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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For more on cyber policy issues: Hewlett Foundation Cyber Policy Institute (famu.edu)

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Politicians and news companies also tell their audiences that crime is high, often explicitly using various logical fallacies and rhetorical techniques to persuade people to accept this disinformation. One common fallacy used here is anecdotal evidence. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a very small number of cases. The fallacy is also committed when someone rejects reasonable statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single example or small number of examples that go against the claim. Politicians, pundits and the media will often have a go-to story of a crime (which is also usually vivid and dramatic) and repeatedly present that to their audience. If the audience falls for the anecdotal evidence, they will feel that crime is high, even though crime has been steadily decreasing (with a few exceptions).

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

In discussing the ethics of trans athletes competing, some people have made the claim that trans athletes would be cheating if they competed against non-trans women. This requires sorting out the notion of cheating. One obvious approach is to a make a moral comparison between transition and obvious forms of cheating, such as using banned performance enhancing drugs.

Cheating, of the sort that can morally be condemned, requires an intention to cheat and action taken to that end. As such, for a trans athlete to be condemned as a cheater simply by transitioning and competing, it would need to be shown that they did so with the intention of gaining an unfair advantage. Whether they gain an advantage or not would be relevant to the effectiveness of the alleged cheating, but morally the intent to cheat and taking the action to cheat should be condemned whether successful or not. It seems unlikely that trans athletes are intending to cheat and the idea that they gain an unfair advantage can be questioned.

One reason is that if their motivation to transition is solely to gain an unfair advantage, there are easier ways to cheat, such as with performance enhancing drugs. It would be odd for a person to go through the process of transitioning when they could gain an advantage by much simpler means. After all, as noted in the previous essay, an athlete who would be a top competitor as a trans athlete would already need to be a very good athlete and performance enhancing methods might suffice. It could be argued that the advantage gained by transitioning would be greater, but this runs into problems.

There is also the obvious fact that the relative gain weighed against the cost shows that people would be unlikely to “cheat” by transitioning. Transitioning comes with a very high cost when considered solely as a method of “cheating” and sexism towards women’s sports means that the relative gain would be low. Women’s sports tend to have less prestige and less financial reward (although this is changing to some degree). To have a rational incentive to “cheat” by transitioning, a male athlete would need to be good enough to beat top female athletes to get the rewards they desire, but not good enough to get similar (or better) rewards by using some other means. For example, there is often a significant pay gap between men’s and women’s teams that has made being on a losing men’s team more profitable than being on a winning women’s team. To be fair, as women’s sports gain more equality in compensation and prestige, then the incentive to transition to “cheat” would increase; but this would still undergo radically altering one’s entire life to do this, including facing prejudice and abuse for doing so.  An athlete would also have to plan out this “cheating” well in advance, while also knowing that they will be a good enough athlete. As such, it seems unlikely that an athlete would decide to undergo transition solely to gain an advantage in sports, even if they were able to plan it all out. While athletes do sacrifice for their sport, the cost imposed on trans people by others seems far too high for someone to do this just to gain that alleged advantage. As such, it is unlikely that trans athletes are engaged in cheating.

It might be argued that even if someone is sincere in their transition, they could still be “cheating” if the advantage they are alleged to gain is a factor or if they are willing use that alleged advantage. This could be seen as like being sincerely someone’s friend, but also being their friend for the advantages they happen to provide and making use of them. But there is the question of how many athletes would not have transitioned but for thinking they would gain an advantage. If they transitioned and this was not a deciding factor, then they could not be justly accused of intending to “cheat.” The purest case would, of course, be someone who transitions with no interest or intent to gain an advantage and who is not good at sports. They could hardly be accused of cheating or intending to cheat.

In closing, the worry about trans athletes “cheating” is the result of the right’s culture war obsession with a vanishingly small number of trans athletes. And the number of trans athletes decrease as the performance requirements increase, since there are relatively few trans people and the number of athletes at each increasing tier of performance drops dramatically. There are, as noted in the previous essay, strict rules in place for trans athletes. It is most reasonable to see the worry as yet another culture war moral panic aimed at hurting people as part of a political game.

