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Smithsonian National Museum of American History Director Anthea Hartig was brought before congress in July 2026. During the questioning, Nancy Mace asked the director “what is a woman?” For those not familiar with this rhetorical tool, the question might have seemed irrelevant and even bizarre. However, it is a well-established rhetorical tool used by the right that was popularized by Matt Walsh and Justin Folk in the propamentary What is a Woman?

The use of rhetorical tools is a rational approach. For those who accept the cognitive miser theory, using a rhetorical tool saves cognitive resources. Even without a theory, it makes sense not to waste time re-inventing the wheel.  It also allows one to borrow skills by “running” a rhetorical “program.”

 My fellow gamers will understand the analogy of using an optimized character build and rotation in a game like Diablo IV or World of Warcraft: this allows a person to play above their own skill level by using the work of someone else. There is also the analogy to how people in tech support and customer service use scripts. One can even look at expert systems and AI that use stolen processes to emulate skills.

I have no general issue with people borrowing skills and using templates as I do this myself when I, for example, use an argument by analogy or use a plumbing technique I learned from a book or YouTube video. I also have no issue with using rhetoric—as I tell my students, rhetoric is like flavoring for food. Rhetoric is logically neutral but there is no need to avoid making your arguments “taste good” by using some rhetoric. But I do have an issue with substituting rhetoric for logic and using it in bad faith.

While “what is a woman?” can be a good faith philosophical question, when someone like Mace asks it, they are asking in bad faith. They are not inviting someone along on a journey of discovery or a thoughtful inquiry. Instead, it is a bad faith set up for a trap, for they already have the answer they want, and their intent is to score rhetorical points as part of an ideological performance.

If the target of the question is not prepared, they will probably flounder and struggle with their answer. The questioner can allow them to flounder a while and then shut them down with their prepared answer: “A woman is an adult human female.” For many audiences, it will seem that the questioner won: they confidently offer a decisive, simple answer while their target floundered. But this is obviously just a rhetorical victory: they have proved nothing and have merely persuaded the audience. This is why people on the right prefer to engage with unprepared people, such as college freshmen and other non-experts.

When engaging with a prepared or expert target, folks on the right prefer to ask the question when the target has a limited time to answer, the context favors them or when they can edit the response. In the case of Mace questioning Hartig, Hartig had only a short time to respond and was speaking before congress and cameras as a director trying to do the best she could for the Smithsonian and not, for example, as an expert on gender in a risk free environment. Folks on the right try to avoid engaging experts in contexts in which the experts have the time to provide a detailed response without a metaphorical sword dangling over their head.  But this question can still be rhetorically effective against even an expert.

While the right professes to believe their simplistic, grade-school answer to the question “what is a woman?”, this answer does actually have many rhetorical advantages over the sort of complex answer an expert would give.

One is that people generally find complexity boring when it is outside their areas of interest. Obviously. As a philosopher, I notice this—which makes sense. Most people are not, for example, interested in the finer points of trope theory. But I also notice it in my role as the DIY guy who fixes things. I learned decades ago that most people just want the thing fixed and, at best, a simple explanation. They do not want to hear me talk about IRQ conflicts or the idiosyncrasies of 2-stroke engines. An expert explaining what a woman is will most likely bore people, especially since the time spent learning expertise cuts into the time one might spend learning showmanship and rhetorical skills.

The second is that people often find complex explanations about what they thought were simple things unsettling or even frightening, even if they do not have an ideological commitment to the simple conception. While this might seem odd, dealing with the complexities of reality is a matter not just of intellect but also a matter of virtue. Virtue is, as our good dead friend Aristotle said, hard.

Engaging with the complexities of reality requires moderating your pride because you will need to admit when you do not know and when you are wrong. In American culture, admitting ignorance or error is usually a blow to one’s pride and status. It is often equated with weakness, although it obviously requires more strength of character to admit ignorance or error than it does to lie. Admitting ignorance or error also requires courage because, as just noted, doing so puts your status and pride at risk. My students often seem disconcerted and worried when I tell them, somewhat jokingly, that I am wrong about everything.

Concern about status crosses the political divide in the United States but folks on the right seem somewhat more concerned about hierarchy and status than the left. So, if someone offers a complex account of what it is to be a woman that goes beyond what we are taught in grade school, this might cause discomfort and fear in the audience. As such, a simple answer that fits what we were taught in grade school will feel right.

Given that Socrates famously claimed that wisdom is knowing you know nothing, it is hardly surprising that philosophers are often willing to admit ignorance and error. At least within certain limits that, ironically, help preserve their status as philosophers. In my own case, studying philosophy did help me accept that my ignorance is infinite and that I am wrong about everything. But my DIY training also led me to this view.

I had the good fortune of being raised by a dad who taught me many useful skills of the sort that would be stereotypically considered manly. I learned to use tools ranging from saws to rifles. I also took shop in school, something that has apparently been abandoned. I was good at shop, as evidenced by the fact that I have all my fingers. During COVID I enhanced my DIY skills by learning much more about electrical repair, plumbing and automobile repair. I’m also good at electrical work, as evidenced by the fact that I have not been electrocuted or burned down my house.

Refusing to acknowledge ignorance or error is an obstacle in fixing or building things, so part of learning to be good at these skills is learning how to moderate pride and develop courage. While one can get away with lying in business and politics, lying is not going to get your ice maker working again or solve the problem with your PC crashing when you try to play Darktide. Sure, you can lie to someone about fixing their icemaker or PC but that is a business skill. Lying about fixing, for example affordability, is a political skill. As is lying about what it is to be a woman.

The simple answer, that a woman is an adult human female, is obviously appealing to people who accept that ideology. Obviously, any conflicting answer will be looked upon negatively, especially if it is complex. Ironically, while the right seems smugly content with what they think is a simple answer that “proves” their gender ideology correct, they do not seem to understand that it invites more questions. Obviously enough, someone with any curiosity would realize that the concepts of adult, human and female raise questions that demand complex answers.

For example, while the concept of adult might seem simple and obvious, in the United States even the legal concept is complicated. For voting, contracts, jury duty, military service and consensual sex, a person is an adult at 18. For drinking, 21. If we get into the biology of adulthood, then we get different answers that vary between individuals. If we consider adulthood from a normative standpoint, such as in terms of moral accountability, then we also get different answers that vary with time and culture.

Sorting out what it is to be human is also a complex matter. There is the biological question in which we might wonder, for example, if neanderthals were human. There is also the normative question. For example, Kirk claimed that Spock was the most human, despite being only half biologically human. Outside of sci-fi, we make the moral claims that someone is human or inhuman, although they are obviously homo sapiens. There is also the metaphysical question of what it is to be human. For example, was Plato right when he claimed there was a form of Man? Probably not.

And although the right thinks (or pretends) they perfectly understand what it is to be female, this is also complicated even if we just stick to genetics and biology. For example, we are told in grade school that females are XX and males are XY. But 1 in 1,000 females are XXX. Human genital physiology is also complicated. But how can one respond to the “what is a woman?” question effectively and honestly?

From a rhetorical standpoint, the ideal would be to have a concise, snappy answer that is true. So, when the Nancy Maces of the world ask, “what is a woman?” one could just say (insert concise snappy truth). Unfortunately, the truth is complicated.

 As others have noted, there is no lower limit to simplicity if you lie, while reality imposes a simplicity floor on truth. This is one of the many reasons politicians and advertisers lie in varying degrees; they know that they need to keep it simple while also understanding simplifying leads to untruth. As such, beyond saying “it is complicated” there is no short, simple true answer to the question, which gives the right a huge rhetorical advantage. As would be suspected, they use the advantage of untrue simplicity broadly and this is augmented by decades of the right training Americans to distrust expertise. They also use the rhetorical technique of repetition as the question “what is a woman?” and the response “an adult human female” are talking points used across the world by the right.

To be honest, there is probably no way to counter this rhetorical question in a way that would change the minds of people already committed to the “an adult human female” gender ideology. Fortunately, most people are not committed to this ideology and their minds can change. After all, people have changed their minds about many things in America, with a recent change being the public view of same sex couples. It was not long ago that people just said “it’s Adame and Eve and not Adam and Steve” to “refute” same sex marriage. So, “a woman is an adult human female” might become another rhetorical relic of the right and they will need to find a new vulnerable group to demonize. Or rely on the classics, as misogyny, racism and antisemitism have served the right well.

