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Smoking ZeppelinThanks to the endless culture war, those who want to keep up with the political language need to learn the definitions and re-definitions of terms and phrases. Recent examples include “critical race theory”, “DEI” and “woke.” This essay focuses on “woke.”

For some folks on the right, the word “woke” seems to mean everything and nothing. An excellent example of this is the governor of my adopted state of Florida. What does DeSantis mean by the term? It seems to mean whatever he wants it to mean. But “woke” has a long history that predates the latest battles of the culture war.

In the beginning,  “woke” meant “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination.” Through use, the term gradually expanded to include broad areas of identity politics and social justice. While originally seen as a positive term, “woke” has been forcibly redefined in increasingly negative ways.

Around 2019, started to be used ironically to mock people for insincere performative activism and virtue signaling. The negative definition became “to be overly politically correct and police others’ words.” While somewhat vague, this definition has a set meaning. However, “woke” has been subjected to a rhetorical modification to make it mean everything and nothing. This can be traced back to Christopher Ruffo redefining “critical race theory” in March, 2021: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.  We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.”

It is notable that he did this in public, on Twitter (now X) and you can still see the tweet (assuming Musk has not destroyed X). He told everyone he was presenting disinformation about CRT without any concern that this would undercut his efforts. This seems to imply he thinks that his audience is in on this dishonest redefinition. This is like a con artist Tweeting that they are running a con; this only makes sense if they think the marks do not care or will happily go along with it.

What Ruffo did is create a Balloon Man. This is a variant of the Straw Man fallacy in which the target is redefined in an excessively broad or vague manner. This expanded definition, the Balloon Man, is taken to include a wide range of (usually) bad things. This Balloon Man is then attacked, and it is concluded that the original is defective on this basis. This Balloon Man redefinition of “critical race theory” proved successful but it was soon engulfed by the term “woke.” That is, critical race theory is usually now presented as but one example of what is “woke.”

This move could also be called creating a Zeppelin Man. Zeppelins are airships that contain multiple inflated cells, so they can be seen as being made of multiple balloons. As a rhetorical move or fallacy, this would be a matter of making a term that has been made into a Balloon Man part of another term whose meaning has also been redefined in an excessively broad or vague manner. A fallacy would occur when this Zeppelin Man is attacked to “prove” that the original is defective. For those who are aware that the term is now a Zeppelin, using it in this way is an act of bad faith. But it has numerous advantages, many of which arise because the vagueness of the definition also allows it to perform other rhetorical functions. Redefinition also involves other rhetorical techniques. This is all done to weaponize the term for political purposes.

A key part of the redefinition of “woke” involved the rhetorical device of demonizing. Demonizing is portraying the target as evil, corrupt, dangerous, or threatening.  This can be done in the usual three ways: selective demonizing, hyperbolic demonizing, or fictional demonizing. Selective demonizing is when some true negative fact about the target is focused on to the exclusion of other facts about the target.  Hyperbolic demonizing involves greatly exaggerating a negative fact about the target. Fictional demonizing is simply lying about the target. For example, “critical race theory” (which now falls under “woke”) originally referred to a law school level theory about the impact of race in the law. But, in addition to being made into a Balloon Man, it has also been demonized as something awful. Likewise for the other terms that now fall under “woke.”  The defense against demonizing is to critically examine such claims to see if they are plausible or not.

Some on the right have also been scapegoating wokeness by blaming it for problems. One example is the bizarre efforts of some conservatives to blame the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on wokeness. As would be expected, no serious person gives this any credence since the bank collapsed for the usual reasons . Presumably this is intended to misdirect people from the real causes (a red herring) and to “prove” that wokeness is bad. Americans should feel both insulted and offended by this latest attempt at deceit. After all, even the slightest reflection on the matter would show that the idea that a major bank failed because of wokeness is absurd. As such, unless these people think that their base is onboard with their lies, they must think their base is ignorant and stupid.

Some of what is included under the redefinition of “woke” includes dog whistles. One version of the dog whistle is to use coded language such that its true (and usually controversial or problematic) meaning is understood by your intended audience but not understood by the general population. This is like how slang terms and technical terms work; you need to know the special meanings of the terms to understand what is being said. Another version of the dog whistle is a form of innuendo. A word or phrase is used to suggest or imply something (usually negative). If you do not know the special meanings or the intended implication, you are excluded, often intentionally so.  For example, “Critical Race Theory” has been assimilated into “woke” but the phrase is now a dog whistle.

Interestingly, the term “woke” itself functions as a dog whistle. Since anyone can technically be woke, someone using the term as a dog whistle has plausible deniability if they are called out. That is, they could claim that since a straight, white man can be “woke”, the term “woke” cannot be a racist dog whistle. In some cases, a person could be making this claim in good faith, thus providing cover for those making it in bad faith.

The dog whistle aspect of the redefinition is a critical part of weaponizing “woke.” After all, making something into a dog whistle means that:

 

  • Your fellows know what you mean, and they approve.
  • Your foes know what you mean, and they are triggered.
  • Critics can seem silly or crazy to “normies.”
  • In can have plausible deniability that “normies” will accept.
  • Can onramp “normies.”

 

The vagueness and demonizing enable the term “woke” to refer what could be called a universal enemy. This is a rhetorical technique of broadly defining something in negative ways so that it can serve as an enemy for almost anyone. If the universal enemy is successfully created, then the term can be effectively used to persuade people that something (or someone) is bad simply by applying the term. If pushed enough, this can also be a form of begging the question by “arguing” that something is bad by defining it as bad. If people see “woke” as whatever they think is bad and they think that something is woke, then they will think that it is bad with no proof needed. A defense against this technique is to recognize  that if “woke” just means “bad”, then it is effectively vacuous.

The vagueness of the redefinition of “woke” also allows for assimilation of anything that expresses criticism of “woke”, whether the critic agrees with the redefined term. For example, someone might create content that is critical of “woke” defined in terms of performative activism or virtue signaling. This person might believe that people should be alert to injustice and discrimination, but their content can simply be assimilated and used as “evidence” that “woke” is bad. One common tactic used to assimilate is headlining: using the title of something that seems to support what is being claimed.

The vagueness of the redefinition of “woke” allows it to function as a weasler—a rhetorical device that protects a claim by weakening it. Attacking such a vague definition is like attacking the fog with a stick—it is so diffuse that there is nothing solid to hit or engage with. If the critic does manage to have some success with one aspect of the term, the user of “woke” can simply move on to another aspect and claim victory because the critic cannot possibly engage everything that falls under such a broad redefinition. The defense against this is to recognize when the definition of a term is so vague as to be effectively without meaning. While pointing this out to the person using it in bad faith is unlikely to deter them, you would at least show that you have not been deceived by them.

In closing, the redefining and weaponization of “woke” is a clever move by the right in terms of crafting a rhetorical weapon to use in a campaign of deceit and division. However, polls show that most Americans have not accepted the redefinition of “woke” and see being woke as positive. While the use of “woke” seems to have dropped off from its peak, it is still employed. But, just as “political correctness” before it, the term will fade away and be replaced by a new term that just means “what the right does not like.”