The culture war over trans athletes extended to the Paris Olympics when Imane Khelif was falsely claimed to be transgender. This claim arose because Khelif won her boxing match in 46 seconds by hitting her opponent so hard that she had to withdraw from the match. The claim might have been made as a cynical attack of opportunity to get the transgender culture war in the international spotlight. As there were no transgender athletes in the Paris Olympics, they had to be imagined. Or it might have been the result of the sexist view that an Olympic level woman athlete could not be strong enough to win a match in one punch. While sorting this out would be interesting, my philosophical concern is with two common factors that are used to fuel the trans culture war. These are the misconception that an athlete can simply declare their gender and a misconception or misunderstanding of the claim that men are stronger than women.

If it were true that a male athlete could simply declare themselves a female athlete, then this would be unfair. However, this is not true. Ben Shapiro wanted to make a documentary about having male basketball players declare themselves to be women so they could play against women’s teams, but he found out that this is not how it works. He ended up making the comedy Lady Ballers instead and reality undercuts its entire political premise. Sports governing bodies, such as the NCAA, have long had strict rules in place for transgender athletes and athletes cannot simply pick their gender and compete. But even if someone knows this, they might argue that allowing trans athletes to compete would be unfair because “men are stronger than women.”

The general claim that men are stronger than women is true, but it is commonly misunderstood. Some take it as meaning that almost any man will be stronger than almost any woman. For example, Lady Ballers is based on the idea that washed up former high school basketball players led by their former coach can easily beat world class women’s basketball teams.  This leads to the concern that trans athletes would unfairly steal places in competitions because men are stronger than women. For example, it might be worried that a trans athlete could unfairly win the mile and steal the win from the second-place runner. But is this something we should worry about? To answer this, we need to consider relative athletic performance. I will use the mile as an example.

Hobbs Kessler of Skyline Highschool ran a 3:57 mile, setting the high school record. The men’s record holder for the mile is Hicham El Guerrouj who ran 3:43 in 1999. The women’s record holder is Faith Kipyegon who ran a 4:07 in 2023. While this might be taken as showing that men are faster than women, we need to be more precise. These numbers show that elite male runners are faster than elite female runners. But it also shows just how good an elite female athlete can be: the overwhelming majority of men, even trained milers, cannot run a 4:07 mile. I was an All-Conference college cross country runner, and I could not run a 4:07 mile. This means that a trans athlete would need to be a very good athlete to compete against good non-trans female athletes, even if it was (contrary to fact) assumed that the transition to meet the requirements to compete would result in no loss of performance. As the number of trans athletes is incredibly low and the number of male athletes who would be good enough to beat top female athletes is relatively low, the odds of a really good male athlete deciding to transition to compete is extremely low. But it could be argued, the odds are not zero and this means that some woman could be “robbed” of a place.

Similar concerns have been expressed about women who perform exceptionally well in sports and have high testosterone levels, despite the link being disproven. The fact that male athletes are not subject to such “performance policing” suggests that sexism is at work here, that women who perform exceptionally well are looked at with suspicion of being men. This sexism also seems to play a role in the concerns expressed about trans athletes, that women athletes are weak and must be protected.

People also express concern that trans athletes might “steal” slots on teams. Many teams have limited numbers of athletes that are allowed, such as the number of runners who can compete as varsity in cross country. To “steal” a slot, a trans athlete would just need to be better than the worst athlete who would have made the team. This is a much lower bar than “stealing” places and it is more likely to occur. Of course, the worst athlete who would have made the team could also have been displaced if someone slightly better had showed up to try out, so the likelihood that a trans athlete will “steal” a spot is far less likely than the chance someone else could show up and “steal” that spot, perhaps deciding to try out on a whim, because they just moved to the area, or picked that college. As such, this fear of trans “theft” is overblown.