 

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In an earlier essay I explained why I use AI images in my D&D content. This was not offered as an excuse or justification as I agree it is morally wrong to use these images. In another essay I presented the argument that using AI generated images is wrong because AI companies engage in theft. This moral argument would not apply to image generators not built on theft (if any exist). But there is another moral argument against using AI image generators which is that using them displaces human artists.

Concerns about the technological displacement of workers is, of course, ancient. As a philosopher, one example I often hear is that of Hiero of Alexandria who invented the aeolipile which is often presented as the first steam engine. One explanation sometimes offered as to why steam power did not revolutionize the ancient world is that it would have displaced slave labor and there was a political choice not to do this. There are alternative explanations, of course.

In general, the technological displacement of jobs can be divided into three categories. One is when technology ends an industry. Being from Maine, one example I know well is the end of the whaling industry. Petroleum and kerosene replaced whale oil while spring steel and plastic replaced whalebone. Whether such an ending is ethical or not obviously depends on the specifics of the situation. But AI is obviously not eliminating the industry of images.

Another is when technology reduces the number of jobs because it augments the ability of an individual to do work. As each worker can do more, fewer workers are needed and jobs might be eliminated. The power loom and spinning Jenny are examples of such technology as is the printing press. A much more recent example is the forklift—one forklift driver can do the work of many people. Some people worried that Photoshop would have a similar effect, that one worker using the software could replace many workers. Interestingly, Photoshop (and similar software) increased the number of artists and graphic designers employed. But it did automate some tasks and eliminate some jobs which takes us to the third way.

A third way technology eliminates jobs is through automation. While automation can augment, the pure form of automation is when human workers are replaced by machines that do the job in their place. The examples that are always used are when human computers were replaced with computers, when elevator operators were replaced with push button systems, when switchboard operators were replaced with automated dialing systems, and when manual pinsetters were replaced by machines in bowling alleys. In some cases, automation that eliminates one set of jobs creates other jobs; people like to say that the automation of manufacturing created jobs in repairing and programming robots, for example.

Not so long ago, the stereotype of automation eliminating jobs was that of a machine replacing “unskilled” manual labor. However, worries about AI replacing “skilled” jobs have been around for some time, with Star Trek’s 1968 “The Ultimate Computer” being an excellent example in science fiction. In the real world, we did see the creation of expert systems in which human experts were analyzed and interviewed so their skills could be recreated in software. One simple example of this is something you have probably used, which is tax preparation software.

One type of automation that is often overlooked is human automation in which humans become living robots (automanations?, hubots? biobots?). No, this is not a science fiction story but actual business practice.

During the rise of industrialization, skilled workers were studied to find out how they did their tasks and then these tasks were analyzed and broken down into simple tasks that could be done by unskilled workers. Business leaders had an excellent reason to do this, since skilled workers are less common and more difficult to replace than unskilled workers. So they need to be paid more and treated better. While it might be an exaggeration, it would not be absurd to say that the history of business is the history of trying to replace skilled workers with the cheapest possible unskilled alternative.

While this oversimplifies things, unskilled workers can “run a program” copied from skilled workers and complete a task as if they were skilled workers—thus serving as human robots. In philosophy, Searle’s Chinese room is an example of how this can work. While this deskilling was originally done for “manual” labor, it has been applied to “mental” labor as well.

While it might be seen as a silly example, if you have interacted with customer service or tech support, you almost certainly will have experienced an unskilled person operating from a script. The idea is the same—the script is an attempt to replicate skill (a program) and the person “running” it does not need to have any skill beyond following the script. Obviously, a human can still go off script and probably one of the many reasons humans prefer other humans for tech support and customer service. While “deskilling” jobs means that humans are still employed, the goal is to reduce the value of the worker so they can be paid less and be easily replaced. For example, replacing a gourmet chef is hard; replacing a McDonald’s worker is easy. AI is, of course, aimed at replacing human workers entirely by having a machine run the skill scripts. But there is the question of what AI can do.

Having been involved in the AI debate in the 1980s, I do recall that some artsy folks were confident that machines would never be able to create art—that literature, poetry and painting would be forever beyond the reach of AI. Modern AI can obviously generate text and images but there are people who insist AI is not creating art, usually by appealing to the old claim that machines cannot create art or some appeal to the human soul or magical creativity. While I agree that AI is not creating art, people worry that it is stealing jobs from human artists.

I think it is important to say that AI is not stealing jobs, for a reason analogous to why undocumented migrants aren’t stealing jobs. Neither AI nor migrants are forcing employers to hire them. Rather, employers are choosing to hire AI or migrants. Obviously, it is foolish to blame AI or migrants for what business leaders decide. Whatever complaints one might have about AI or migrants “stealing” jobs should be leveled against the business leaders who decide to use AI or hire people illegally.

From a moral standpoint, the criticism is that people should be hiring humans to create art. While some people do cast this in terms of AI images not being art, the practical concern is that companies are using AI rather than paying a human to create images, thus robbing a human of income. As I noted in the earlier essay on AI image generation, I am a general principle sort of person and here the general principle would be that it is unethical to use automation rather than pay a human being to do the job. It would also be unethical to do business with a business that uses AI image generators. If you have read my essay on AI images and theft, you know where this is going.

Given how widespread automation and technological displacement of jobs is, it is almost impossible to do business without doing business with a company that does not displace or eliminate jobs with technology. In some cases, those running the company have no idea they are doing this. For example, a company that uses forklifts to move cargo is probably not thinking they are eliminating lifting and carrying jobs. In other cases, they are explicitly trying to do this, as when they try to replace workers with AI. Each of us must decide what level of evil we are comfortable with in terms of, for example, which grocery store we shop at or what ISP we use. For some people, the use of AI image generation is a red line—and this can be the right choice. But what about individual use, such as when I create images for my D&D adventures?

Many of us use tax preparation software rather than paying someone to do our taxes or filling out the forms by hand. We are using an expert (I hope) system to do our taxes and thus potentially displacing a worker. But I suspect no one would condemn this as evil and insist that we must hire someone to do our taxes or do them by hand. We use the software because it is cheaper and easier. And it can do a better job than most of us.

But if we accept the principle used to condemn the use of AI image generators in place of human workers, consistency will require us to condemn the use of tax preparation software for the same reason. And so on for any use of automation that would replace a human we would otherwise pay to do the job for us. For example, the software I use to create my D&D content has an abundance of automation features that replace the work I could hire other humans to do.

An obvious reply is to break the analogy by arguing that art is special in a way that makes using image generating software morally wrong. I think that some of this is psychological, that people want to believe that art is something special that only people can create. For those who don’t condemn the automation of “manual” tasks, one might see a prejudice at work here that elevates art.

Or one could argue, as some people do, that all the automation is wrong. I do know people who still curse the use of programs like InDesign and even Word because they see these programs as destroying the old paste up approach to creating works. I also know people who lament automation across the board, longing for a “simpler” time they never lived in.  But what about the evil I do by using AI images in my D&D content?

One thing that shapes my view is that AI image generators do not prevent people from creating art. You can draw and paint all you wish—AI is not stopping you. That said, I am mad at the AI companies for ruining my birthday drawings.

Before AI, I would do a drawing of a friend on their birthday and post it to Facebook, which many people seemed to like. But when AI image generation became a thing, the value of the drawings became essentially zero—anyone could just create an image in a few seconds with AI. When people started thinking my drawings were done with AI, I knew it was time to stop—my gift having lost all value and meaning. I still draw everyday—I enjoy it and it is probably slowing down the failure of my brain. But I am still angry about the death of the birthday drawings. I suspect something similar might happen when robot cooks become a thing—if a robot in your kitchen can prepare a “homecooked” meal for your date or friend, then the value of cooking would presumably decrease. But back to AI images.

As people can still create art even if other people use AI image generators, the main worry is now economic. That is, the harm AI image generators do is to allow businesses and individuals to generate images without paying a human. Which is the harm automation always does and hence this is not a problem unique to AI and image generation. Instead, it shows a systemic problem in our economic system: the goal is to eliminate skilled human workers in favor of unskilled labor and AI. In the extreme, the goal would seem to be the elimination of all human workers in favor of automation.