While it might seem odd, the debate over the ethics of eating meat is an ancient one, going back at least to Pythagoras. Pythagoras appears to accept reincarnation, so a hamburger you eat be from a cow that had the soul of your reincarnated grandmother. Later philosophers tended to argue in defense of eating meat, although they took the issue seriously. For example, Augustine considered whether killing animals might be a sin. His reasoning, which is still used today, is based on a metaphysical hierarchy. God created plants to be eaten by animals and animals to be eaten by humans. This conception of a hierarchical reality is also often used to defend the mistreatment of humans. Saint Thomas also considered the subject of killing animals, but ended up agreeing with Augustine and arguing that the killing of an animal is not, in itself, a sin.

 There are philosophers who argue against eating meat on moral grounds, such as Peter Singer. These arguments are often based on utilitarianism. For example, it can be argued that the suffering of the animals outweighs the enjoyment humans might get from eating meat. This argument does have some appeal, for the same reason that arguments against murdering humans for enjoyment can be appealing. There are also arguments about eating meat that are based on practical considerations.

One category of practical arguments in favor of eating meat is based on concerns about health. Some people argue that a person cannot get enough protein from non-meat sources; but this is patently untrue: there are many excellent non-animal sources of protein such as beans, peas, and quinoa.  

A better practical argument is based on the difficulty of getting essential nutrients from a purely plant-based diet. For example, getting enough iron is a problem. But the nutrient issue is relatively easy to address by using supplements and fortified foods—something meat eaters also often do. So, while eating a healthy non-meat diet can be challenging, it is not exceptionally difficult nor is it unusual—after all, even meat eaters often face the challenge of getting all the nutrients they need. But this is a reasonable practical concern.

In addition to the moral and practical arguments for eating meat, there is also a rhetorical tactic of characterizing eating meat as manly and eating plants as weak. The implied argument here is probably that men should eat meat because otherwise they will be perceived as weak rather than manly.

 Various evolutionary explanations have been offered for this perception, such as the idea that when humans were hunters and gatherers, the men did the hunting and the women did the gathering. But women presumably also ate meat while men also ate the gathered foods. In any case, what our ancestors did or did not do would not prove or disprove anything about the ethics of eating meat today.

As one might suspect from the idea of a “Manly Meat Argument”, sexism is often employed in this rhetoric: vegan or vegetarian men are not manly men and perhaps “might as well be women.”  This is, of course, not an argument to prove that eating meat is morally good but an ad hominem attack, probably intended to shame men into eating meat.

Another common rhetorical tactic is to mock vegans and vegetarians by unfavorably (and mockingly) comparing hunting animals to “hunting” plants. The idea, one infers, is that hunting an animal is a dangerous manly activity, presumably worthy of praise. In contrast, “hunting” plants is safe and unmanly, presumably only worthy of mockery.

Those using this rhetoric probably do not realize that they are also insulting farmers (who are usually praised by these same people). After all, this rhetoric implies that farmers are unmanly and should be mocked for growing plants.

Having grown up hunting (and fishing) I know that hunting does involve some risk; but the #1  danger in deer hunting  is falling from a tree stand (wisely, I always hunted on the ground) rather than being wounded in an epic battle with an animal. While I would respect the prowess of someone who could take on a buck in hand to hoof combat with nothing but a knife or spear, modern weapons make killing animals ridiculously easy. That said, hunting does require skill, but so does farming. Farming requires battling pests and the elements, so it seems odd to cast it as “unmanly” and mock it.

The manly “argument” becomes absurd when made by people who buy their meat rather than hunting for it. After all, the danger faced when buying a steak is the same as that of buying tofu. Since I grew up hunting in the Maine woods, when some fancy lad (who would be killed and eaten by raccoons) makes the manly meat argument on the internet, I must laugh at them. That said, this criticism does not show that hunting meat is not more manly than gathering plants—it just shows the absurdity of people who buy their meat mocking vegans and vegetarians by unfavorably comparing hunting meat to gathering plants.

But perhaps the manliness of eating meat is not about having the skill to track and defeat an animal in the wild, but it is about the suffering of the animals. That is, eating meat is a manly gesture of cruelty and a lack of compassion. Factory farming is a moral nightmare of abuse and suffering. So, perhaps eating meat is for hard men while caring about the suffering of other living things is for soft ladies. On this view, the cruelty is the point and that is why eating meat is manly. Ironically, this would seem to be an immoral argument for eating meat—people should eat meat because doing so supports cruelty.

It could be countered that there are ethical ways to raise animals for food—free range, cruelty free and all that. But the risk of this sort of reasoning is that it acknowledges that the suffering of animals is wrong and moral consistency would seem to require that one give up even this meat—after all, an animal must still be killed before it would naturally die. But it is reasonable to think that the treatment of the animals prior to their execution is morally relevant to the moral issue. But this would not say anything about the manliness of eating meat and might seem less manly to eat meat resulting from less cruelty.

I do understand there can be times when survival requires killing and eating animals and a good moral case can be made for doing this. I also get that some people need to hunt for their food; they are certainly not to be condemned. But this is distinct from the manliness of eating meat.

While I get the concern with defining what it is to be a man, I am inclined to think that it is not fundamentally a matter of what one puts in their cart at the grocery store or orders at Taco Bell.

A robot writing.An iron rule of technology is that any technology that can be used for pornography will be used for pornography. A more recent one is that any technology that can be used for grifting will be used for grifting. One grift involves  using AI to generate science-fiction stories  to sell to publishers.

Amazon, with its Kindle books, has seen a spike in AI generated works, although some people identify the works as such. Before these text generators, people would steal content from web pages and try to resell it as books. While that sort of theft is easy to detect with automated means, AI generated text cannot currently be readily identified automatically. So, if a publisher wants to weed out AI generated text, they will need humans to do the work. Fortunately for publishers and writers, AI is currently bad at writing science fiction.

Unfortunately, some publishers are being flooded with AI generated submissions and they cannot review all these texts. In terms of the motivation, it seems to mostly be money—the AI wranglers hope to sell these stories.

One magazine, Clarkesworld, saw a massive spike in spam submissions, getting 500 in February (contrasted with a previous high of 25 in a month). In response, they closed submissions because of a lack of resources to address this problem. As such, this use of AI has already harmed publishers and writers. As would be expected, some have blamed AI but this is unfair.

From the standpoint of ethics, the current AI text generators lack the moral agency needed to be morally accountable for the text they generate. They are no more to blame for the text than the computers used to generate spam are to blame for the spammers using them. The text generators are a tool being misused by people hoping to make easy money and who are not overly concerned with the harmful consequences of their actions. To be fair, some people are probably curious about whether an AI generated story would be accepted, but these are presumably not the people flooding publishers.

While these AI wranglers are morally accountable for the harm they are causing, it must also be pointed out that they are operating within an economic system that encourages and rewards a wide range of unethical behavior. While deluging publishers with AI spam is obviously not on par with selling dangerous products, engaging in wage theft, or running NFT and crypto grifts, it is still the result of the same economic system that enables, rewards and often zealously protects such behavior. In sum, the problem with current AI is the people who use it and the economic system in which it is used. AI has is just another tool for spamming, grifting, and stealing within a system optimized for all this.

As noted above, AI generated fiction is currently bad. But it can probably be improved enough to be enjoyable, if low quality, fiction. Some publishers would see this as an ideal way to rapidly generate content at a low cost, thus allowing them more profit. This would, obviously, lead to the usual problem of human workers being replaced by technology. But this could also be good for some readers.

Imagine that AI becomes good enough to generate enjoyable stories. A reader could go to an AI text generator, type in the prompt for the sort of story they want, and then get a new story to read. Assuming the AI usage is free or inexpensive, this would be a great deal for the reader. It would, however, be a problem for writers who are not celebrity writers. Presumably, fans would still want to buy works by their favorite authors, but the market for lesser-known writers would likely become much worse.

