Month: November 2025

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.

The United States, like all societies, suffers from many ills. This includes such things as mental illness, homelessness and drug addiction. There are many ways that these problems could be addressed. Unfortunately, the usual approach has been to try to “solve” them by law enforcement and criminalization. I will briefly consider the failures of this approach in these cases.

In the 1980s there was a major shift in America’s approach to mental illness: in the name of fiscal savings, the mentally ill were released from the hospitals into the community. One major impact of this was an increase in the number of homeless people. 20-25% of the homeless suffer from severe mental illness, compared to 6% of the entire population. The mentally ill who are homeless, as one might suspect, are usually not treated. People with untreated severe mental illnesses often behave in ways that the public finds problematic, which often leads to their being arrested and imprisoned. Prisons are ill-equipped to deal with the mentally ill and mainly serve to warehouse such people until they serve their sentences. Having a criminal record makes matters worse and makes it more likely they will simply be returned to prison and remain untreated, thus creating a cruel cycle which offers little chance for escape.

The criminalization of mental illness has not solved the problem and has made it worse. As such, it is a failure if the goal was to help people. It has not helped treat people and the cost of operating mental health institutions has been replaced with the cost of maintaining prisons. There are those who profit from this system; but it costs society dearly.

It is also a moral failure. On utilitarian grounds, it is morally wrong because it has increased rather than decreased unhappiness. For moral systems that focus on obligations to the wellbeing of others (such as the version of Christianity that embraces the parable of the good Samaritan), this approach is also a moral failure. As such, criminalizing mental illness has proven a resounding failure.

While mental illness leads many to the streets, America’s economic system also makes people homeless. Many unhoused people end up that way due to being bankrupted by medical expenses. Since the homeless have no homes, they tend to live and sleep in public areas. As would be expected, the presence of the homeless in such areas is seen as a problem and some cities try to “solve” the problem by criminalizing such things as lying down or camping in public areas. The ordinances typically impose fines, but since the homeless generally cannot afford to pay fines they usually end up in the criminal justice system which is often a pathway to prison. A criminal record only makes matters worse for the homeless and increases the chance they will remain homeless. This means that they are likely to be arrested again for breaking the ordinances that target the homeless, thus creating another cruel circle.

As might be suspected, this approach to homelessness comes with a significant monetary cost. For example, Denver spent over $750,000 enforcing its homeless targeting ordinances. Other cities pay comparable costs, making the criminalization of homelessness costly to everyone. There have been some efforts to address homelessness through other means, such as providing affordable housing, but dealing with the underlying causes is challenging given the values of those making the decisions.

Once again, trying to solve a problem through criminalization proves to be a terrible approach if the goal is to solve a social problem. Even on the heartless grounds of saving money, it fails as the cost of policing the homeless seems to consume whatever savings might be accrued for pushing people into the streets. This, of course, could be countered. One might be able to show that the monetary cost of strategies aimed at getting the homeless into homes would exceed the cost of policing the homeless on the streets. After all, the politicians could lower the cost significantly simply by not policing the unhoused who do not commit serious crimes, such as robbery. This, however, does still leave the homeless without homes and this can impose other economic costs, such medical expenses paid for by the public. This could be countered by arguing that the homeless should be completely abandoned as this would yield financial savings.

Such abandonment does, however, run into a moral challenge. The harm suffered by the homeless (and society) would seem to make a compelling utilitarian moral argument in favor of approaches that aim at getting the homeless back into society. Moral views that accept that people should love one another also enjoin us to not abandon our fellows. In any case, criminalizing homelessness is no solution, financial or moral.

Drug addiction is another problem that has largely been addressed by criminalization. About half of the people in federal prisons and 16% of those in state prison are there for drug offenses. This is the result of the war on drugs, which endeavored to solve the drug problem by arresting our way out of it. Since the negative consequences of this approach fell mainly on minorities and the poor, there was little interest among politicians in taking a different approach. However, as prison populations swelled and public attitudes towards drug use changed, there was some talk of reconsidering this war. The biggest change in the public discussion arose from the opioid epidemic, a drug epidemic that goes beyond ravaging the poor and minorities to impacting the white middle class.  This has resulted in some changes in the approach to the problem, such as the police offering free treatment for drug users rather than arresting them. It does remain to be seen if these changes will be lasting and widespread. However, this is certainly a positive change to a failed approach to the health issue of drugs.

While some for-profit prisons have done well for their shareholders in the war on drugs, the financial cost to society has been substantial. Criminalization of addiction has also failed to reduce addiction. As such, this approach has proved to be a practical failure, unless you are a shareholder in a private prison or otherwise profit from this situation.

As above, there are also moral concerns about this approach in terms of the harms being inflicted on individuals and society as a whole. Fortunately, there is a chance that America will rethink the war on drugs (in which we are the enemy) and recast it as a health issue. This not only has the potential to be far more of a practical success; it also would seem to be the right thing to do morally. Transforming people in need into criminals cannot solve the ills of society, addressing those needs can.