While true love is the subject of many tales, its metaphysical foundation is rarely addressed. A way to explore its metaphysics is by using possible worlds. Imagine, if you will, a bereaved lover seeking to replace their lost love by finding an exact counterpart in another world. This raises the issue of whether it is rational to love the metaphysical counterpart of someone you love. I will argue that This is as rational as loving the original person by using appeals to intuitions and analogies. In the interest of fairness, I will also consider and refute the transcendent argument for true love.

The metaphysics of the show Rick & Morty includes the existence of an infinite number of alternative worlds, each of which with its own Rick and Morty. The Rick and the Morty that are, one assumes, the actual stars of the show have been forced to abandon their original reality and various replacement realities. However, they always end up living with “their” family (Beth, Summer and sometimes Jerry). While Rick claims not to care, he loves “his” daughter Beth and granddaughter Summer. However, as he and Morty t know, the Beth and Summer of their adopted world are not their Beth and Summer. They are the daughter and granddaughter of the Rick of that world. A Rick who is (usually) dead.

CW’s The Flash show also makes use of the multiple world plot device as well, one that dates to the early days of comics. The DC comic universe features a multitude of different earths, most notably Earth 1 and Earth 2. Earth 2 was the home of the original Batman, Superman and other, it was used to maintain the timeline in which, for example, Superman was on earth in the 1930s. In a series of episodes of the TV show The Flash, Barry Allen (the Flash) travelled to Earth 2 and met counterparts of people he knew and loved on his world, such as his beloved Iris. On Earth 2, the non-Flash Barry Allen 2 was married to Iris and Barry Allen 1 (from Earth 1) pretended to be Barry Allen 2 and was obsessed with her and her father, despite being told the people of Earth 2 were not the same people as those of Earth 1.

While people tend to feel for no rational reason, there is an interesting question as to whether it makes sense to love someone because they are the counterpart of someone you love. While this would be an interesting matter for psychology, the metaphysical aspect of this case is a question of whether the counterparts are such that it is rational to love or care about them because they are metaphysical counterparts of someone you love or care about.

For the sake of the discussion that follows, consider the following sci-fi scenario: Sam and Kelly met in graduate school, fell madly in love and were married shortly after their graduation. They were both hired by Kalikrates Dimensional, a startup dedicated to developing portals to other dimensions.

During an experiment, Sam was pulled into the death blender dimension and ejected as a human smoothie. Unfortunately, he had neglected to keep up his premiums with Life Ensurance and had no personality backup to be loaded into a clone body. Distraught, Kelly considered cloning him anyway, but decided that without his memories and personality, it would not be Sam.

Driven by her loss, she developed a much safer portal system and then developed an Indexer that would scan and index the possible worlds. She programmed the Indexer to find a world just like her own, but where “she” rather than “Sam” would die in the portal accident. The Indexer labeled this world Earth 35765. Timing it perfectly, she popped through her portal just as the Kelly of 35765 would have returned, had she not been blended. The Kelly 35765 smoothie ended up in Kelly 1’s world, while Kelly 1 took over her life. Kelly 1 might have been happy with Sam 35765, but she was murdered and replaced a year later by the bereaved and insane Kelly 45765. Given this scenario, would it be rational for Kelly 1 to love Sam 35765?

One way to look at this matter is to use an analogy to counterparts in this world. To be specific, there are unrelated people who look exactly like other people in this world. And there are also identical twins. While a person might be fooled by a twin or look-alike, they would probably not love them simply because they looked like someone they loved. The same can be applied to counterparts in other worlds: they look like someone you love, but they are not the one you love.

I agree that it would be irrational to love someone simply because they looked like someone one already loves. After all, the look-alike could be utterly horrible or at least utterly incompatible. As such, it would be foolish to love such a twin solely based on appearance. That sort of shallow love would be irrational even in this world. But certainly possible.

However, it can be rational to love a counterpart that exactly resembles the original. Such a counterpart could have the qualities that would provide a rational foundation for love. For example, if Kelly 1 loved Sam 1 because of his personality, values, laughter, and such, then if Sam 35765 had the same qualities, then it would make sense for Kelly 1 to love him. After all, he has the same qualities. To use an analogy, if Kelly loves Cherry Breeze pie because of its qualities, then she is obviously not limited to loving the first Cherry Breeze pie she had and any adequately similar Cherry Breeze pie would suffice.