In response, someone might point out the obvious: wouldn’t replacing all workers mean that companies would have no customers and thus this would be suicidal? While companies might engage in suicide (because it would be “rational” for each company to eliminate workers to compete with other companies doing the same), they are already beta testing an economy without the rest of us. Companies like Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft are essentially moving money around in a circle, only the circle does not include us. One can imagine the final form of the economy will be a single super AI running a virtual economy in cyberspace, a virtual world in which the number always goes up.

While companies using AI image generators in place of human artists is wrong, this is just a tiny symptom for a fundamental disease. While fighting for artists is good, it still leaves the true horror of our economic system unaddressed.

 

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In my previous essay I discussed the company side of corporate advocacy. As noted in the essay, in the before time the group One Million Moms called for a boycott of Kraft in response to the rainbow Oreo. However, what motived my decision to write about consumer advocacy was the quandary faced by a friend of mine about Chick-Fil-A. On one hand, my friend really likes the food at Chick-Fil-A and has been a loyal customer for years. On the other hand, my friend supports same sex marriage and was dismayed to learn that Chick-Fil-A donated about $2 million to anti-gay groups in 2009. As might be imagined, my friend was worried that their purchases contributed (however insignificantly) to anti-gay groups. This friend isn’t me; I’ve only eaten Chick-Fil-A when it’s been given to me.  I was told by my parents that people are starving in China, and my wasting food would, I had to infer, make them starve more. I assume people now tell their kids that people are going hungry in America unless they are the ones going hungry. In that case, they obviously know they are going hungry. But to get back to the tangent, I’ll eat Chick-Fil-A rather than throw it away because I’m conditioned to not waste food. But to get back to the point, let’s look at the ethics of consumer advocacy.

On the face of it, a person is free to decide whether to buy goods or services from a company as a matter of advocacy (or any other reason). So, for example, if someone was pleased by the rainbow Oreo and decided to buy Oreos, she has every right to do so. Likewise, if someone was displeased with the rainbow and decides to switch to another cookie, then he has every right to do so. This is a matter of personal choice and on par with buying (or not) based on any factor—be it the actor shilling for the company or a taste preference.

It might be objected that buying based on advocacy would be unfair—after all, a person should buy based on the quality of the product or service and other such relevant factors rather than by the (alleged) irrelevant factor of company advocacy. The easy and obvious reply is that by using (probably performative) advocacy, the company makes this a legitimate factor in purchasing decisions. If the company does not wish to be judged or impacted by its advocacy choices, then the only course of action (other than secrecy) is to not engage in that advocacy.

A more interesting moral problem is the issue of whether a person should buy from a company that engages in advocacy that they morally disagree with. For example, a person who finds same-sex marriage morally unacceptable faced the question of whether to buy Kraft products in the light of the rainbow Oreo. As another example, a person who supports gay rights faces the issue of whether to patronize Chick-Fil-A.

This problem is like the issue of taxes addressed by Thoreau in his essay on civil disobedience. He argued that people should not pay taxes to a state whose actions they found morally reprehensible. In Thoreau’s case, his concern was with the wickedness of slavery and an unjust war with Mexico. As he saw it, a person has an obligation to at least not be a party to what they see as evil. After all, a person who contributes to the doing of misdeeds bears some of the blame. At the very least, the person’s involvement shows that they accept or at least tolerate those misdeeds.

In the case of the state, the consequences of not paying taxes tend to be serious for some citizens. It is also difficult for the average citizen to get beyond the reach of the state. As such, citizens should probably be given slack when it comes to paying taxes to states that do wicked things. After all, all states do wicked things and living on a decommissioned offshore oil rig or on an ice sheet are not viable options for most folks.

Fortunately, it is much easier when it comes to companies. After all, there are sometimes other companies that offer similar goods and services. As such, it can be easy for a person to avoid contributing to cause that they find morally unacceptable. For example, a cookie lover who is opposed to same-sex marriage could have abandoned Oreos for another cookie. As another example, a person who favors gay rights can consume chicken from a company that does not contribute to anti-gay groups.

It might be countered that people should not have to make such choices. After all, it could be argued that by buying from those companies the consumer is expressing a preference for the product or service and not an approval of a specific moral or political agenda that the company might endorse.

The obvious reply to this counter is that while a person can patronize the company without supporting its advocacy, the customer is contributing to that advocacy. For example, the money Kraft made from selling products paid for the creation of the rainbow Oreo. As another example, $2 million of the money Chick-Fil-A made from selling food was given to anti-gay groups. So people who bought from them contributed to those groups, albeit indirectly.

It could be objected that very little of the money a company receives ever ends up in advocacy and each customer only spends a small amount. If one were to calculate what, for example, the average Kraft or Chick-Fil-A customer spends per year with those companies and what percentage a company spends on advocacy, then each customer would make a miniscule contribution. As such, saying that a customer contributes to advocacy would seem absurd.

But even a miniscule contribution is still a contribution, and the individual is thus responsible to that miniscule degree for advocacy conducted by that company. As such, if someone opposed to same sex marriage bought Kraft food, they made some microscopic contribution to the rainbow Oreo. Likewise, if a person who is for gay rights ate at Chick-Fil-A, then they helped fund anti-gay organizations. Naturally, a person’s responsibility can be mitigated by legitimate ignorance. For example, most customers have no idea what companies contribute to and many never see the performative advocacy advertisements.  

Because being a customer of a company that engages in advocacy helps fund that advocacy, it would seem to follow that a person who sees the advocacy position taken by a company as immoral should not patronize that company. Otherwise, they would be contributing to something they regard as wrong and that would be wrong.

That said, there is obviously the question of whether the person is right in their moral assessment. For example, if homosexuals are morally entitled to equal rights, then Chick-Fil-A would be acting wrongly in supporting groups that seem intent on denying gay rights. Kraft would, in contrast, be acting rightly in showing its support. In this scenario, boycotting Chick-Fil-A would seem right, but boycotting Kraft because of its support of gay rights would have been wrong.

In closing, one obvious problem is that all major corporations are morally awful—so supporting any of them would be wrong. But they excel at ensuring there are few if any alternatives and so we are trapped in supporting evil.

 

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In the before time, one Gay Pride Day Kraft posted an image of a rainbow Oreo cookie (sadly not yet a real product). Almost immediately, the group One Million Moms condemned Kraft and urged a boycott of Kraft foods for jamming their views down the throats of America. On an interesting side note, conservative groups seem oddly obsessed with the metaphor of things being jammed down their throats, but that is a matter for a psychologist rather than a philosopher.

One Million Moms was consistent in its condemnation of companies that indicate an acceptance of homosexuality. They condemned both DC and Marvel for having gay characters in their comic books. They also advocated boycotting J.C. Penney because the company hired Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. They even went after the company for including a lesbian couple in its advertisement for Mother’s Day and for including a gay male couple in a Father’s Day advertisement. Naturally, One Million Moms was not alone in this—other anti-gay groups and individuals have protested companies that expressed acceptance of homosexual customers. More recently, transpeople have been the focus of the culture war.

Not surprisingly, there were people who condemned companies for being against homosexuality. For example, Chick-Fil-A donated about $2 million to anti-gay groups in 2009 and this concerned some customers. I know people who eat at Chick-Fil-A because of its anti-gay stance and people who refuse to do so for the same reason.

As might be imagined, corporate involvement in culture war issues raises interesting philosophical issues. One issue is whether companies should be involved in political causes, such as same sex marriage, trans rights or gun rights. Another is whether people should boycott companies that (seem to) support views they oppose.

If I made decisions for a company, I would avoid engaging in performative advocacy. This is based on the approach I take to being a professor: I am not there to preach an ideological agenda or make converts to my causes. I am there to provide an educational opportunity. By analogy, if I was running a company that made computers, my goal would be to make good computers and not engage in performative advocacy. That would not be the function of my company—it is not an ideology company but a computer company.

Naturally, in my personal capacity I do engage in advocacy and I should do so. However, I make it clear that my views are my own. I do not have the moral right to speak for my colleagues. Likewise, if I owned a company, it would be unreasonable and unethical of me to claim to speak for my employees in the context of ideology. But there are at least two obvious counters to the view that companies should avoid (performative) advocacy.