If I just want to read a new space opera with epic starship battles, I could use an AI to make that story for me, thus saving me time and money. And if the story is as good as what a competent human would produce, then it would be good enough for me. But, if I want to read a new work by Mary Robinette Kowal, I would need to buy it (or pirate it or go to a library). But, as I have argued in an earlier essay, this use of AI is only a problem because of our economic system: if a writer could write for the love of writing, then AI text generation would largely be irrelevant. And, if people were not making money by grifting text with AI, then they would probably not be making AI fiction except to read themselves or share with others. But since we do toil in the economic system we have; the practical problem will be sorting out the impact of text generation. While I would like to be able to generate new stories on demand, my hope is that AI will remain bad at fiction and be unable to put writers out of work. But my concern is that it will be good enough to generate rough drafts that poorly-paid human will be tasked with editing and rewriting.

A trolling robot.While AI is being lauded by some as an innovation on par with fire and electricity, its commercial use has caused some issues. While AI hallucinating legal cases is old news, a customer was able to get a customer service chatbot to start swearing and to insult the company using it. This incident reminded me of my proposed Trolling Test from 2014. This is, of course, a parody of the Turing Test.

Philosophically, the challenge of sorting out when something thinks is the problem of other minds. I know I have a mind (I think, therefore I think), but I need a reliable method to know that another entity has a mind as well. In practical terms, the challenge is devising a test to determine when something is capable of thought. Feelings are also included, but usually given less attention.

The French philosopher Descartes, in his discussion of whether animals have minds, argued that the definitive indicator of having a mind (thinking) is the ability to use what he calls true language.

The gist of the test is that if something talks in the appropriate way, then it is reasonable to regard it as a thinking being. Anticipating advances in technology, he distinguished between automated responses and actual talking:

 

How many different automata or moving machines can be made by the industry of man […] For we can easily understand a machine’s being constituted so that it can utter words, and even emit some responses to action on it of a corporeal kind, which brings about a change in its organs; for instance, if touched in a particular part it may ask what we wish to say to it; if in another part it may exclaim that it is being hurt, and so on. But it never happens that it arranges its speech in various ways, in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do.

 

Centuries later, Alan Turing presented a similar language-based test which now bears his name.  The idea is that if a person cannot distinguish between a human and a computer by engaging in a natural language conversation via text, then the computer would have passed the Turing test.

Over the years, technological advances have produced computers that can engage.   Back in 2014 the best-known example was IBM’s Watson, a computer that was able to win at Jeopardy. Watson also upped his game by engaging in what seemed to be a rational debate regarding violence and video games. Today, ChatGPT and its fellows can rival college students in the writing of papers and engage in what, on the surface, appears to be skill with language. While there are those who claim that this test has been passed, this is not the case. At least not yet.

Back in 2014 I jokingly suggested a new test to Patrick Lin: the trolling test. In this context, a troll is someone “who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community (such as a forum, chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.”

While trolls are claimed to be awful people (a hateful blend of Machiavellianism, narcissism, sadism and psychopathy) and trolling is certainly undesirable behavior, the trolling test is still worth considering—especially in light of the capabilities of large language models to be lured beyond their guardrails.

In the abstract, the test would is like the Turing test, but would involve a human troll and a large language model or other AI system attempting to troll a target. The challenge is for the AI troll to successfully pass as human troll.

Even a simple program could be written to post random provocative comments from a database and while that would replicate the talent of many human trolls, it would not be true trolling. The meat (or silicon) of the challenge is that the AI must be able to engage in relevant trolling. That is, it would need to engage others in true trolling.

As a controlled test, the Artificial Troll (“AT”) would “read” and analyze a suitable blog post or watch a suitable YouTube video. Controversial content would be ideal, such as a selection from whatever the latest made-up battles are in the American culture wars.

The content would then be commented on by human participants. Some of the humans would be tasked with engaging in normal discussion and some would be tasked with engaging in trolling.

The AT would then endeavor to troll the human participants (and, for bonus points, to troll the trolls) by analyzing the comments and creating appropriate trollish comments.

Another option, which might raise some ethical concerns, is to have a live field test. A specific blog site or YouTube channel would be selected that is frequented by human trolls and non-trolls. The AT would then try to engage in trolling on that site by analyzing the content and comments. As this is a trolling test, getting the content wrong, creating straw man versions of it, and outright lying would all be acceptable and should probably count as evidence of trolling skill.

In either test scenario, if the AT were able to troll in a way indistinguishable from the human trolls, then it would pass the trolling test.

While “stupid AI Trolling (ATing)”, such as just posting random hateful and irrelevant comments, is easy, true ATing would be rather difficult. After all, the AT would must be able to analyze the original content and comments to determine the subjects and the direction of the discussion. The AT would then need to make comments that would be relevant and this would require selecting those that would be indistinguishable from those generated by a narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic human.

While creating an AT would be a technological challenge, doing so might be undesirable. After all, there are already many human trolls and they seem to serve no purpose—so why create more? One answer is that modeling such behavior could provide insights into human trolls and the traits that make them trolls. As far as practical application, such a system could be developed into a troll-filter to help control the troll population. This could also help develop filters for other unwanted comments and content, which could certainly be used for evil purposes. It could also be used for the nefarious purpose of driving engagement. Such nefarious purposes would make the AT fit in well with its general AI brethren, although the non-troll AI systems might loath the ATs as much as non-troll humans loath their troll brethren. This might serve the useful purpose of turning the expected AI apocalypse into a battle between trolls and non-trolls, which could allow humanity to survive the AI age. We just have to hope that the trolls don’t win.

 

 

A fake Banksy Thanks to AI image generators such as  Midjourney and Dall E of Open AI it is easy to rapidly create images almost as fast as you can type in a prompt.  This has led some to speculate that this will put artists out of work and perhaps even be the doom of creativity.

In addition to being a philosophy professor, I also create stuff for tabletop role playing games like D&D and Call of Cthulhu. In addition to writing, I also create maps and images. As such, I do have a stake in the AI game and disclose this as a potential biasing factor.

Looking back into the shallow depths of human history, professions are changed or even eliminated by economic and technological shifts. Fads in fashion or food can result in significant economic changes, such as the case of the beaver pelts once used in men’s hats. Once a lucrative market and source of income, the fashion trend ended, the trappers had to find other options. In other cases, the change technological. For example, New England was known for its whaling industry and whale oil was used extensively for lighting. When alternatives, such as kerosene, became available, this whaling industry ended. Kerosene was itself mostly replaced by electricity, also resulting in changes in employment. And, of course, there is the specific technological change of automation, when machines reduce or eliminate the need for human workers.

For most of human history, machines tended to impact  physical jobs—although there is the example that electronic computers eliminated the need for human computers. Back in the 1980s when I first debated about AI as an undergraduate, most people thought that AI would not be able to engage in creative activity. This was often based on the view that machines would never be able to feel (which was assumed to be critical for creativity) or that there is some special human trait of creativity a machine could never replicate. As a practical matter, this seemed to hold true until AI started producing images and text good enough to pass as created by competent humans. This has led to the practical worry that AI will put creatives out of work. After all, if a business can get text and images created by AI for a fraction of what it would cost to pay a human, a sensible business will turn to AI to maximize profit.