Back in 2016 Colin Kaepernick created controversy by protesting racial oppression in America during the national anthem. While most of his critics acknowledged that he was within his legal rights, they believed he should not have exercised them in this way. I will review some of the objections against Kaepernick and address some of the broader moral issues raised by this sort of protest.

One tactic used against Kaepernick’s protest is to assert that his protest was invalidated because, as a rich and privileged NFL player, he was not personally oppressed. This approach is flawed in at least two ways. If the intent is to reject his claim that oppression exists by attacking him, then this is an ad hominem fallacy. This is a fallacy in which an attack on something about a person is taken as refuting a claim made by the person. This is a fallacy because the truth of a claim is independent of the person making it, although a person’s expertise (or lack) is relevant to assessing credibility.

This attack can also be seen as based on the view that only a victim of oppression or harm has the moral right to protest that oppression or harm. While this might have some appeal, it is flawed. To illustrate, if this principle were accepted, then it would follow that only those killed by abortions would have the moral right to protest abortion. This would be absurd on the grounds that no protest of abortion would be possible. If the principle were taken somewhat more broadly, it would follow that only victims of cancer could try to raise awareness of cancer. As such, the claim that he is not himself oppressed has no bearing on the truth of his claims or his right to protest. This same general principle applies beyond this historical example.

Another line of attack was against his character to allege  he was not sincere: he was protesting only to gain attention and bolster his flagging career. This approach can have merit if the goal is to determine whether someone is a virtuous. If a protestor is not sincere and using the protest for personal gain, then they can be justly criticized on moral grounds. However, this sort of attack has no logical bearing on the truth of assertions or the merit of a protest. This would be just another ad hominem attack.

To use an analogy, a person who uses an opportunity to focus attention on cancer to selfishly promote themselves is not a virtuous person, but this is irrelevant to whether cancer is a real problem. As such, a protestor’s motivations are irrelevant to the validity of their protest.

There are those who take the approach that his protest was invalid because there is no oppression of blacks. Those who believe that oppression exists point to objective data regarding income, wealth, educational opportunities, hiring, sentencing, and so on that show that oppression is real and systematic.

Those who deny it either deny the data or explain it away. For example, the disproportionate arrest rates and harsher sentences are explained by alleging that blacks commit more and worse crimes than whites. Since this is an ideological issue tied to political identity, the lines are solidly drawn: those who strongly deny the existence of oppression will generally never be convinced by any amount of data. Since they do not experience systematic oppression based on race, they also tend to claim that it does not exist because they have not experienced it, although some will claim that they have been mistreated for being white.

The evidence for oppression is convincing, but those who disagree with me will not be convinced by any evidence or argument I can offer. Instead, they will attribute my belief to a distorted ideology. That said, perhaps an appeal can be made to the white people who believe that they are oppressed as they might be willing to admit that blacks are not excluded from this oppression. For example, Trump supporters often speak of how the system is rigged by the elites and they should be able to accept that there are many blacks who are also victims of these elites.  This might allow for some common ground in regard to accepting the existence of oppression in the United States. I now turn to the broader issue of whether it is morally acceptable to protest during the national anthem.

Critics of Kaepernick contended that protesting during the national anthem was disrespectful and most asserted that this action was especially insulting to the troops. When considering the matter, it is worth noting that the national anthem was first played at games as a means of attracting more paying customers. Given its use in this manner, it would be odd to attack Kaepernick for using it as an opportunity to protest. After all, he is using the opportunity to bring attention to injustice in America while it was introduced to make more money. In this regard, he seems to have held moral high ground.

It could be replied that although it began as a marketing tool, it evolved into a sacred ritual that would be besmirched by protest. One line of criticism is that to protest during the national anthem is to disrespect the troops who died for the freedom of expression. This requires the assumption that the purpose of playing the anthem at games is to honor the troops. Which might be the case. However, if the troops did die for, among other rights, the freedom of expression then the exercise of that right would be a legitimate means of honoring these troops. Endeavoring to silence people would be insult to those who are said to have died for the right of free expression. That said, there is a reasonable moral concern about decorum during the national anthem, just as there are also such concerns about behavior at any time. Kaepernick’s protest was a very polite and respectful protest and did not seem problematic. Others, of course, disagreed.

Some of the critics merely wanted him to stop protesting in this manner. Others such as Trump, went beyond this and engaged in a classic reply to those who criticize America: if you do not like how things are, then leave the country.

On the one hand, it could be argued this is a reasonable response. To use an analogy, if a person does not like their marriage or neighborhood, then leaving would be a good idea. Likewise, if a person does not like their country, then they should simply depart in search of one more to their liking. This view fits with the idea that one should be for their country “wrong or right” and not be critical. True patriotism, one might say, is simply accepting one’s country as it is and not engaging in protest. It is, of course, weirdly ironic that Trump is telling Kaepernick to leave, given that Trump relentlessly spews about how awful things are in America and how it needs to be made great again. Ironically, Trump can be seen as engaging in a form of protest: he uses his office to criticize what he hates about America and rambles about what should be done to fix all these problems.

