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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 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.

 

Back in 2016 the Dallas police used a remotely operated robot to kill a suspect with a bomb. While this marked a new use for robots in the realm of domestic policing, the decision-making process was conventional. That is, humans decided to use the machine and then a human operator controlled it for the attack. As such the true policebot is still a thing of science fiction. That said, considering policebots provides an interesting way to discuss police profiling in a speculative setting. While it might be objected that the discussion should focus on real police profiling, there are advantages to discussing controversial matters within a speculative context. One important advantage is that such a setting can help dampen emotional responses and enable a more rational discussion. The speculative context helps make the discussion less threatening to some who might react with greater hostility to discussions focused on the actual world. Star Trek’s discussion of issues of race in the 1960s using science fiction is an excellent example of this sort of approach. Now, to the matter of policebots.

The policebots under consideration are those that would be capable of a high degree of autonomous operation. At the low end of autonomy, they could be deployed to enforce traffic laws on their own, such as tracking speeding and issuing tickets. On the higher end, they could operate autonomously to conduct arrests of suspects who might resist arrest violently. Near the highest end would be robotic police at least as capable as human beings. Beyond that would be supercops.

While there are legitimate worries that policebots could be used as unquestioning servants of the state to oppress and control elements of the population (something we will certainly see), there are also good reasons for using advanced policebots. One obvious advantage is that policebots would be more resilient and easier to repair than human officers. Policebots that are not people would also be more expendable and thus could save human lives by taking on the dangerous tasks of policing (such as engaging armed suspects). Another advantage is that robots will probably not get tired or bored, thus allowing them to patrol around the clock with maximum efficiency. Robots are also unlikely to be subject to the corrupting factors that influence humans or suffer from personal issues, such as going through a divorce. There is also the possibility that policebots could be more objective than human officers. This is, in fact, the main concern of this essay.

Like a human office, policbots would need to identify criminal behavior. In some cases, this would be easy. For example, an autonomous police drone could easily spot and ticket most speeding violations. In other cases, this would be incredibly complicated. For example, a policebot patrolling a neighborhood would need to discern between children playing at cops & robbers and people engaged in actual violence. As another example, a policebot on patrol would need to be able to sort out the difference between a couple having a public argument and an assault in progress.

In addition to sorting out criminal behavior from non-criminal behavior, policebots would also need to decide on how to focus their attention. For example, a policebot would need to determine who gets special attention in a neighborhood because they are acting suspicious or seem to be out of place. Assuming that policebots would be programed, the decision-making process would be explicitly laid out in the code. Such focusing decisions would seem to be, by definition, based in profiling and this gives rise to important moral concerns.

Profiling that is based on behavior would seem to be acceptable, provided that such behavior is clearly linked to criminal activities and not to, as an example, ethnicity. For example, it would seem perfectly reasonable to focus attention on a person who tries to stick to the shadows around houses while paying undue attention to houses that seem to be unoccupied at the time. While such a person might be a shy fellow who likes staring at unlit houses as a pastime, there is a reasonable chance he is scouting the area for a robbery. As such, the policebot would be warranted in focusing on him.

The most obviously controversial area would be using certain demographic data for profiles. Young men tend to commit more crimes than middle-aged women. On the one hand, this would seem to be relevant data for programing a policebot. On the other hand, it could be argued that this would give the policebot a gender and age bias that would be morally wrong despite being factually accurate. It becomes vastly more controversial when data about such things as ethnicity, economic class and religion are considered. If accurate and objective data links such factors to a person being more likely to engage in crime, then a rather important moral concern arises. Obviously enough, if such data were not accurate, then it should not be included.

Sorting out the accuracy of such data can be problematic and there are sometimes circular appeals. For example, the right often defends the higher arrest rate of blacks by claiming that blacks commit more crimes than whites. When it is objected that higher arrest rate could be partially due to bias in policing, the reply is often that blacks commit more crimes and the proof is that blacks are arrested more than whites. That is, the justification runs in a circle.

But suppose that objective and accurate data showed links between demographic categories and crime. In that case, leaving it out of the programing could make policebots less effective. This could have the consequence of allowing more crimes to occur. This harm would need to be weighed against the harm of having the policebots programmed to profile based on such factors. One area of concern is public perception of the policebots and their use of profiling. This could have negative consequences that could outweigh the harm of having less efficient policebots.