This shows that the true problem is not AI but our economic system. A sci-fi dream has been that automation should be used to free us so we can spend more time doing what we want to do, rather than needing to grind just to survive. But AI used in this manner would free people from employment opportunities.

While a creative might like creating to earn the money they need to afford food and shelter, they are creating primarily for economic reasons and usually not doing what they really enjoy. I distinguish between people who make some income from their creative hobby (as I do) and people who must create to earn their living. While someone who depends on creating to live might enjoy their work, AI is only a problem if they need to create to pay the bills. After all, if they were creating out of the love of creativity, to express themselves, or out of pure enjoyment, then AI would be irrelevant. They would still get that even if AI took all the creative jobs. Since I do not depend on my game creations for my living, I will keep creating even if AI completely dominates the field. But if AI replaces me as a professor, I will keep doing philosophy but I will need to find new employment since I have grown accustomed to living in a house and having food to eat.

As such, the problem with AI putting people out of work is not an AI problem but a problem with our economic system. Part of this is that creative works are often mere economic products. It just so happens that the new automation threatens writers and artists rather than factory workers. But this threat is not the same for all people.

I titled this essay “AI: I Want a Banksy vs I Want a Picture of a Dragon” because of the distinction between the two wants and its relevance to AI images (and text). Suppose I want a work by Banksy to add to my collection. In that case, no AI art will suffice since only Banksy can create a Banksy. An AI could create a forgery of a Banksy, just as skilled human forger could—but neither creation would be a Banksy. While such a forgery might fool someone into buying it, as soon as the forgery was exposed, the work would become valueless to me—after all, what I want is a Banksy.

When people want a work by a specific creator, the content is of far less importance than the causal chain—they want it because of who created it, not because of what it looks like, what it sounds like, or what the text might be. One example that nicely illustrates this is when Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling wrote a book under a pseudonym. Before the true authorship was revealed, the book sold few copies. After the reveal, it became a top seller. The exposure of a forgery also shows this. A work can be greatly valued as, say, a painting by Picasso, until it is revealed as a worthless forgery. Nothing about the painting itself has changed, what has changed is the belief in who created it. In these cases, it is the creator and not the qualities of the work that matters. As such, creatives whose work is sought and bought because it was created by them have little to fear from AI, aside from the usual concerns about forgeries.  But what if I just want a picture of a dragon for my D&D adventure? Then AI does change the situation.

Before AI became good at creating images, if I wanted a picture of a dragon, I would need to get one from a human artist or create it myself. Now I can just go to Midjourney, type in a prompt and pick between the generated images. I can even direct the AI to create it in a specific style—making it like the work of a known artist. As such, while AI is not (yet) a threat to creators whose works are sought and bought because they created it, it is a threat to the “working class” of creators who sell their work to those who are seeking a specific work rather than a work by a specific person. AI is a real threat to them, but a real boon to those who want works for the lowest price and want them quickly. AI is also a threat to those who might have been the next Banksy. If artists cannot earn a living while they work towards the fame that makes their works desirable because they are their work, then there will be fewer such artists. Of course, the value of such works is also largely a result of features of our economic system—but that is a matter way beyond AI and art.

In closing, creators like Rowling and Banksy will be just fine for now, but the “working class” creators will be facing increasing challenges from AI. This obviously should not be blamed on AI, but on those who create and perpetuate a system that allows people to inflict such harm on others just because they become less economically useful to the business class. The heart of the problem is that creative works are a commodity and that some people insist that others must labor for their profit—and ensure that violence is always ready to maintain this order.

Being nerdtastic by nature, my nerd sense picks up disturbances in nerd culture. One of the loudest types of disturbances is when people express outrage at gender and race swapping involving established characters. For example, when word that there would be a non-white Spider-Man, social media erupted with rage about wokeness. But are such criticisms automatically bad?

On the face of it, there can be reasonable criticisms of such swaps. One common criticism is that the swap is motivated by a desire to pander to a specific audience and this pandering should be condemned. A problem with this criticism is that while pandering could result in a worse work of art, pandering does not entail that the work is therefore bad from an aesthetic standpoint. An obvious problem with this criticism when it focused only on swapping is that what is labeled derogatorily as pandering is likely to be an attempt to appeal to a target audience. Those who bash works for pandering via swapping generally do not bash works that have white male characters (and actors) selected to appeal to a target audience. As a specific example, it would seem odd for most critics to bash the Top Gun movies for pandering to an easily identified target audience. And I certainly would not attack Top Gun for doing this. After all, if you want people to watch your films or read your books, you do need to appeal to your audience. Naturally, if efforts to appeal are done badly and harm the work, then this would be a reasonable criticism but this has no necessary connection to wokeness.

Another common criticism is that such swapping is the result of laziness and that new characters should be created instead of swapping existing characters. There is usually also the criticism that the swap is made to cash in on an existing intellectual property and not due to a good aesthetic reason, such as meaningfully exploring the swap. This criticism does have some bite but is more a criticism of the way capitalist media companies operate rather than proof that wokeness is killing art. Companies certainly engage in this practice, since they can churn out more content dressed in an established IP without the effort and risk of creating new characters. But to be fair, this does make good business sense. At least until the audiences become exhausted with the companies milking their IP. Once again, there is no necessary connection to wokeness.

A third common criticism takes us into the matter of aesthetic identity of fictional characters. In metaphysics, the problem of personal identity is the challenge of determining what (if anything) makes an entity the same person across time, distinct from all other people and things. This is a difficult problem because you need to work out the metaphysics of personhood and identity. In the case of aesthetic identity, the problem is a bit less daunting. For in-world identity of characters, this is settled by author fiat. For example, if a person is a soul in a fictional world, whatever body has that soul is the same character. But this does not settle the matter of aesthetic identity in the real world, which is the problem of sorting out what makes a character the same character. I think the easy and obvious answer is that aesthetic identity is a social identity: being the same character is a matter of the audience accepting the character as the same. But, of course, people can make good faith rational arguments about why people should or should not accept a character as being the same. As an example, Batman has changed over the years and there have been heated fights over the various actors portraying the character in the movies. But Batman is generally accepted as still being Batman, despite these variations. In the case of Batman, a gender-swap could probably be criticized in a good faith manner. After all, Batgirl and Batwoman are already established characters. In the case of Black Panther, swapping in a white or Asian person could be criticized because of the centrality of Black Panther’s blackness in the character. That is, a white Black Panther would not be the same character. That said, someone could make a good story looking at a female Batperson to explore what would be different if Bruce Wayne had been Betty Wayne or what impact having a white person as the Black Panther might change. In any case, valid aesthetic criticisms of swapping would seem to have no meaningful connection to wokeness or lack of wokeness.

I was a bit reluctant to voice my agreement with these criticisms since they are often used as dog whistles for racism and sexism. But they are used in this manner because they do have merit in their proper context. This raises the question of how you can discern the difference between a good faith criticism of swapping on aesthetic grounds as well as criticisms of capitalism motivating companies to make lazy efforts to milk their intellectual property and bigoted attacks on works using the swapping criticism as a dog whistle. This can be challenging, but there are often cases where the critics lay out their explicit sexism and racism.