Now imagine that there was one Cherry Breeze pie that Kelly loved above all others and that this pie could be duplicated to such a degree that every aspect of the pie would be indistinguishable from her most beloved pie. In this case, Kelly would love that exactly resembling pie as much as the original.

There is the concern that there would be a fundamental difference between any counterpart and the original; namely that there would be no history or relationship with the counterpart. So, while Kelly 1 might love the qualities of Sam 35765, she has never done anything with him and thus has no history or relationship with him. She could develop a history and relationship over time, but that would be falling in love with a new person. While it is true that Kelly 1 has no past relationship with Sam 35765, she selected the world in which Kelly 35765 and Sam 35765 did everything that Kelly 1 and Sam 1 did and there would be no distinguishable difference. Kelly 1 knows everything that happened between the other Kelly and Sam and will act exactly as Kelly 1 would have.

Going back to the pie analogy, while Kelly would have no established relationship with the new pie, the fact that it is (by hypothesis) exactly like the original pie in every way (other than being new) would intuitively entail that Kelly would love the new pie as much as the original. Everything discernable about the relationships with the pies would be the same other than their bare difference. If Kelly declared that she loved the original but did not care for the new pie, her claim would seem to be utterly unfounded for she could point to no qualitative difference that would warrant her assertion.

It could even be contended that, in a way, Kelly does have a relationship with the pie. Since it is exactly like the original pie, it would fit seamlessly into the relationship she had with the original pie. As such, it would be rational to love the exact counterpart of someone one loves.

Since I made the error of referencing true love, I opened the portal to an obvious objection to my position. One basic element of true love is that one person (Kelly 1) loves another (Sam 1) and not that person’s qualities. This is because qualities change and can be possessed by others. Intuitively, true love will not fade and cannot be transferred to another person that simply has the same qualities.

For example, if Kelly loves Sam because of his brilliance and humor, then she would love someone else who had the same brilliance and humor. This sort of interchangeable love is not true love. If what is loved is not the qualities of a person, there is the question of what this might be.  What is wanted is something “beneath” all the qualities that makes the person the person they are and distinguished them from all other things. Fortunately, philosophy has just the thing: the metaphysical self. This, as should come as no surprise, takes the discussion into the realm of Kantian philosophy.

Kant split the world into noumena and phenomena. The phenomena are the things as they appear to us. This is what we experience-such how good a person looks in a swimsuit. We can have empirical knowledge of such things. The noumena are the things in themselves. Kant claimed the noumena cannot be known because they are beyond our experience.

On Kant’s view, it would be sensible to stick with the phenomena and not speculate about the noumena. But Kant claims that cannot resist the lure of the transcendent illusions of metaphysics.

The metaphysical self is the illusion that is needed here. Like David Hume, Kant thinks we have no impression of the metaphysical self. What we do have are impressions, via introspection, of the empirical self. The inner eye never sees that metaphysical self; it just encounters things like feelings and thoughts.

Unlike Hume, Kant argues that we must think of our experiences as if they occur within a unified self. This provides a frame of reference for thought and it is thus useful to accept a metaphysical self. Since it is useful and we need the metaphysical self to make sense of things, Kant concludes that we should accept it. While Kant did not take the step of arguing for true love, I will do this now.

Applying his method to true love, true love would be impossible without the metaphysical self. This makes it a necessary condition for true love. The metaphysical self is beyond the realm of scientific proof. However, true love is irresistible because it seems critical for our happiness and our conception of ourselves. As such, while Kelly 1 might feel that she loves Sam 35756, this would be irrational: Sam 35756 is not her true love. As would be imagined, in a tragically poignant Twilight Zone style sci-fi story, she would come to realize this. While true love is appealing, the objection can be countered. This should not be surprising, since the argument itself acknowledges that it is appealing to an illusion. But, of course, what is needed is a substantive reply.