Another area of potential harm is that even if the policebots operated on accurate data, they would still end up arresting people disproportionally, thus potentially causing harm that would exceed the harm done by the loss of effectiveness. This also ties into higher level moral concerns about the reasons why specific groups might commit more crimes than others and these reasons often include social injustice and economic inequality. As such, even “properly” programmed policebots could be arresting the victims of social and economic crimes. This suggests an interesting idea for a science fiction story: policebots that decide to reduce crime by going after the social and economic causes of crime rather than arresting people to enforce an unjust social order.

Television shows and movies about CSI sometimes present a science fiction version of investigation involving amazing technology and incredible inferences. While people do understand that the almost magical solving of crimes is fiction, there is still  overconfidence in many methods used in real investigations. This overconfidence plays a significant role in some of the problems infecting the criminal justice system.

The history of criminal investigation is replete with debunked methods, such as the use of phrenology to diagnose criminal tendencies. There are also technologies that have little or no validity and are not admitted in court yet enjoy some public confidence (such as lie detectors). There are also methods that might have some value in investigations yet are the subject of unwarranted overconfidence in their efficacy. These include such things as bite mark analysis and fiber analysis. Other methods are reasonable useful, such as fingerprints, yet are still often accepted with an unwarranted level of confidence, especially in situations where the defendant has an ill-prepared and overworked public defender. Defendants of means or fame can, of course, purchase a better sort of justice.

In contrast with the above methods, DNA identification strikes many as a silver bullet. After all, aside from identical twins (or clones), no two people have the same DNA. This would seem to make the presence of a person’s DNA at a crime scene extremely good evidence for their involvement.

While such evidence is valuable, we must consider the limitations of and problems with this method. Contamination and transference should always be given due consideration because DNA can travel quite far. This can be illustrated with an example involving my husky, Isis.

Like all huskies, my husky generated an incredible amount of fur, and this fur got onto everything and everyone. While she passed 2016, I still find the occasional husky hair. The fur was transported from my house to various points around the world. I know for a fact that her fur is now in at least five states, although she never left Florida. As such, if fur sampling was used to determine what dogs were present, she could been flagged as having been in many, many locations she did not visit. The same also holds true for humans. While humans do not shed like huskies, humans do shed hair, and this can get onto people and objects that could end up in crime scenes. For example, if Sally wears a hat and it ends up in someone else’s possession, that hat will almost certainly still have Sally’s DNA on it. So, if the hat is found at a crime scene, Sally’s DNA will be found there as well, which could be trouble for Sally.

These concerns do not show that DNA testing should not be used; rather they show that it is wise to maintain a degree of healthy skepticism in the face of such evidence. It also shows the importance of informing law enforcement, judges, juries and lawyers about the limitations of methods.  This assumes, of course, that those involved (have the time to) care about justice and this is not always the case. There is also the concern, as noted above, that the quality of a person’s defense is a function of their resources. These are, of course, concerns that go far beyond worries about methods.

It can be objected that educating people about the limits of such methods could create a skepticism that might undermine convictions. For example, that the possibility of “wandering DNA” could be used to create unwarranted doubt, thus allowing the guilty to go free. A skilled and well-paid lawyer could exploit such doubts quite effectively and allow a lawbreaker to go free, thus preventing justice from being done.

This concern is reasonable; while overconfidence is problematic, so is under-confidence. However, the United States’ criminal justice system is supposed to operate on a presumption of innocence: it is better to err on allowing the guilty to go free than to err towards punishing the innocent. As such, the greater mistake would be overconfidence in a method. However, there is a concern that these doubts would be exploited by those who have the resources to purchase an effective defense, while the less fortunate would not benefit from them. But, as has been noted, this is a general problem with America’s pay-to-play legal system.

In Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” Rekal, Incorporated offers clients a virtual vacation: for a modest fee, memories of a vacation are implanted. The company also provides mementos and “evidence” of the trip. In the story (and the movie, Total Recall, based on it) things go terribly wrong.

While the technology of the story does not yet exist, a very limited form of virtual reality has  become something of a reality. Because of this, it is worth considering the matter of virtual vacations. Interestingly, philosophers have long envisioned a form of virtual reality; but they have usually presented it as a problem in epistemology (the study or theory of knowledge). This is the problem of the external world: how do I know that what I think is real is real? In the case of the virtual vacation, there is no such problem: the vacation is virtual and not real. Perhaps some philosopher will be inspired to try to solve the problem of the virtual vacation: how does one know that it is not real?