One counter is that a company that remains silent can be seen as tacitly accepting certain views. For example, a company that went along with segregation in the United States would be acting immorally by going along with that evil.

It might be objected that companies should go with whatever the law or practice of the day is, thus not being advocates one way or the other. While this is tempting, there do not seem to be any reasonable grounds for exempting the people running companies from ethics. Hence, the excuse of “I was just following the law and doing business” rings as hollow as “I was just following orders.” As such, companies do need to be concerned about the stances they take on issues that concern the business of the company. This does, of course, give them a reasonable out on issues that do not concern their business.

In the case of homosexuality or transgender issues, it could be argued that most companies do not need to take a stance on the issues, such as the ethics of same-sex marriage or trans athletes competing in sports. As such, they cannot be condemned for not taking a stance or engaging in advocacy one way or the other. However, it can be argued that even if they do not need to take a stance, they can and this leads to the second counter.

A second obvious counter is that companies have the moral right to engage in advocacy based on the right of free expression that the decision makers of the company possess. As far as the concern that company advocacy is questionable because the few decision makers for the company are claiming to speak for the entire company, there are two replies.

One is that while a company need not reflect the views of its employees as the employees are not obligated to endorse the advocacy views adopted by the decision makers of the company. That is, working for a company does not morally obligate the worker to accept the positions advocated by the company. So, someone could work for Kraft without being a supporter of same-sex marriage and their employment at Kraft should not be taken as an endorsement of what the rainbow Oreo stood for. Employees who find this too objectionable can, of course, quit—if they can find another job.

Second is that the company decision makers already make decisions about what the company does and deciding to take an advocacy position is just another decision. For example, Apple does not consult with the people who assemble iPads to see what they think about what the next version of iOS should be or what the EULA should contain. As such, they are not exceeding their authority over the company as an entity.

That said, the people who decide the advocacy roles and positions of the company are morally accountable for those roles and positions. As such, if they adopt an unethical position, they would be acting wrongly. There is also practical concern about the impact of such advocacy on the company’s bottom line. After all, (performative) advocacy is done with the intent of attracting or keeping customers and there is the question of which stance will result in the greatest profits. This is, of course, a practical rather than ethical question. Deciding to take a position based on the profit potential is, however, a matter of ethical concern. The company side is but one side of the cookie, there is also the consumer side. This will be discussed in the next essay.

 

 

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In his Foundation universe Isaac Asimov introduced the fictional scientific field of psychohistory. In this science fiction setting, it could predict the future by analyzing data and making inductive inferences using various algorithms and formulas. The predictions are not about specific individuals, but broad events. For example, it could predict the fall of the Empire but could not predict who would be the emperor presiding over the fall.

Not surprisingly, people have been trying to make such predictions and there has been some success at statistical predictions involving large numbers of people. For example, the number of traffic accidents a year can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy as can the number of births.  However, making the sort of predictions seen in the Foundation series has been beyond the reach of current science. However, this might change.

Psychohistory is, in many ways, would like weather prediction: data must be collected, analyzed and used to create mathematical models. Ideally, the model would be a perfect duplicate of reality and time could be accelerated in the model to see what will happen. Of course, making a good model is challenging.

One limit has been data. After all, an ideal model would be a perfect reconstruction of the world and to the degree the available data falls short, the model becomes less than accurate.

While humans have been gathering and storing information since the advent of writing, we are gathering and storing more information than ever before. In fact, the practice of gathering, storing and analyzing data is a standard business practice that was called “Big Data.” Google was one of the pioneers of modern Big Data, although other companies have started hoovering up data that would be useful in predicting human behavior whether the goal is to sell more baby products or fight terrorism. People contribute (often unknowingly) by handing over data via social networking sites and other ways, such as trading private information for “free” stuff.  As such, there is a massive amount of data that would be useful in modeling the future.

The data will always be incomplete. In addition to practical limits, there is also the problem of limited omniscience—knowing everything that is and was. Unlimited omniscience would include knowing everything, including what will be. Given human limitations, we will never have complete information, although we might be able to create something that is better at knowing things than us. But our epistemic limits will prevent a perfect model because there will always be past things we do not know (and perhaps there are unknowable things) and hence they will not be in the data.

But perhaps there is a way around this. If a suitably awesome machine could be built, perhaps it could know everything from a single certain truth—a Cartesian machine. This leads to the second limit.

A second limiting factor is logic. In practical terms, this is the problem of creating the software to analyze the data and to run the model(s). Much of this involves inductive reasoning. After all, the goal is to make an inference from what is known (the sample) to what is not known (the target). This sort of reasoning is essentially philosophical and it is hardly surprising that Leibniz was one of the first to explicitly propose creating a model of reality using symbols. Hobbes also believed that the social sciences could be “real” sciences and took geometry as his model.

While the software we have today is not up to psychohistory standards, there have been some impressive results in the field of predictive analysis. Of course, some of these successes have created moral concerns such as Target’s infamous pregnancy predictions.

As might be imagined, metaphysics is a factor in assessing the limits of predictive software. One key issue is whether humans have free will. If humans have free will in the classic sense, then predicting human behavior will always be limited by this. But it can be argued that even if people do have free will, people still behave in ways subject to statistical analysis. So, X% of people will freely do Y, while Z% of people will freely not. Though they are all free, the general patterns of behavior could remain predictable. After all, we already engage in effective statistical predictions and if these are compatible with our (alleged) free will, then the same should apply to other large-scale predictions. As such, psychohistory could be consistent with free will. That said, perhaps free will could be a factor that could “break” some predictions, perhaps in important ways. The “breakage” caused by free will would seem to depend on how much impact individual choice has on events in general.

A second issue is, obviously enough, whether reality is deterministic. If we live in a deterministic world, this would seem to make predictions easier (if that even makes sense to say in a deterministic universe). After all, there would be no random chance or free will to complicate matters. Of course, even if we live in a random universe then predictions would still be possible. They would lack the certainly that would be theoretically possible in a deterministic universe, but such is life in a random universe.

A third issue is whether reality can be adequately modeled. This involves concerns about the nature of reality as well as the capability of humans to develop a means of modeling reality. It seems reasonable to believe that our models will always fall short of reality, thus ensuring that predictions will always potentially be in error. There is no doubt some clever argument that shows that modeling the entire universe within the universe itself is logically impossible. It probably involves an infinite regress on modeling.

A third limit is processing power. Before computers, data analysis was done by humans, and this placed a limit on the volume of data processed and the speed at which it could be done. While modern computers lack human intelligence, they are suited to some forms of data analysis—at least once they have been properly programmed. While the industry is starting to run into the limits imposed by physics when it comes to improvements in processors, creating massive networks provides a means to work around this, at least for a while. We can always build more compute up to the point we cannot.

It is also probably impossible to build a machine with enough processing power to recreate the universe (even if it is assumed that the data is complete and accurate) even in a virtual way. As such, this will also limit the efficacy of predictions.

But perhaps someday we will be able to predict the future well enough to know whether we need to wear shades.

 

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In my previous essay I looked at why I use AI generated images in my D&D products. As I noted, the essay offers an explanation rather than a justification for my using these images. As I admitted, I am wrong to use these images—but, as I also admitted, I do many bad things. So why is using AI images morally wrong?

One well-established argument is based on the claim that AI companies steal content.  Sometimes, AI companies engage in what seems to be unambiguous theft. For example, Anthropic, it was claimed, used over 7 million pirated works to train its model. A judge approved a $1.5 billion settlement against the company which is a fraction of the value of the company. Oddly, they can keep using this stolen content. Or rather not oddly, because that is how it works for corporations. If I stole software to use to write my D&D adventures, I would not be able to get away with paying a fraction of the cost of the software while being allowed to keep using it. But I digress.

In the case of images, the usual claim is that AI companies are stealing images by using them to train their AI models without the permission of the artists (or copyright owners). AI companies usually counter by claiming this is fair use, often asserting that this is analogous to how human artists learn to create art. An obvious flaw in this reasoning is that AI companies are converting the data harvested from images into a commercial product. One could, of course, get into a debate about the philosophy of mind and whether the AI model is learning like a human. The best available evidence shows that AI is not analogous to a human artist, though this could be disputed. But, for the sake of this essay and establishing I am doing wrong, I will concede that when images are used without permission to provide data for use in an AI model, this is theft. To use such a model to create images is to be involved in theft, which seems intuitively wrong.