While the idea of a metaphysical self behind all the qualities sounds fancy, it is merely a repainted bare particular. It is bare because it does not have any qualities of its own beneath all the qualities that it possesses. It is a particular because there is only one of each (and each one can only be in one location at a time). In the ideal love of the objection, one loves the bare particularity of another as opposed to qualities that can change or be duplicated.

Fortunately for my position, there is a serious problem with this notion of love. When we interact with the world we interact with various qualities. For example, Kelly can see Sam’s quirky smile and experience his keen intelligence. But it seems impossible for her to be aware of his bare particularity. Since it has no qualities there would be nothing to experience. It would  be impossible for Kelly to be aware of Sam’s bare particularity to love him. As such, love must be about detectable qualities.

While this is less romantic than the idea of metaphysical true love, it is more realistic and intuitively appealing. When one person talks about why they love another, they talk about the qualities of the person. Many dating app make claim to assess people for various qualities to us them to find compatibility and love. Scientists also talk about the emotion of love as being driven by genes in search of suitable genes to combine with. Given this evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that when Kelly loves Sam, she loves his qualities. As such, if it was rational for Kelly 1 to love Sam 1, then it is just as rational for Kelly 1 to love Same 35756. There is, after all, no discernible difference between the Sams. Thus, love is not only possible, but also possible across worlds.

 

Cherry Breeze Pie Recipe

Ingredients

 

Crust

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

1/3 cup butter or margarine — melted

or 1 pre-made graham cracker crust

 

Filling

1 package cream cheese — (8 ounces)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1/2 cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 can cherry pie filling — (1 pound, 5 ounces)

 

Directions

  1. Cook butter and sugar in saucepan over medium heat until mixture boils. Remove from heat and mix in graham cracker crumbs. Press mixture evenly and firmly into 9-inch pie plate to form a crust. Chill. (Or just buy a pre-made crust).

 

  1. Beat cream cheese until smooth. Gradually mix in sweetened condensed milk, stir in lemon juice and vanilla. Spread in crust. Refrigerate 3-4 hours or until firm.

 

  1. Top with chilled cherry pie filling. To remove pie pieces easily, place hot wet towel around sides and bottom of pan before cutting.

 

Some years ago, I was firing my .357 magnum at an indoor range. It made a very satisfying “bang.” Then there was a much louder noise, and I felt a “whuummmp” in ribcage. My friend Ron was firing his .44 magnum in the next lane, close enough for me to feel the shockwave from the weapon.

While the .44 magnum is a powerful handgun, it is a peashooter compared to the Carl-Gustav M3, a shoulder fired heavy infantry weapon. When fired, this weapon generates a strong shockwave that might be causing brain injuries to the operators. Mortars and other weapons have also been linked to brain trauma. While some doubt that the shockwave can cause trauma, the shockwave from such weapons is analogous to that of other explosions, such as IEDs that have caused terrible injuries. While IEDs can inflict shrapnel wounds, their shockwaves can inflict brain damage without leaving a mark on the target.

The United States military had been gathering data using blast gauges worn by soldiers. However, their use was discontinued when it was claimed they could not consistently indicate when a soldier had been close enough to an explosion to suffer a concussion or mild traumatic brain injury. These gauges did provide a wealth of information including data that showed infantry operating heavy weapons were being repeatedly exposed to potentially dangerous levels of overpressure. Because the data could link such exposure to long term health issues in soldiers, it might be suspected that the Pentagon stopped collecting data to avoid taking responsibility for such harms. This can be seen as like the NFL’s approach to concussions. This leads to some moral concerns about monitoring the exposure of operators and the use of heavy infantry weapons.

While it might seem awful, a moral argument can be made for not gathering data on soldiers operating heavy weapons. As noted above, if it were shown that being exposed to the overpressure of such weapons can cause brain injuries, then this could cost the state money. Without such data, the state can claim there is no proof of a connection and avoid responsibility. From a utilitarian standpoint, if the financial savings outweighed the harm done to the soldiers, then this would be the right thing to do. However, intentionally evading responsibility for harm is morally problematic, at best. It can also be objected that the benefits of being aware of the damage being done outweigh the benefits of intentional ignorance. One obvious benefit is that such data could help mitigate or eliminate such damage and this seems morally superior to intentional evasion by willful ignorance.