Philosophers have also considered virtual reality in the context of ethics. One of the best-known cases is Robert Nozick’s experience machine. Nozick envisioned a machine that would allow the user to have any experience they desired. Some philosophers have made use of this sort of a machine as a high-tech version of the “pig objection.” This objection, which was used by Aristotle and others, is against taking pleasure to be the highest good. The objection is often presented as a choice: you must pick between continuing your current life or living as an animal, but with the greatest pleasures of that beast guaranteed.  The objector, of course, expects that people will choose to remain people, thus showing that mere pleasure is not the highest good. In the case of the experience machine variant, the choice is between living a real life with all its troubles and a life of ultimate pleasure in the experience machine. The objector hopes, of course, that our intuitions will still favor valuing the real over the virtual.

Since the objection is generally presented as a choice of life (you either live life entirely outside the machine or entirely inside of it) it is worth considering there might be a meaningful difference if people took virtual vacations rather than living virtual lives.

On the face of it, there would seem to be no problem with virtual vacations in which a person either spends their vacation time in a virtual world or has memories implanted. People already take virtual vacations of a sort when they play immersive video games and watch movies. Before this, people took “virtual vacations” in books, plays and in their own imagination. That said, a true virtual vacation might be sufficiently different to require arguments in its favor. I now turn to these arguments.

The first reason in favor of virtual vacations is their potential affordability. If virtual vacations eventually become budget alternatives to real vacations (as in the story), they would allow people to have the experience of a high-priced vacation for a modest cost. For example, a person might take a virtual luxury cruise in a stateroom that, if real, might cost $100,000.

The second reason in support of virtual vacations is that they could be used to virtually visit places where access is limited (such as public parks that can only handle so many people), where access would be difficult (such as very remote locations), or places where access would be damaging (such as environmentally sensitive areas).

A third reason is that virtual vacations could allow people to have vacations they could not really have, such as visiting Mars, adventuring in Middle Earth, or spending a weekend as a dolphin.

A fourth reason is that virtual vacations could be much safer than real vacations: no travel accidents, no terrorist attacks, no disease, and so on for the dangers that can be encountered in the real world. Those familiar with science fiction might point to the dangers of virtual worlds, using Sword Art Online and the very lethal holodecks of Star Trek as examples. However, it would seem easy enough to make the technology so that it cannot kill people. It was always a bit unclear why the holodecks had the option of turning off the safety systems, that is like having an option for your Xbox, PlayStation or Switch to explode and kill you when you lose a game.

The fifth reason is convenience. Going on a virtual vacation would be easier than going on a real vacation. There are other reasons that could be considered, but I now turn to an objection and some concerns. The most obvious objection against virtual vacations is that they are, by definition, not real.

The idea is that the pig objection would apply not just to an entire life in a virtual world, but to a vacation. Since the virtual vacation is not real, it lacks value and hence it would be wrong for people to take them in place of real vacations. Fortunately, there is an easy reply to this objection.

The pig objection does seem to have some strength when a person is supposed to be doing significant things. For example, a person who spends a weekend in virtual reality treating virtual patients with virtual Ebola would not merit praise and would not be acting in a virtuous way. However, the point of a vacation is amusement and restoration rather than engaging in significant actions. If virtual vacations are to be criticized because they merely entertain, then the same would apply to real vacations. After all, their purpose is to entertain. This is not to say that people cannot do significant things while on vacation, but to focus on the point of a vacation as vacation. As such, the pig objection does not seem to have much bite here.

It could be objected that virtual vacations would fail to be as satisfying as actual vacations because they are not real. This is certainly an objection worth considering. If a virtual vacation fails as a vacation, then there is a practical reason not to take one. However, this is something that remains to be seen. Now, to the concerns.

One concern, which has been developed in science fiction, is that virtual vacations might prove addicting. Video games can be addicting; there are even a very few reported cases of people gaming to death. While this is a legitimate concern and there will no doubt be a Virtual Reality Addicts Anonymous in the future, this is not a special objection against virtual reality, Unless, of course, it proves to be destructively addicting on a significant scale. But even if it were addictive, it would presumably do less damage than drug or alcohol addiction. In fact, this could be another point in its favor. If people who would otherwise be addicted to drugs or alcohol self-medicated with virtual reality instead, there could be a reduction in social woes and costs arising from addiction.

A second concern is that virtual vacations would have a negative impact on real tourist economies. My home state of Maine and adopted state of Florida both have tourism-based economies and if people stopped real vacations in favor of virtual vacations, their economies would suffer. One stock reply is that when technology kills one industry, it creates a new one. In this case, the economic loss to real tourism would be offset to some degree by the economic gain in virtual tourism. States and countries could even create or license their own virtual vacation experiences. Another reply is that there will presumably still be f people who will prefer real vacations to virtual vacations. Even now people could spend their vacations playing video games; but most who have the money and time still choose to go on a real vacation.