On the other hand, the criticism can be perceived as aimed at silencing criticism without considering whether the it has merit. Going back to the analogies to marriage and a neighborhood, a person who believes there are problems with either could be criticized for simply abandoning them without making any attempt to solve the issues. A true patriot, it could be argued, would no more remain silent in the face of problems with their country than a true friend would remain silent when their friend needed an intervention. This view is, of course, not original to me. Henry David Thoreau noted that “A very few—as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men—serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.” I do not, of course, know what Kaepernick’s true motivations were. But his calling attention to the problems of the United States with the expressed desire to improve America can be reasonably regarded as a patriotic act. That is, after all, what a true patriot does: they do not remain silent in the face of evil and defects, they take action to make their country both good and great.

While most attention about the cost of a college education is focused on tuition, there is also concern about the ever-increasing prices of textbooks. While textbooks are something of a niche product, their prices are usually much higher than other niche books.

There are numerous reasons textbooks have high prices. There is the fact that textbook sales tend to be low, so the price needs to be higher to make a profit. There is also the fact that behind each textbook is typically a small army of people ranging from the lowly author to the exalted corporate CEO and everyone needs their slice of the pie. And, of course, there is the fact that the customers are something of captive market. Students are expected to buy what professors select and are often stuck with only that option. In any case, textbooks are now rather expensive and  can match or exceed the cost of a low-end computer.

While students have long been inclined to neither read nor buy texts, the rising prices serve as an ever-growing disincentive for buying books. This lowers the chances that a student will read the book, and this can have a detrimental impact on the student’s education.

Several years ago, my students complained about the high costs of books (and these were not very high), so I took steps to address this concern. While they are lagging behind me, some state legislatures have started pushing for schools to address the high cost of textbooks. On the one hand, they seem to be taking the wrong sort of approach: publishers and sellers control textbook prices, faculty do not. This would be analogous to putting the burden of lowering the cost of prescription drugs on doctors rather than the pharmaceutical companies and pharmacies. The state legislatures could, if they think that the high cost of texts is a cruel burden on students, legislate price restrictions on these books or address the matter directly in other ways.

On the other hand, professors can take steps to address the costs that students must pay in regard to the required material for their classes. As such, there is a legitimate role here for faculty.

While I support the goal of making the costs of texts less burdensome, the focus on textbooks by state legislatures smells a bit like a red herring. After all, one main factor driving the increased cost of a state college education is the systematic disinvestment in higher education by these very same legislatures. Students would, I think, be far better served by these legislatures restoring the investments in higher education, something that will aid the students and pay for itself in returns many times over.  But since legislatures are reluctant to invest in the future of America’s youth and eager to invest in the future of the wealthy, I now turn to addressing how faculty can lower the costs that students have to pay for texts.

There are, of course, some easy and obvious solutions. One is for the professor to shop around when picking a text.  Textbooks vary in price and some companies, such as Oxford University Press, make a point of keeping prices in a more reasonable range. The challenge is, of course, to ensure that the lower cost book is of suitable quality; but this is generally not a problem if a professor sticks with reputable publishers.

Another option is for professors to use older editions of books that are still available from resellers such as Amazon and whatever used bookstores remain in business. These books can be much cheaper than the new editions. The main concern is that older editions can become out of date. This can range from the relatively minor issue of having examples that are no longer current to the serious issue of a book containing information that has been proven to be in error. Concerns about the age of the text tend to be relative to the field. To illustrate, a class on ancient philosophy can easily use an ancient book while a class on contemporary moral issues would need a contemporary book. There are also public domain books readily available for free in electronic format, including versions available through such sources as Amazon.

Professors can also keep costs low by ensuring that they only require books that are really needed in the course. Some professors, perhaps to get free desk copies, require many books for their courses that end up either being underused (such as reading one article from an anthology) or not being used at all.

There are also other established solutions such as using a custom course pack of readings (often assembled and sold by a local copy business) and having the course material put on reserve at the library. Professors can also locate free online resources, such as educational videos, that can be used in place of or in addition to traditional books. 

Professors can also aid students by doing the students’ research for them, looking up textbook prices online and informing students of the best deals at that time. Some states have been requiring professors to turn in textbook orders months before the start of the semester; the theory is that students will use that time to hunt down the best textbook deals. This does require a means of informing students about the books, something that presumably would be listed online with the class.  Sometimes professors must turn in their book orders before they even know what they will be teaching, but this can be addressed by setting schedules early enough. In cases involving adjuncts (who are sometimes hired days before school starts) or new hires, books will no doubt be assigned by some other faculty member on the grounds that the alleged savings of being able to shop around early will outweigh any concerns about academic freedom or faculty decision making in regard to course content.

There are also solutions that require more effort on the part of professors. When my students began complaining about the high cost of books, I addressed the problem by assembling texts out of public domain works. While these “books” began as text files, the advent of PDF enabled me to create robust digital books. The students can download these books for free from my Canvas course, which saves them money. This approach does have limitations; the main one is that the works need to either be in the public domain or permission to use them for free must be granted. There are also creative commons works, but these are not terribly common in academics. Because of this, most of the works that can be included will be older, out of copyright works. For some classes, this is no problem. For example, my Modern philosophy class covers long dead philosophers, such as Descartes and Locke, whose works are in the public domain. For classes that require up to date content, such as science classes or classes devoted to contemporary content, this approach would not be viable.