While there are steps that could be taken to minimize the damage done to troops operating heavy weapons it is likely that such damage cannot be avoided altogether. One technological solution would be to remotely operate heavy weapons, thus allowing the operator to be out of the damage zone. Another technological solution would be to automate such heavy weapons, thus keeping humans safe. Well, some humans.  Either of these options would increase the cost of the weapon system and would require weighing this against the wellbeing of soldiers. But many who are fiscal conservatives about human wellbeing are fiscal liberals when it comes to corporate profits, so a way to sell these ideas is to ensure that it would be profitable to corporations. There is also a moral argument that can be made for using the weapons as they are, even if they are harmful to the operators. It is to this that I now turn.

From a utilitarian standpoint, the ethics of exposing operators to damage from their own weapons would be a matter of weighing the harm done to the operators against the benefits of using such heavy weapons in combat. Infantry operated heavy weapons are useful in combat. One benefit of such weapons is they allow infantry to engage vehicles, such as tanks and aircraft, with some chance of success. Taking on a tank or aircraft with light weapons generally goes badly for the infantry. As such, if the choice is between risking some overpressure damage or facing a greater risk of being killed by enemy vehicles, then the choice would be obvious. If the effectiveness of the weapon against the enemy outweighs the risk to the operator, then it would be morally acceptable for the operators to take that risk.  There is, however, still the question of the damage suffered during weapon training

The obvious way to argue that it is acceptable for troops to risk injury when training with heavy weapons is that they will need this practice to use the weapon effectively in combat. If they were to try to operate a heavy weapon without live practice, they would be less likely to be effective and more likely to fail and be injured or killed by the enemy (or their own weapon). As such, the harm of going into battle without proper training morally outweighs the harm suffered by the operators in learning the weapon. This, of course, assumes that they are likely to end up in battle. If the training risks are taken and the training is not used, then the injury would have been for nothing, which takes this into the realm of considering odds in the context of ethics. On approach would be to scale training based on the likelihood of combat, scaling up if action is anticipated and keeping a minimal level when action is unlikely.

Making rational choices about the risks does, obviously enough, require knowing the risks. As such, there must be a proper study done of the risks of operating such weapons. Otherwise, the moral and practical calculations would be essentially guessing, which is morally unacceptable

Many classic conservatives advocate a broad application of free market principle. This includes an opposition to regulation, or rather regulation that does not favor businesses. As health care is seen as a business in the United States, this view leads to concerns about health care cost regulation in the United States.

Because of the high cost of health care, there have been proposals to limit the cost of health care services. Those who oppose these regulations claim pricing should be set by free competition between health care providers and that consumers of health care should become savvy shoppers. The idea is that savvy shoppers will take their business to providers that offer better services or lower costs, which will force the competition to lower costs or improve quality. This is a stock free market argument.

There are serious problems with the idea of relying on savvy health care shoppers and competition to reign in prices and improve quality. The first is the challenge of finding the prices that health care providers charge. While it can be difficult to predict what services a consumer might need, health care providers often have a range of prices depending on who is paying for the services. For example, insurance companies negotiate prices, and these differ from what consumers without insurance would pay. Health care providers, although they always have a database of billing codes and costs, are often reluctant to provide this information in a readily accessible and comprehensible manner.

A second problem is that health care consumers usually lack the medical knowledge to make informed decisions about health care. While a person might face some challenge in picking the best phone or laptop, sorting out medical care is typically beyond the skill of most. That is why people go to medical professionals. As such, being a savvy shopper is difficult.

A third problem is that it is somewhat misleading to call a patient a consumer. While this might seem to be a mere difference in labels, the difference between consumer and patient is significant.

One difference is that a patient is typically in duress. They are injured or ill and not in a position to engage in savvy shopping practices. While an informed rational consumer will be looking for the best deal, a suffering patient is concerned with getting better. As people say to not go grocery shopping on an empty stomach, it would be best to not shop for health care when one is not healthy. But that is exactly when one needs health care. There are also the more extreme cases. For example, a person who is badly injured in a car crash is not going to be shopping in a savvy manner for emergency rooms during the ambulance ride.