A third concern is that having wondrous virtual vacations will increase peoples’ dissatisfaction with the tedious grind that is life for most under the cruel lash of the ruling class. An obvious reply is that most are already dissatisfied. Another reply is that this is more of an objection against capitalism than an objection against virtual vacations. In any case, amusements eventually wear thin, and most people eventually want to return to work.

Considering the above, virtual vacations seem like a good idea. That said, many disasters are later explained by saying “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

The problem of the external world is a classic topic in epistemology (the theory of knowledge). This challenge, which was first presented by ancient skeptics, is met by proving that what I seem to be experiencing is real. As an example, it would require proving that the computer I seem to be typing this on exists outside of my mind.

Some early sceptics created the problem by noting that what seems real could be a dream. Descartes added a new element by considering that an evil demon might be causing him to have experiences of a world that does not exist. While the evil demon was said to be devoted to deception, little is said about its motive. After Descartes there was a move from supernatural to technological deceivers: the classic brain-in-a-vat scenarios that are precursors to the more recent notion of virtual reality. In these philosophical scenarios little is said about the motivation or purpose of the deceit, beyond the desire to epistemically mess with someone. Movies and TV shows sometimes explore motives of deceit. The Matrix trilogy, for example, presents a backstory for the Matrix. While considering the motivation behind the alleged deceit might not bear on the epistemic problem, it is an interesting subject.

One way to discern a possible motivation for the deceit is to consider the nature of the experienced world. As various philosophers, such as David Hume, have laid out in their formulations of the problem of evil (the challenge of reconciling God’s perfection with evil) the world is an awful place. As Hume has noted, it is infested with disease, suffused with suffering, and awash in annoying things. While there are some positive things, there is an overabundance of bad, thus indicating that whatever lies behind appearances is either not benign or not very competent. This, of course, assumes some purpose behind the deceit. But perhaps there is deceit without a deceiver and there is no malice. This would make the unreal like what atheists claim about the allegedly real: it is purposeless. However, deceit (like design) seems to suggest an intentional agent and this implies a purpose. This purpose, if there is one, must be consistent with the apparent awfulness of the world.

One approach is to follow Descartes and go with a malicious supernatural deceiver. This being might be acting from malice to inflict both deceit and suffering. Or it might be acting as an agent of punishment for my past transgressions. The supernatural hypothesis does have some problems, one being that it involves postulating a supernatural entity. Following Occam’s Razor, if I do not need to postulate a supernatural being, then I should not do so.

Another possibility is that I am in a technological unreal world. In terms of motives consistent with the nature of the world, there are numerous alternatives. One is punishment for some crime or transgression. A problem with this hypothesis is that I have no recollection of a crime or indication that I am serving a sentence. But it is easy to imagine a system of justice that does not inform prisoners of their crimes during the punishment and that someday I will awaken in the real world, having served my virtual time. It is also easy to imagine that this is merely a system of torment, not a system of punishment. There could be endless speculation about the motives behind such torment. For example, it could be an act of revenge or simple madness. Or even a complete accident. There could be other people here with me; but I have no way of solving the problem of other minds, no way of knowing if those I encounter are fellow prisoners or mere empty constructs. This ignorance does seem to ground a moral approach: since they could be fellow prisoners, I should treat them as such.

A second possibility is that the world is an experiment or simulation of an awful world, and I am a construct within this world. Perhaps those conducting it have no idea the inhabitants are suffering, perhaps they do not care. Or perhaps the suffering is the experiment. I might even be a researcher, trapped in my own experiment. Given how scientists in the allegedly real world have treated subjects, the idea that this is a simulation of suffering has considerable appeal.

A third possibility is that the world is a game or educational system of some sort. Perhaps I am playing a very lame game of Assessment & Income Tax; perhaps I am in a simulation learning to develop character in the face of an awful world; or perhaps I am just part of the game someone else is playing. All of these are consistent with how the world seems to be.

It is also worth considering the possibility of solipsism: that I am the only being that exists. It could be countered that if I were creating the world, it would be much better for me and far more awesome. After all, I write adventures for games and can imagine a far more enjoyable world. The easy and obvious counter is to point out that when I dream (or, more accurately have nightmares), I experience unpleasant things on a regular basis and have little control. Since my dreams presumably come from me and are often awful, it makes perfect sense that if the world came from me, it would be comparable in its awfulness. The waking world would be more vivid and consistent because I am awake, the dream world less so because of mental fatigue. In this case, I am my own demon.