As a philosopher, I tend to head towards general principles when discussing ethics, so I am not content to simply say that using AI images is wrong. I want to get at the general principle here, which is that knowingly doing business with a business that engages with theft is morally wrong. I know that AI companies steal, yet I do business with them. Hence, I am acting immorally. Those familiar with how American businesses operate can see where this is headed.

In the United States, employers steal billions from employers each year through wage theft. For example, in 10 states it is estimated that 2.4 million workers lose about $8 billion a year through minimum wage violations. Unsurprisingly, this includes my adopted Free state of Florida. While the mainstream media engages in routine moral panics about shoplifting epidemics, wage theft is larger than all other forms of property theft combined. As would be suspected, Walmart is accused of leading the nation in lawsuits claiming that it forced employees to work off the clock, skip legally mandated rest breaks, and so on. FedEx, Uber, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo have also been accused of large-scale wage theft. As would be expected, a company found guilty of wage theft usually pays a fine and no executives do jail time. This theft is usually profitable, since they tend to pay a fraction of what they have stolen—and obviously only when they get caught. Imagine if you could, for example, steal a $1,000 computer from Walmart and, if the government bothered to investigate and do something, only face paying a $500 fine and still get to keep the computer.

It is, of course, interesting to compare this with the consequences when a low-level employee is caught stealing from a business. In addition to stealing from employees, businesses also steal from customers.

While wage theft is obviously theft, there can be debate about which business practices are “merely” predatory or deceptive, and which are actual theft. For example, junk fees can be seen as a form of theft as can the automatic adding of subscriptions (memberships or protection plans) to a cart. Shrinkflation (reducing the size of a product while charging the same) and skimpflation (using lower quality ingredients or components) can be seen as theft. Overdraft and other banking fees can also be seen as theft. So, one could dispute whether most companies engage in theft based on one’s conception of theft. Unfortunately, companies also engage in unambiguous theft.

One of the most famous examples is, of course, when Wells Fargo opened millions of accounts without the permission of the customers. As always, no executive did prison time, but the company did agree to pay $3 billion in fines.

Companies also famously steal from the government by overbilling, substituting products, phantom billing, upcoding, tax evasion and so on. One might also consider government subsidies and bailouts as a form of theft. And if one wants to get into some philosophy, there are those who argue that “property is theft” because private ownership of resources allows owners to steal from workers. One can also argue that any business that makes a profit must be stealing, because they must be underpaying or overcharging or both. Naturally, these claims can be debated.

Given the nature of businesses in the United States, it seems almost impossible to avoid doing business with a company that is not stealing. As such, we are all probably engaged in immoral behavior when we knowingly do business with them. So, while I am doing wrong using AI generated images because these companies steal, I am also doing wrong when I purchase other goods and services. But what does this mean?

One might suspect I am trying to use a version of whataboutism beloved by the right. You have probably seen this fallacy in action on social media. This version is used to “argue” that someone is a hypocrite or mistaken for criticizing or expressing concern about something by asserting that they are ignoring or don’t care about some other thing. As a concrete example, if someone criticizes ICE for murdering an American citizen, then the whataboutism might be “why don’t you care about this American who was murdered by a migrant?”

This whataboutism is obviously bad logic. First, expressing concern about or criticizing one thing obviously does not prove that the person does not care about something else. After all, someone who is concerned about ICE murdering Americans can (and does) care when a migrant murders an American. That is, a person can be against murder. Second, a failure to express concern about another thing does not prove that the original concern or criticism is mistaken. For example, if I express concern about the prostate cancer that killed my dad, this obviously does not prove I do not care about the lung cancer that killed my friend. As with most fallacies, laying out the “logic” reveals the error being made.

As I am obviously aware of this fallacy, I am not claiming that people who say using AI images is wrong because the AI companies steal art are mistaken because they don’t condemn the theft done by other businesses in the same breath. I agree that using AI images is wrong. My point is that when we use goods and services provided by a business, we are almost certainly doing business with a thief and hence doing something wrong. In our current system, it seems unavoidable.

But does this mean that I think critics of AI images should shut up and stop criticizing my use of AI images? No. They are right to criticize me, as I am doing wrong.

While doing wrong is almost unavoidable in the system we are born into and endure, we do have a choice about what we will do, and we can decide that something is unacceptable and we will not do that. Even when we do other bad things. For example, take eating other living creatures. I eat meat, although I also know this is morally wrong. But I do draw moral lines and there are many creatures I will not eat, the most obvious ones being humans, cats, and dogs. I also have some seemingly idiosyncratic limits—like I will not eat veal, animal feet (probably something to do with being a runner), animal brains (that is rude), animal testicles (that is very rude), or animal faces (also rude). I even feel bad about eating plants, since they are alive and new research suggests they feel pain and might even see.

In the case of AI image generators, I have been willing to use them despite believing that I am acting wrongly. Just as I am willing to eat plants and some animals, even though I know I am doing wrong. Just as I drive my truck to work and fly home to visit my family, even though I know this is wrong. But there are obviously companies I will not do business with, such as Wells Fargo. I also think that the problem is not that I use products and services from companies that steal, it is that these companies are allowed to engage in theft. That is, the problem is larger than an AI company stealing images, the problem is an economic system built on theft.

 

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When AI image generators, like Midjourney, were finally able to generate semi-adequate images, I started using them in my D&D content. Previously I had relied on creative commons images, purchased clip art and made my own images. When the moral uproar took place over AI in general and image generators in particular, I wondered if my use of AI images was morally wrong. The answer is, of course, yes. As our good dead friend Thomas Aquinas argued, every deliberate human action is either morally good or bad. Using AI images generated by AI is obviously bad. Like all humans, I do many bad things. But as a professional philosopher I can present an analysis of just how bad I am.

As a sometimes-self-aware person who can admit that I do many bad things, I try to explain why I do these bad things—often to re-train myself to stop doing them. What follows is an explanation of why I use such images. I am not offering a justification or an excuse—this is all about why I do what I do with no attempt to excuse or justify it. Also, since we humans are usually garbage at sorting out why we do what we do, what follows is likely to be inaccurate and full of rationalizations. Jokingly, my view of human behavior is that we do what we do and we don’t know why. But we love to lie about it.

One explanation is that I love technology, especially computers. My dad taught math and computer science and when he went to school on the weekends for some work-related stuff, he would sometimes bring me. To keep me from running around like a wild animal, he let me use the DECWriter II at the school to play games. This is how I became a computer gamer. I remember making my own book about robots and computers; I think I called it “the computer pages” and I added all sorts of (not so) special effects, like pullout tapes of paper and things involving tin foil. I continued to use computers, such as the Trash-80 and then got my own Commodore 64, which was (and still is) an amazing machine. I was involved in AI debates in college during the 1980s and ran a Traveller campaign focused on an AI bent on destroying humanity. I went to grad school when the Mac Classic came out and was blown away by MacPaint and MacDraw and my love of computers just got worse. I’m writing this using a AM4 gaming rig I built (and have to keep hanging onto because of AI), and I’m surrounded by a technophobe’s nightmare of modded tech.

When AI began to emerge, I predicted it would kill us all (which it did) but was thrilled to have “new” tech to play with (I know the history of AI). That is part of the reason I use image generators. This might explain why I think AI image generators are cool and like them but one might point out this does not fully explain why I use them in my D&D adventures. This takes us back to MacPaint and  MacDraw.

When I first started writing for gaming companies in 1989, I had an electric typewriter and graph paper. I hand drew the maps on graph paper and typed up the adventurers I sent off. Then I bought a Mac Classic. I got MacWrite, MacDraw and MacPaint and immediately started using them for my classes and game writing.

The word processing and graphics software let me do two very important things. The first was that they provided a way to easily keep copies of my work. When I did a map by hand or typed up a Dark Conspiracy adventure on my typewriter, I had one copy that I would need to take to the library and photocopy. But with a computer, I could back it up on disk and print as many copies as I wished. Although disk failure was (and is) a thing.