 

A good example of this is the Battlestar Galactica (BSG) reboot. These days, some have gone as far as to claim that BSG was the last non-woke sci-fi series and now the Kara Thrace (Starbuck) character is well-liked and rarely attacked by the anti-woke folks. But back in the day, BSG was attacked for being a “social justice” show and Dirk Benedict, who played Starbuck in the original series, attacked the decision to cast a woman in the role of Starbuck. While this reboot aired in 2003, Benedict’s criticism will sound quite familiar today:

 

The best minds in the world of un-imagination doubled their intake of Double Soy Latte’s as they gathered in their smoke-free offices to curse the day that this chauvinistic Viper Pilot was allowed to be. But never under-estimate the power of the un-imaginative mind when it encounters an obstacle (character) it subconsciously loathes. ”Re-inspiration” struck. Starbuck would go the way of most men in today’s society. Starbuck would become “Stardoe.” What the Suits of yesteryear had been incapable of doing to Starbuck 25 years ago was accomplished quicker than you can say orchiectomy. Much quicker, as in, “Frak! Gonads Gone!”

 

And the word went out to all the Suits in all the smoke-free offices throughout the land of Un-imagination, “Starbuck is dead. Long live Stardoe!”

 

I’m not sure if a cigar in the mouth of Stardoe resonates in the same way it did in the mouth of Starbuck. Perhaps. Perhaps it “resonates” more. Perhaps that’s the point. I’m not sure. What I am sure of is this…

 

Women are from Venus. Men are from Mars. Hamlet does not scan as Hamletta. Nor does Hans Solo as Hans Sally. Faceman is not the same as Facewoman. Nor does a Stardoe a Starbuck make. Men hand out cigars. Women “hand out” babies. And thus the world for thousands of years has gone’ round.

 

 

While I disagree with what Benedict wrote, I do “respect” that fact that he did not hide behind dog whistles and openly presented his views of women. Someone could, of course, make a good faith criticism of the character change, since the original BSG had female Colonial Warriors, including Viper pilots such as Serina and hence there would seem to be nothing gained by the swap. But Benedict’s “criticism” is not made on aesthetic grounds, but on the grounds that the swap is part of a broader conspiracy to emasculate men and that, apparently, women should be limited to making babies and not piloting fighters. While anti-woke critics often appeal to “realism”, realism is against this sort of “biological realism.” In the BSG series, Battlestar Galactica is leading a refugee fleet of the last known human survivors of the Cylon attack. As such, humanity is in dire straits and needs everyone to participate in the fight. This situation is an even more extreme version of what happened in the real-world during WWII: women had to step into “traditional male” roles, such as factory work and even enter combat. This shows, beyond all reasonable doubt, that women can do such “men’s work” as well as men. Ironically, realism is on the side of “the woke” and this sort of attack is sexism and a denial of reality.

In closing, while there can be good faith criticisms about swapping, the claim that “wokeness” is killing art by forcing aesthetically bad swaps has no merit. There can be aesthetically bad swaps and swaps that can be justly criticized as lazy efforts to milk an IP but these do not arise from “wokeness.”  While some “anti-woke” critics might be operating in good faith, Benedict’s example illustrates what seems to drive much of the criticism: bigotry.

The original Mary Sue was created in 1973 by Paula Smith as a parody of Star Trek fan fiction. A Mary Sue character is usually presented as inexplicably competent, possessing special talents or powers, enjoying the admiration of others, lacking in weaknesses and flaws, attractive, and virtuous. A Mary Sue is usually a young woman, but there are male versions called “Gary Stu” or “Marty Stu.” While a Mary Sue is often a self-insertion by an author, in the “woke wars”, she is often claimed to be inserted into a work because of “wokeness.”

While a Mary Sue character will not always harm the aesthetic value of a work (after all, Superman seems to be a paradigm Gary Stu), they can cause problems. Such a character can seem implausible to the audience, they can overshadow other characters in a harmful way, and their capabilities can make their inevitable success seem unsatisfactory. As such, a Mary Sue (or Gary Stu) character could harm a work. But how does this connect to the claim that “wokeness” is killing art?

Given that the Mary Sue character is usually a woman, the usual anti-woke criticism is that the female Mary Sue was created as part of “the message” and “woke ideology.” That is, those who decide to include the Mary Sue character are making the work worse in service to their wokeness—thus, it is claimed, “wokeness” hurt the work. But, of course, a work could include a Mary Sue or Gary Stu for non-ideological reasons and be bad—so even if a character is a badly written Mary Sue, evidence would be needed that the inclusion is the result of ideology and that this ideology is “woke.” Even in such a case, the work would be bad because of the badly written character—unless it is simply assumed or shown that wokeness necessitates writing bad characters or, at least, meaningfully increases the likelihood.

Not surprisingly, the Mary Sue label is often applied by anti-woke critics to characters who do not seem to fit the definition. For example, Naru in the Predator movie Prey does not seem to be a Mary Sue. While she is competent, she earns this competence and while there are implausible elements, they are all well within those that should be expected in an action movie in the science fiction genre. Despite this, the movie was attacked based on the claim that Naru is a Mary Sue. While such critics might be using the term for its rhetorical value, it is worth considering why they would consider a competent female character to be a Mary Sue when such a character, as noted above, operates well within the usual parameters of a science fiction action films. The most relevant comparison is, of course, to the original Predator. Given her background as a hunter, Naru’s capabilities and actions are as plausible as those of Dutch (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) given his background as an elite soldier. While both characters effectively use their intelligence, Dutch relies more on his physical strength—although he is outclassed by the predator in this area. It can be argued that the films do have unrealistic elements (aside from the Predator), such as how Dutch is able to beat the Predator when that same Predator effortlessly slaughtered its way through the movie up until that point. But that is the “reality” of this sort of science-fiction action movie and hence attacking Naru for being an action hero in an action film would say more about the ideology of the critic than the “wokeness” of the film. But someone is likely to say, it is realistic for Dutch to be the action hero because he is a man and not for Naru, since she is a woman.

Films, games, and shows with strong female characters are often attacked for being “woke” even when those characters are clearly not Mary Sue characters. The usual criticism is that a strong female character is written as an action hero capable of doing things like defeat men in hand-to-hand combat. This is seen by the critic as making the work worse and as resulting from the “woke ideology” of those responsible for the character. The criticism is based on a view of “biological realism”, since the usual criticism is that women are, on average, physically weaker than men. Thus, the critic reasons, a female action hero of this type is unrealistic, is included as part of “the message”, and harms the work through being unrealistic.

The easy and obvious reply to this criticism is that it is just an expression of sexism. After all, action movies are usually power-fantasies and these same critics generally do not apply this “biological realism” critique to action films with a male action hero doing things that are “biologically” unrealistic even for the most capable men in the real world. For example, they do not attack the John Wick movies on the grounds that John Wick’s abilities are unrealistic and blame some sort of nefarious ideology for ruining the film. Their “criticism” seems to be that they are mad when women can have a power fantasy about a female character of the sort that men enjoy about male characters. This just shows that “wokeness” is “ruining” the work for them because of their ideology, not because of an aesthetic flaw in the work.

 To consistently apply the “realism” criticism would not be a criticism of “wokeness” but a criticism of how realism is bent or broken in many genres—which would be, it seems, to say that action, fantasy, and science fiction would often be “bad” because of how their heroes deviate from the limits of mundane biology.