If humanity remains a single planet species, our extinction is all but assured as there are so many ways the world could end. The mundane self-inflicted apocalypses include war and environmental devastation. There are also more exotic dooms suitable for speculative science fiction, such as the robot apocalypse or a bioengineered plague. And, of course, there is the classic big rock from space scenario. While we will certainly bring our problems with us into space, getting off world would dramatically increase our chances of survival as a species.

While species do endeavor to survive, there is the moral question of whether we should do so. While I can easily imagine humanity reaching a state where it would be best if we did not continue, I think that our existence generates more positive value than negative value, thus providing the foundation for a utilitarian argument for our continued existence and endeavors to survive. This approach can also be countered on utilitarian grounds by contending that the evil we do outweighs the good, thus showing that the universe would be morally better without us. But, for the sake of the discussion that follows, I will assume that we should (or at least will) endeavor to survive.

Since getting off world is an excellent way of improving our survival odds, it is ironic that we are not suited for survival in space and on other worlds such as Mars. Obviously enough, exposure to the void would prove fatal very quickly; but even with technological protection our species copes poorly with the challenges of space travel.

While there are many challenges, there are some of special concern. These include the danger presented by radiation, the impact of living in gravity different from earth, the resource challenge, and the travel time problem. Any and all of these can be fatal and must be addressed if humanity is to expand beyond earth.

Our current approach is to use our technology to recreate our home environment. For example, our manned space vessels are designed to provide some radiation shielding, they are filled with air and are stocked with food and water. One advantage of this approach is that it does not require any modification to humans; we simply recreate our home in space or on another planet. There are, of course, many problems with this approach.

One is that our technology is still very limited and cannot properly address many challenges. For example, while artificial gravity is standard in science fiction, we now use mostly ineffective means of addressing the gravity problem. As another example, while we know how to block radiation, there is the challenge of being able to do this effectively on the journey from earth to Mars.

A second problem is that recreating our home environment can be difficult and costly. But it can be worth the cost to allow unmodified humans to survive in space or on other worlds. This approach points towards a Star Trek style future: normal humans operating within a bubble of technology. There are, however, alternatives.

Another approach is also based in technology but aims at either modifying humans or replacing them entirely. There are two main paths here. One is that of machine technology in which humans are augmented to endure the conditions of space and other worlds. The scanners of Cordwainer Smith’s “Scanners Live in Vain” are one example of this. They are modified to survive while operating interstellar vessels. Another example is Man Plus, Frederik Pohl’s novel about a human transformed into a cyborg to survive on Mars. The ultimate end of this path is the complete replacement of humans by intelligent machines, machines designed to match their environments and free of human vulnerabilities and short life spans.

The other is the path of biological technology. On this path, humans are modified biologically to better cope with non-earth environments. These modifications would presumably start modestly, such as genetic modifications to make humans more resistant to radiation and better adapted to lower gravity. As science progressed, the modifications could become more radical, with complete re-engineering of humans to make them ideally match their new environments. This path, unnaturally enough, could lead to the replacement of humans with new species.

These approaches do have advantages. While there would be an initial cost in modifying humans to better fit their new environments, the better the adaptations, the less need there would be to recreate earth-like conditions. This could result in considerable cost-savings and there is also the fact that the efficiency and comfort of the modified humans would be greater the better they matched their new environments. There are, however, the usual ethical concerns about such modifications.

Replacing homo sapiens with intelligent machines or customized organisms would also have a high initial startup cost, but these beings would be more effective than humans in the new environments. For example, an intelligent machine would be more resistant to radiation, could sustain itself with solar power, and could be effectively immortal as long as it is repaired. Such a being would be ideal to crew (or be) a deep space mission vessel. As another example, custom-created organisms or fully converted humans could ideally match an environment, living and working in radical conditions as easily as standard humans work on earth. Clifford D. Simak’s “Desertion” discusses such an approach; albeit one that has unexpected results on Jupiter.

In addition to the usual moral concerns about such things, there is also the concern that such creations would not preserve humans. On the one hand, it is obvious that such beings would not be homo sapiens. If the entire species was converted or gradually phased out in favor of the new beings, that would be the end of the species, the biological human race would be no more and the voice of humanity would fall silent. On the other hand, it could be argued that the transition could suffice to preserve the identity of the species.  A way to argue this would be to re-purpose the arguments used to argue for the persistence of personal identity across time. It could also be argued that while the biological species homo sapiens could cease to be, the identity of humanity is not set by biology but by things such as values and culture. As such, if our replacements retained the relevant connection to human culture and values (they sing human songs and remember the old, old places where once we walked), they would still be human, although not homo sapiens.