The second thing is that software allowed me to do edits without erasing, starting entirely over, or using whiteout. I remember that many times when I typed something out and realized I could do better, I usually convinced myself it was good enough—because changing it meant re-typing it. I did drafts; but usually a handwritten outline. I do know that great writers claim they retyped things hundreds of times but as a kid in grad school making a little extra Ramen noodle money, I did not have the time to do that. But with software I could edit and revise text and images easily, so a work would go through many changes for the better. While my focus here is on images, back when word processors came out it was (of course) claimed that they would ruin writing. They did not. But LLMs might.

While I did the rough drafts of my maps and images on paper, I used MacDraw and MacPaint to do the final versions. These tools made map and image creation faster for obvious reasons. Then I saved up enough to buy Aldus Freehand and Adobe Photoshop, which blew MacDraw and MacPaint away.

After getting my PhD.  I started teaching at Florida A&M University in 1993. I was assigned to teach Aesthetics, which I dreaded. That had been the domain of the beret wearing crowd who smoked weed and agonized over Proust and Derrida. But I found that I was operating from prejudice (see, I told you I do lots of bad things) and eventually enjoyed teaching the class. During the 1990s one of the “big fights” in aesthetics was over Photoshop and similar programs. Photoshop and digital image creation also launched a moral panic.

One concern was that Photoshop would make it impossible to discern between real and fake images.  Of course, anyone familiar with the history of photography knew people were manipulating images since the invention of the camera. While Photoshop did create challenges, these were overcome. The same panic has arisen over AI image generation, and it is worth considering that this time the panic might be justified. I do condemn using AI images for deception, but I use them for my D&D content—my goal is not to trick people into thinking that unicorns are real or that Republicans are working with demons.

There was also the debate over whether digital images could be art and criticisms that they could not be art because Photoshop made it “too easy” to create images. Ignorant critics just assumed Photoshop created images. Informed critics lamented that filters, actions, and such did too much of the work. Defenders pointed out that Photoshop and similar programs still required skill (and new skills). People who used it thinking it would make them automatic artists were disappointed.

Using an analogy, drawing by hand is like getting around by walking or running—it is all on you. Using Photoshop and Freehand was like using a bike—it enhanced what you already had, but you still needed to do the work. As you would guess, I was an early defender of digital art and played a minor role in the Art Wars of the 1990s. While I am sure there are still people who are still mad at Photoshop, digital art tools are the norm today. So, when AI image generation arose, to me it was just another tool, and it faced the same panic as Photoshop. But one might say, surely AI is different?

I won’t say that they say that about every new tech because AI image generation is different in ways that can justify the criticisms and even the panic. Going back to my analogy, if drawing by hand is running and using Photoshop is biking, AI image generation is using a self-driving taxi (which fits especially well since there are also humans behind “self-driving” taxis). Using an AI image generator for D&D content does take some skill but they are not the skills one uses to create art. Which is one of the many reasons that AI images are not art and people who use AI to create images are not artists. This is why I call the “art” in my D&D content “images.” They ain’t art.

In terms of the skills I use when employing an AI image generator, I need the skill of creating the monsters, magic items and such that will be in the images. This might be art but probably not.  As I always argue, if I can do it, it ain’t art. Then I need to create appropriate prompts and review the images.  This is writing but not art. The final step is loading them into Photoshop and fixing all the AI problems (like extra arms). This is just touching up images, so is a technical skill and not artistic skill. Again, If I can do it…

 I can do all this quickly—the longest part is obviously coming up with monster designs, magic items and such. This is one reason I use the image generators—they are fast. As writing D&D is a hobby and not how I get the income I need to buy food and live under a roof I need to use my time wisely. I’m running a 4-hour D&D game every week, so I need to put out material fast—and I like having images for the tokens and to show to the players. This is one reason I do not hand draw my images—the maps and text are essential to running adventures while the images are a luxury. So, I spend my time on the maps and text. But why don’t I hire artists instead of using AI?

The short answer is that I have tried. Since the 1990s I have recruited artists to work on various projects of mine, usually offering them about half of the income from the work while they also kept the rights to their art. The artists initially start off excited and promise they will have the art done on time. And they never finish. They always have good reasons: they are getting divorced, they are graduating, they started a full-time job, they have a commercial project to work on, they are going through things, and so on. I do think that maybe I am the problem, but when I ask people, they assure me that I am not. Which just might mean that I am a big problem. In contrast, AI image generators deliver the images I need reliably, which is why I use them. If I could find a reliable artist who can keep up with my writing schedule, I would be happy to give them 50% or more of the royalties, which takes me to the last reason I use AI image generators.

People who played Call of Cthulhu in the 1990s often remember me as the guy who gave away about 50 CoC adventures via the web.  These days I write Mike’s Free Encounters, create Mike’s Free Maps and all my other new content is Pay What You Want. I remember saving my meager minimum wage income as a kid so I could buy games, so I am committed to making game content available for free when I can. I also did a failed Kickstarter promising 99 books for 99 cents each; so I have some relic 99 cent books out there as well. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

 While we are unfortunate to live in a brutally extractive society ruled by oligarchs, I am fortunate to have a full-time job and can use this to help other people in various ways, including free gaming material. I would never expect an artist to donate art to my projects so I can keep giving them away and hence using an image generator makes sense to me. I would, of course, love to team up with an artist who would want to work on free projects, but it would be insane to expect that from anyone. And that is the explanation of why I use AI images in my D&D content. Am I wrong to do this? Obviously. As I said, like my fellow humans, I do a lot of bad things. I will write about why AI image generators are bad and probably also reveal other ways I am a bad person, like how I own a truck and use electricity.

 

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As a kid who started playing Dungeons & Dragons in 1979, I remember watching Tom Hanks play a character who goes insane from playing a TTRPG in Mazes and Monsters. This movie was broadcast in 1982, the same year that Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop warned America about the danger of video games. Which I also played. Thanks to the show and the surgeon general, I remember having to convince people I would not go insane from playing D&D or suffer some other mental breakdown from playing Temple of Apshai on a computer. Mazes and Monsters and the surgeon general’s view provide two excellent examples of the panic and culture war over gaming in the 1980s. It was claimed that these games would cause psychological harm.

The TV movie Mazes and Monsters was based on a book of the same name by R. Jaffe. The book was based on factually incorrect newspaper stories about James Dallas Egbert III which speculated about the role of D&D in his disappearance. William Dear, a private investigator who worked on the case, published the Dungeon Master in 1984. This book presented the facts, debunking the claims that D&D was to blame.

Unfortunately, as I found out in the 1980s, many people thought Mazes and Monsters was an accurate account of TTRPGs—even though it was fiction based on inaccurate news stories about a single person. As such, there was a lot going wrong there. While appeals to intuition arguments are often used in philosophy, an argument from fiction is always weak—for the obvious fact that it is fiction. Also, an inference from one example is anecdotal evidence.

As now has become something of a common practice in moral panics and culture war fights, fictional content was presented as proof of danger. As Hicks (1991) noted, psychiatrist and anti-television violence activist Thomas Radecki of the National Coalition on Television Violence used a fictional letter from Mazes and Monsters as “evidence” D&D had killed gamers.

To be fair, when people were concerned about the dangers of D&D (and similar games), sincere worry about potential harm should not be condemned. After all, if it can be shown that something (such as social media usage or pollution) is harmful, then it would be reasonable and good to try to protect people from this harm. The problem was, obviously enough, that this was a moral panic based on unfounded fears about alleged harm. This same tactic is still employed today and relies on fear rather than evidence.

Since the 1980s the effects of TTRPGs has been extensively studied and as Yuliawati, L., Wardhani, P. A. P., & Ng, J. H. (2024) have noted, “From existing literature, TTRPG provides benefits to promote cognitive and psychosocial skills, to prevent negative effects and stress, as well as to intervene in psychological problems such as social anxiety, depressive symptoms, and autism spectrum disorders.” Thus, far from causing psychological harm, TTRPGs are good for people. Anecdotally, this matches my experiences with TTRPGs and the hundreds of gamers I have interreacted with over the years. And that is how gamers eventually won that culture war battle. For now. But what about video games?