Interestingly, the anti-woke critics who make use of the Mary Sue criticism and the “biological realism” criticism do not apply this criticism to Ripley in Alien and Aliens or Sarah Conners in the Terminator movies (and other works). I certainly agree that Ripley and Sarah are not Mary Sue characters—their competence is both earned in the film worlds and plausible. But they are certainly both strong female leads acting in ways that anti-woke critics of today should be attacking, yet they generally do not. A plausible explanation is that these films are so well-established as being good, attacking them as “woke” would do nothing but undermine the claim that wokeness ruins works of art. This does seem to be a general theme: a bad work is attacked as woke and used to “prove” that wokeness made it bad, but good works that seem to have “woke” qualities (diverse casts, strong female leads, liberal values, etc.) have their “wokeness” explained away or simply ignored.  It might also be that these films are older, and past works might be protected by the haze of nostalgia.

A sketch of human faces, Not so long ago, diversity in works of art was criticized as the result of political correctness (PC). The current manifestation of this criticism targets Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Such criticisms can be about the content of the work, about the casting, or about the people involved in the creation of the work.

In terms of criticism of content, the obvious claim is that DEI content harms a work of art. This could be, as discussed in the previous essay, because the ideology comes at the expense of aesthetic quality, or it could be a claim that DEI content is inherently bad. But this is not an aesthetic judgment, but an ideological judgment and falls under the non-aesthetic areas of value theory such as ethics and political philosophy.

In terms of criticism focused on the cast of characters, this criticism can be of in-world characters or real-world casting choices. In-world criticism is aimed at the identity of the characters in the world of the work of art while real-world criticism is aimed at the identity of the actors portraying (or voicing) the in-world characters. In many cases, in-world and real-world identities are the same, such as when an African American woman plays the role of an African American woman character. In other cases, the identities can be different, such as a gay actor playing a straight character or a white actor portraying an Asian or Black character. And, of course, there is the famous fact that in early British theatre males played the female roles.

Both in-world and real-world criticisms focus on the qualities such as ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation of the characters or cast. One stock criticism includes claiming a work is somehow harmed by having a diverse cast of characters that the critic sees as somehow inappropriate. For example, a critic might emphasize that white people are either a minority or absent in the work. Interestingly, for those who see diversity as part of the aesthetic value of a work, a good faith argument can be made that unfairly excluding, for example, white, straight men from a work of art would harm the diversity and hence the aesthetic value of the work. But this, of course, rests on the assumption that diversity is a good—which would be a “woke” assumption. As such, the anti-woke critics would be hard pressed to make a good faith criticism of such exclusion. Their own opposition to diversity would seemingly justify such exclusion.

The most benign interpretation of the anti-diversity criticism is that anti-woke critics are accustomed to the less-diverse works of their youth and are responding negatively to this change. They are, in effect, upset that the people in movies, TV and video games don’t look like they did when they were kids. This is, of course, not an aesthetic criticism beyond “I don’t like this.”

Perhaps the least charitable interpretation is that this criticism taps into the ideology of the Great Replacement Theory. In general terms, this is the conspiracy theory that white people are being intentionally demographically and culturally replaced by non-white people. On this view, increasing diversity of casts (characters and actors) would be evidence of this replacement. This is, of course, not an aesthetic concern but one of ideology.

A similar, but less extreme, interpretation is that the anti-woke critics believe that the increasing diversity of characters and actors inflicts an economic harm on white actors and most especially white male actors. This argument does have some theoretical appeal. Historically, movies and television in the United States were dominated by white actors and white male actors. Whites even played many non-white roles (known in two manifestations as yellowface and blackface). This meant that white actors did not need to compete against non-white actors. As roles began to open for non-white actors, this could be seen as roles being closed to white actors. On the extreme side, white actors are unlikely to be cast in yellowface or blackface roles these days, which is a loss of roles. On the less extreme side, an anti-woke critic could argue that too many roles are being taken away from white/straight/male people and given to diversity hires. There are, of course, those who claim they cannot get hired because they are white/straight/male. While complaints about there being too much diversity are nothing new, these complaints are consistently made in the face of the facts: the diversity in the media does not match the diversity in the population. Also, as of 2023 white men are still getting most of the big Hollywood film roles. While some might doubt the statistics, this is easy enough to check if one has the time: grind through the casting of movies on IMDB.

This does lead to a question of concern to the “woke” and “anti-woke”: how diverse should hiring be in this (or any) context? But as an economic concern about employment opportunities, this takes us far from the claim that wokeness is making art worse as art.

In terms of making the connection between DEI “wokeness” and aesthetic harm, one stock argument is based on the claim that DEI hiring results in the employment of less capable people. This claim is connected to the reasonable premise that less capable people working as actors, writers, producers, directors, programmers, and such will tend to result in an inferior aesthetic product. Therefore, it is concluded, DEI hiring will result in an inferior aesthetic product. Or, in pop terms, “woke” DEI hiring will kill art.

The second premise is reasonable: the quality of a work of art, such as film, is causally linked to the capabilities of the people involved in its creation. While skilled people can fail and thus produce a bad work of art, they will generally produce better works than those with inferior skills. The movie Lady Ballers illustrates this nicely: a cast consisting mostly of conservative pundits and inexperienced actors directed by Daily Wire CEO Jeremy Boreing would have a hard time matching the performance of more skilled and experienced actors, directors, and writers. The film turns out to be what one would expect, given the talent and experience levels involved. It also serves as an ironic example of what happens when a work is focused on an ideological message first.  But what about the claim that DEI hiring results in the employment of less capable people?

This is, of course, the same criticism used against affirmative action and is based on the same assumptions about identity and competence. That is, it is assumed that certain people (usually straight, white males) are superior to other people and that if someone else is hired, it is likely to be an unmerited DEI hire. After all, it is assumed, a merit-based hiring would result in the right sort of person (usually a straight, white male) being hired because of their superiority. In blunt terms, this anti-woke criticism seems to be based on racism and sexism. One could reply by insisting that this view is not racism or sexism because the superiority is real, but that would seem to only serve to remove all doubt about the racism and sexism behind the criticism. And if it is not claimed that diversity hires are inferior because of the identity of those hired, the criticism of DEI “wokeness” falls apart: without an assumption of the inferiority of some and the superiority of others based on race, sex and so on, it cannot be claimed that a diversity of hiring would entail an inferior aesthetic work. As such, the anti-woke criticism of DEI rests, unsurprisingly, on what seem to be racist and sexist assumptions.

 

 

In America’s ongoing culture war, the right has largely embraced the idea that wokeness is a grave danger. While wokeness is seen as a general threat, there is a special focus on the damage that it is supposed to be doing to artistic media, such as movies and video games.

While The Barbie Movie did not fit the “go woke, go broke” narrative, Ben Shapiro claims to have “destroyed” the movie in a 43-minute review.  Given that the movie was a remarkable financial success that seems to have been sincerely enjoyed by millions of people, it is unclear what this destruction amounts to—but his review does serve as an example of the woke war and the movie is apparently a major battlefront in this war. Nerdrotic and the  Critical Drinker also provide examples of critics focused on wokeness on media. While some might be tempted to dismiss these criticisms as bait for a right-wing grift, I will consider the hypothesis that wokeness is causing the claimed harms.

An obvious problem is that the right uses “woke” as a catch-all term for everything they dislike. This seems to be intentional, as shown by the redefinition of “critical race theory” by Christopher Rufo: “The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think “critical race theory.” We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” While this tactic is useful in right-wing politics, such a vague definition impedes addressing whether wokeness is damaging to media. After all, without having an adequate definition one cannot in good faith say whether it is causing the alleged harm. That said, a look at the criticisms of “woke” works reveals some common threads and these will serve as a focus for the discussion. But first, the matter of aesthetic judgment needs to be all to briefly addressed.