Professors can, and often do, write their own texts for use in classes. If the professor goes through the usual publishing companies, they might have some ability to keep the price low. But, since author royalties are usually but a small fraction of the cost of a textbook, even if a professor were to forgo this royalty, the impact on the price would be minimal. As such, this is not a great option in terms of price control.

 Thanks to on-demand publishing services (such as CreateSpace) and eBook publishing (such as Amazon’s Kindle) a professor can also publish their books with almost complete control over the price. For example, an author can set a Kindle eBook to sell for as low as 99 cents. On the positive side, this option allows a professor to provide printed and electronic books for very low prices.

On the minus side, self-published books are not subject to the review usually required by academic publishers and thus quality can be a serious concern. There are also some ethical concerns about a professor requiring students to buy their books, although a low relative cost can offset this worry. Although I have written numerous philosophy books, such as my books on fallacies, I have not used them in my classes because of this concern. They have, however, been adopted by faculty at other universities.

While professors are now expected to keep the costs of texts down, there are ways students can save themselves money. The classic approach is, of course, not to buy the book (or only buy some of the books). While this does save money, it can impact negatively on class performance and learning. Another approach is to split the cost of the text and share the book, although this runs into the usual problems of sharing.

Textbooks can sometimes also be checked out from libraries, although there is the obvious problem of limited availability. Students who are more frugal than scrupulous can also acquire free books by other means as almost anything can be acquired through the web.

Students who are willing to buy a text can save money by shopping around online and at used bookstores for used or discounted copies of the text. Previous editions of books can also be found, often at lower prices. The downside is that publishers make special efforts to make it harder to use previous editions. One tactic is to move around homework questions, so the numbers are different between editions. On the positive side, content changes between editions tend to be otherwise minor.

Publishers also offer textbook rentals that offer savings relative to the sales price; given that the money students get for selling their books back is very little, this can be a good approach for people who would otherwise just sell their books back.  Some books are also available at a slightly lower price as eBooks (although there is concern about being able to sell them back).

A student can also make an appeal to the professor; they might have a copy they can lend, or they might be able to suggest some lower cost options. While many professors are aware of the cost of texts and take steps to keep costs down, some professors are unaware, but might be willing to address this if asked by students.

To close, while state legislatures should be focused on the main cost factors of higher education (such as their own disinvestment choices) they are correct in pointing out that textbook costs do need to be addressed. While this should be handled by those who set the prices of the texts, professors and students can use the above approaches to help keep costs down.

 

The venerable Wells Fargo bank made the news in 2016 for financial misdeeds on a massive scale. Employees of the company, to meet the quotas set by management, created accounts without the permission of the clients. In response over 5,300 lower level employees were fired. Initially, CEO John Stumpf and former head of retail banking Carrie Tolstedt were to keep their rather sizable compensation for leading the company to a great financial “success” based on this fraud. However, the backlash from the public and the shareholders resulted in Stumpf and Carrie losing some of their financial compensation.

As would be expected, there were no plans for criminal charges of the sort that could result in jail time. This is consistent with how most financial misdeeds by the ruling elites are handled: some fines and, at worst, some forfeiture of ill-gotten gains. While I do not generally agree with Trump, he was not wrong when he pointed out that the system is rigged in favor of the elites and against the common people. The fact that Trump is one of the elites and has used the system does not prove him wrong (that would be fallacious reasoning); rather he also serves as more evidence for the rigging. Those who loath wealthy Democrats can also include them.

It is instructive to compare the punishment for other misdeeds to those imposed on Wells Fargo. Shoplifting is usually seen as a minor crime,  but a person who shoplifts property with a combined value of less than $300 can pay a fine up to $1000 or be sentenced to up to a year in jail. Shoplifting property with a combined value over $300 is a felony and can result in a sentence between one and ten years in jail. Wells Fargo robbed people through the use of fees and other charges that arose from the creation of unauthorized accounts.

While there are differences between the direct theft of shoplifting and the indirect robbery of imposing charges on unauthorized accounts, there is little moral distinction: after all, both are means of robbing someone of their rightful property.  Because of this, there would appear to be a need to revise the penalties so that they are properly proportional.

One option is to bring the punishment for major financial misdeeds in line with the punishment for shoplifting. This would involve changing the fine for financial misdeeds from being a fraction of the profits (or damages) of the misdeeds to a multiple of the profits (perhaps three or more times greater). It could be argued that such a harsh penalty could financially ruin an elite who lacked adequate assets to pay for their misdeed; however, the exact same argument can be advanced for poor shoplifters.

Another option is to bring the punishments for shoplifting in line with those for the financial elites. This would change the fine for shoplifting from likely being more than the value of what was stolen to a fraction of what was stolen (if that). For example, if someone stole a $1,000 video card, then their punishment might be paying a $100 fine. The obvious objection to this proposal is that if shoplifters knew that their punishment would be a fraction of the value they had stolen, then this punishment would have no deterrent value. Shoplifting would be, in effect, shopping at a discount. It is thus hardly shocking that the financial elite are not deterred by the present system of punishment since they profit greatly if they do not get caught and do very well even if they are caught and “punished.”

