for this deceit. Descartes’s evil demon does provide the best classic version of Musk’s simulation idea since it involves an imposed deception. More on this later.

John Locke took a more pragmatic approach to the problem. He rejected the possibility of certainty and instead argued that what matters is understanding the world enough to avoid pain and achieve pleasure. Going back to the fire, Locke would say that he could not be sure that the fire was really an external, physical entity. But he has found that being in what appears to be fire has consistently resulted in pain and hence he understands enough to avoid standing in fire (whether it is real or not). This invites an obvious comparison to video games: when playing a game like World of Warcraft, the fire is not real. But, because having your character fake die in fake fire results in real annoyance, it does not really matter that the fire is not real. The game is, in terms of enjoyment, best played as if it is.

Locke does provide the basis of a response to worries about being in a simulation, namely that it would not matter if we were or were not. From the standpoint of happiness and misery, it would make no difference if the causes of pain and pleasure were real or simulated. Locke, however, does not consider that we might be within a simulation run by others. If it were determined that we are victims of a deceit, then this would presumably matter, especially if the deceit were malicious.

George Berkeley, unlike Locke and Descartes, explicitly and passionately rejected the existence of matter. He considered it a gateway drug to atheism. Instead, he embraces what is called “idealism”, “immaterialism” and “phenomenalism.” His view was that reality is composed of metaphysical immaterial minds and these minds have ideas. As such, for him there is no external physical reality because there is nothing physical. He does, however, need to distinguish between real things and hallucinations or dreams. His approach was to claim that real things are more vivid than hallucinations and dreams. Going back to the example of fire, a real fire for him would not be a physical fire composed of matter and energy. Rather,  it  would be a vivid idea of fire. For Berkeley, the classic problem of the external world is sidestepped by his rejection of the external world.  However, it is interesting to speculate how a simulation would be handled by Berkeley’s view.

Since Berkeley does not accept the existence of matter, the real world outside the simulation would not be a material world as it would a world composed of minds. A possible basis for the difference is that the simulated world is less vivid than the real world (to use his distinction between hallucinations and reality). On this view, we would be minds trapped in a forced dream or hallucination. We would be denied the more vivid experiences of minds “outside” the simulation, but we would not be denied an external world in the metaphysical sense. To use an analogy, we would be watching VHS tapes, while the minds “outside” the simulation would be watching 8K video.

While Musk did not present a developed philosophical theory, his discussion indicates he thought we could be in a virtual reality style simulation. On this view, the external world would presumably be a physical world of some sort. This distinction is not a metaphysical one. Presumably the simulation is being run on physical hardware and we are some sort of virtual entities in the program. Our error, then, would be to think that our experiences correspond to material entities when they, in fact, merely correspond to virtual entities. Or perhaps we are in a Matrix style situation and we do have material bodies but receive virtual sensory input that does not correspond to the physical world.

Musk’s discussion seemed to indicate that he thought there was a purpose behind the simulation and that it has been constructed by others. He did not envision a Cartesian demon, but presumably envisioned beings like what we think we are.  If they are supposed to be like us (or we like them, since we are supposed to be their creation), then speculation about their motives would be based on why we might do such a thing.

There are, of course, many reasons why we would create such a simulation. One reason could be scientific research: we already create simulations to help us understand and predict what we think is the real world. Perhaps we are in a simulation used for this purpose. Another reason would be for entertainment. We created games and simulated worlds to play in and watch; perhaps we are non-player characters in a game world or unwitting actors in a long running virtual reality show.

One idea, which was explored in Frederik Pohl’s short story “The Tunnel under the World”, is that our virtual world exists to test advertising and marketing techniques for the real world. In Pohl’s story, the inhabitants of Tylerton are killed in the explosion of the town’s chemical plant and are duplicated as tiny robots inhabiting a miniature reconstruction of the town. Each day for the inhabitants is June 15th and they wake up with their memories erased, ready to be subject to the advertising techniques to be tested that day.  The results of the methods are analyzed, the inhabitants’ memories are wiped, and it all starts up again the next day.

While this tale is science fiction, Google and Facebook are working very hard to collect as much data as they can about us with an end to monetize it. While the technology (probably) does not yet exist to duplicate us within a computer simulation, that would be a logical goal of this data collection. Imagine the monetary value of being able to simulate and predict people’s behavior at the individual level. To be effective, a simulation owned by one company would need to model the influences of its competitors, so we might be simulations in a Google World or a Facebook World so that these companies can study us to exploit the real versions of us in the external world.

Given that a simulated world is likely to exist to exploit the inhabitants, it certainly makes sense to not only want to know if we are in such a world, but also to try to undertake an escape. This will be the subject of the next essay.