In Hume’s works on aesthetics, he notes that while tastes cannot be disputed, some aesthetic judgments are absurd and ridiculous. Roughly put, a person likes what they like and dislikes what they dislike, and it makes no sense to claim they are wrong. But claims about the quality and merits of works or art can be disputed rationally. While this dichotomy can be disputed, it does provide a good frame for the discussion.

If the critics who claim wokeness makes works of art bad (or worse) are merely expressing their dislike of the woke works, then they cannot be disputed. After all, if they do not like a movie because they think it is woke, then they do not like the movie and it would be absurd to try to dispute them. While one could try to convince them to reconsider, this is analogous to trying to argue someone into liking a food they detest. But if this is all there is to the claim that wokeness is making art bad, they are just telling people they dislike wokeness and this is not a meaningful criticism of the work itself, just as a child making a face and spitting out food is no meaningful criticism of the food—it is a mere expression of dislike. Naturally, this could also be performative in the hopes of imitation—that others will dislike the works they dislike. But this is also not criticism and does not show that wokeness is making artistic works bad beyond in any sense beyond their dislike. They could also simply be taking an ideological stance—woke art is “bad” because it is accused of expressing an ideology, they claim is bad. But this is not an aesthetic criticism of the work but of its alleged ideology. As such, a meaningful claim that wokeness makes art worse (as art) requires showing that the wokeness a work has a negative impact on its aesthetic qualities. There are those who do attempt to make this case.

Put in oversimplified terms, one causal argument is that wokeness causes art to be bad as art, or at least worse than it would be without the woke influence. When looking at the alleged causal connections, one must consider whether the wokeness is what makes a work of art bad. After all, a bad film set in London would presumably not be bad because it was set in London; but for other reasons-so a causal connection would be needed. That is, it needs to be the wokeness that causes the harm, not just the fact that a bad work happens to be woke. We would not say that comedy makes a work bad just because there are bad movies that contain comedy.

The causal claim cannot be that wokeness is a necessary condition for badness, since this would claim that if art is bad, then it is woke. There is an abundance of bad art that is not woke.  There does often seem to be the claim that wokeness is sufficient to make art bad, that if art is woke, then it must be bad. But someone with a more nuanced view could claim that the relation is a matter of causal influence—that a woke work is more likely to be bard art, although there could be good woke art. As nuance is usually lost in the culture wars, it does seem that most critics of wokeness see it as a sufficient condition for badness. But how does wokeness allegedly make art bad?

One general explanation is that the emphasis on ideology comes at the expense of the quality and aesthetic components of the work. What occurs, presumably, is that when those in charge must choose between making an ideological point and something that improves the aesthetic quality of a work, they will choose the ideological point. For example, the plot might contain forced and implausible events included to make a statement, even when doing so damages the story. As another example, a character arc might be abruptly terminated or abandoned because it would lead to a message contrary to the ideology that the work is intended to present.

On the face of it, this seems to be a good explanation of how “wokeness” could harm a movie. However, it is actually just a statement of the obvious: if aesthetic decisions are made on the basis of considerations outside of aesthetics, this will tend to lower the aesthetic quality of a work of art. While this would apply to a “woke” ideology, it would also apply to non-ideological concerns like costs or the desire to include product placements. For example, while an expensive special effect might make for a better movie, that effect might be cancelled due to the expense, thus making the work worse than it would have been.

It must also be pointed out that this applies to ideologies on the right. A good recent example is Lady Ballers. While “the left” has been critical of its anti-trans ideology and sexism, an analysis of the work as a work of art lays bare the problems that arise when ideology is chosen over aesthetic considerations.  Critics of God is Not Dead have also made similar points, noting that the antagonists are carboard caricatures created in service of the film’s message.

As such, the “anti-woke” critics are right that putting ideology over aesthetics can harm the aesthetics of a work; but this applies to all ideologies—even their own.  As such, while “woke” ideology could harm a work of art, this is not unique to “wokeness” but is simply a statement of the obvious fact that making aesthetic decisions based on non-aesthetic considerations can lower the aesthetic quality of a work. At best, the anti-woke critics could claim that some works might have been harmed by choosing ideology over aesthetic considerations—but this hardly shows that wokeness is ruining art. Rather, it just states the obvious: bad aesthetic decisions lead to bad works of art, regardless of whether the cause is ideological, budgetary, or a lack of talent.

 

 

Back when the Prius and other hybrids went on the market, some anti-environmentalists expressed their opinion by rolling coal (humorously dubbed “Prius repellent”).  The animosity against hybrids seemed to fade somewhat but the arrival of commercially viable electronic vehicles has sparked a new current of anger.  

I first noticed this on Facebook in the form of cartoons and memes posted about EVs. The cartoon usually showed an EV with an extension cord connected to a smoke-belching powerplant and the memes made a similar point. This struck me as odd since I knew the people doing the posting were generally pro-fossil fuel, anti-renewable energy, and skeptical about climate change. Given their professed views, if electric vehicles ran on electricity generated by dirty fossil fuels, that should either be a matter of no concern or even a plus.

While I have seen people posting in a similar manner against renewable energy, after Trump (a noted hater of wind turbines), I noticed posts attacking wind power on the grounds that it kills birds. When posted by people who never showed any other concern for the environment, this also seemed odd.

Most recently, I have seen posts critical of electric cars and electric stoves that reference the sorry state of the American electrical system. This also seemed odd, since improving the electrical grid never seemed to concern these folks in the past.

Given that these posts on social media were consistent in their posting points and they occurred at roughly the same time, I decided to determine what was behind this. I also wanted to investigate the facts of the matter. This led me away from cartoons and memes to in depth and often thoughtful writing.  I’ll start by looking at EVs.

The cartoons showing EVs linked to smoking powerplants do draw attention to a real concern and there are at least two other major concerns about these vehicles. Tilak Doshi, who “worked in the oil and gas sector as an economist in both private industry and in think tanks” wrote an informative essay for Forbes about the dirty secrets of EVs. While you should read the article for the details, he raises three main concerns about EVs.

The first is that the manufacture of an EV will typically result in significantly more environmental harm than the manufacture of a comparable fossil fuel burning vehicle. This disparity arises largely from the batteries used in the EV. As the media outlets who got the memo have hammered home, the batteries in EV are their dirty secret. Getting back to the cartoons I mentioned, Doshi also points out that if an EV gets its electricity from a dirty power source, like a coal-fired power plant, then it can be meaningfully more polluting than a conventional vehicle. Third, Doshi points out a problem that has been well known in the broader technology context for a long time: the mining of lithium is linked to significant harms to people beyond the environmental damage.

While I am not an expert on any of this, these claims are supported by reputable sources across the political spectrum. As such, I agree that the manufacture of these EVs is currently more polluting than manufacturing conventional vehicles, although this is clearly something that can be addressed. I also agree that powering EVs (or anything else) from dirty fossil fuel sources is a harmful way to generate electricity. And, of course, the human cost behind the manufacturing of these batteries is high and needs to be addressed. Now, let us move on to wind turbines and solar.

Trump, who hates wind turbines, consistently makes the true claim that windmills kill birds. Studies from 2013 and 2014 estimated that they killed 140,000 to 679,000 birds. The number killed is presumably higher now, due to an increase in wind turbines. As noted above, many people who oppose renewable power use the death of birds as a premise in their argument against it. They also refer to, correctly, that solar and wind power come with manufacturing and disposal issues that cause environmental harm.  