It could be objected that the financial elite would be deterred on the grounds that they would still be better off using legal means to profit. That way they would keep 100% of their gain rather than a fraction. The easy and obvious reply is that this deterrent value is contingent on the elite believing that the legal approach would be more profitable than the illegal approach (with due consideration to the chance of getting caught and fined). Since punishment is often a fraction of the gain and the potential gain from misdeeds can be huge, this approach to punishment has far less deterrent value than a punishment in which the punished comes out at a loss rather than a gain. If a corporation could, for example, make 200% more by doing illegal things and they risk only losing a fraction of that gain, then doing illegal things is a smart move.

It is also interesting to compare the punishment for identity theft and fraud with the punishment of Wells Fargo. Conviction of identity theft can result in a sentence of one to seven years. Fraud charges also have sentences that range from one to ten years and beyond. While some do emphasize that Wells Fargo was not engaged in traditional identity theft, what they did was morally similar. As an example of traditional identity theft, a thief steals a person’s identity and gets a credit card under that name to use for their own gain. What Wells Fargo did was open accounts in people’s names without their permission so that the company could profit from this misuse of their identity. As such, the company was stealing from these people and doing the same sorts of harm inflicted by identity theft.

From a moral standpoint, those involved in these actions should face the same criminal charges and potential punishments that individuals acting on their own would face. This is morally required for consistency. Obviously enough, the laws are not consistent. We all know that the misdeeds of the elite and corporations are usually punished lightly or not at all. Nothing new, as the history of law is also the history of its unfair application. The injustice of justice, one might say.  However, this approach is problematic.

Seem from a certain moral perspective, the degree to which I am obligated to accept punishment for my misdeeds is proportional to the consistency and fairness of the system of justice. If others can walk away from the consequences of their misdeeds or enjoy light punishments for misdeeds that would result in harsh penalties for me, then I have little moral reason to willingly accept any punishments that might be inflicted on me. Naturally, the state has the power to inflict its punishments whether I accept them or not, but it seems important to a system of justice that the citizens accept the moral legitimacy of the punishment.

To use an analogy, imagine a professor who ran their class like the justice system is running. If an elite student cheated and got an initial grade of 100, they might be punished by having the grade docked to an 80 if caught. In contrast, the commoner students would fail and be sent before the academic misconduct board for such a misdeed. The commoner students who cheated would be right to rebel against this system and refuse to accept such punishments, though they did wrong, justice without consistency is but a mockery of real justice.

In light of this discussion, Wells Fargo was yet another example of the inherent injustice and inequality in the legal system. If we wish to have a just system of justice, these disparities must be addressed. These disparities also warrant moral disobedience in the face of punishment. Why should a shoplifter accept a fine that vastly exceeds what they steal when a financial elite can pay but a fraction of their theft and profit well from their misdeeds? They should not.

The war on drugs is one of the longest and least successful wars waged by the United States. The biggest problem is, as Walt Kelley said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” Which is to say that the war on drugs is primarily a civil war and most casualties are Americans.

While some see the war on drugs as a battle of virtue against vice, most drug laws were motivated by racism. For example, San Francisco’s 1875 law against opium was based on the fear that Chinese men were luring white women into opium dens to have sex with them. This was followed by laws against cocaine (motivated largely by racism towards blacks) and then by laws against marijuana (motivated largely by biases against Mexicans). The war on drugs proper began in 1971 with Richard Nixon’s declaration and following presidents followed suit with varying degrees of enthusiasm. President Bill Clinton, eager to appear tough on crime, escalated the war in a manner that has led directly to the present problems of mass incarceration and the disproportionate incarceration of minorities. This serves as another reminder that while we should be wary of false equivalences, the elites of the Democratic party are not our friends.

Some might argue that drug laws do not specifically target minorities. After all, as one might point out, it is as illegal for a white person to use cocaine as it is for a black person. While this is a point worth considering, the application of the laws and the approach to their enforcement is strongly influenced by race. As one example, minority communities are policed more aggressively than white communities—despite the fact that blacks are no more likely to use drugs than whites (and whites are apparently more likely to deal drugs). This is one of the causes of the disproportionate incarceration rates. As another example, sentencing is often also disproportional, with the difference in sentences between crack and powder cocaine serving as an excellent illustration.

One counter to these assertions is to claim that minorities commit drug crimes at a higher rate than whites and thus the arrest rate correctly reflects this. The challenge is to support this claim with evidence. In some cases, the “evidence” offered is the arrest rate itself, creating a circle of reasoning: minorities have a higher arrest rate because they commit crimes at a higher rate and this is proven because minorities have a higher arrest rate. Unfortunately, for some the crime rates are a matter of ideology and hence they perceive the matter through that lens, and this makes discussing the issue challenging. While an analysis of the data provides what seems to be objective evidence of disparity, there are those who interpret the data rather differently. My own view is that the disparity does exist and is shown by the statistical data. Naturally, those who disagree might be inclined to claim that my view is due to ideology as well.