As noted above, United States Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop claimed young people were becoming addicted to video games ”body and soul.” In an excellent example of the “everyone knows” rhetorical tactic, Koop tried to persuade people of the danger of video games by asserting that ”more and more people are beginning to understand” the mental and physical harms of video games. To be fair and balanced, as a former pediatrician, Koop did have credibility as an expert on the health of children. Oddly enough, while he admitted he had no scientific evidence for his claims, he predicted evidence would soon be available. This can be seen as a version of the proof surrogate rhetorical device in that it promises proof will be forthcoming but does not provide it.

To his credit, Dr. Koop later admitted that his view was just his opinion and not based on evidence. The promised evidence never arrived and as noted in my previous essay, it turned out that the video games of the 1980s did us no harm. Although we gamers won that moral panic and culture war, the pattern is repeated: someone will claim, without evidence, that some technology is harmful and then some people will panic. The rational approach is, of course, to consider the evidence. In some cases, the danger will be real, as has been shown with social media in general and the infinite feed in particular. Unfortunately, social media companies have the money and influence to keep harming people as long as doing so is profitable. This does show a basic problem in our society: politicians exploiting moral panics and culture wars over what is harmless or beneficial while they protect those doing real harm. As always, culture war never changes and never ends.

 

 

References

Dear, W. (1984). The dungeon master: The disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III. Houghton Mifflin.

Hicks, Robert D. In Pursuit of Satan: The Police and the Occult Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1991; p. 288

 

Jaffe, R. (1981). Mazes and monsters. Delacorte Press.

Kroplewski, Z. (2025). Impact of participation in role-playing game (RPG) sessions on the perceived level of social anxiety and received social support. Brain Sciences, 15(11), 1158.

Rosenblad, S. R. (2025). Mastering your dragons: Using tabletop role-playing games in therapy. Behavioral Sciences, 15(4), 441.

Surgeon general sees danger in video games. (1982, November 10). The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1982/11/10/us/around-the-nation-surgeon-general-sees-danger-in-video-games.html.

 

Yuliawati, L., Wardhani, P. A. P., & Ng, J. H. (2024). A scoping review of tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) as psychological intervention: Potential benefits and future directions. Psychology Research and Behavior Management, 17, 2885–2903

In times of tight budgets, state governments usually cut spending.  Whether the tight budget was self-inflicted or not. One common “cost savings” approach is to fire state workers and eliminate positions; another is privatization of such things as prisons and school busing.

The reasons given for privatizing are usually intended to seem reasonable. Privatizing is supposed to save money, proved higher quality service and reduced red tape. If privatizing did these things, then it would be a good idea. After all, getting better service for less cost and less red tape would be great. In fact, even if privatizing only improved one area (cost, quality, or bureaucracy) then it would be a good thing (assuming it did not make things worse otherwise). However, there is the question of whether privatizing can deliver these alleged goods.

While it is often claimed that privatizing saves money, this does not seem true. While more studies are always needed, the evidence indicates that privatization has tended to increase costs. While supporters of privatization sometimes argue that this claim has not been well studied, this does not prove that privatization saves money.

Intuitively, it is unlikely that privatizing would save money. After all, there is no private sector magic that enables it to do things that just cannot be done by the state. As such, the state could save money by doing whatever would be done by contractors to save money. This would, of course, save the state even more money than privatizing. After all, private contractors need to make a profit on top of what it costs them to provide the service, something the state does not need to do. For privatization to save the state money, the costs incurred by the contractor plus the profit must be less than what it would cost the state to do it. It is not clear how this would be possible without the assumption that the state, as a matter of necessity, must always pay higher costs than the private contractor.

It could, of course, be countered that the state simply must do things inefficiently and in a costly manner. That is, the private sector is just better than the public sector because it is private sector and hence privatizing can save money.

This reply just begs the question by assuming the private sector will be more cost effective than the state and be able to save the state money while making a profit. What is needed is evidence that this can be done. Ideology is, of course, not evidence. As noted above, the existing (albeit limited) evidence is that privatizing is not a money saver.

This is a factual matter. I have no objection to privatization in principle—my objection is based on the evidence that it does not save money. If it can be shown that the only way to save is to go private while also maintaining quality, then I would be for that privatization. If, however, the state can save more money by adopting effective cost savings measures, then that would be the better option. After all, if the goal is to save money, then the greater savings win. That said, it is also important to consider the quality of the services.

As far as quality goes, a stock argument is that privatization is a good idea because it will improve quality.  It is often argued that the state is bad at doing things and hence provides low quality services. In contrast, the private sector is supposed to provide higher quality services (at a lower cost).  While higher quality (at a lower cost) is appealing, there is the obvious question of whether this is true or merely ideological faith. As with the matter of saving money, this is a factual matter.

While people do point to problems with the quality of state services, it is also easy to point to quality problems with privatized services. These can be horrible, as shown by the way the privatized half way houses in New Jersey were run. Paul Krugman provides an interesting analysis of this problem that is still worth reading. And I am sure most readers are thinking “enshitifictaion” and have countless examples of how the private sector industries are making everything worse. As such, the idea that the private sector will simply be better because it is private is not true.

As I argued with savings, unless it is assumed the state is incapable of providing quality service, there is nothing that a private contractor could do in terms of quality that the state could not do. After all, there does not seem to be a private sector magic that enhances quality. In fact, the opposite now seems true.

There is also the obvious point that the private contractor must make a profit, and this usually leads to cutting corners. After all, lowering costs can be an effective way of increasing profits. However, cost cutting usually involves cutting quality and this practice is common fodder for all those news stories about the horrors of quality cutting to save money.  Again, we are in the age of enshitification.

It might be replied that the private sector must have better quality because the contractor must keep the customer happy. However, the people they must keep happy are the same people who would be “customers” of the state. So, if a need to keep people happy leads to good quality, then the state should be subject to this as well. After all, just as unhappy people would change companies (if they could), they would also presumably vote to change the people running the state. Somewhat ironically, it might be easier to change the government than change the companies one must deal with. While the state has a monopoly on power, we (for now) get to vote people in and out of office. In the case of the megacorporations like Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple, we have no role in deciding who runs them or what they do.

I am in favor of what would provide the highest quality services for a reasonable cost. If privatization did this better than the state, then that would be the sensible thing to do. However, this must be based on evidence rather than an ideological view that simply favors the private (or public) sector. 

In terms of  reducing red tape, privatization clearly does not do that. In fact, it adds more bureaucracy.  Instead of two levels (state and state employees) there are now three levels (state, contractor, and employees). 

It might be countered that there will be less bureaucracy at the state level because most of it will be privatized. While this would be true, it does not actually reduce the bureaucracy, it just moves it.

It might then be countered that the private sector is just less bureaucratic than the state and hence it will be able to do the same with less bureaucracy.

One obvious reply is that the private sector has its own bureaucracy. For example, try cancelling your internet service if you have Xfinity or dealing with some other customer support issue. Another is that if the contractor can do the job as well with less bureaucracy, then the state could simply take the same approach—unless, of course, there is a contractor magic that must of necessity be denied to the state.

As with cost and quality, the bureaucracy reduction is a factual matter. If privatization did reduce the overall bureaucracy (rather than shift it) while still being able to provide the same (or better) management, then this would be a gain. However, this is something that must be shown rather than being assumed based on ideology.

Overall, if privatization could save money, reduce bureaucracy and increase quality, then it would be a good idea. However, this is not something that should be accepted (or rejected) because of ideological faith. As it stands, the evidence is that privatization is no magic bullet and makes things worse. In terms of why it is done, it does excel at one thing: funneling public money into private hands.  

 

 

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In the United States, the number of homeless shelters increased in the 1980s due to a variety of factors (mostly Reagan). One factor was a recession which resulted in more people being unable to afford housing. A second factor was a shift away from single room housing. Though limited in size, this was cheaper than the alternatives. Back in the early 1990s, some of my fellow graduate students lived in singles, but these seemed to be (like most graduate student housing) relics from another time. A third factor was the infamous closing of mental institutions and reduction in care for the mentally ill. While proponents of the approach lauded the cost savings, some critics saw it as simply dumping people onto the streets.

In the face of this surge in homelessness religious groups, charitable organizations and local governments increased the number of homeless shelters. The intent was to provide people with a place to stay until they could sort things out and secure a permanent home. This approach does make some sense and did work in some cases. After all, it seems reasonable to infer that people become homeless because of problems (financial, mental and so on) and that once these problems are fixed, then a person will be ready to have a home. Unfortunately, this approach did not prove successful and there are now about 771,480 people without homes.