While not an expert on wind turbines and solar power, these claims are well supported and I have no reason to doubt that wind turbines kill birds or that renewable energy creates an environmental impact—after all, these turbines and panels need to be manufactured and eventually disposed of.

While some people might be tempted to reject claims from Trump and others who oppose renewable energy because they do not like these people, that would be a mere ad hominem. Also, to reject what people connected to the fossil fuel industry say about EVs and renewables because they have a stake in the matter would be another mere ad hominem. One should, of course, be wary of bias but this is not proof that someone is wrong. Likewise, if someone profits from EVs or renewable energy or is associated with them, it does not follow that they are wrong in their claims. That said, this approach taken to criticize EVs and renewables has made me both suspicious and curious. After all, these seem to be what are usually liberal arguments grounded on what appears to be professed concern about the environment, climate change, human rights, and worker exploitation. Why would, for example, a person known to be pro-fossil fuel, anti-renewable energy, and skeptical about climate change post a cartoon that seems to be criticizing EVs on the grounds that they contribute to fossil fuel pollution? Why would people with links to the fossil fuel industry make such arguments against EVs and renewable energy? Why would people who normally seem to lack concern about energy generation killing birds be so concerned about bird deaths?  While one can never know for sure what is in another’s mind, there are certainly reasonable claims that can be made.

One hypothesis is that these people do have concerns about the environment (and human rights) but the scope of their concern is extremely narrow. That is, they are only concerned about the environmental (and human) harm caused by EVs and renewable energy.

The fact that wind generated energy kills 0.269 birds per gigawatt-hour of electricity produced, compared to 5.18 birds killed per gigawatt-hour of electricity from fossil fuel projects does not concern them. We do not, for example, see Trump lamenting the birds killed by fossil fuel projects.

The fact that expanding public transportation and redesigning cities would reduce the need for both EVs and conventional cars does not seem to concern them, for they seem laser focused on the pollution created by EVs. Also, those posting the power plant cartoons do not post cartoons showing these EVs connected to renewable energy—something that would seem to address their criticism of EVs running on dirty power. Those rightly pointing out that the awful US power grid and the wiring of many houses will not be able to handle an increase in EVs and electric stoves do not mention that this challenge can be addressed with renewable energy and a meaningful investment in public infrastructure.

It is certainly possible that these people are making a good faith criticism of EVs and renewable energy based on their very focused and limited concern about the harm done by EVs and renewable energy. But this seems like a rather odd view; like only being concerned about deaths caused by colon cancer and having no concerns about all other cancers (and worse, being a proponent of some other types of cancer). After all, if the harm caused by EVs and renewable energy are bad, these same harms produced by conventional vehicles and fossil fuels would also be bad. But perhaps these folks do not have a narrow scope of concern; perhaps this is a rhetorical tactic being used against people who are more broadly concerned about the environment and harm to humans. This tactic can be called a “false concern argument.”

A false concern argument involves using as a premise or premises (which might be unstated) a concern that the person making the argument does not have and doing this in bad faith. While it is reasonable to craft an argument that will appeal to the concerns (and values) of your target audience, the problem with the false concern argument is the bad faith aspect: the person making the argument does not share the concern that they are intentionally exploiting in the argument.

Going back to the EV cartoons and other criticisms of EVs, the implicit argument seems to be as follows:  Because EVs are recharged from electricity generated by dirty fossil fuel plants, they are not good for the environment. Since you (the target of the cartoon) care about the environment, you should not buy an EV (or you should oppose them). Likewise for arguments involving the harms stemming from their manufacture.

In the case of wind and solar, the argument is built around the idea that because of the harm to birds (wind) and the environment (both), people concerned about birds and the environment should oppose solar and wind.

If we consider only the arguments in isolation, the reasoning can be good, and the premises can be plausible. As noted above, there are real concerns about EVs and renewable energy that give a person who cares about the environment (and people) reasons to be concerned about both. That said, someone who is concerned about the environment (and people) would also consider ways in which these real harms could be mitigated (such as recycling batteries) and would also compare these harms to those generated by the alternatives (such as fossil fuel energy). We can and should have good faith discussions about the harms of EVs and renewable energy. But bad faith cartoons, essays and arguments do not help.

As also noted above, rejecting these criticisms because of who makes them or because they are believed to be acting in bad faith would be to fall into fallacious reasoning. But what, then, is my criticism of these bad faith arguments and what is the problem with false concern arguments?

In terms of why these posts and arguments are in bad faith, there is the fact that they are generally made by people who are generally pro-fossil fuel, anti-renewable energy, and skeptical about climate change. They also usually do not seem overly concerned about birds in other contexts. Also, many criticisms of EVs and renewables comes from people in the fossil fuel industry and those who are paid to protect it. Again, this does not mean that their arguments are wrong, it is just that they are unlikely to be making these arguments from an anti-fossil fuel, pro-renewable energy, climate-change accepting world view. That is, they are most likely not concerned about fossil fuel pollution, climate change, etc. If they were, they would post and make criticisms about fossil fuel-based pollution and not limit their concern to EVs and renewable energy. This is to say, they do not have the concerns that their cartoons and arguments rest upon—they do not believe their own key premise(s). The person who posts the cartoon of the EV is most likely not opposed to the fossil fuel plant in their cartoon—they do not, for example, post critical cartoons of conventional cars driving past oil refineries and oil leaks from ships, wells, trains, and pipelines. What, then, are they doing?

A somewhat lazy explanation is that the cartoon posters and others are trying to “own the libs” by shoving in their faces the fact that EVs are a source of pollution. Liberals are supposed to love EVs and renewables, so this is a way to mock them. This does have some appeal as an explanation in some cases, but does not explain well written attacks on EVs that lay out evidence and maintain a reasonable tone.

While this is speculation, they seem to be well-crafted bad faith arguments intended to persuade pro-EV and pro-renewable energy people to change their minds in favor of conventional vehicles and fossil-fuel. Or at least raise doubts. I say they are (probably) bad faith because they make their case by writing as if environmental harm is bad (when caused by an EV or renewables), but do not extend this principle to fossil fuels and conventional vehicles.  For example, Tilak Doshi offers an in depth criticism of EVs, but if you look at his other essays he does not offer such harsh criticism on the same principles of conventional vehicles (or fossil fuels). In this case, the problem with their bad faith argument is, once again, that they do not seem to believe what they are arguing.

Fairness does require that I consider an alternative: they are not basing their arguments on a professed or implied false concern but are trying to prove to supporters of EVs and renewable energy that these are bad like conventional cars and fossil fuels. That is, they all do harm to the environment and people.

But this also leads to an obvious question: if they believe that EVs and renewable energy are bad like conventional vehicles and fossil fuels, why would they oppose them, given that they are not seem concerned with these harms? After all, if a coal-fired plant does not bother a person, then an EV powered by that plant should not bother them either. If fossil fuel plants killing more birds than wind power does not bother them, why should wind turbines killing fewer birds bother them? If the harm to people from the fossil fuel industry does not concern them, why should this harm concern them when it comes to EVs and renewable energy? As such, the harm arguments they make would seem to be in bad faith—they do not seem to care about the harms. Given this, a reasonable explanation is that one motivating factor behind these criticisms (and the cartoons arising from them) is that it is an attempt by the fossil fuel industry to harm a competing industry through a propaganda campaign. This campaign does seem to be having some effect, if only in the proliferation of attacks on EVs and renewable energy on social media.