What is not in dispute is that the war on drugs has resulted in a mass incarceration thus making the United States the world leader in terms of the percentage of its population behind bars. While the left has long been concerned with the incarceration rate, conservatives also expressed some concern. What seemed to shift in was the opioid epidemic’s impact across racial and class lines. While the American middle and upper classes have used drugs throughout American history, they have not been the focus of law enforcement. This has enabled the maintenance of the illusion (or delusion) that drugs are a problem for the poor and minorities. Due to the attention paid to the opioid caused deaths, this illusion has been dispelled. As such, it is was recognized that there was a drug epidemic sweeping white America—and not just poor whites, but whites of the middle and upper classes.

Recognition of the whiter and wealthier nature of the epidemic seems to have motivated a shift in how drug use is being policed, at least for certain classes of people. This epidemic was treated by many as a health crisis and not a crime wave. Instead of focusing on arresting and incarcerating people, effort was focused on helping people overcome their addiction and mitigate the harm caused by this addiction. This is not to say that no one previously regarded the drug problem as a health issue, just that this represented a change in the mainstream view.

While this change in attitude centered on opioids has had some trickle-down effect on other drugs, this change has yet to spread broadly. There is still aggressive policing aimed at other drugs despite the fact that the logic that presents opioid addiction as a health issue also entails other forms of drug addiction are also health issues. However, there is some hope that this approach will spread to drug use in general.

There are compelling reasons to accept this shift. The first is that the approach of criminalizing drugs, whatever its intent, failed to address the problem. As such, there is a need for change and the health angle seems a sensible approach. The second is to use Mill’s principle of harm: the use of drugs hurts the drug user; thus people should have the liberty to use drugs, even though they are a poor life choice. This is consistent with treating them as a medical problem and people have the choice to accept or reject treatment.

The principle of harm does justify laws that criminalize drug related activity that harms others. Under this principle, the state has the moral right to impose on a person’s liberty to prevent harm to others. These justified impositions would include such things as making it illegal to operate a vehicle under the influence of drugs. Under this principle, the selling of drugs should be treated as the selling of any other product and regulated as such. For example, selling tainted or contaminated drugs should be punished in the same manner as the selling of tainted or contaminated food. As another example, the selling of dangerous drugs should be treated like the selling of any dangerous product (such as lead paint, rigged financial products, tobacco, and alcohol) and punished appropriately. And, of course, drug-motivated murder and theft should be treated, as always, as murder and theft. Treating drug use as a health issue is thus a better approach and is consistent with still treating some drug related activities as criminal activities.

Having grown up in the golden age of CB radio, I have fond memories of movies about truck driving heroes played by the likes of Kurt Russell and Clint Eastwood. While such movies were a passing phase, real truck drivers are heroes of the American economy. In addition to moving stuff across this great nation, they also earn solid wages and thus contribute as taxpayers and consumers.

While most media attention has been on self-driving cars, there are plans to replace human truckers with self-driving trucks. The steps towards automation might initially be a boon to truck drivers as these technological advances provide new safety features. This progress will most likely lead to a truck with a human riding as a backup and eventually to a fully automated truck. But perhaps driverless vehicles are the vehicles of the future and always will be.

In terms of the consequences of full automation, there will be some positive impacts. While the automated trucks will be more expensive than manned vehicles initially, not needing to pay drivers will result in savings. There is also the fact that automated trucks, unlike human drivers, would not get tired, bored or distracted. While there will still be accidents, it would be reasonable to expect a significant decrease once technology matures. Such trucks would also be able to operate around the clock, stopping only to load or unload cargo, to refuel and for maintenance. This could increase the speed of deliveries. One can even imagine an automated truck with its own drones that fly away from the truck as it cruises the highway, making deliveries for companies like Amazon. While these will be good things, there will also be negative consequences.

The most obvious negative consequence is the elimination of trucker jobs. Currently, there are about 3.5 million drivers in the United States. There are also about 8.7 million other people employed in the trucking industry. One must also remember all the people indirectly associated with trucking, ranging from people cooking meals for truckers to folks manufacturing or selling products for truckers. Finally, there are also the other economic impacts from the loss of these jobs, ranging from the loss of tax revenues to lost business. After all, truckers do not just buy truck related goods and services.

While the loss of jobs will have a negative impact, it should be noted that the transition from manned trucks to robot rigs will not occur overnight. Assuming it occurs.  There will be a slow transition as technology is adopted, and there will be several years in which human truckers and robotruckers share the roads. This can allow for a planned transition that will mitigate the economic shock. That said, there will presumably come a day when drivers are given their pink slips in and lose their jobs to rolling robots. Since economic transitions resulting from technological changes are nothing new, it could be hoped that this transition would be managed in a way that mitigated the harm to those impacted.

It is also worth considering that the switch to automated trucking will, as technological changes almost always do, create new jobs and modify old ones. The trucks will still need to be manufactured, managed and maintained. As such, new economic opportunities will be created. That said, it is easy to imagine these jobs also becoming automated as well: fleets of robotic trucks cruising America, loaded, unloaded, managed and maintained by robots. To close, I will engage in a bit of sci-fi style speculation.