It can be countered that there are cases that allow savvy shopping, such as elective surgeries and non-emergencies. This is a reasonable point and a person who is not in need can take the time to shop around and be a savvy consumer. However, this does not apply to cases in which a person is sick or injured enough to impede such savvy shopping.

Another important difference between consumer and patient is that the consumer often has a reasonable choice between buying a good or service and doing without. For example, while someone might want the latest and greatest iPhone, they can live just fine without it.      

 In contrast, patients usually have need treatment and doing without would be a real hardship or even fatal. When one must buy the good or service and the provider knows this, it makes it much harder to be a savvy shopper. This also provides a segue into the matter of regulating prices.

While free market pricing might work when consumers can easily do without the good or service, it runs into obvious problems for the consumer when the goods or services are necessities. To the degree that the patient cannot do without health, the patient is at the mercy of the provider. So, while a person can easily elect to do without the latest iPhone if they cannot afford it, it is much more difficult for a person to do without chemotherapy. As a personal example, when I was bitten by a dog in September 2023, I had to get rabies shots because if the dog had rabies, then I would die without the shots. And when I had a quadriceps tear, I had to get surgery if I wanted to be able to walk and run.  True, a consumer could do without liposuction or breast implants, but such elective surgery differs from non-elective treatments.

The stock counter to such concerns is that if a consumer finds the price of a good or service too high, they can go to a lower priced competitor. In the case of health care, the opportunity to find a lower priced competitor can be problematic. A patient might not have the time to shop around. In many places, there is not any local competition with lower prices that would allow a patient to engage in savvy shopping. Going back to my rabies shots, the only place I could get them was at an emergency room and I had to pay the emergency room prices each time. I checked with all the local pharmacies and my own doctor, so I did try to shop around. When I had my quadriceps tendon repair surgery, I also did not have an opportunity to shop around for a discount. As such, this free-market advice is not very helpful.

In the case of pharmaceuticals, patients often find that there is no competition. When a company has a patent on a medication, the United States’ government uses its coercive power to enforce that patent, ensuring the company retains its monopoly for the specified time. Because of this, a patient who needs the medication has two choices: do without or pay the price. There is no free market competition, so without regulation on the part of the state, the company can decide to charge whatever it wants. While this can result in bad press and public criticism, patients cannot rely on this to result in lower prices.  

This monopoly system does create a quandary for a principled proponent of the free market. On the one hand, without such state regulation a truly free market of drugs would make it irrational for for-profit companies to invest in costly research. As soon as the drug was developed, the competition would duplicate it and would be able to sell it cheaper because they would not need to recoup the cost of development. A solution, which would not be very free market, would be to have the state fund the expensive research and then provide the results to companies who would then compete without monopolies for consumer dollars. One could, of course, stick with a strict no regulation ideology and let the market be completely free of the state and hope medications would somehow be developed.

If the state steps in to regulate prices as part of the agreement for using its coercive power to protect patent monopolies, then there would also be no free market competition. But the state could see to it that the companies charged prices that allowed profits while not gouging patients.

My own view, as might be suspected, is that since patients are essentially a coerced market when it comes to health care and medication, the state should act to regulate prices. In the case of pharmaceutical companies, this should be part of the bargain with the state that allows them to maintain their monopolies. After all, if taxpayer dollars are to be used to protect monopolies, then they should get something in return and this should include reasonably priced medication. In the case of health care providers, while they do not usually have a monopoly, they do have a coerced market. Just as the state justly steps in to prevent price gouging during large scale natural disasters, it can justly do so regarding personal disasters in the cases of injury or illness.

I know health care providers and pharmaceutical companies want to make a profit and, as such, I would advocate that the regulations on pricing leave them a reasonable margin of profit. While it might be objected that a reasonable margin of profit is hard to define, my reply is that if price gouging can be recognized in other areas, it can (and is) be recognized in the realm of medicine.