Fortunately, an alternative approach had a more positive impact. This approach reverses the old approach: rather than “fixing” people so that they are ready for permanent homes, this approach involves getting the homeless into more home-like shelters or permanent housing. Those who need treatment are given treatment and the results seem to have been positive.

While this approach seems to have merit, there is the stock concern that the state funded programs are wasting the taxpayers’ money by supporting free riders. Somewhat ironically, the troubled economic times that increase homelessness also decrease the funding available for such programs and gives some support to claims that scarce financial resources should be better used, perhaps by allowing more tax breaks for the job creators or bailing out corporations whose bad decision making wrecked them. As such, there seem to be two main arguments against funding such programs with state money.

The first is a utilitarian argument. As there is less state money available than what was normal before it is even more important that the money be spent effectively. Putting money into shelters, programs and permanent housing for the homeless would yield fewer positive results than using the money elsewhere (such as deficit reduction, tax breaks for the rich or maintaining infrastructure). As such, the money should be spent in these other areas rather than in addressing the problem of homelessness.

This argument can, of course, be countered by showing that the money spent on addressing homelessness would be less than the cost of not addressing the problem. If this is the case, then the cost argument favors spending the money rather than incurring the costs that can be avoided or mitigated by spending.

While homelessness is clearly bad for the people who are homeless, it is also costly to society. One area of cost is the medical costs of homelessness. On average, homeless people average hospital stays longer than comparable non-homeless people. Also, since homeless people tend to not have insurance, the cost is born either by the state (that is, us) or by those with insurance (in the form of increased premiums).

Not surprisingly, people do become homeless because of medical problems and medical problems are caused or worsened by being homeless. Those who are homeless are more likely to become ill than those who have homes and are more likely to suffer from problems of greater severity. As such, homelessness adds a burden to the health care system, especially the emergency rooms. Addressing the problem of homelessness would help reduce these costs. That said, no doubt some people profit off this problem and they would argue that this is a good thing.

Another area is crime and prisons. People who are homeless tend to spend more time in prison than the non-homeless, especially since the United States tends to address many social problems by criminalizing them. In some cases, they are arrested for “general” criminal activity, but they are often arrested for breaking laws that are aimed specifically at the homeless, such as laws against loitering and begging. That is, they are arrested because they are homeless. While this laws are often pitched as a means to coerce the homeless to go elsewhere and be someone else’s’ problem, they also help feed “customers” into the for-profit prison system.

While prisons can be quite profitable for the private companies that run them, it is expensive to imprison people. The prices vary greatly. For example, a prison stay in California costs $127,788 a year. While those who profit from prisons will not see it this way, reducing homelessness would be a good thing because it would mean fewer people in prison and lower the cost to the taxpayers. Those who profit from prisons will, of course, wish to ensure that people keep suffering from homelessness as long as this increases the chances they are imprisoned. After all, every prisoner means more profit.

A third factor is the cost of emergency shelters, which are the traditional homeless shelter.s These shelters are more expensive than the cost of a permanent residence. As such, permanent housing would provide savings over temporary shelters.

Naturally, it is reasonable to wonder what impact the permanent home programs might have on the cost to society of homelessness. Studies have shown that these do save money, although they do obviously cost money to implement.

Of course, these savings assumes that the temporary shelters would be funded. For those willing to allow homeless people to live on the streets or who want to drive them away to become someone else’s problem, this sort of program would not yield the highest savings. After all, the cost of housing the homeless on the street is nothing. Of course, this would not reduce the other costs associated with homelessness and would almost certainly increase them. After all, people living on the street are more likely to get ill or injured and more likely to be arrested. But, as noted above, these could be profitable features for some or a chance to inflict harm (cruelty is, after all, often the point).

Of course, changing the law so that people can be refused even emergency medical care if they cannot pay and ending all state-funded treatment programs for addiction and mental illness could reduce the medical costs. That is, we could entirely abandon the homeless, other than imprisoning them when they are arrested. Of course, there would remain the question as to whether this would result in a cost saving. After all, the abandonment approach might result in a large enough increase in number of homeless people being imprisoned to offset the savings from abandonment. Naturally, this does not consider the moral cost of abandonment, just the financial cost.

Overall, the evidence does seem to be that providing permanent housing for the homeless would be a cost saver, though perhaps not as big a cost saver as the complete abandonment of a sort worthy of fiends. The second argument is a moral argument or, rather, various moral arguments. One stock argument is based on the idea that we have no moral obligations to others and hence not obligation to help the homeless. On this view, we could provide such support, but we are not obligated to do so.

A second stock argument is that providing such support is immoral because it creates a culture of dependency. That is, by providing the homeless with permanent homes and treatment for any health problems they might possess they are learning to depend on others and will be unable to carry their own weight. While not supporting them might seem harsh, the argument is that this sort of “tough love” will enable then to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Those who make this argument are often the wealthy who are bailed out by the government when their bad decisions cause their businesses to fail or who are lavishly gifted state subsidies.

While this line of reasoning has some appeal, one obvious reply is that this approach is like responding to a broken leg by refusing to treat it because putting a cast on a broken leg will just make the person dependent on the cast.  As with a broken leg, a person whose life is broken needs support until they can stand on her own again.

One reply to this is that while this might hold for those who will be able to stand on their own, it does not address the problem of those who will remain dependent forever. These people, it can be argued, are just parasites and should not be supported.

I do, of course, agree that someone who is just free riding the system should not be supported. However, the number of people who will intentionally become homeless and unemployed just so they can free ride seems to be rather low (but probably more than zero). After all, most people want to be self-supporting rather than dependent on others. To deny people who need the support to rebuild just because some small percentage of poor people would free ride seems as unreasonable as getting rid of handicapped parking because some people will get a decal for those spaces that they are not really entitled to.  It can also be countered that supporting a free rider in such a program would be cheaper and less damaging than having them free riding on the alternative system.

Another moral argument against providing support for other people is that those being supported are stealing from the taxpayers by having their housing and treatments paid by others. As such, the homeless are morally wrong and we should not enable their theft by allowing such programs. Alternatively, the homeless people could be cast as being pawns used by the politicians who are stealing money from taxpayers and giving it to the homeless. Or, for extra immorality, the homeless and those who enable such support can be seen as being in wicked (or at least misguided) cahoots.

One obvious reply is that by this sort of reasoning we all spend years as thieves. After all, as children we live off our parents (or whoever is keeping is alive), we steal education from the state (or whoever is paying for it), and until we pay enough in taxes to pay for all the public goods and services we use we are stealing every time we walk down a public sidewalk, drive on a public street or go to free a public park. We also steal from all those who have come before us and who enabled us to live in a modern society with technology, medicine and such. That is, we are all beneficiaries of the labor, money and ideas of others. As such, it would be hypocritical to regard the homeless as thieves because others assist them. It would be especially hypocritical of the wealthy who benefit from tax cuts, subsidies, bailouts and government contracts.

The obvious reply is that the non-homeless who do pay taxes (and presumably pay off their financial debt to their families) eventually pay back what they stole (or borrowed) from society when they were young thieves. Of course, the same could be said of the homeless, if they are able to return to society and work, they can repay what they owe to others.

This does not, however, address the problem presented by those who will either never be able to return to contributing to society or who will not be able to repay what they cost society, perhaps because of mental illness. The obvious reply is that it would seem unreasonable to see such people as thieves. It could, of course, be argued that we should be rid of those who cannot support themselves—but this would be a different moral argument than the one based on thievery. And would take us into a monstrous place.

What, then, about people who could return to society but elect to be free riders? That is, their situation is entirely a matter of choice and tomorrow they could pay their own way. In this case, it would be reasonable to regard these people as thieves. After all, they are taking what they could earn by honest labor and there would be (by the scenario presented) no justification for them receiving support. These do seem to be limited cases, unless we consider the wealthy people supported by the public. As argued above, the fact that very few people might exploit something intended to help people in need does not give an adequate reason to treat everyone in such a program as being an exploiter.

Considering the above arguments, providing permanent housing for the homeless seems to be both a cost saver and morally acceptable.

 

 

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