Oversimplifying things, the automation of jobs could lead to a utopian future in which humans are finally freed from the jobs that are fraught with danger and drudgery. The massive, automated productivity could mean plenty for all; thus bringing about the bright future of optimistic fiction. That said, this path could also lead into a dystopia: a world in which everything is done for humans, and they settle into a vacuous idleness they attempt to fill with empty calories and frivolous amusements.

There are, of course, many dystopian paths leading away from automation. Laying aside the usual machine takeover in which AI kills us all, it is easy to imagine a new “robo-planation” style economy in which a few elite owners control their robot slaves, while the masses have little or no employment. A rather more radical thought is to imagine a world in which humans are almost completely replaced, the automated economy hums along, generating numbers that are noted by the money machines and the few remaining money masters. The ultimate end might be a single computer that contains a virtual economy; clicking away to itself in electronic joy over its amassing of digital dollars while around it the ruins of human civilization decay and the world awaits the evolution of the next intelligent species to start the game anew.

While weather disasters have always plagued humanity, there has been a clear recent uptick in such events. The increased severity of these disasters is due partially to the human population being larger than ever and occupying more land, especially in areas prone to such events. That said, events such as the floods in Texas and the steady inundation of the sea in many places (such as Miami) are indications of a real change.

Nearly every climate scientist accepts that climate change is occurring, and human activity has been a factor. Given the historic record, it would be irrational to deny that climate changes and few make this claim. The battle is over the cause of climate change. Unfortunately for addressing the impact of climate change, it was changed from a scientific issue into a political one. Making it into a partisan issue had the usual impact on group psychology: it became a matter of political identity, with people developing a profound emotional commitment to climate change denial. When denying climate change became a matter of group identity, it became almost impossible for reason to change minds. In the face of overwhelming evidence, people double down, deny evidence, and craft narratives about how scientists are biased and environmentalists hate capitalism.

To be fair, some of those who accept climate change are not moved by the science, but by their group identity. They just happen to be right, albeit for the wrong reason.

Not being an expert on climate change, I follow the rational approach to any issue that requires expertise I lack: I go with the majority view of the qualified experts. As such, I accept that climate change is real, and humans play a role. If the majority shifted, I would accept that view. After all, the history of science includes numerous shifts.

If this matter were a purely abstract debate like those about metaphysical universals, then there would be no reason to be worried However, the impact of the changing climate is doing considerable harm, and it will continue to get worse unless steps are taken to address it. Unfortunately, as noted above, climate is a political issue with deeply entrenched interest groups and strong emotional commitments. In some places, such as Florida, there is political pressure to not even use the words “climate change.” The problem is, of course, that not using the words does not make the problems go away. Miami will slowly vanish into the ocean, even if people refuse to say that its destruction is being caused by “climate change.”

As a philosopher, I do believe in reason. However, I know that reason is the weakest form of persuasion. Because of the entrenchment over climate change, trying to use reason and evidence to change minds would be a fool’s errand. As such, I suggest a purely pragmatic solution: stop using the C words (“climate change”) when trying to influence public policy, at least in cases in which there is strong ideological resistance. Using those words will simply evoke an emotional response and create strong resistance to whatever might be proposed, however reasonable.

As an alternative, the approach should be to focus on the specific threats and these should be cast in terms of risks to the economy and, perhaps, the lives and well-being of voters and consumers. There should be no mention of man-made climate change and no proposals to change behavior to counter man-made climate change. In short, the proposals must focus solely on mitigating the damage of weather events, with due care taken to present the notion that these events “just happen” and are “natural” with no connection to human activity.

It might be objected that this would be analogous to trying to combat the Zika virus by dealing only with the effects while refusing to say “virus” and not proposing any efforts to address the cause. This is a reasonable point. However, if there was a powerful political movement that refused to accept the existence of viruses and citizens emotionally devoted to virus denial, then trying to persuade them to deal with the virus would be a daunting task. If they did accept the existence of the effects, then they could be enlisted to assist in addressing them. While this approach would hardly be optimal, it would be better to have their cooperation in mitigating the consequences rather than facing their opposition.

It might also be objected that I am deluded by my own ideological views and have been misled by the conspiracy of scientists and liberals who are in the pocket of Big Environment and eager to destroy capitalism. Since I enjoy a good conspiracy theory, I admit that it could be the case that the noble fossil fuel companies and their minions are right about climate change and the scientists are either villains or dupes. If so, then not talking about climate change would be the correct approach, just as not talking about climate demons is the correct approach (because there are no such things). But since the weather events are really occurring, then addressing them would still be reasonable. So, regardless of whether climate change is real or not, my approach seems to be a sound one: avoid the resistance of climate change deniers by not using the C words; but enlist them into addressing those “perfectly natural “severe weather events that will just happen to be occurring with increasing regularity.

While the United States has multiple third parties and many voters register as independents, politics is dominated by the Republicans and the Democrats. While there are independents in office here and there, independent voters still identify with the two parties and are also almost entirely limited to voting for candidates from these two parties.

My own party affiliation is Democrat, although it is a very weak affiliation. While I do share some of the values professed by the party (such as support for education and protecting the environment) my main reason for being a Democrat is that Florida is a closed primary state. If I did not have a party affiliation, I would be limited to voting between the candidates picked by the Democrats and Republicans. That is not acceptable, and I regard the Democrats as less evil than the Republicans. At least for now.

While people do sometimes change parties (Reagan started as a Democrat and ended as a Republican, while Hillary Clinton took the reverse path) most people stay loyal. Trump briefly tested the loyalty of some Republicans, but then conquered the party transforming the GOP into MAGA.

Being a philosopher, I try to operate on consistent moral, logical and political principles rather than embracing whatever my party happens to endorse at any given moment. Because of this, I could end up leaving the Democratic party if its professed values changed enough. As Republicans love to say, their party was once the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt. As they also love to point out, the Democratic party was once a racist party. Now, of course, both parties are very different. Teddy Roosevelt would be appalled by the current Republican party and the Democrats are now regarded as a civil rights focused party that is welcoming to minorities (and certainly welcomes their votes).

While political parties presumably provide some benefits for citizens, they mainly exist to benefit the politicians. They provide politicians with resources and support that are essential to running for office. They also provide another valuable service to politicians:  an very effective means of cognitive and moral derangement. Like other groups, political parties exploit well-known cognitive biases, thus encouraging their members to yield to irrationality and moral failure.

One bias is the bandwagon effect; this is the tendency people have to align their thinking with that of those around them. This often serves to ground such fallacies as the “group think” fallacy in which a person accepts a claim as true simply because their group accepts it as true. In the case of political parties, people tend to believe what their party claims, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. In fact, it is well-established that people often double down on false beliefs in the face of objective evidence against this belief. This afflicts people across the political spectrum. The defense against this sort of derangement is to resist leaping on the bandwagon and train oneself to accept evidence rather than group loyalty as support for a claim.

Another bias is the tendency people have to obey authority and conform. Stanley Milgram’s famous experiments in obedience purport to show that people are generally obedient by nature and will obey even when they believe what they are doing is wrong. This derangement forges people into obedient masses who praise their leader, such as the objectively unfit Donald Trump or some lame Democrat. Since obedience is so ingrained into humans, resisting is difficult. In fact, people often think they are resisting authority when they are bowing low to another authority. Being disobedient as a matter of principle is difficult, although people such as Socrates and Thoreau do offer some guidelines and inspiration.

Perhaps the most powerful bias here is the in-group bias. This is the natural tendency people have to regard members of their group as having positive qualities while seeing members of other groups as being inferior. This tendency is triggered even by the most superficial group identifications. For example, sports teams stand for nothing, they do not represent moral or political principles or anything of significance. Yet people routinely become obsessive fans who regard their fellows as better than the fans of other teams. This can, and does, escalate into violence.

In the case of politics, the bias is even stronger. Republicans and Democrats typically praise their own and condemn their competition. Many of them devote effort scouring the internet for “evidence” of their virtue and the vice of their foes: it is not enough to disagree; the opposition must be demonized and cast as inferior. For example, I see battles play out on Facebook over whether Democrats or Republicans give more to charity and has ended friendships.

This bias is useful to politicians as it helps fuels the moral and cognitive derangement of their supporters. The most pronounced effect is that party members will rush to defend their politician over matters that they savagely attack the other side for. For example, Donald Trump is, as a matter of objective fact, unrelenting in his untruths. His supporters who otherwise regard lying as wrong, rush to defend and excuse him, while they bashed Hillary, Biden and Obama as liars and crooks—despite the fact that Hillary said untrue things far less often than Trump. As should be expected, Hillary’s devout backers did the same thing, excusing Hillary for things they condemn about Trump (such as sketchy business deals). Some of Biden’s supporters also dismissed or ignored his issues with aging, while attacking Trump for similar mental decline.

As a matter of rational and moral principle (and consistency), a person who regards lying as wrong should take liars of both parties to task and criticize their lying appropriately. To do otherwise is to be irrational and morally inconsistent. The same should apply to other matters as well, such as sketchy business deals. To avoid this derangement, people need to train themselves (or be trained) to assess politicians as objectively as possible to avoid being morally and cognitively deranged by the undue corrupting influence of party.

This is not to say that a person should fall into the trap of false equivalency or regard any misdeed as equal to any other. Simply saying “they are all equally bad” when they are not is also a failure of reason and ethics. Using the example of the 2016 campaign, while Trump and Clinton both had their flaws, Clinton was objectively better than Trump in regards to qualifications for being president.  As Republicans argued when Obama was running in 2008, experience is critically important and the presidency is not an entry level political job.

I am not advocating that people become apathetic or abandon their parties. Rather, I want people to hold all politicians to the same standards of criticism rather than rushing to defend their side simply because it is their side and bashing the other simply because it is the other. This would, I hope, force politicians to be better. As it now stands, they can be awful and count on the derangement of followers to work in their favor.